Both sides put forward compelling and thought-provoking arguments around this week’s Great Debate topic ‘Technology is a force for equity in society’. Initially, I thought I would be an absolute agree side, but that was not the case. I found myself swayed back and forth as the debate progressed. As it is argued in my last blogpost, any innovation (technology) may come with issues and side-effects that challenge teachers, students and the whole society.
Victoria and Jasmine pointed out that the educational inequity is exacerbated by the fast and growing appetite for Ed Tech use, linked to an issue that is unfolding on a global scale, — The Digital Divide. The digital divide exists, and challenges individuals and the society even in regions or countries with reliable information and communication technology infrastructure and household connectivity. Efforts to provide reliable connectivity and affordable devices to all might be the ultimate solution but barely can bring about significant effects in a few years. To lessen already existing inequalities, we must also support other alternatives rather than limiting education to online and digital means. Although we’ll need to come to terms with how technology positively affects widespread places and people, excessive reliance on technology may limit creativity in all ways of learning and teaching.
On the other hand, I also agree that technology is a force of equity in society. President Franklin Roosevelt declared four universal freedoms, one of them is Freedom from Want.
OERs provide a wide range of educational resources, that gives those who are willing to learn an opportunity to achieve success. Technology and Online Education allow people from humble families to be exposed to high-quality education which is equal to the education received at university. In other words, technology enables people to have more options in pursuit of what they are willing to know without worrying about social class, financial constraints, amongst other things.
I would like to end this post with a story of one of my favourite open-source software developers, as it is said in his self-introduction on his Github homepage,
“thanks to the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project that a guy coming from a humble family with not much resources learned how to program and achieve success as valuable professional in the IT industry. Today, I share my work under the GPL license that guarantees that anyone using software that I’ve written will be able to use it, execute it, study it, modify it, redistribute it or even sell it with totally freedom”.
https://github.com/DamnWidget
What a vivid story that demonstrates to us how technology promotes educational equity.
Altan Husile 
Wow! That is a great story! What an amazing gift he was given and is now paying it forward! Love that! Great perspective!
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Great post. I too was swayed back and forth and I’m a huge proponent of integration. I think there is tremendous potential and many success stories but it isn’t fully equal yet (need to keep going in that direction). The github example is a perfect example of what things could be. Thanks
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I appreciated your reflection and agree that it seems for many that coming to terms with how technology positively affects widespread places and people continues to be a challenge even after the COVID ‘wake up’ call if you will. I still see many inequities as my families attempt to rely on technology but don’t have the means or tools to keep up. Loved the github example!
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