After diving into the topics of equity and access this week, the reading Digital Redlining, Access and Privacy by C. Gilliard & H. Culik really stood out to me. It discusses Digital Redlining, when marginalized groups are affected by inequities created by digitally filtering content and information. These groups are provided with less knowledge due to constraints with accessing the internet or content filtering on school or library computers, lessening their competitiveness as a candidate when searching for jobs, affecting their opportunities and financial statuses, and ultimately, keeping them marginalized.
This was a concept that I had never considered before. I had never heard of Digital Redlining and had no idea that this was happening. Before reading this article, I thought that filtering content for students was always done with good intent, to keep young people safe, and was only done at younger grade levels. I never thought that filtering content could lead to equity and privacy issues. I was unaware that filtering and limited access were occuring at a college level, directly limiting the futures of community college students and marginalized groups.
   Even though I plan to teach younger students, not college-aged, I think it is important to keep the concept of Digital Redlining in mind and remember that access and inequity may be affecting my own students. I could have future students that don’t have access to the internet at home and their only exposure to digital technology could be the filtered computers at the school. I think it is crucial that I, and other teachers, are aware of the inequities that our marginalized students could be facing, especially if we have not experienced these inequities ourselves. It is easy to be ignorant of these issues when we have never been directly affected by them personally. I am grateful that this topic has been brought to my attention so that in the future I will be aware and knowledgeable for my students. Â
References:
Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.
August 17, 2021 at 2:09 pm
Hi, Ayden
Great job on this week’s reflection!
There are many ways that certain groups of students may have their learning experiences marginalized.
There are some examples of this happening with history being rewritten in some curriculums to portray that history in a certain light.
As a future educator, it’s great to see you be cognizant of these inequities and biases. It will be critical to the overall success of all your students
August 17, 2021 at 10:05 pm
Hi Ayden,
I felt very drawn to Gilliard and Culik’s article as well, because redlining was something I’ve thought about in the past but never knew the name of the term itself. I have looked up heavy topics for research papers before on campus, and a handful of times I found it extremely difficult to find any relevant sources so I would just switch to another topic instead. Similarly to you, I thought content filtering was to deter any affiliation with inappropriate topics, but sometimes these things are researched with good intentions. I didn’t realize how this could actually hinder our learning. Your awareness of this and how you plan on making sure that your future students will not learn in an unequitable environment will make you a great teacher. Thanks for the post!
August 18, 2021 at 8:18 am
Hi Ayden,
the reading from Gilliard and Culik stood out to me too. I especially liked the section at the end that listed transformative examples of OERs. The options I am thinking of trying out in my future classrooms are: “Build OERs with your students. Facilitate student-created and student-controlled learning environments. Build course policies, outcomes, assignments, rubrics, and schedules of work collaboratively with students. Let students curate course content. [and] [e]ngage students in public chats with authors or experts” (Mays, 2017)
I liked what you said about digital redlining, I too discussed this in my post. It was also a new term for me. I know that the school districts on the island use G-suite for students which keep most of their work in the distributed category and has strict filtering, ad blocking, and 3rd party scanning. However, when students do work in open educational spaces like social media they can be subject to the digital redlining that exists among algorithms that “reinforce[s] the boundaries of race, class, ethnicity, and gender” (Gilliard and Culik, 2016).
Great topic 3 post!
August 20, 2021 at 12:13 pm
Hi Ayden
I agree with your post in that I too never even thought about the fact that digital redlining could create oppression and discrimination of marginalized groups. When I thought of digital blockers, I immediately thought of how my elementary schools computers blocked access to websites such as Facebook, or Webkinz (haha), so that we as younger students would stay on task. I never even considered the fact that blocking content could create inequities.
I also think it was beyond frustrating to read that community colleges were filtering access to materials that were directly linked to people in higher educations success, because as we learned throughout the other readings, higher education is expensive, and when people have no choice but to attend community colleges because of funding or other personal reasons, they should not be at a disadvantage. In whatever university or college experience you have, you should be able to have equal opportunities for learning.
I spoke about inequities in direct result of technology in my post, and I agree that we as future teachers need to be fully aware that not everyone has access to technology at home, and find respectful ways to work with students and guardians to ensure no one is left out of digital learning.