The Digital Divide

As most teachers know, there are numerous laws and measures take by the state and national government to provide all students with an equal education.  These law help ensure that the needs of all students are meet and students are given the opportunity to success regardless of ability or disability.  Let's take a moment to review the two most important educational laws:

American's With Disabilities Act
Public Law 101-336 [42 USC 12101]
The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 
guaranteed that eligible children and youth with disabilities would have a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) available to them, designed to meet their unique educational needs. 

*The following information is quoted from this link. Technology Laws

For this blog, I'd like to focus on a lesser known law that has a HUGE impact on education today.  As was unknown to me, until about an hour ago, that there is clear legislation that dictates that technology resources must be equally administered to all students regardless of ability.

Technology Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities   

Not only does the law dictate that students have the right to access this technology, the law also provides that funds will be given to schools for assistive technology that meets the following criteria:

The technology will

• be in demonstration centers, information centers, equipment loan facilities, referral services, and other consumer-oriented programs;
• protection and advocacy services to help people with disabilities and their families, as they attempt to access the services for which they are eligible;
• Federal/state programs to provide low interest loans and other alternative financing options to help people with disabilities purchase needed assistive technology.

 The following link offers great insight into this law and how to gain funding.
 Assisitive Technology Laws


In addition to the Technology related Assistance act and additional law provides that teachers be given the appropriate resources and skills to use assistive technology.

Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act Amendments of 1998

Schools are required to integrate academic, vocational and technical training, increase the use of technology, provide professional development opportunities to staff, develop and implement evaluations of program quality, expand and modernize quality programs, and link secondary and post-secondary vocational education.

The goal of these laws is to ensure that in a growing digital age, all students are given fair and equal opportunities.  With such drastic technology changes happening on almost a daily basis, it is easy to see how students with disabilities could easily be forgotten.  It essential that as teachers we are aware of legislation in place to prevent this from happened.  Its also critical that we as teachers become advocates for students that lack "voice" in our education system.

Sources:
http://www.fctd.info/resources/techlaws.php
http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/ATBasics/Foundation/Laws/atlegislation.php