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Hey everyone my name is Peyton. I grew up in a town just out of Nashville, and to be honest I didn't really experience any kind of like digital inequity myself. My school always had like pretty nice computer labs and family had decent internet at home, so usually had all the tools I needed to do my school work and whatever. I know that wasn't the case for a lot of students. They didn't always have reliable access to it so I know they kind of struggled with their homework. I think like the biggest issue isn't having a reliable device it's having access to the internet and maybe like digital literacy skills. During COVID, a lot of schools handed out Chromebooks around me but those didn't always like solve the problem if families couldn't get Wi-Fi or they didn't know how to use them, and they would usually fall behind because of that. I think we could combat these issues by like allowing these families to have reliable internet whether it be like through the school or a library like a hotspot program or teaching students about software and how to use it. I know I grew up with a computer and I knew how to use it from a young age and I know a lot of students didn't have that. But at the end of the day, digital equity means making sure every student has the same opportunity to learn so I think we need to give those students better opportunities.

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Hello! My name is Kieara and I went to high school in Massachusetts. I grew up poor but in a rich town through section 8 (which is government housing). The high school I went to gave each student in grades 9-12 a laptop after they paid the fees. However it was mandatory to pay and receive a laptop. That being said, you could apply to have the fee waived based on your financial situation. After providing certain documents proving you needed the waiver. Additionally, teachers would have a beginning of year survey where they would ask you if you had internet access and then they worked with the kids who did not to make sure they could complete their assignments. Because about 80% of our work was done on our computers. Overall, I think my school did a good job at trying to promote digital equity. While I understand the appeal of having a majority of assignments done online, as a teacher I’m going to try to limit the amount of homework done online outside of school and try to utilize technology inside the classroom to hopefully reduce digital inequity.

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Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm from a small town outside of Nashville and I've seen a lot digital inequality in my community, even though I've personally never experienced it. Our school offered small laptops to be able to take home. That being said, even with the supply of laptops, a lot of our students didn't have access to the internet or even service where they lived because it was a farming community. So, they could only be used at school, which became a problem during COVID-19, especially when everybody was doing school from home. 75% of the students actually ended up going back in person, which was a whole process, and nobody was able to get their work done outside of the school building. I personally think it would be good to offer a resource place that does have internet, and make sure the community is aware of the resources that are available to them: libraries, community centers, or other places with internet access where they can do schoolwork on any sort of digital platform.

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Hi! My name is Kathryn. I have a very positive experience with digital equity. I grew up in West Knoxville, and, in every one of my schools, I always had access to technology, even if it wasn't going home with me. In my elementary school, I was provided access to technology such as computers and Ipads in certain classrooms and the library at all times, as well as the computer lab. We had classes in which we learned to type and use computer programs. In my middle and high school, we had classes like that, and we all had access to a personal computer that we brought home with us. In middle school, it was a laptop. In high school, it was a Chromebook because of COVID. I don't even have an experience with COVID having bad digital equity because my school just stopped having classes. We had nine weeks of break. I didn't have to go online and have Zoom at all or anything like that. Given that I have a very positive outlook on digital equity, I would love to hear more and learn more about the issues that are facing education right now. I do believe that providing devices to every student and time to use them at school is very important. In addition, providing classes for students to know how to use those things because if they're having poor literacy and they don't know how to type on a computer, giving them an I-pad isn't going to be useful. In addition, offering pencil and paper to students is so critical because they might not have WiFi at home and they might not have parents that can help them with a computer. Stuff like that is incredibly crucial. Thank you!

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Hi everyone I'm Dejah and in my hometown I've seen digital inequity at my high school. My school had 1-1 iPads, so each student had an iPad, but not every student had internet access at home. So if things were assigned to be done online at home, these students would have to do the assignment elsewhere or finish it at school. This is not fair to those students and it isn't their fault that they don't have internet access. To combat this issue as a teacher I would have take home assignments be done on paper or just have a paper version of assignments so students would not have to worry about doing it digitally at home. I still think it is important to integrate technology into the classroom but not every lesson has to revolve around it. Something else that might be beneficial is the school system could partner with an internet provider to provide free or discounted internet access to students.

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Hello, my name is Sofia Sferra, and I have had experience with digital inequity in my classroom growing up. In preschool to eighth grade, I went to a Catholic, private school in Chicago, Illinois, and I didn't experience as much digital inequity there. I feel like it was pretty equal. We didn't really have a focus outside of school with technology. A lot of our homework was on paper, like in workbooks and just paper assignments. And there, our technology was focused more in the classroom with Chromebook carts. I never had to buy any form of technology for class. Every class had a Promethean board that we would use a lot. So, it was mostly through the school. My first experience with digital inequity in my community was in high school. I went to Chicago Public Schools, CPS schools. I remember freshman year in English class, my teacher made a big emphasis on printing out our paper. She had said it multiple times for many weeks. And then the day comes around, we're turning it in, and one student didn't have his paper printed out. I thought it was weird. He was always very on top of things. He was very smart and very studious. He was someone that would remind me to do my homework. I wondered why he didn't finish it. I knew he had finished his paper because I had helped him revise it. I thought it was really weird that he did not print it out. Well, in reality, he couldn't go to the library to print his paper because he didn't have a computer or a printer at home or Wi-Fi. So he had to travel to print his paper out. There was gang violence outside of his house. So he couldn't leave to print it out. After explaining to the teacher, he didn't get any, obviously, punishments for turning it in late. But that was just a very eye-opening experience to me because those things didn't happen near my house. It just really showed to me that if you don't have those things at home, you're not going to have the same opportunities as different kids. So, in my opinion, I think that we should combat these issues by focusing back towards more paper assignments because I know that a lot of schools have shifted onto technology after COVID. I think that it makes it really hard for people with different socioeconomic backgrounds to receive the same education as someone that can afford having those things at home. Because if you can't afford it, you are not able to do your assignments. It should be equal for everyone. Everyone can write on paper. And I think that's how we should start facing assignments now.

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Hey everyone, My name is Emily Spangler
I’ve lived in six different states, in both cities and small towns, and during COVID-19, I really noticed how much digital access depends on where you live.
In some cities, schools handed out laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots right away, which helped kids keep up with online classes.
But in smaller towns and rural areas, I saw kids having to sit outside fast food places or libraries just to get internet to do their homework.

COVID made this problem way more obvious because everything moved online school, work, even doctor appointments.
If you didn’t have good internet or a computer at home, it was really tough to keep up.
Plus, a lot of parents didn’t know how to use the technology well enough to help their kids or work from home.
So this isn’t just about technology it’s really about fairness.

I think communities need to offer more help, like free classes that teach people how to use technology, especially parents and older adults.
Also, there should be better internet options and affordable devices, especially in rural or low-income places.
Everyone deserves a fair chance to learn and work, no matter where they live.

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Hi, my name is Alexandria! I have not had a personal experience with digital inequity but I have seen how it has affected other students around the world. Specifically after COVID, every single student in my county was issued a Chromebook to be able to complete their work online regardless of if they were an in-person or an online student. My younger siblings were in elementary school at the time and they were offered the same exact computer that I was. Additionally, my county was also able to provide WIFI for every single home that wasn't able to financially provide WIFI for their student which I think is really important. I do understand that my county is not the exact same as other counties and schools around the world. I think that it is very important for students to have equal opportunity to complete their assignments in-person and online seeing as what fits them best. I think that technology is such a great resource for classrooms for numerous reasons but taking the weight off of technology being a necessity could also help with combat these issues of digital inequity.

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Hi everyone, my name is Chloe, and I was very fortunate growing up and I never experienced any digital inequalities in my school district. For both middle and high school they provided us with mac books and chrome books, so we were able to keep up digitally with our schoolwork. This was beneficial, especially for those who might not be able to afford their own. For my short time at community college, they also provided day passes or you could rent a laptop for the semester which was very helpful for lots of students who didn’t not have their own. As we know, most of our coursework is done virtually so it is important that we can provide the resources we can for students.  I believe that some communities struggle to provide this for their students, which is difficult especially since assignments and structure is online. In order to combat these issues, I believe we have to look at finance for our schools and make laptops accessible for students and if it is not than we need to make sure our content can be taught in the classroom with more hands-on learning rather than virtually.

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Hello, my name is Danielle! I can not say I have had personal experience with digital inequity, but I have witnessed it. In high school, the school offered all students chromebooks to use for classwork during and after school. Some students in my school couldn’t afford proper technology required by our education system. And i think programs like these, when possible, are the best way to help close the technological gap between students. I think it allows students who can or can’t afford technology and equal chance at success and doesn’t force students to become behind in their studies. I think if states are able to set up programs like this at all schools, I think it would be the most beneficial for students everywhere as they would check out the laptops at the beginning of the year , they can turn them in at the end with a guarantee of access for their entire schooling.

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Hi, my name is Simon Pracheil. Growing up, I had access, generally, to computers, be they laptops or desktops. But I'm aware that's something that a lot of my classmates didn't, especially in middle and high school. And my high school offered students Chromebooks to use for their homework and just in-class assignments and stuff. And I think that was an incredibly useful resource. But one potential problem that came with that was that a lot of my peers weren't very familiar with laptops or computers in general and couldn't do things like typing without looking at their hands and similar kinds of familiarity problems. But gradually I noticed that most of my classmates --through adoption and getting used to these principles-- were able to kind of work around that, which I think is a really, you know, important aspect of inequity is you know familiarity. I think that gradually you can work past that through practice and stuff. But another huge problem, I think the bigger problem with digital inequity is access. And I know that a lot of people don't have access to internet, be it for financial reasons, familial reasons or otherwise. But something that I found really useful was that my high school and a lot of like libraries even will offer like data boxes or basically just like Wi-Fi boxes that you can connect your device to when you need to use them for Internet access and stuff like that. So I think letting students know that those resources are out there if they need them is incredibly helpful. And I also think de-stigmatizing their use is also something that's really important. I think that we should work towards doing that as teachers. But yeah, thank you.

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Hello, I’m Andrea Delph. My view on digital equity is a bit all over. My experience in school with digital resources was still a semi new concept to be used. We had computers and access to digital libraries and resources in our media center. It was not always a requirement but was still utilized. I was also a student who had access at home and maybe assignments and learning easier for myself but it was not a requirement during my time to have that access at home. I can see the value it had for me but I think I got great things from none digital resources too. I now have two kids in school and who currently have access to chrome books and they use a learning tool to evaluate them and give them lesson practices. They also have it at home if needed but this far hasn’t been a requirement. Now we came from another county in a different state that did not have that type of constant access but they still used digital applications to do lessons, it was weighed much heavier on there even with limited access which made it a more stressful environment from my view point as a parent. I have seen where we are now a much better balance with digital resources than where we were which I think is the most important part of all of it. Is balancing out the resources provided and using them to better all students no matter the environment they live in.

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Hi everyone, I’m McKenzie Morton and I think the biggest issue with digital inequity comes from adoption. I think that a lot of the availability issues were solved post COVID and while the pandemic was happening. At least in my district they did a really good job ensuring that everyone had the technology and resources they needed. I do believe, however, that adoption is still an issue. Adoption is still an issue because a lot of teachers don’t know how to properly incorporate technology into their classroom and into their lesson plans. In turn this creates a barrier for students because when teachers don’t know how to properly use technology, students don’t have the chance to learn using technology. Technology is really important in aiding a lot of students in their education and when teachers don’t know how to use it to aid education it can really affect the students. I think adoption for students can sometimes be hard to especially when the teachers don’t know how to properly use technology but also when students don’t have a lot of access to technology outside of school or they don’t have technology in their homes, then they struggle to adopt technology for the use of learning. I think to combat these issues we should hold teacher workshops to teach teachers how to incorporate technology into their classrooms, and then the teachers can show students how to use technology to aid their education.

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Hi my name is Courtney. I kind of have mixed experience with digital inequity. I came from a family that wasn’t super well off. So, I didn’t have funds to get out there and buy things like laptops and newer phones. But I was lucky enough to go to a school that had programs that provided laptops to kids that may not have had the money for it. So if it wasn’t for those programs I wouldn’t have gotten access to those things and I think that is a very good program. Just having states provide just a little bit of money so that they can have laptops so people could rent them out for a day. Or bring them back at the end of the semester. Also having wifi be more accessible for people who might not have the money to have access to that as well.

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Hi! My name is Addi Schmidt, and I was very lucky to grow up in a very fortunate area and I never really experienced any digital inequities where I lived. We had laptops in the classroom starting in middle school through high school and it was never a question of if we were going to have money for laptops. I didn’t really think anything of the fact that we got to have laptops at that age. My mom teaches at a school a little bit away from me and at her school they are much less fortunate than where I grew up. There are a lot of digital inequities there and I realized that during COVID. I was in 9th grade when we had to do the virtual education, and she had some students who didn’t have WIFI at their houses. They were provided with laptops but didn’t even have WIFI and this was so crazy to me. It was the first time I ever really realized something like having WIFI and a computer is not just a given at some schools. I think our education system has become so overly digitalized, and we never use pen and paper anymore. Everything is on the computer and in order to take away this large gap between areas that have all the resources they need and areas that don’t something I think we could do to fix this issue is make everything less digitalized. We wouldn’t have issues with students who don’t have WIFI or don’t have parents that help them make sure they are bringing their laptops to school every day.  That is something that my mom really struggles with in her classroom, she has students who forget their Chromebooks and their parents are working all day or worked the night shift and are sleeping so they can’t bring them their laptops. I think if we didn’t make laptops as much of a necessity in the classroom that would help a lot.

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Hi everyone my name is Abigail neighbors and I would say I have not personally experienced digital inequity but I know that students at the middle school that I attended did I am originally from Reno Nevada so going to school there I went to a pretty wealthy elementary school and then Middle School I was placed into the magnet program which is like a higher Advance class which was actually at a school about 30 minutes away and so is in a lower income part of town and it was especially hard to see that some of the students couldn't get access to a phone low on the laptop to do school and it was quite interesting for me because a lot of our assignments were online as technology was beginning to grow and so I feel like that was kind of a shaping experience for me to understand that like not everyone has access to the Privileges that I had access to which I feel incredibly blessed to be able to have access to a computer and stuff like that so in my future classroom I feel like it's important to understand everyone's circumstances and if the school district isn't able to provide each student with a form of technology in order to do school then I feel like for me personally I'm I have no problems with doing pencil and paper so that each student has the ability to learn as much as they possibly can without outside forces driving them.

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To start off I would have to say no, I have not experienced digital inequity in my community back home. Although, I do know and understand that digital inequity is a big issue in counties and even states surrounding mine. When COVID hit, I was lucky enough to receive a chromebook from the school district so that I had access to free zoom meetings and assignments digitally. Each student was given one of these chromebooks with no cost. Although, a few counties over this were not the case. When COVID hit them, they were not fortunate enough to receive a digital device to access class and assignments on. Therefore, these students fell behind as they were not wealthy enough to purchase a brand new laptop for school. COVID was already stressful enough, so being a student and not being able to pursue your education at this time is not fair. It is not these students' faults that they had to learn from the hybrid model now, so they should have access to the materials they need to learn digitally. I believe that digital equity is a huge factor in having a successful learning community, and even a successful community on its own. Because of this, I have come up with some ideas that I believe could help combat these digital equity issues. Some of these  are: Supplying every child with a school computer at no cost, and creating different versions of the same assignment so it is easily accessible: online, paper, etc. 

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Hi everyone my name is Molly. In my current college experience I haven’t faced or seen the issue of digital inequity, however I have seen this quite often in my high school back home. I lived in a small farming town which had families with a lot of different income levels, causing some kids to not be able to access the internet or to have a device that worked at home to complete assignments. This caused students to miss deadlines and have less resources for homework when they tried to work on it. Oftentimes kids would have to go to the public library to get work done, however, they closed early so kids had a hard time finishing work. One thing I believe would help, is providing kids and their families with discounted internet access through the school they are enrolled in. This would allow them to have a longer period of time to access resources. Also one thing I have seen in other school districts is the ability to loan laptops from the school. This allows kids to have a device they can work at home on. Similar to this I have seen schools due a rent to own program, where they pay a super small fee per month for a laptop and after the 4 years of high school they have paid enough to own the laptop. Which can help set students up for college, while still keeping costs low.

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Hi! For me personally I did not experience issues of digital inequality in my life, or anyone else that I knew of. I know that this is definitely not the case around the world. This started a huge problem once covid hit when students had to switch to online learning. This really showed how uneven access to technology it is. Having students not be able to join class zoom calls, extra study sessions, completing online exams/ quizzes. This definitely causes a disadvantages not only in the classroom, but also in their future education. If I were thinking of solutions, I would say schools and communities should work together to provide discounted internet to families who have students in the school system / low income. My high school also provided each student with a Chromebook to each student just in case students did not have a device. In my classroom I would always make sure I give a paper version of any work I make online. I will always have communication and give grace to my students who are struggling with technology and I will make sure they get the same amount of instruction as my whole classroom.

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I have not personally experienced digital inequality, however, I have seen it. I would say I mostly saw it in middle school, because in elementary school, technology wasn’t really used, and in high school, I feel like more people had access to technology, although it was still an issue. Another reason that I think I saw it so much in middle school is that the middle school I went to was based on technology. They were the opposite of a traditional school. However, they were a public school, and so they would provide rentals, but the technology that most students had was more advanced than the rentals. I feel like this created technological inequality because students wouldn't be able to do the same things on their devices as their peers. This made some students feel “different” or “less than”. This bothered me because I feel like no student should have to feel this way. I think it is very unfair. I think a good solution would be either not using technology or providing the same technology for all students. I believe this is especially important in public schools, because at private schools, you are paying to be there, so it may not make sense for them to tell you what you can or can’t bring. However, i feel as though equality in the classroom is extrmeley important and can compeltly change how well students learn.

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I do not have any current knowledge of digital inequity in my college experience, however I do remember the problem occurring when I was in high school. I attended a small private school back home and most students had their own high tech devices, but there was a percentage of students who were on scholarship for various reasons that did not have access to the same advanced technology. I always found it to be a very uncomfortable issue that was not addressed properly. I remember thinking that if we are a private school and have plenty of money to put into other areas like athletics and the arts, then there is no reason the school cannot pour more finances into the technology. Providing students with access to better technology through a rental system was always an idea I thought would be beneficial. If schools are going to require the students to perform activities and assignments through high quality technology, then they must ensure that all students have equal access to it. 