Equal Access to the Digital World!

What does it mean to "provide equal access to the digital world"?

Providing equal access to the digital world means more than a student having access to internet. It means we take a look at each of our students learning abilities and styles, the way we instruction the curriculum, and how we use the digital tools at our disposal. Than we assess how we can improve better strategies to meet each child's needs for learning.  Remodeling classroom practice so that the focus is on students rather than teacher activities is a means for shifting educational focus to key areas that affect student growth and learning. That is where real change will occur. (2014)

Module 9 Overview: Universal Design in K-12. (2014). EDU 533: Learning through Technology, Education Department, SNHU, Manchester, N.H. Retrieved from https://blackboard.snhu.edu.

Value Social Media Use in Education

The value of social media in a classroom is tremendous.  There are many positive attributes about it's use. There is a increase in communication across the student/parent/ teacher spectrum. This can range from seeing your child's work, student communication with peers on developing their own work, or making the community aware about school/classroom functions. There are negative items with using the web but this can solved with strong updated polices for use and protection, education of digital citizenship parents/students/teachers, and monitoring of the social media site we use.

I will be following the school's guidelines for social media use, provide examples and explain digital citizen ship to students, and monitor my Web blog for use of literary devices.

Below I am listing how other school official are dealing with social media concerns.

"We really backed into this, as the issue was there before the guidelines were in place. It caused the community and district to come together rapidly and develop guidelines. We then reached out to the folks at Edmodo and captured a domain for the district to put everyone into that walled garden, basically eliminating any issues."
-CURT CEARLEY, DRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, FAYETTE COUNTY SCHOOLS, GA (Weiser p.38)
"The main fear is that we are creating an avenue for increased bullying. To combat this belief, we work on educating parents and students about using social media tools correctly and we monitor our sites."
-RICK CAVE, DRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY, WEST WNDSOR-PLAINSBORO DSD, NJ (Wesier, p.38)
  
Weiser, C. (2013). SOCIAL MEDIA. Tech & Learning, 34(2), 38-38,40. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1438034116?accountid=3783