Technology in Schooling: A SYNOPSIS - Part 1

by Charlotte Lancaster We believe in Quality

Technology is everywhere in education: Public universities in the United States now provide at least one computer for each and every five learners. They spend more than $3 billion per year on digital content. Directed by the federal government, the country is in the midst of a massive effort to make affordable high-speed Internet and free online teaching resources available to even the most rural and remote institutions. And in 2015-16, for the first time, more state standardized exams for the elementary and middle grades will be administered via technology than by papers and pencil.

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There’s the booming ed-tech industry, with corporate titans and small start-ups alike vying for a slice of an $8 billion-plus yearly market for hardware and software. Much attention is also paid to the “early adopters”-those districts, academic institutions, and teachers who are making probably the most ingenious and effective uses of the new tools at their disposal.

But a significant body of study has also made clear that most teachers have been slow to transform the ways they teach, despite the influx of new technologies into their classrooms. There remains limited evidence to show that technology and on the internet learning are improving learning outcomes for most students. And academics and mom and dad as well have expressed concerns about electronic distractions, ways in which unequal access to and use of technologies might widen achievement gaps, and more.

State and federal lawmakers, meanwhile, have wrestled in recent years with the reality that new technology also current new challenges. The rise of “big data,” for example, has led to new issues about how schools can keep sensitive student info private and safe.

What follows is an overview of the large trends, opportunities, and concerns associated with classroom technology. Links to additional resources are included in each section for those who want to dig deeper.

What Is Personalized Learning?

Many inside the ed-tech field see new technologies as powerful equipment to help schools meet the needs of ever-more-diverse student populations. The idea is that digital gadgets, software, and studying platforms offer an once-unimaginable array of options for tailoring education to each individual student’s academic strengths and weaknesses, interests and motivations, private preferences, and ideal pace of learning.

In recent years, a group of organizations including the Expenses & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and EDUCAUSE have crafted a definition of “personalized learning” that rests on four pillars:

Each student should have a “learner profile” that docs his or her strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and goals;

Each college student should pursue an individualized learning path that encourages him or her to set and manage personal academic goals;

College students should follow a “competency-based progression” that focuses on their ability to demonstrate mastery of a topic, rather than seat time; and,

Students’ learning environments should be flexible and structured in ways that support their individual objectives.

How does technology assistance that vision?

In many schools, students are given district-owned computing devices or allowed to bring their own devices from home. The theory is that this allows for “24-7” learning at the time and location of the student’s choosing.

Learning management systems, student information techniques, and other software are also used to distribute assignments, manage schedules and communications, and track student progress.

And educational software program and programs have grown more “adaptive,” relying on technologies and algorithms to determine not only just what a college student knows, but what his / her learning process is, and even their emotional state.

For all the technological progress, though, implementation continues to be a major challenge. Academic institutions and educators across the country continue to wrestle with the changing part of teachers, how to balance flexible and “personalized” models with the state and federal government accountability needs they still must fulfill, and the deeper cultural challenge of altering educators’ long-standing behaviors and routines.

Despite the massive investments that many school systems are making, the evidence that electronic personalized understanding can improve pupil outcomes or narrow accomplishment gaps at scale remains scattered, at best.

WHAT'S 1-to-1 Computing?

Increasingly, academic institutions are shifting to provide students with their own laptop computer, netbook, or digital pill. Schools purchased more than 23 million devices for classroom use in 2013 and 2014 solely. Recently, iPads and then Chromebooks (inexpensive Web-based laptop computers) have emerged as the devices of choice for many schools.

The two biggest factors spurring the rise in 1-to-1 student computing have already been new mandates that state standardized tests be delivered online and the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards.

Generally, the hope is that putting devices in the hands of students will help with some or all of the following goals:

Permitting teachers and software to deliver more personalized content and training to college students, while allowing learners to learn at their very own speed and ability level;

Helping students to become technologically skilled and literate and thus better prepared to get modern workplaces;

Empowering college students to do more complex and creative work by allowing them to use digital plus online applications and tools;

Improving the administration and management of schools and classrooms by making it better to gather home elevators what students know and have done;

Developing communications among learners, teachers, and mothers and fathers.

Despite the potential benefits, however, many districts have run into trouble when attempting to implement 1-to-1 computing initiatives. Paying for the devices can be a challenge, especially because the strategy of issuing long-phrase bonds for short-term technology purchases has come into question. Many districts have also run into problems with infrastructure (not enough bandwidth to support all students accessing the Internet at the same time) and deployment (poor planning in distributing and controlling thousands of devices.)

The most significant problem for schools trying to go 1-to-1, though, has been a lack of educational vision. Without a clear picture of how teaching and studying is expected to change, specialists say, going 1-to-1 often amounts to a “spray and pray” approach of distributing numerous devices and hoping for the best.

Some critics of educational technology also point to a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found that countries, where 15-year previous students use computers most in the classroom, scored the worst on international reading and math tests.