April 5th, 2020: Module 5: Unit 9: Ethics and educational technology; Unit 10: Introduction to universal design of instruction (UDI)

This week has been challenging as the COVID-19 virus continues to spread and now the students are doing distance learning. I didn’t want to mention the virus on this blog but it actually relates to the discussion question this week as we had to discuss ethical challenges educational technologists may face and which challenge should be given the most priority. When I read the discussion question I thought about the students that now have to do distance learning due to the virus which really is every student around the world basically, since this is a pandemic, but it made me think about how internet access is not always available to all students regardless of the school was able to provide them with a Chromebook but how would they use it without internet? How will they complete assignments? This is a concern as they may only have a cell phone to be able to use for internet without a hotspot capability. Wen the students were in school they all had the opportunity to have access to the same resources where now everything is different and some students may suffer because of the lack of resource availability. Hopefully, students are able to complete assignments and different tasks as I have seen that different companies are offering free internet for families that do not have the internet and have a student in the home. I great activity that occurred for this week was having the opportunity to work in a group and develop a lesson plan. I had an amazing team to work with and our lesson plan involved using the Goose Hunt application to create a scavenger hunt to get families, friends, and loved ones together and keeping in touch while being able to still practice social distancing as this is a mobile scavenger hunt that allows for a person to create different missions and then have a group or an individual person complete the scavenger hunt and give an incentive for them to participate. Creating this scavenger hunt was so much fun and I really had a great time bouncing ideas off of one another to create a great lesson plan. I am looking forward to future group assignments.