7pm+Justice-equity+advocates

Additional funding is always welcome when it comes to supplying our schools with state-of-the-art technological tools to support students in achieving grade level standards. With the increased rigor expected of the classroom instructor, she needs all the tools available to engage her students' imaginations, prepare them for success in middle and high school, as well as prepare them for the job market. However, the budget should be dependent on the following variables:
 * **Should more money be budgeted to support technologies for teaching and learning?**

__Lower SES Schools__ In order to ensure digital access to all of our students, including those from the lowest SES, our district must provide the necessary tools in the classroom. As the Federal Government has cut funding to the community technology centers, where students and families have previously gained access to curriculum-supporting information, our schools must make up for the lack of community-based access.

The federal government at one time funded technology in communities that essential had minimal to no access to technology (e.g. internet), but now that funding has been rescinded. One of the arguments for cutting the funding is that people that do not have internet service, do not want it. It is a matter of have not vs. want not. On the other hand, the people that do not have internet access are the poorest 25% of the country. Also, certain ethnicities are also underrepresented in those figures. That fact essentially disconnects this community from evolving on-line democractic opportunities and the global economy. ([|Norris Dickard] and[| Diana Schneider, http://www.edutopia.org/php/article.php?id=Art_995&key=188)]

__Schools with Proportionally Higher Number of Students with Disabilities/IEPs__ New media technologies in classroom provide many advantages for a classroom because it allows for malleable presentation of data, unlike the “fixed” quality as print. These benefits are especially evident amongst students labeled “learning disabled”. New tools in science and methodology have informed us learners and educators that a student utilizes specific parts of brain when performing specific functions. For example, different parts of the brain are used to say, spell, and process a word. With fixed curriculum such as a textbook, films, and electronic learning games, the content is delivered and processed by one part of the brain. If the task demands a response from the part of the brain of minimal ability, the student may be perceived as incapable of learning the content or skill. However, if the content/skill is delivered in the new media that enables the learner the flexibility to transform from one medium to another (e.g. text-to-speech, speech-to-text, text-to-touch, etc), the student will be able to utilize his/her strength while working on strengthen his/her weakness. (Rose and Meyer) In order to discover the strengths of each student, and possibly re-categorize the previous labelled child as learning disabled or low- performing, the school district must implement new media. Unfortunately, educational technologies in classrooms are in the early stages of adoption, therefore, districts must focus their funding on schools that have the highest proportions of students labeled with disabilities. Although all students can benefit from new media, the proficient students have proven fixed-media is accessible to them.

Teachers should always strive to adopt best practices. However, it is impossible to determine a general best practice that can be applied to schools within a district. Therefore, it should be a site-based decision to determine the level and specific media to be implemented. Lower SES schools and schools with proportionally higher number of students with disabilities/IEPs should be provided with a larger budget for staff development and technological materials. The following are suggestions for teacher training: 1. From print to digital media 2. educational designs - presentational vs. learning how to learn 3. provide multiple representations of meaning, expression, engagement 4. universal designs for learners
 * **Should teachers be expected to spend time learning about technologies and using technologies with students?**

As the research into Universal Design for Learning (UDL) shows, teachers are challenged to make the curriculum available to students both physically and cognitively. In other words, teachers must make content accessible to all learners, based on their individual needs. Here is information on Universal Design for Learning: 1. represented in a media that communicates effectively to students and stored and distributed in a media that is accessible to all learners. 2. Materials are the physical objects or devices that are used to store and distribute knowledge as it is conveyed in various media. Publications, such as textbooks, trade books, videos, CD ROMs, workbooks, floppy disks, and audiotapes, are common examples of materials. 3. Universally designed assessments incorporate the principles of Universal Design for Learning and are designed to adjust to many individual differences and to focus the questions on exactly what teachers are trying to find out. With flexibility in presentation, expression, supports, and engagement, common errors introduced by single-mode fixed assessments are reduced. 4. Provide multiple media and formats:


 * Should the district adopt standards associated with technology integration/use to ensure that students are prepared for life in the 21st century?

Districts should always strive to adopt best practices. However, it is impossible to determine a general best practice that can be applied to schools within a district. Therefore, it should be a site-based decision to determine the level and specific media to be implemented. Lower SES schools and schools with proportionally higher number of students with disabilities/IEPs should be provided with a larger budget for staff development and technological materials. However, to ensure that each child has access to technology to prepare them for the twentieth century the district is reponsible for recognizing the technological gap mentioned above in lower SES schools, and provide additional funding for teacher development and tools. Teachers already have high-level content and skill standards to address, and if technology is the best means of presenting the information, teachers do not need to be mandated through additional standards that evolve in a check-off list of requirements to satisfy. Rather, teachers need to be sold to the fact that technology will enhance the understanding and acheivement of their students. That would make more of an impact on preparing students for the 21st century, unlike a list of additional standards. In addition, higher SES schools and schools with few IEPs already have students mastering potential grade-level technological standards because they have access to technology. Rather, we need to pour money into the schools were students have minimal access to technology.