Digital Solidarity in Education

Book excerpt: Digital Solidarity in Education is a book for educators, scholars, and students interested in better understanding both the role technology can play in schools and its potential for strengthening communities, optimizing the effects of globalization, and increasing educational access. The digital solidarity movement prioritizes the engagement and mobilization of students from diverse racial, ethnic, linguistic, and economic backgrounds, and with giftedness and/or disabilities, to utilize and apply technologies. This powerful book introduces innovative technological programs including virtual schools, e-tutoring, and interactive online communities for K-12 students that can: • increase students' knowledge and understanding of advanced concepts while reinforcing their basic skills; • reinforce students' communication in their first language while introducing second and third language possibilities; • nurture students' capabilities to think analytically, while using creative and innovative ideas to think simultaneously “outside of the box.” The experienced author team shows how collaborative partners from the private sector can assist public school systems and educators in creating access for all students to technological innovations, with a goal of increasing individual opportunities for future college and career success. Combining theoretical scholarship and research with the personal perspectives of practitioners in the field, this volume shares with readers both the nuts and bolts of using technology in education, and the importance of doing so.