beyondchips

 Liberty and Justice For All. These are the last five words of the American Pledge of Allegiance. Written in 1892 and recited everyday by millions of people, including students in the United States, the pledge is a statement of patriotic sentiment, national unity, and allegiance (Westheimer, 2006). If the citizenry is to enjoy the blessings of liberty and justice, access must be universal. Universal access refers to the removal of obstacles that hinder anyone from using or benefiting from the various systems, including educational opportunities. “If you don’t have access to information in the first place, it is very difficult to protect education, health, the safety of journalists or the other right in the digital ecosystem” - Guillerme Canela Claims have been made about online learning and its ability to remove or mitigate teaching and learning barriers such as distance, geography, building designs, and transportation issues (Appana, 2008). Efforts to address these obstacles shoul...

Let’s start with a short activity. Close your eyes and think about these words: “computer lab.” Open your eyes and continue reading… The mere mention of a computer lab these days connotes a nostalgic vision of a dedicated room in the school containing several rows of long tables with desktop computers for use by students and somewhere in the room is a teacher's station with a computer connected to a projector and a printer (Julian, 2013). To use the computer lab, teachers from across the campus took turns and made reservations for students to use the resources in the room for a specific activity.   Computer labs started appearing in schools decades ago when computers were expensive, and school budgets were tight. Schools aiming to provide the campus community an opportunity to learn basic computer skills, research, or perform schoolwork electronically carved large swaths of funds from the budget to create computer labs. As funds became available, the school upgraded its labs with f...