Back in August of 2020, I wrote a blog post called “Beware the Pendulum Swing” where I talked about my fears that the after-effects of so many teachers having to use technology for teaching and learning without the right training and support, was going to lead to a pendulum swing effect away from using any technology in teaching and learning. I hate to say that my fears are coming true as I see so many people advocating for abandoning technology in the classroom despite the benefits it can provide so many learners.

There is a desire to move to only analog, offline activities for all students even though we have seen so many benefits over the last couple of decades when technology was used effectively with students. The key word is “effectively” as we have seen a lot of ineffective usage over the last couple of years. Effective use of technology is when the technology is there to assist the learning process and not become the focus. Effective use of technology is when we are giving students access to digital resources that they can use accessibility tools with in order to help them better read or interact with the information. Effective use of technology is when we help students who have high social anxiety be able to interact in the classroom in ways that they would not have been able to in the past. Effective use of technology allows students to create with what they are learning in the classroom and be able to share it beyond just the teacher. Effective use of technology allows students to move at different paces than each other and not just play a game of follow the leader (teacher). Ineffective technology use is when you use the technology to babysit students or you replicate ineffective pedagogy but just using digtital tools (for example digital worksheets that focus only on low level learning).

With ISTE just around the corner, I feel that many educators who focus on edtech are not going to do anything to slow down this movement with the number of social media posts that will be focused on just the tools and all of the new, shiny features. Instead, I beg that we focus on only talking about the skills and learning experiences we can bring to students, with the tool being mentioned last. I do not use technology with students because of how great the tech is, but because I want to do certain things that have been shown to have a high impact on student learning. I want students to collaborate, to create, to use critical thinking skills, to communicate with others and to be able to share their ideas, to access resources that help them overcome learning barriers.

The tools that I favor the most are the ones that allow me to do those things that I want to do for and with students. They allow me to create learning experiences for students that were not possible before, to allow them to have more control over their learning, and to be able to be more successful than they could have been in a traditional classroom. I have learned also that technology tools will come and go, that you can’t get too attached to any one tool, that you need to date technology and not marry it. The tools have changed for me over the last two decades but the skills and learning experiences are still what I focus on.

So if you are going to be at ISTE this year and sharing post after post on social media, make sure you are focusing on the skills and experiences we want for students. If you only talk about the tools, you are going to only help those that are trying to move to an educational experience found 40 years ago instead of one that we can create today. There needs to be a focus on what we can do for students instead of what is easiest to implement or control. Focus on what is possible when we use technology effectively to create learning experiences for students that allows them to be more successful at learning than ever before, and then mention the tool only if you have any characters left to type.