Librarians & Educational Equity

SLJ SUMMIT @ WMS

Digital divide no more – everybody’s got a personal device!

2014/15 KINDLE FIRE ROLL-OUT

WMS DEMOGRAPHICS

Source: OSPI

One example of the need for equal access and opportunity can be seen via a comparison of two demographic groups of WMS students.

Data indicating opportunity/achievement gaps.

ESEA ANNUAL MEASURABLE OBJECTIVE (MOST RECENT AVAILABLE)

Source: OSPI

Amazon donates over 1,100 KindleFire HD7s during the 2014/15

school year.

1,140 KINDLES

DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

Source: Common Sense

Every student got a lesson on digital citizenship in the library covering:

• Behavior• Ethics• Privacy• Etiquette• Equal access to technology• Laws• Consequences of ill-informed behavior• Protection, safety

One thing I noticed missing from curricula on digital citizenship was any information about the production, consumption, and disposal of IT hardware.

Cellphone production begins here: child mining coltan in the Congo

DIGITAL RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

SOURCE: http://elevatedconsciousness.w ordpress.com/2013/01/10/the-coltan-crisis/ 19 Nov. 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_7i6T_H78

Consumption ends here.

Fun, challenging, useful, distracting.

KINDLE EXPERIMENT RESULTS

Kindles are being checked out to:

• classroom teachers as class sets;• individual students in the HCC program (Highly Capable Cohort);• any leftover can be checked out to individual students via the library.

The end result remains to be seen. However, the digital divide at WMS is largely reinstituted. But kids can still do great things using these technologies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swnk-fePCiU

2015/16 SCHOOL YEAR

Thank you!

Enjoy Seattle & the SLJ Summit!