This week I was asked by school administration to supervise our online learning component since the regular teacher suddenly became ill. The students came into the classroom, took their seats, put on their headphones, logged in and began working. Never saying a word to one another. It was unnerving seeing the students complete their learning objectives (some with more focus than others) with zero interaction, both from teacher and other students. As I sat there, staring at the backs of their heads, I began wondering if all of this technology is the best path for education. The current buzz is that technology is the future of education, and it is an unparalleled advancement for learning opportunities, but is it?
I did a couple of google searches and stumbled across an interesting article. “The False Promise of Classroom Technology” states that throwing millions of dollars into technology around the United States has had little to no impact in increasing learning outcomes. Shockingly, overseas classrooms that have implemented classroom technology have experienced a decrease in learning outcomes.
A google search yielded a myriad of negative side effects of classroom technology: technology overload, decrease in focus and higher-order thinking, shift from essential content to how to use the technology, decrease in hands-on learning, a game-mentality where everything must be a game, and less processing with more copying.
Obviously, technology is not the savior of our education system. The general consensus among most articles, and I agree with this, is that with proper training, technology can be a positive in classrooms. The problem is that schools are investing thousands of dollars into technology without training teachers how to properly implement the technology. What is the point of buying these tools if no one is taught how to use them? The issue is not with the tools, but with how the teachers use them. You can’t give someone a hammer and chisel and expect them to create the David without any training.