HINDSIGHT that leads to FUTURE THINKING

Somewhere between 2019–2020 I attended an event called. “Instructional Technology: Impacts on teaching and learning” at a college near me. During one of the breaks that day I happened to hear a group of men poo-pooing (for lack of a better word) the value of technology in the classroom. While I didn’t recognize everyone in the group, I did recognize a couple of men who were heads of k12 schools and at least one principal at a k12 school. One man’s views stood out to me because he was very vocal in his opinions.

Over the years, as an instructional technologists, I’ve come across those people quite a bit. Sometimes it is because they haven’t seen good technology integration, nor do they know how to even promote the concept. Sometimes it is because they find technology in the classroom an evil disruption. Sometimes it is fear of the unknown.

Since 2010, when the iPad hit the market and schools (including the one I was in) started readily adopting technology for student use, my personality has swayed on how I respond to blatant closed-mindedness about technology integration. In the beginning I was much like the historical Christian crusader trying to demolish anyone that didn’t think about technology like I did. In fact, I was bumfuzzled in my understanding of why anyone wouldn’t want to use technology in their classroom. Needless to say, this attitude often led to pushback by teachers and tears by me. It led to relationships that were strained.

I’m now at a place where I start my first day of the “Technology and Learning” course with preservice teachers by asking them to physically go and stand under the sign that best aligns with who they are as an educator at that moment. The signs include “I’m excited about using technology in the classroom,” “I’m hesitantly open to using technology in the classroom,” “I’m nervous about using technology in the classroom,” “I would prefer not to use technology in the classroom.”

After students stand under the signs I explain that my goal is to move everyone to at least one level up by the end of the semester if they aren’t already ready to hit the ground running. I realize the value of meeting teachers where they are, listening to their concerns and insecurities, and creating a culture of support that makes them feel both ready to try new things and not fear failure.

The truth is, I’ve probably grown more than any teacher I’ve ever helped because I no longer feel the need to convince teachers into using tech. By the end of the semester, the pros and cons of technology integration have been laid out, concrete suggestions on how to integrate well have been shared, technology integration frameworks have been taught, and resources for where to look for quality tools have been suggested. But the biggest gift I give to educators now are the words, “not every lesson should include technology.” For some teachers it feels like a breath of fresh air to hear those words…and I mean them.

And yet when I hear closed minded educators, especially those in leadership positions, poo poo the value of technology in the classroom, my insides start to boil a bit. I work very hard to not internalize those statements and feel like I’ve failed the person by not convincing them of their closed minded misunderstanding of purposeful technology integrations. Today as I was checking my LinkedIn page, I saw one of those names from that conference all those years ago. I found myself wondering how his school responded to the shutdown of 2020. I found myself wondering if his attitude has changed or is it even more confirmed because the teachers he led didn’t use technology well in the midst of reactionary education of 2020.

Here is what I know about 14 years of watching mobile technology impact classrooms:

• Most teachers still don’t know how to integrate technology well, and it’s not their fault. Technology happened TO education, not WITH it.
• We are just now at a place where we can see the ramifications of good versus poor tech integration.
• Technology integration cannot be ignored. It’s interesting to see how some university teacher prep programs have actually pulled tech courses out of the curriculum. It seems to align with how less districts seem to have fewer technology support staff in place. It is as if it should be intuitive to educators and they don’t need training. I submit nothing could be further from the case.
• If we want technology to truly have a transformational impact on teaching and learning we must be intentional in its use with students. When I ask my preservice teachers what scares them the most about tech integration, the overwhelming majority say “off task behavior.” When I ask my masters level students, who are already in the classroom, the same question the answer is “off task behavior.” Most often we see technology serving as a substitute for what a pencil and a book could do. Until we start rethinking lesson plans and embracing the possibilities of the technology in our hands, we limit it to just a baby sitter or a substitute with a tad bit more efficiencies.
• We have a responsibility to prepare students for their futures. It will include the acceptable use of generative AI. We, as educators, must wrestle within ourselves, our schools, and our communities to decide what that looks like for our students. How do we hold on to the purist forms of education that have been relevant since the Roman Empire but yet still meet the needs of students living in a world of ubiquitous informational access?

I see private, charter, and public schools currently trying to find their niche in their communities. From classical schools, to forest schools, to schools that push arts, STEM, or foreign languages, there is now a push to make schools more personalized for student personalities. Yet the one thing that could make that happen with the least path of resistance is the intentional use of technology to support personalized learning. An educator will have the ability to ask AI to “create an assignment for a second grader using these 12 vocabulary words. Assume Lexile reading level 420L. Personalize the assignment by making the topic about cats.” Then with a few adjustments and redirections of said AI the teacher can print off the assignment or share it via Google classroom or another learning management system. The teacher can then go in and say “now rewrite the assignment for Lexile reading level 650L and make the topic about football.” While you don’t want to do this for every assignment you create, personalizing learning creates engagement. Engagement leads to academic success (Delfino, 2019). We are on the cusp of something possibly mind blowing and this latest innovation of the creation of AI gives educators the chance to rethink classroom integration in new ways.

Every day I see more educational technology companies working towards creating AI platforms that can be used by k12 students. It has never been a more important time for teachers and administrators to decide proactively what the future of education looks like for their classrooms.

Delfino, Armando P.

Asian Journal of University Education, v15 n1 Jun 2019