NETS-T Standard VI lists two areas of concern related to diversity:

2. apply technology resources to enable and empower learners with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, and abilities

3. identify and use technology resources that affirm diversity

This means that each teacher should strive to use technology in ways that respect and promote the diversity of their student populations and of the local, national, and global population as a whole. Teachers need to use technological resources in ways that help build upon the diversities and strengths of each particular child. They also need to seek out resources that reflect the values, cultures, etc. of those whom they serve—and again, of people the world over.

Teachers need to recognize and respect the strengths of each student, while doing what they can to empower students in an effort to overcome whatever weaknesses they may have. One way of doing this might be to provide special technological resources to strengthen the language abilities of low-English-proficiency students. In this case, the teacher recognizes and respects the student’s intelligence and ability in his native language and uses the technological resource to strengthen the student’s skills in his second language, English. Another example might be to provide highly visual-spatial learners with special opportunities to work on tech-assisted projects (web-based book reports, for instance, with pictures, clip art, links, etc.) which build on and strengthen their visual-spatial design and arrangement skills, while simultaneously providing them with language practice as they write the accompanying text-based web content.

Likewise, as teachers seek out resources—be it books, magazines, websites, or anything else—they need to respect and promote diversity. They do this by seeking out information from authors of various ethnicities, backgrounds, socio-economic classes, and so on (or, at least, from people genuinely speaking on behalf of those groups). Students need to be exposed to various viewpoints. Students who are members of underrepresented minorities need to be shown positive information and resources that reflect their own races and ethnicities. And all students need to be exposed to people and ideas different from their own.

When this ideal situation is not realized there are a number of possible negative outcomes:

• Many potentially useful resources are lost to students

• Computers and other high-tech devices remain foreign, especially to certain students—mostly those who have little access to them outside of school

• Minority students, in particular, feel “lost” in the high-tech scuffle

• Resources are used only to reinforce pre-existing models of thought—no real learning takes place

The websites provided below provide additional information related to online diversity issues: