Digital Equity

Digital equity is the concept that every person should have equal access to digital technologies, including internet access. The concept aims to address the divide in access to digital infrastructure that gives some people advantages over others in education, work, and society. Digital equity, or digital inclusion, stresses that all people should be able to easily use modern information technology (IT) devices and services. 

https://ctu.ieee.org/what-is-digital-equity/

The way we are supporting our learners in having digital equity is by providing them with access to the tools and applications they need in our schools. 

We are teaching our learners how to use a range of digital applications to create and complete their classroom activities, which we hope equips them with the skills they need in their future jobs or careers.

As a school, we should be providing access to the tools our learners need to develop their understanding of the applications at their disposal. Through the Hwb learning platform, our learners have access to a range of applications to develop their ability to use technology to create and show their understanding.

Our learners should be developing their ability to use the core applications of word processing, creating presentations and understanding how to use spreadsheets and databases; these can be accessed through Microsoft's Office365, Google Workspace for Education or Just2easy.

They should also know how to use creative applications, through the Hwb platform these include the Adobe Creative Cloud Express tools, Flip allows learners to record videos and Minecraft for Education.

Schools that make use of applications away from the Hwb platform will need to ensure they are offering the same opportunities to their learners through the choices of applications they provide access to.

Through Funding from the Welsh Government schools have had the opportunity to increase their digital provision for learners. Flintshire has offered guidance for the number of devices to pupils within the school:

Nursey to year 2 - 1:3

Years 3 & 4 - 1:2

Years 5 & 6 - 1:1

Secondary school - 3:5 (60%)

It is the responsibility of the school to assess the provision needed to provide the digital opportunities your learners need and factor into a long-term plan the savings needed to replace devices when necessary. 

How can we support digital equity?

There are several factors which can affect learners with their digital education, these factors will need to be addressed by your school to ensure that there is not an imbalance in the opportunities for learners from differing socio-economic backgrounds.

To support learners with access to devices during incidents of home learning or in support of digital homework activities, schools will need to ascertain the needs of the families they are supporting.

A questionnaire can be sent to all families to discover:

Does a family have access to a device for child/children to access their online learning?

Does a family have access to data allowing the child/children to access their online learning?

Access to devices

Where families with more than one child identify that they do not have access to a suitable device, schools may not necessarily need to support those families with several devices. Schools may plan to support different year groups with synchronous learning at different times of the day or may set asynchronous learning activities which learners can complete at a time convenient to them. 

Providing devices to families

Schools may need to support families with access to a device, this can be done in several ways:

On occasions when remote/home learning is known to be taking place learners may be able to take a device home with them, along with the charging support. 

Families who have informed the school they do not have a device may be provided with a permanent device allowing a learner to access their digital learning. This may be a device which is purchased for this specific reason or it may be a device which is no longer used in the school's digital infrastructure.

When providing a family with a device the school should make note of the serial number of both the device and charger. The device should be managed by the school, through enterprise enrollment, this should ensure that only the learner's login details will allow access to the device.

Access to data

Families who inform the school that as well as not having access to a device, but also do not have internet access at home, will need to be supported with accessing data through the device provided by the school.

There are several suppliers of 'WiFi Dongles'; these allow access to the internet through the use of a portable Wifi supply, and the dongle makes use of a mobile SIM card to access data.

This means that schools will once again need to know how many of their families require support accessing data.

This means a family will need both a dongle to plug into the device and a SIM card to access data.