In a recent school visit I made, I was forced to have a hard look at technology and its role in high school classrooms. With the advent of the Chromebook, schools have access to affordable devices that, in my opinion, are one of the most influential educational tools. They are both affordable, have long battery life, and are practical, providing learners access to a variety of web based applications. However, upon this particular visit, I recognized that these devices have become a crutch for students who leave them open all throughout the class under the guise of “taking notes”, or whatever the current excuse is.
In addition to the constant Chromebook usage, many students were also using their phones simultaneously. Clearly, the engagement level in the majority of the classrooms I visited was not going to be at a very high standard.
As someone who is a huge proponent of technology and the role in which it plays in education, I am in no way advocating for the banishment of these devices. Rather, I am stating that it may be time for us to look at ways to support their usage as instructional and learning tools, and provide teachers with guidance as to where and when to leverage these devices for educational good. Guerra (2006, p.1026) argues that, “the morality of an action is solely determined by its consequences, and thus appropriate moral action should be based on an analysis of the consequences of that action”. In this instance the continuous, ineffectual usage of technology is creating a scenario in which one may argue that is morally wrong and improper in that students are now seeing gaps created in their learning caused by the devices and tools meant to aid them.
The next part of this discussion is very interesting, because now we must ask ourselves, “who is to blame?” One’s initial response would be pointing fingers at those in charge, the teachers. However, that would be unfair. These teachers have been put in a very challenging situation. They have been tasked with transferring knowledge to students in a way they were taught through their teacher prep programs, and then part way through their career, were told they would no longer have access to curricular resources they were used to, and would need to integrate Chromebooks into their classes instead. It sounds very nice as they are nice, new shiny machines that can make learning fun. One issue though, many teachers never received proper training on how to integrate these tools into their lessons. We are now left with a situation where teachers can’t address the option of whether or not alternatives to technology can be employed, as this is their only avenue in many cases, and they haven’t been properly trained to teach with this tool in the first place (Smaldino, Donaldson, Herring, 2018, p. 343).
So, the real question here is, what should be done? I believe what must occur to address this situation is that teachers need to see what effective instructional technology usage modeled for them. They need to be provided feedback on their incorporation of these tools into their classrooms, and it can’t simply be feedback stating that technology is being used. It has to ensure that technology is being used appropriately and responsibly. If this does not happen sooner rather than later, students who have already lived through Covid, are going to be at an even great deficit.
References
Guerra, J. A. (2006). Standards and ethics in human performance technology. In J. A. Pershing (Ed.), Handbook of human performance technology (3rd ed.) (pp. 1024-1046). San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Smaldino, S. E., Donaldson, J. A., & Herring, M. (2018). Professional ethics: Rules applied to practice. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th Ed.), (pp. 303-308). New York, NY: Pearson Education. (see also video interview with Dr. Smaldino (43:59): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOjhdH4dAE4)
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