Bruce Friend is the director of SAS Curriculum Pathways, an award-winning online resource for students and teachers in high schools, community colleges, virtual schools and home settings. Available at no cost to U.S. educators, SAS Curriculum Pathways provides content in the core disciplines of English, mathematics, social studies, science and Spanish for grades 8-14. Aligned with state standards, its more than 200 InterActivities and 600 ready-to-use lessons apply technology-rich instruction to engage higher-order thinking skills. Friend ensures that SAS Curriculum Pathways program aligns with SAS Institute’s vision for providing high-quality and engaging online content resources to teachers and students.
My job allows me to travel around the country visiting different schools and speaking to teachers and students about their use of technology in the classroom.
What I hear and see concerns me.
The “technology” I see being utilized as part of instruction in traditional brick and mortar classrooms amounts to little more than the chalkboard being replaced by a PowerPoint presentation. PowerPoint for classroom teaching can be useful but it exemplifies that classrooms are doing little more then scratching the surface of what is possible by taking advantage of technology. If we are just scratching the surface, our children will not be competitive in the 21st century’s global economy.
Computers have been in American classrooms for two decades, but many sit unused or operate with out-of-date software. Even in schools with very good computer-to-student ratios there is no guarantee that the teachers are adequately prepared to change the way they have been delivering instruction since the day they earned their teaching credentials.
No disciplines rely on computers more than STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. If we are to excite students about those subjects, computers and interactive curriculum must be prevalent. Students need to become more engaged in learning by running virtual experiments, collaborating on math problems, assembling and taking apart molecules, and actively solving other problems. Technology-enabled interactivity is the key to keeping them interested in difficult subject matter, but it is surprisingly hard to find these days.
Two recent sessions that I have had with middle and high school students provided very clear examples of the above. I met with a small group of students and their teachers, and the students discussed being dismayed that they were not allowed to bring laptops to class even for the purpose of taking notes. Granted there are concerns about having students use personal computers and connecting them to a school network; however in this case, the students merely wanted to use their laptops for note-taking purposes. As one student stated, “What I do in school is copy notes from the board. When I get home, I transcribe them into a digital format so that I can actually use the information for learning purposes. Seems rather unnecessary.”
In another example, a student used his Smartphone to illustrate a disconnect in how such technologies can be used for educational purposes. With a bit of dramatic flair, the student took his Smartphone off of his belt and held it up asking the adults in the room what they saw. To a person, all of the teachers stated that it was “a phone.”
“Precisely my point,” the student declared. “You see a phone when in reality this is my computer. This is my connection to information.” He then went on to share how a teacher recently scolded him for “having his phone out in class” when he was using it to learn more about the topic that the teacher had been discussing in class because he was interested in the lesson. He was essentially asked to leave technology at the classroom door.
Another meeting I had with a group of 18 middle school students on a career day was equally telling. I asked them the standard “what is your favorite class” question that seems to be a staple of such events. The response I received ranged from physical education., band, web design/computer class, etc. Not a single student responded with math, science, English, or social studies. As I asked follow up questions it became apparent why the students identified the classes that they did. Being actively engaged in the learning process is core to those courses. P.E., band, and a computer class are not passive experiences. They could not say this about their other classes.
We can debate why technology is not more fully integrated into traditional classrooms (i.e. lack of teacher professional development, administrative commitment, pre-service preparation, and yes, funding), but what we really need to do is change it. And change it now. The term “digital divide” is taking on meaning beyond the traditional reference to those who do not have access to technology. There continues to be a growing divide that exists between today’s students and their use of technology in every aspect of their lives (including the desire for learning) and how technology is really being used in many classrooms.
The use of technology to assess performance and individual needs; instruct students inspire their curiosity and creativity; to expand when and where learning takes place; and to engage parents can allow us to fundamentally change what “school” is – for the better.