TechNowlogy

Edited by Gale Anne Aris
distance learning
reveals digital divide
By Ellie Pegollo
The article by Ana P. Santos (2020) shares the story of eighteen-year-old (at the time) Erika Marie
Custodio. She was a college freshman in dire need of devices she can use for her online classes. From
joining giveaways, only to be met with little to no luck, she resorted to playing a game in Shopee called
“Shopee Bubble”. From what was gathered, if she was able to garner 600 diamonds, she can swap this
for a brand new laptop. With achieving a little above halfway her goal, she made do with the phone
she has, momentarily, despite finding difficulty in understanding her classes this way.
Her life is shown as a story of resiliency, of how she managed to cope with not having the devices she
needed for education, and of how we should look up to her. Most admittedly, she is admirable in
more ways than one, but to see this as something inspiring? Does a student need to go through this
great deal of agony and the inability to keep up with her peers and classmates, not because of her
intelligence or the lack thereof, but because she doesn’t have the appropriate devices and supplies for
online learning, in order to be considered as remarkable?
Why do we have the need to sugarcoat stories into something of a great quest when it's far from that?
Custodio’s story shows how detrimental the digital divide is in education. Having sufficient technology
is a luxury, and as long as the gap widens between those who have easy access to this and those who
cannot, there is no equilibrium.
And as long as we fail to address this, we fail as students, educators, and leaders.
TeC HN
oWLOGY
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