connecting....
The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly affected every aspect of our lives from how we grocery shop to celebrating holidays over zoom with our relatives to the ability for certain businesses to stay afloat or not. Education was obviously impacted in the spring as we turned on a dime and transitioned to remote teaching overnight. Without access to the internet and video conferencing such as Zoom or Google Meets schools would have shut down completely and I am fairly certain we would have been another profession that would have ended up furloughed. Technology allowed us to continue delivering instruction and reaching our students in new ways, but this was by no means equitable. The curtain was pulled back on all of the roles that schools play in the community and some of the weaknesses in access and funding were shown.
Three main areas that have been significantly affected have been access to:
Devices
2. In school connectivity
3. At home connectivity
Students come to us with a large range of backgrounds and opportunities and as a school we try our best to meet the needs of every student, but when we suddenly required every student to work digitally the “have” and “have nots” were either able to participate or not. I am particularly proud that as part of the Technology Leadership Committee in my district I advocated for the need for every student to be provided with a touch screen device from the district. This meant that they did not need to share with siblings or parents who were unexpectedly all working and learning from home. Many students were working off of their phones and this seriously limited their ability to participate and complete their assignments.
The next area of concern became an issue when we returned to school in the hybrid model in October of 2020. Suddenly every in person student needed to log onto an LMS to access their classwork, and often required them to work in a digital document and join the Google Meet to work with their classmates that were working remotely. This poses a new problem of connectivity while in class that we have never experienced before. My district has gone through several upgrades including increasing bandwidth and upgrading access points and servers. The most recent upgrade over Spring Break 2021 was achieved through a grant from Entergy (the company that owns Indian Point Power Plant).
Lastly the biggest challenge has been at home internet access for students. This is the biggest hurdle and seems to have the most pieces that are out of the district’s control. When students are not able to log in or stay logged in to class they are essentially absent and miss out on learning. This can be due to a variety of reasons including not being able to afford internet service, having too many devices pulling from the same modem or router, or living in an area where high speed internet is not available. My district was able to work towards a solution by placing hot spots in neighborhoods where students were not able to afford internet which was in partnership with our local library. While this has helped it is not sufficient to provide reliable connection for all students.
I would like to add that I work in a very affluent district with many resources. While we have students in need the “haves” far outweigh the “have nots” which allows us to invest in devices, internal infrastructure and community solutions.
We will never be able to “put the genie back in the bottle” When it comes to technology integration in our classrooms so these changes are here to stay and I am hopeful that this will bring about systemic changes to increased connectivity and access for more students.