Digital equity is vital in our schools. After all, it can help close the achievement gap. However, there is one prevalent problem concerning digital equity. That is the problem of how to create an equitable digital culture in K—12 schools. Let’s look more fully into this concept.

What Is Digital Equity?

Digital equity is merely equality in the digital age. It ensures that students can access the necessary digital tools and the necessary training to learn how to navigate those digital tools. Simply put, it refers to whether students can access and effectively use the required technology.

What are the Issues Concerning Digital Equity in the Educational World?

Many students, and even whole schools, are handicapped technologically. By this, I mean that many students have little to no access to the technology and powerful learning tools that other schools and individual students have access to. Things that affect this are differences in gender, socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic level, ability level, handicapping conditions, and geographic location.

Why Is Digital Equality Important?

Digital equity is vital for cultural and civic participation, lifelong learning, employment, and for accessing essential services. This is because it ensures that each community and individual has the information technology capacity that it needs to fully participate in their economy, society, and democracy.

How Can Access to Technology Create Equity in Schools?

Technology can meet students where they are and support them in their needs according to the varied learning contexts. It removes many different barriers that can be built-in learning materials and provides teachers with more insight into the learning environments they’re building.

How Do You Create an Equitable Digital Culture in K—12?

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lays out a plan for creating an equitable digital classroom. Let’s look at the three steps they say to take in creating one, and I’ll give you some examples of each.

1.     “Provide Multiple Means of Engagement”—This is where you represent the “why” of learning to the students. You are telling them why they must know this specific information.

A few ways to provide multiple means of engagement are to: use Facebook groups to build engagement; build teams for the students to work together (team-based learning); use Camtasia, a screencasting software; use social media to create a sense of placeness for students; and ask the students to journal related to what the students are studying.

2.     “Provide Multiple Means of Representation”—This is where you represent the “what” of learning to the students. You are presenting the information in a way that you can reach every learner.

A few ways to provide multiple means of representation are to: provide options for the students to read, listen (i.e., audiobook or podcast), or watch the lesson via a video; add subtitles to videos and alt text to describe your images; make content accessible to your students by posting PDF versions of your slides in a place where they are easily accessed by your students (i.e., OneDrive); use videos, animations, text, and images, and more to enhance learning; and make digital handouts available to each learner.

3.     “Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression”—This is where the students demonstrate the “how” of learning. It’s where they prove to you what they have learned. Various learners need different ways to show what they have learned. All learners aren’t able to express what they learned by the same method. Therefore, you must provide various ways for the students to express their newfound knowledge.

A few ways to provide multiple means of action and expression are to: have the students write an essay using Microsoft Word; let the students create a video telling what they have learned; allow them to create a presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint; have your students create a find-the-word puzzle; and allow the students to hold a debate and record it on Zoom.

Conclusion

Digital equity is vital in our world, especially now that we are in a digital world of remote learning. It can truly level the learning field! It’s everyone’s responsibility to facilitate digital equity. As such, it is your responsibilityas well! You must follow these steps to create an equitable digital culture in your K—12 classroom.