How Should We Approach Education’s Digital Divide?

[Commentary] '“Build on This” is a letter series between education leaders. Our second pair is Karen Cator, who leads the nonprofit Digital Promise, and David Liu, the Chief Operating Officer of Knewton, an educational technology company. This is the first of four letters.'

Dear David,

We are both working to solve the problem of equity in education. I’ve spent my career in education, first as a teacher, and then as a lifelong advocate of improving learning opportunities for EVERYONE through technology. But to actually realize the full advantages of learning, we have to close the Digital Learning Gap. This goes beyond the Digital Divide, which focuses on adequate access to technology. Closing the Digital Learning Gap means giving students the ability to learn how to use the technology in powerful ways. As a first step, educators, parents, and policymakers (that includes us) have to figure out how to enable access to personal technology and the Internet, both at school and at home. Second step: all learners and educators must gain sufficient digital literacy to participate fully and responsibly. Without knowing the whys and the hows, access can be meaningless. Third, students must ALL have ample opportunities to use the technology to solve, collaborate, research, design, create, and publish  --  so they can be lifelong learners. I’m guessing you will agree with this premise. If so, I am interested in your take on how we can best make this happen. Let’s be real about the bumps we need to be wary of along the way.

[Karen Cator leads the nonprofit Digital Promise]