Been doing some thinking lately about how this exponential growth in technology affects poor and rural students, and if, as 21st C. educators, we are supposed to be helping our students gain the skills needed to navigate this brave new world, how do we address the issues of access and equity in the classroom?
Does that make sense?
This stems from a conversation I had yesterday with my seniors about their passions. This particulary class is comprised of low-ability readers and writers who have lost interest in school and have been blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel called graduation. Most are students from working-class families who expect to be manual labors in the forseeable future.
I think of them (and my other students of a predominately rural and low/middle-class community) and wonder about their place in the tech world?
Skills are skills right? All students need to be able to read critically and write cohearently and effectively- that doesn’t change…right?
1 response so far ↓
gemfit // 2009/07/16 at 1:26 pm |
Working in educational publishing, we’re grappling with this issue at the moment too. So many of our customers are demanding digital products and it’s super exciting to work on them and push the boundaries of a traditional textbook. But how do we address the needs of schools and students without access to our online products and computers and SMART boards? How do we bridge the gap or don’t we?
Skills should be skills and income shouldn’t define what kind of education you get. But we’re in such a transitional time that at some point, we’ll have to make the leap and I worry about the ones we leave behind.