As faculty members add online and multimedia elements to their courses, colleges and universities across the country are realizing that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that disabled students (and employees) have equal access to course material and university websites. Unfortunately, far too few schools consider the task a top priority.…

Technology provides equal access to information and helps people with visual impairments to complete tasks more independently. Among various assistive technology options for people with visual impairments, braille notetakers have been considered the most significant because of their technological innovation. Braille notetakers allow users who are…

This column describes how technology can enrich the learning environment provided by the modern language classroom. Typically, modern languages taught in U.S. public schools are French, Spanish, and German. A general broadening of high school graduation and college and professional school admission requirements to include a certain level of modern…

This paper interrogates the currently pervasive discourse of the "net generation" finding the concept of the "digital native" especially problematic, both empirically and conceptually. We draw on a research project of South African higher education students' access to and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)…

For legal issues in the field of disability compliance, this is an exciting time in postsecondary education. The twentieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signals a reawakening of the commitment to provide equal access to individuals with disabilities. This chapter explores three of the compliance issues that will be of…

In this chapter, the authors take a broad perspective on how to analyze issues of technology and equity for youth in the United States. They begin with "access" as a starting point, but consider not only whether diverse groups of youth have digital media available to them but also how that access is supported or constrained by…

This guide is designed for use by information technology administrators, data specialists, and program staff responsible for the "content" in data reports, as well as education leaders (e.g., administrators who prioritize tasks for technical and data staff), and other stakeholders who have an interest in seeing that schools, school…

For decades, postsecondary institutions have focused more on the line between compliance and noncompliance, balancing the rights and responsibilities of institutions with those of students with disabilities. The danger for postsecondary institutions in focusing on a "line in the sand" approach was to further perceptions that students…

The principle of equality states that it is bad for some people to be worse off than others. In the context of distance education, this principle is violated on those occasions where on-campus students have access, not only to all the resources available to distance education students, but also to face-to-face tutorials. This is because the…

What is the school principal's role in ensuring ethical technology use while promoting the use of wireless and advanced technologies in instruction? The rapid advances in technology in only the past 5 years, including the increase in laptops and smart phones, have transformed both educational practices and the role of the school principal as…

Increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) help individuals to solve several everyday problems, which used to be harder, more complicated and time consuming. Even though ICTs provide individuals with many advantages, they might also serve as grounds for several societal and ethical problems which vary in accordance with…

Enthusiasts for new social software do not always acknowledge that belonging to e-learning communities depends upon complex and often unresolved identity issues for learners. Drawing on the author's previous research on belonging in social learning, the paper presents a theory of identity congruence in social learning and brings to the foreground…

Web 2.0 technologies are online tools that allow users to share, collaborate and interact with one another. This small-scale project focused on young people's personal use of social media, and on the potential to use these tools to collect the views of young people and involve them in democracy in communities and local authorities. The main…

The research reported in this paper considers the current telecommunications network for the three education systems of state, independent and catholic schools in Western Australia as well as drawing on the personal experiences of teachers in these systems as the government attempts to close the digital divide with its Networking the Nation…

Computers have become an important part of young children's lives, both as a source of entertainment and education. The National Association for the Education of Young Children's (NAEYC) position statement on Technology and Young Children (2006) supports the need for equal access to technology for all children with attention to eliminating gender…