Session Materials

The session materials are available in several formats. First, you can download a copy of the PowerPoint slides with alt-text. You can also access a view-only version of the materials as Google Slides. Finally, the slides are embedded below.

Session Outline

Phase 1 – Environments for Expert Learning

1. Before we begin, take a moment to configure your learning environment: What supports do you need to be your best learner? What helps you to focus? What will allow you to make your thinking concrete?
2. Learner Identity: How do you define yourself as a learner? How do your students define themselves? What technologies – both analog and digital – contribute to that definition?
3. The Digital Equity Challenge: Imagine if you did not own the tools that support you as a learner? What if you could not access the same tools at school and at home?

Phase 2 – Digital Equity: Access to Learning vs Access to Technology

1. Considering the needs of your learning population: What challenges might they face in accessing the Internet? What devices, tools, or resources might best support their learning? What skills might they need to take advantage of the technological affordances?
2. Understanding the Interrelated Systems of the Digital Divide: Discussion of the CoSN framework for digital equity – access to devices, high-speed Internet, and the digital literacy to take advantage of the technological affordances.
3. From Digital Divide to Homework Gap: Strategies to bridge from school to home

Phase 3 – UDL as a Framework for Digital Equity

1. The Why of Learning – Why might technology inspire, motivate, and excite students about learning? Why might digital tools allow for the creation of more meaningful learning experiences? Why might students be more motivated to learn if technology allows them to personally connect and engage with the content?
2. The What of Learning – What might your students need to access course content and information? What tools, strategies, or devices would support their acquisition of new knowledge, skills, and understandings?
3. The How of Learning – How might your students demonstrate their understanding, their knowledge, and/or their skills? How might students engage in action and expression? How can digital technologies create opportunities? How might this question be approached from both a technical and a multicultural perspective?

Phase 4 – Bringing It All Together

1. Communicating the need for digital Equity (little d, big E) vs Digital equity (Big D, little e)
2. Understanding that equal access is not the same as equitable access
3. Setting our North Star: defining the greater purpose for technology to support our students as expert learners