Ethics Equity and Responsibility

As tech leaders we will be invited to conversation around some tough issues.  Reaching out to our personal learning network for advice and resources is one way to take advantage of your personal learning network.   There is no need for each of us to reinvent the wheel or feel isolated from each other when working on these issues.  The Vermont School-IT List Serv has provided ed tech leaders in Vermont with a forum to discuss some of the touch issues as well as get help on technical issues. I would strongly suggest every Vermont ed Tech leader to join.

It’s also a place where many important announcements are made about events and deadlines that impact us as ed tech leaders.

During our ed tech leadership class, we have already began helping each other as leaders by creating a collection of resources that might prove helpful as we consider some of the tough issues in educational technology around Ethics, Equity and Responsibility.

Megan helps us consider the impact of lack of broadband access on students in our community. She offers some background that can help us advocate for those students and for increasing access in our communities as well as challenges us to address this issue as teachers designing instruction where this issue may impact some of our students.

Kristina  helps us understand Universal Design for Learning and provides us with a helpful slide show filled with resources and questions to help teachers consider how they might tweak instructional design to include multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement.

Laurie approach connecting  Universal Design to Project Based Learning really speaks to the elephant and the rider in us!  It will leave the ‘affective’ part of your brain wanting to add multiple modes of representation and expression and engagement and provide the logical part of your brain with the brain research that explains why UDL worth the effort.

Mat also  helps us better understand some Universal  Design for Learning by designing a  ISTE Proposal  for a poster session for a conference that includes this very informative video from CAST.

Lori  shares a format to engage 6th grade parents in a conversation about the school’s one to one program. The slides are filled with thoughtfully selected relevant videos and resources parents can use to work with the school on safe and responsible use of digital devices.

Susie offers us a structure to help us have conversations about engaging more girls and women in STEM.   She has gathered some links to  local community  programs that are focused  on this issue to guide our thinking in how we as educators might also support the efforts to involve girls in STEM.

Ellen adds to the conversation about women/girls in Computer Science with her  Training Slides and Graphic graphic “Where are the Girls in  Computer Science?” They not only provides us with stats on the number of women in CS, but also some strategies for addressing the problem. Her training sessions offers a great way to start the conversation that allows the participants to discover the issue rather than being preached at, highlighting positive things happening, and offer specific ways to take yet one more step towards the desired goal.


is working on the topic Women / Girls in Tech.

Meanwhile Holly shares a draft of a training that can help educators better understand and navigate the complex world of protecting student privacy online.  The slide deck introduces that can help us have important conversations about some tough issues, including federal regulations like FERPA and COPPA and challenges us to look at our own local  privacy policies

Kris is working on a training  that will will provide a framework and resources for teachers to help build student understanding of how to safely and productively use technology.  He has selected and assembled  a collection of resources that are engaging for teens that teachers can use to have important conversations with teens ranging from internet safety to copyright.



Here are some of the resources you curated together.