Purpose and Justification

 

The Need for a Digital Strategy (Purpose & Justification)

Since most of the students from the Grantley Prescod School are from a lower socio-economic bracket, a digital divide is present between those who are from the surrounding areas and their more advantaged peers from elsewhere. As research suggests is typical of disadvantaged groups, the majority of the school’s students have low access to digital technologies. In addition, they do not use the technology they do have for educational purposes. Therefore, as pointed out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as cited in Rodrigues and Biagi( ), providing these students with the opportunity to access and use digital technologies is the first step to reducing the digital divide. However, while closing the digital divide is essential; the digital use divide must also be closed, so that all students are taught how to use technology as a tool to engage in creative, productive, life-long learning rather than simply consuming passive content.

            In addition to low access to digital technologies and low digital literacy skills, many of the students of the Grantley Prescod Memorial School also demonstrate low academic abilities. This is seen in the school’s consistently poor performance in the Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination (BSSEE). While this is significant, this is not surprising because as indicated by Morgan et al, research suggests that children from low-SES households and communities develop academic skills slower than children from higher SES groups (APA). Further, low SES in childhood is related to poor cognitive development, language, memory, and socioemotional processing (APA). As a consequence, the integration of digital technologies into the curriculum can help bring equity to the teaching and learning environment by increasing all students’ access to educational opportunities with the goal of closing the achievement gap and removing barriers such as disability or socioeconomic status.

            As a result of the prevailing factors present at the Grantley Prescod Memorial school, a digital strategy is required to help the school achieve the necessary objective of creating a more equitable teaching and learning environment. With the support of digital technologies and through the principles of universal design (UDL) the teaching and learning environment should be able to be transformed into one that accommodates the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminates unnecessary hurdles in the learning process.