EPOL 556 · Access to Higher Education · Group 4 Guest Lecture

Technology and the
Road to College

A four-part guest lecture on how educational technology shapes who reaches higher education, and on whose terms.

Four lectures follow educational technology from its origins to its newest frontier, returning to one question at each step: does the tool widen the road to college, or quietly narrow it? We begin with the history of digital technology in education, turn to how technology meets disability, weigh the evidence on online instruction for students the system has long underserved, and end inside the artificial intelligence now reshaping who gets in.

Group 4 · Instructional Design & Information Technology Four presenters Approximately thirty minutes Watch in order, or open any chapter

The four lectures

Interactive lecture

Whose Voice Gets In, Whose Gets Reshaped

Start with the short video introduction, then step through a hands-on synthesis across eight studies: predict each finding, watch a vivid sentence get flattened toward the voice of privilege, and choose who holds the tool. It opens at full size so the slide controls, the prediction charts, and the narrated walkthrough all work as intended.

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01 History History of Digital Technology in Education Etienne Fields How instructional technology evolved across the last century, from teaching machines and broadcast courses to the networked classroom, and what each wave promised about who could learn.

02 Disability & access Technology, Disability, and Access to Higher Education Drina Duryea How digital tools both lower and raise barriers for disabled students, from assistive technology to the accessibility gaps built into the platforms themselves.

03 Online learning Evidence on Online Instruction Outcomes for Marginalized Students Jon Woodall What the research finds when online and hybrid instruction meets the students higher education has historically underserved.

04 Artificial intelligence · Interactive Whose Voice Gets In Chris Colatos An interactive synthesis of the 2017 to 2026 research on artificial intelligence in college access, tracing how one technology can widen the road or reverse it, depending on who holds it. Predict as you go.