While we were waiting for the remainder of group 1 to join in on the Wimba, we began to brainstorm all the various issues that we may consider for the PLE2a exercise. It was evident that the cohort had discussed this among themselves on Saturday after class and had some ideas about topics. I was actually excited to hear about the idea of discussing equity in the area of technology. I had thought about discussing the idea of school budgets and this is one area of a school budget that is absolutely worth discussing!
Given that all schools are required to teach 21st Century skills, we had a terrific discussion concerning the “have and have nots” within our schools and divisions. During our discussion, it became obvious that even the larger divisions had trouble with funding and reaching all the students in a way that met the needs of each school within the division. We decided that researching and discussing the area of technology needs within the schools would be an interesting way to research the equity and the decisions that surround the questions of “who” gets the upgrades each year.
We decided that further investigation may lead us to state and federal mandates, course mandates, online opportunities, funding issues, and technology planning for divisions. Therefore, the issues or priority we decided to address was technology needs within the schools and why it is not equitably accessible for all students.
Do you have a set of criteria that you are going to look at to compare? Or a set of outcomes? How will you define equitable? Dr. Becker has done a lot of work in this area and his dissertaion was a really interesting comparision of equity across states.