Digital Literacy Is Important!
By Natalie Ureno
Before this internship, I was a full-time afterschool elementary teacher in the San Leandro school district. Once I transferred into university, I had to lighten my workload, so I was offered substitute teaching positions in the San Leandro and San Lorenzo school districts, which I accepted. I was accustomed to teaching in San Leandro, where they had a lot of funding that went directly to technology in hopes to lay a foundation for digital literacy for their students. They had Macbook monitors, Chrome carts, smart boards, TVs , and so much more that strengthened their mission in order to help students learn. Unfortunately, this was not the case in the San Lorenzo school district.
My first time substituting in the San Leandro school district, I came in expecting them to have the same amount of supplies and resources for their students and I had lesson plans prepped that required technological tools like laptops and a smart board. When I arrived, I met with the program coordinator to find out that they did not have enough paper and pencils for everyone in the classroom, and that they relied on their students to bring supplies. Technology was very limited, and I would have to bring my own computer to show them education videos, and that was all I could really do. They did not have the laptops, TVs, smartboards, and most students only knew how to navigate social media platforms and streaming services since that is what they would use in their personal time.
As time passed, I would go back and forth between both school districts that were merely divided by city lines, and I constantly questioned why San Lorenzo did not have the resources that San Leandro did. When I was working in the San Leandro school district, teaching would be a breeze because I would be able to complete the lesson plans I had prepared. When I worked in San Lorenzo, I had to learn how to adapt and alter my lesson plans on a daily basis, because I would never know what resources and supplies we would have available to us until the day of. I felt like I wasn’t able to provide the same enriching educational experience to the students I worked with in San Lorenzo, and it truly upset me because these students deserved so much more than what they were being offered. Having technology in classrooms is necessary because in the age that we live in, it is important to be digitally literate. When there is a disparity in funding, it leads to inequitable education and disadvantages for those students. This anecdotal evidence is an example as to why it is important for Prop 13 to be reformed so that we can fund each classroom equitably, especially with proper technological resources so each student has a good foundation of digital literacy and media navigation.