Maynard

Caitlin Maynard
ITEC 7500
Reflection – Standard 4.1
4.1 Digital Equity - model and promote strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools
and resources and technology-related best practices for all students and teachers.
______________________________________________________________________________
A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis allows stakeholders

to take a hard look at their program or as in this case, their school, to determine its effectiveness
and to guide future growth. I have included the SWOT Analysis I completed as part of the
requirements of ITEC 7410, Instructional Technology Leadership, during the Spring of 2020. I
looked through my school’s technology use and program under the lens of eight of the Essential
Conditions set by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), rating our
progress and creating goals. One of the particular goals was in terms of 1:1 technology for our
students in conjunction with meaningful instruction. To demonstrate how this plan has come to
life, I included the Equitable Access blog entry from ITEC 7430, Internet Tools in the
Classroom, as it provides an updated report on how the 1:1 plan has helped during crisis digital
learning.
Within the Digital Citizenship & Responsibility standard, Element 4.1 concerns digital
equity, the modelling and promotion of strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools
and resources and employing technology-related best practices for all students and teachers.
Our student population is growing more diverse as the years pass; students come from varying
backgrounds, home lives, and skills sets and it is up to the educators to provide a balanced
education for all. This requires meeting the needs of all students, which can range from learning
and physical disabilities to simply not having access to a device or to consistent internet services
at home. Therefore, the SWOT analysis pinpointed areas of need, especially in consideration of
gender groups and those with low socio-economic status. One of the recommendations I made
in the SWOT analysis was for in-house resources to be used properly and wisely. This would
allow for students to use the Chromebooks and Computer Labs while they were at school during
the day to complete their assignments. Due to the spring school closures, Google Classroom
became the main source of interaction and instruction for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school
year. I knew that our students and families were going through unprecedented stress and that the
easier I could make the situation at home, the better. Therefore, my Google Classroom posts
were organized and succinct, free of clutter and easy to navigate, all of which modelled
technology-related best practices. Students were also able to use Google Classroom as a way to
communicate with me on their home situation and what they would not be able to complete due
to lack of resources. I was then able to pivot and provide them a separate activity without
changing the platform from which they would find the assignment.
While completing this artifact, I realized that diversity and digital equity work hand in hand.
In the past, I definitely recognized gender as a piece of diversity, but not necessarily digital
equity. My parents only had my sister and I and due to our socio-economic status growing up, I
never felt without, especially when it came to education or supplies we needed for class. My
mother took us to the local library, where we would work on assignments, until we bought a
computer when I was in the sixth grade. My family always supported my engineering mindset
and encouraged my participation in advanced level math and science courses. It is because of
my personal upbringing that I never saw gender as a bringer of digital inequality. If I could have
changed anything about the quality of the artifact, I wish I had done more research and data
digging of the female population at my school and in my classes in order to find out the exact
divide or if it even exists. I feel we do spend a lot of warranted time and energy on the other
subgroups, so I think it would be worthwhile to see what the females are facing as well.
The work that went into creating this artifact has directly and immediately impacted student
learning. The students are benefitting from the recognition of more effective use of in-house
technology, which resulted in the development of the 1:1 system. This system has already
proven to be useful and appreciated by the students, the teachers, and the families through verbal
and written feedback. Observation of student use and their work samples has shown an uptick in
digital citizenship as well.

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Caitlin Maynard

A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis allows stakeholders

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