Despite gains in the number of households that are online and the number of computing devices in the hands of students, making sure all learners have equitable access to technology resources continues to be a challenge in the United States and worldwide, said panelists at a recent summit.

"We've made a lot of progress, but we've got a lot more work to do," said Link Hoewing, vice president of internet and technology policy for Verizon Communications.

Hoewing was speaking at a Digital Equity Summit held July 1 at the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, Texas, where participants discussed ways to close the gaps between those who have easy access to digital tools and resources and those who don't.

Students who lack this access to technology are at a disadvantage, ed-tech advocates say, because they are missing out on opportunities to learn and to become participants in an increasingly digital workforce and society.

At the summit, panelists shared the latest research on digital inequities in the United States and abroad, as well as possible solutions. One thing they agreed on was that the nature of the problem appears to be changing--and policy makers and education leaders must expand how they view and respond to this challenge in turn.

Thanks to a program in Brazil through which the government offers special-finance loans for people to buy computers, an estimated 36 million Brazilian children reportedly will be using Linux-based machines by the end of this year. Low-cost laptops such as Intel's Classmate PC and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation's XO computer have reached nearly a million students worldwide. And cell-phone use in Africa has exploded in the last few years; coupled with the convergence in wireless devices, this trend has important implications for students in developing countries.

Yet, while there are many more digital devices now available to students, there seems to be a narrowing of the content they can use, said Joyce Pittman, director of the Center for Learning and Teaching with Technology at United Arab Emirates University.

Paul E. Resta, director of the University of Texas at Austin's Learning Technology Center, framed the digital-equity challenge as one of providing not just technologies, but "digital opportunities," for students.

"The digital divide is traditionally defined in terms of internet access," he said, "but it is really part of a broader divide that contributes to the social and economic exclusion of people."

Resta listed six things that he called "essential conditions" for digital inclusion: (1) basic literacy skills; (2) access to information and communications technology (ICT) devices, software, and connectivity; (3) access to culturally relevant content in the student's local language; (4) the ability to create, share, and exchange digital content; (5) access to educators who know how to use digital tools and resources in pedagogically sound ways; and (6) access to effective leadership in policy and planning.