And so it begins. We got the ball rolling and started discussing about serious issues that learners might face when beginning with online learning. These issues centred on learners’ ability to use different technologies and their access to such technologies. From a teacher’s perspective, being able to use technologies effectively to promote student learning means to be able to produce and deliver effective learning strategies and digital classroom management in ways that engage ALL students and leave no students behind.

At the end of the topic, I came to the realization that each learner comes with different levels of digital literacies when it comes to their ability to use online technologies effectively to connect and learn collaboratively in digital learning environments. The question of whether digital technologies can widen the gap between those who are much digitally literate and those who do not even have access to learning technologies to begin with started to bug my mind. If education is meant to be a leveller among people in different societies, would we be leaving those who aren’t digitally literate and those who do not even have basic access to technologies further behind? As idealistic as it sounds, I personally feel that as we engaged the use of technological tools and resources to enhance teaching and learning, it is a duty as teachers to ensure that as many, if not all, of our students need to have access and the basic digital literacy levels before we set on an online participatory learning. The question left hanging in my mind was is this even possible?