The pandemic showed how important technology is when it comes to education. As time passes, more and more technology is introduced to teachers and students.
Melissa Loble, Chief Academic Officer at Instructure, discusses the recent report that Instructure released about digital tool use in education and the importance of vetting the technology we put into our schools to even out how many educational tools teachers and students use.
Loble will be a presenter at Tech & Learning’s upcoming EdExec Summit, the three-day networking conference dedicated to the business of education taking place Sep 11-13 at the Chateau Elan Winery & Resort outside of Atlanta. She will be presenting “Ensuring Interoperability: Your Key to Business Success” and “Developing Efficacy-Based Research.”
The Upward Trend of Technology Use
Using technology in the classroom is not a new concept. However, since the pandemic kept teachers and students out of the classroom and in their homes, staying connected through digital means of communication has been very important. With the pandemic came new tools of all sorts, but will the innovation and output of technology continue at the same level, or will it even out at some point?
“I think there’s two pieces to it,” says Loble. “There’s one piece that is really interesting and we highlight this in the report. The number of tools that teachers and students are using continues to go up, which surprised us a little bit. We expected it to go up through Covid because people were transforming the way they were teaching to bring it into the home. But now this increase shows they’re looking for the right technologies even as we’re all back in the classroom. But we do predict that this will flatten out in the next couple of years.”
What are the reasons that the technology boom will level off in the near future?
“People are not going to have extra dollars that they can invest in experimenting with new technologies,” she says, noting that the focus will shift to what’s best for teachers and students. “In our report we talked about how educators are using 49 tools on average during the school year. That is a lot of different technology tools that a teacher needs to be able to know how to use and use well. So I think we’re going to see districts in particular have teachers flattening out the number tools they use.”
How Do We Find Common Ground for Our Educational Tools?
Using digital tools in the classroom can produce a great environment for both teachers and students. Having a set group of tools can breed consistency in a curriculum and make things easier for everyone. But how do we introduce new tech into an established ecosystem? Or should we just stick with what we have?
“There is a happy medium that can come into play with a bit more centralized control around [selecting technology for use in the classroom],” Loble says. “I don’t mean necessarily only the district can choose and teachers can’t go and start to try to use different tools, but I mean more about centralizing access to what tools are available that are safe, secure and efficacious. We know they’re working in their particular environments. Giving teachers a starting point, a list where they can start [might help].”
So how do we deal with tools that teachers may favor but are not approved for use? Can teachers have a say in tools that are approved?
“I would encourage teachers to do two things,” Loble says. “One is to contribute to those tools, contribute to that collection, because a good collection of those [tools] should have a process where a teacher can nominate a tool to be part of that collection and can share why it should be nominated. A teacher should be able to tell the district the tools they like to use [even if they are not on the established list] in order to know whether they can or should be used. Not every teacher is fully versed in accessibility or privacy.”
Is There an Ideal Way to Tackle AI in the Classroom?
With artificial intelligence permeating classroom technology at all levels, understanding the issues and concerns around AI-enabled tools is critical. For a teacher, how should these tools be assessed for educational purposes?
“I think there’s a fundamental set of values when you’re looking at AI and it’s ensuring the tools are safe,” Loble says. “There’s intentional use behind AI. We’re not just using AI for the sake of using AI. As long as it’s safe, intentional, and equitable, I think growing it in a mix is important, but also experimenting with it and seeing where these tools have the biggest impact on students [is also important]. We have to evolve both together, because our current structures for how we evaluate tools doesn’t incorporate all that we know about AI.”
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