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Verizon Innovative Learning Schools Recognized for Addressing Digital Divide During Pandemic

Digital Promise

When schools were forced to quickly shift to distance learning in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools (VILS) team immediately sprung into action to provide professional learning and support to educators within the network—which grew to 264 middle and high schools across the country by late 2020.

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Path to Digital Equity: Why We Need to Address the Digital Divide with Solutions Around Adoption

Digital Promise

Imagine creating conditions where every learner and community can fully access and leverage the technology needed for full participation in learning, the economy, and society at large. About six million learners and three million households currently face adoption barriers beyond availability and affordability.

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Announcing the 2021-2022 League of Innovative Schools Cohort

Digital Promise

Digital Promise is thrilled to announce 37 districts—including 26 new districts and 11 returning districts—will join the ranks of the League of Innovative Schools for the 2021-2022 school year. The new cohort extends the network’s reach to 125 districts across 34 states, and expands its cumulative impact to 3.8

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The Universal Laptop Program Helping One State Narrow the Digital Divide

Edsurge

As a result many states have reintroduced virtual and hybrid learning options as new COVID-19 cases continue to soar. And one, Mississippi, has made important strides in closing the digital divide through a pandemic response plan that took each school district’s unique needs and challenges into account.

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A Final Frontier of the Digital Divide: Getting Wi-Fi to the Most Remote Areas

EdTech Magazine

When leaders of Ector County Independent School District learned in March that 39 percent of their students lacked reliable broadband access at home, they went to work on finding a solution. It developed business partnerships to get low-income families in Odessa, a large city that’s the county seat, free broadband access through June 2021.

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Digital divide: Gap is narrowing, but how will schools maintain progress?

The Hechinger Report

School officials in the seaside town scrambled to purchase enough devices for all their students to learn online last year after the pandemic hurtled kids out of buildings. There’s a simmering sense of anticipation about how far educators have come with technology, and its potential to enhance student learning. “I

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The U.S. needs billions to close the digital divide

eSchool News

As Americans close out one year of pandemic-related school disruption and head into a second, the digital divide remains a daunting challenge for K-12 public school systems in most states.