To Tech or Not To Tech?

Is learning tech effective in the classroom? Almost every school I’ve taught at has a significant share of their work online. While it offers a lot of advantages for distributing, tracking, and grading assignments, I’ve also found it adds challenges to the learning itself.

Challenges of edtech/learning apps:

1) Software is usually built to make things easier, but we retain knowledge better when things are hard. Writing out our thinking by hand sticks in our mind more than typing in boxes, and much more than clicking a multiple choice option.

2) Gamification mechanisms (eg Blooket, Gimkit, etc) shift the focus to external rewards. The idea is that students get game resources by answering questions, then get a bit of game time with those resources. But students end up mostly focused on the game, speeding through the learning questions with little attention.

3) Using edtech means having laptops out, which increases the temptation of student distraction. Teachers end up spending the time trying to keep kids off of youtube instead of teaching.

4) Even when edtech is effective, it's still more screen time in an era where kids are flooded with screen time already. Is it really worth it?

Personally I hope is to strike a balance between building online skills while maintaining our abilities to work and thrive in the physical world too. I find myself more often looking for opportunities to avoid using technology than seeking it out, as it’s already the dominant force in our lives. For example, math problems, reading, and language practice all work as well or better on paper.

In other subjects, we explicitly focus on learning the technology itself: coding, using online and AI resources for research, and creating presentations with software tools. We aim to develop students that are confident both with and without technology, who are in control rather than be controlled by it.

Sebastian 3/10/23