

Why do I care? - heyfouad
http://fouad.co/posts/why-do-i-care

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betterunix
"I plan to change education forever with technology."

Just make sure that if the technology you develop could make or break a
student's success in school, that the technology cannot be denied to the
student. It is hard to prevent a student from using a pen or a sheet of paper;
it is not hard to deny a student access to a web app, and there are a lot of
web apps that are vital to school (at least higher education) these days. My
alma mater switched to Google for its email service; my current university
also uses Google, and that means that Google could potentially deny students
access to the most important communication system on campus (professors
routinely communicate by email with students, and sometimes that is the only
way to communicate). My school's libraries subscribe to web apps for reading
books and research papers; a student who loses access to those systems could
be left at a disadvantage, and that access could be revoked by the service
provider.

It is also worth mentioning that technologies that require students to have
access to high-end computers will put lower-income students at a disadvantage.
If you offer videos, made standard-definition available. If you offer
streaming, make downloading the video an option -- some students may have slow
or capped connections at home and would benefit from being able to download a
video on the school's connection, then bring it home and watch it offline.
Don't assume that "everyone" has broadband, nor that "everyone" has a powerful
graphics card, nor that "nobody" is using a computer from 2001 as their
primary system. Some students only have computer access at school or at public
libraries; don't assume that "everyone" has a computer in their home. The
counterexamples to those assumptions will be people who are most in need of
the technology you are talking about: they already get the shortest end of the
stick when it comes to education.

