Judy Lightfoot

Judy Lightfoot is a writing coach, academic tutor, curriculum consultant, and a freelance writer/editor as stated on her home page (http://home.earthlink.net/~judylightfoot/). In researching her further, and reading published articles, I realized that Dr. Lightfoot is an advocate for educational technology, yet she doesn’t ever mandate as this being the only educational tool. This became most clear in an article published by Seattle Weekly. She talks about a private school in Seattle that is deciding over making laptops mandatory. Some believe it is necessary while others feel the computer labs are sufficient to offer student access. In reading more about the issue, I realized that if this kind of situation became mandatory in school, many students throughout the United States will not be getting the same education as those that are privledged. When did education become about economic status? Let’s be honest, there are more children in the country that cannot afford a computer, let alone a laptop, how can that become a necessary item like a 5 star notebook. If big businesses decide to donate enough laptops to cover the countries population of children, then maybe a solution could be made. Judy Lightfoot states that many of the students that attend this private school are children of big business people. I think this points out an issue with e-learning. Although technology is VERY important, there are many that are not going to benefit from this. It’s cost is too high to apply nationally, and will ultimately keep those without the monetary funds on the bottom. How can we enforce something that many of us cannot supply?