In 2006, a teacher in Colorado gave a presentation at a school faculty meeting highlighting the global implications of advancements in technology. This was merely a decade after the widespread use of the internet began. Myspace reigned, buying stuff online was a novelty, and we were still surprised to know a couple who met online. The point of the presentation was that technology is changing our world fast. Very fast. The teacher highlighted economical shifts, emerging labor fields, and exponential growth in information and computing capabilities.
What began as an ambitious pep talk to a school faculty in a cafeteria grew to become a series of videos viewed over 20 million times. “We are currently preparing students for jobs and technologies that don’t yet exist,” he says. How could knowing this affect the way teachers, administrators, and school systems operate?
Technology is now ubiquitous in people’s everyday lives no matter the person’s age or socioeconomic background. It has connected us permanently, allowed unlimited access to knowledge, and opened opportunities for unrestricted collaboration. The classroom should reflect our ever changing 21st century world. But is giving students iPads enough? Will throwing in videos and interactive games into our lesson plans be satisfactory in leading our students to technological literacy? While technology should be prevalent in our classrooms, how exactly can we use it as good teachers?
John Hattie’s meta-studies provide insight into what exactly influences learning, compiling research of millions of students’ achievement data. He ranks around 200 factors that affect classroom success. Some of the top ranking items include collective teacher efficacy, self-reported grades, classroom discussion, feedback, reciprocal teaching, and teacher-student relationships. Items in the lower range include simulations, online and digital tools, mobile phones, and web-based learning. This would seemingly go against the advocators of technology in the classroom. But I believe it provides us with a road map to include technology even more.
Rather than ask: how can we use technology in our teaching? We should be asking: how can technology help us better implement proven effective strategies?
More specifically: How can technology help implement collective teacher efficacy? How can technology help my students self-monitor their grades? How can it help me provide feedback or stimulate a classroom discussion? Teachers always strive to create relevancy between students’ daily lives and the academic content. And the reality of their lives is that they’re constantly in front of a screen.
But what about professional development? Why should teachers be open to new training as district requirements continue to increase? We need to present such training in a way that promotes simplification. Technology should streamline the teaching process and not be a daunting task of learning something new.
Students need to learn how to teach themselves - and that starts with the teachers. Students need to be flexible in their abilities. They need to be able to accept change and have a variety of skills in an ever changing job market. They should have more opportunities to be exposed to a variety of skills early on and be free to explore their own aptitudes, rather than be forcibly committed to set of prescribed standards.
When considering technology in our classrooms, we should focus on the implementation, not the device. We were always social creatures. Technology just made it easier for us to be more social. We were always curious about what lied beyond the horizon. Technology just made it easier for us to see what was on the other side. It’s not the tool that’s important - it’s how it’s used.