Education technology

In spring 2020, the US Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology hosted a series of listening sessions with state leaders—from state educational agencies, state broadband offices, state libraries, and state economic development agencies—to identify what digital equity issues were magnified as a result of school closings, what immediate actions states were taking to address these issues, and what long-term solutions were being considered to sustainably address these issues.

First Tech Fund is a new nonprofit dedicated to closing the digital divide among underserved high school students in New York City. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the burgeoning digital divide among students of different economic backgrounds.

In view of outstanding demand, the Federal Communications Commission will open a second Emergency Connectivity Fund application filing window from September 28, 2021 to October 13, 2021.

AT&T is expanding free-device programs, increasing access to educational and digital literacy tools and opening the first of more than 20 AT&T Connected Learning Centers across the US. These centers will be housed within local community organizations and will provide underserved students and families with free access to the internet, computers, and educational resources. As of now, AT&T plans to open Connected Learning Centers in Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Miami, and San Francisco.

The Missouri House of Representatives’ Special Interim Committee on Broadband Development is working to develop a better understanding of broadband’s role across multiple aspects of everyday living, including education, entrepreneurship and economic development, government services, precision agriculture and telemedicine. The committee asked, can we measure the extent to which affordable broadband improves educational outcomes, labor market participation, or population growth? Fortunately, researchers constantly are adding to our collective knowledge. The following data measures:

Advocates for better and more affordable broadband are relatively pleased with the infrastructure bill's broadband components, even if the new legislation doesn’t go as far as they want.

Many people think the "digital divide" and access to technology simply boils down to whether students have a working device and a reliable internet connection. But the needs—and the costs—are more complicated than that. K-12 school districts must plan for a variety of costs related to technology integration. Schools and districts are forced to haphazardly fund technology-enabled learning because of failures to do so in a consistent way at the federal and state level.

Libraries Without Borders US (LWB US) has been working to promote access to information in underserved communities across the country since 2015. Fundamental to our work is designing and implementing innovative programs that reimagine libraries, often by transforming nontraditional spaces into hubs for community learning and engagement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the deep digital divide in Mexico and the enormous challenge faced by its education system in continuing to educate the country's students while under confinement.

While the progress of digital equity varies by state, the remaining gaps have been brought to the forefront during the pandemic. In Southern California, Los Angeles officials have worked to implement programs and partnerships to increase access to digital devices and services as well as increasing digital literacy — a fundamental component to digital equity. Jeramy Gray, the county of Los Angeles’ chief deputy at the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, said the challenge is not only to provide access to an Internet-connected device but also to enable individuals to use the devices to improve t