If a teacher shouts to a classroom full of students all using their cellphones, are any of them paying enough attention to hear it? This might be the new “if tree falls in the forest”-style question of our times. Or it might just be a pithy-sounding way to begin this blog post. Either way, it’s time to talk about the role of technology in classroom!

When I say “technology in the classroom”, I should probably specify “digital technology” or “the internet”, because we’ve been using forms of technology in the classroom since classrooms have existed. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica dictionary, “technology” is defined as “the use of science in industry, engineering, etc., to invent useful things or to solve problems” and the things created as a result. Technology is anything we’ve invented that’s useful somehow. Pencils are technology. Pants are technology. Cow tools are probably technology, although we humans are not privy to knowing their specific use.

Cow Tools, a 1982 cartoon from The Far Side by Gary Larson. Image via Wikimedia Commons under fair use.

My point is, technology is a broad category and we should probably all be on the same page about what we’re referring to when we have discussions about “technology in the classroom”.
What we’re really talking about in this class is digital technology. Digital Child defines digital technology as “tools, systems and devices that can generate, create, store or process data. The data processing and logic capabilities of digital technologies are enabled through microprocesses that are programmed to perform various functions”. This is still frustratingly kind of broad. Give me examples, internet! Oh hey – it just did! The internet is digital technology. So are computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. There we go.

Now that we’ve agreed on what we’re talking about, let’s talk about it. We’re past the point of wondering if digital technology should be present in education – what we need to be asking instead is how digital technology should be present in education. Because it’s here whether we like it or not, both its benefits and its harms.

It’s interesting how the same technology can be applied in both great and absolutely terrible ways in the classroom. Let’s take VR headsets, for example. Here’s a video from CBC showing how VR can be utilized as a tool to enhance in-person education experiences: petting woolly mammoths! Exploring space! Fun stuff!

And then there’s this article from the New Yorker talking about how a charter school in Florida that’s replaced not just a real classroom, but even face-to-face digital learning with the Metaverse. Describing a 10 year old student’s day:

“She wears the headset on and off for about three hours, removing it to read a book, eat a sandwich, and hot-glue some sort of tinfoil art. Her classmates are scattered across different towns, and her teachers live all over the country. In the video, the little girl doesn’t have a single in-person interaction.”

This sounds…not great? Maybe even kind of bad? Or really bad? I don’t know. What do you think?