Mitigating Digital Divide: Addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the COVID-۱۹ Context

The growing use of ICT in language teaching environments has led to more labor market demands for new skills literacies, either to improve the quality of teaching or to carry out with complementary tasks. This has caused concerns over unequal access to new technologies bringing the concept of the digital divide to more prominence. Traditionally, the research includes different factors such as socioeconomic variables such as gender, age, educational level, income, and habitat. The digital divide is certainly not a new phenomenon; however, the COVID-۱۹ pandemic has made it even clearer that immediate and effective measures need to be taken to address the digital divide, mitigate it to boost equity, and meet the challenges thereunto. The UN ۱۷ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are meant to bring balance to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The digital divide is mostly concerned with goals ۴ (quality education), ۱۰ (reduced inequalities), and ۱۲ (responsible production and consumption). If we recognize that action in one area would affect outcomes in other areas, taking actions to bridge that gap could help to bring sustainability into education, thereby improving the quality of language education. This online presentation is going to touch on the concept of the digital divide within the current global context of the COVID-۱۹ pandemic. It also intends to illustrate how mitigating the adverse effects of the digital divide could lead to more sustainable language teaching and learning

کلیدواژه ها:

SDGs ، Digital Divide ، Equity ، Sustainability ، Language Classrooms