Obstacles and Suggested Solutions for Integrating Technology Into the Content Area

Technology is an effective tool to enhance the learning that happens in educational content areas such as foreign languages. Widespread adoption, however, is blunted by several obstacles that prevent technology from being as potent as it could otherwise be. These obstacles include lack of technical mastery, the inadequacy of teacher professional development, the shortcomings of infrastructure support, and teachers’ own perceptions of technology strengths and weaknesses.

By far the largest obstacle in the path of a foreign language teacher is teachers’ lack of experience and knowledge in utilizing technology and their incapability to understand its abilities” (Taghizadeh & Hasani Yourdshahi, 2020, p. 983). Teachers have studied teaching techniques, curriculum design, effective discipline, and possess the linguistic knowledge to impart a new language to students. However, unless personally inclined, most teachers have not studied technological tools in depth. They have learned how to use technology through professional development workshops and conferences, through watching peers adopt some of these technologies, and through using technologies in their own personal lives. They have not developed the theoretical and practical underpinnings that would support the deployment of various technologies in the classroom. For most teachers, “the focus is on the practical utilization of certain software rather than considering the pedagogical aspects of utilizing the software for teaching” (Taghizadeh & Hasani Yourdshahi, 2020, p. 986). Teachers can adopt an app or a website to use with their students, but if they do not feel confident in using that tool due to lack of experience or understanding, the relative advantage is nullified by poor implementation. A solution to this problem is to provide constant opportunities for professional development. Events like teacher days should include a technological component. Staff meetings could contribute 10 minutes to a short tech segment by a practitioner in the building showcasing what they do. The tech department can create multiple tech shorts that teach a specific concept or idea in two minutes or less. After school workshops can be offered, and so can attendance to conferences like the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference. Encourage teachers who successfully integrate technology to present what they do. It may not directly translate to another class, but the spark might ignite a different way of using the tool.

The second obstacle relates closely to the first, and that is the inadequacy of teacher professional development when it comes time to use technology. Districts are very good at providing technology tools to improve student achievement. They are not as good at providing the time and the knowledge necessary to master the tools themselves: “In order to support teachers to use technology, professional development programs must be offered to teachers to help them understand the relation between the academic information about the use of computers and the use of computers in various contexts” (Taghizadeh & Hasani Yourdshahi, 2020, p. 986). For example, a French teacher initiated the purchase of an electronic textbook for their French III class. In conversation in mid September, that teacher admitted they had not yet used the textbook because they didn’t know what to do with it. The tech department had rostered the textbook, ensured that all students had access to it and could indeed access it, but we had not done the extra step of ensuring that the teacher felt comfortable with their new tool. After all, our thinking was that if they selected the tool they knew how to use it. We now build in required training time for teachers who wish to adopt a new app or an electronic textbook, so that they (and us) understand the capabilities they have to transform their content and improve student achievement. Any new technology tool being used should come with support from the tech department and with extensive training for teachers on best practices for using this tool.

A third obstacle is the shortcoming of the infrastructure provided. The effective use of technology requires a robust network that carries reliable connections accessible throughout the district (Taghizadeh & Hasani Yourdshahi, 2020, p. 985). It also needs devices that can support the learning and handle the desired tools. A foreign language teacher may wish to do a project using Google Earth, but if the school computers cannot support that software, the teacher will find themselves stymied. Similarly, many schools experienced underwhelming capacity on their Internet connection during Covid. It is essential for teachers seeking to integrate technology in their content area to check and see if the district infrastructure can support a new tool.

Finally, a fourth obstacle to effective integration of technology within content areas is teachers’ own perceptions of their technology strengths and weaknesses, including “their style of teaching, their utilization of computers for purposes other than teaching, … [and] the school culture” (Taghizadeh & Hasani Yourdshahi, 2020, p. 985). Many teachers are not comfortable using technology, and this reflects in the choices they make in their classrooms. Others perceive their lack of experience with a specific technology as a challenge to learn more and figure out how best to use it in the classroom. Institutions can discourage the use of technology in content areas by blocking specific sites or applying blanket policies that limit the use of innovative and emergent tools. Teachers working in such a culture may decide that the difficulties of effecting a positive change outweigh any relative advantage they would derive in implementing new technologies in their curriculum.

Of course, technology is not all obstacles. There are several relative advantages to using technology to enhance content area learning, and these are reviewed in this blog post. While these four issues persist, however, it may prove difficult for teachers to adopt new technologies in their content areas.

References

Taghizadeh, M., & Hasani Yourdshahi, Z. (2020). Integrating technology into young learners’ classes: language teachers’ perceptions. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 33(8), 982–1006. https://doi-org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/10.1080/09588221.2019.1618876

Relative Advantage of Using the Basic Suite for Learning

I first chuckled when I read this week’s blog post requirement, which was to provide a rationale for students and/or educators to use basic suite applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation tools. I had not realized there were students, and, more importantly, teachers, who did not use any of these tools. Then I wondered. Since the question is being asked, perhaps the individual who doesn’t know the power and relative advantage that the basic suite provides is not as endangered as I thought. What would they rather use? Pen and paper? Chalk? Cuneiform tablets? Finger paints? Basic suites save time and increase the efficiency of distributing information. There are some issues of privacy when using the online capabilities of basic suite tools such as Google Workspace, where “Google appeals to educators with well-designed technology and to cash-strapped districts with affordable prices on the front end, but they then collect and extract information from students and educators on the back end” (Krutka et al, 2021), as a recent filing in federal court case, New Mexico v. Google alleges, but overall basic suites are in fact close to some of the simplest and safest software running on a device.

In my work environment, there are three basic suites being used at the same time. We offer the Mac and iOS suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes for staff and students. We offer Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to staff. We also offer Google Workspace for staff and students. From preference surveys done in the past, staff prefer Microsoft to Google by slim margins, with Apple far behind. Students prefer Google over Apple, but use iOS products for specific projects. Depending on the grade level students may not have mastered the basic suite, but even 1st grade students know how to start a Google Doc or a Pages document and use the dictation capability of their iOS device to use speech to text. Skills progressively increase until high school as our librarians and digital learning specialists help craft specific lessons and projects that promote their use. However, we still show tricks to seniors, and our optional staff training on basic suites are well attended.

One thing that has changed over the years is the training that new students bring with them. Even as recently as five years ago, we offered a training day in August for students enrolling in middle and high school so they gained experience in using basic suite tools, as well as how to effectively use an iPad and Schoology, our learning management system (LMS). It is now the rare middle or high schooler who doesn’t know how to use Word, Pages or Docs, how to operate a tablet, and how to use a LMS. As for staff, six or seven years ago the overwhelming majority of new hires who were recent graduates could use basic suite tools, but that was not necessarily true for more experienced teachers who were making the transition into our district. That too has changed, and we no longer provide basic suite training in our August New Staff Orientation. Many of our staff members in fact seek and obtain certifications, whether they be Google Educator Level 1 and Level 2, Apple Teacher, or Microsoft Office Associate

As far as the relative advantage, anyone old enough to remember having typed papers on a typewriter, filling out lesson plan templates by hand, or attempting to reconcile a checkbook appreciate the ability to instantly correct documents, use spellcheck and word count, receive grammatical suggestions, use formulas and functions to perform complex calculations, and use the thousands of features available in basic suite tools. Personal computers would have never gained a foothold in American houses without the availability of the basic suite, and while technology complexifies and constantly changes, the basic suite remains an anchor for the production of communication and information.  

References

Krutka, D.G., Smits, R.M. & Willhelm, T.A. (2021). Don’t be evil: Should we use Google in schools?. TechTrends. https://doi-org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/10.1007/s11528-021-00599-4

Future Trends

Despite being four years old, NMC/CoSN’s Horizon K-12 edition report of 2017 contains valuable information about the deployment and use of educational technology that remain relevant to educational experiences today. The report immediately notes that “technology alone cannot cultivate education transformation; better pedagogies and more inclusive education models are vital solutions, while digital tools and platforms are enablers and accelerators” (Freeman et al., 2017, p. 8). Technology is not a panacea for authentic and sustainable improvement in student achievement. In order to achieve such results, stakeholders “must be able to make connections between the tools and the intended outcomes, leveraging technology in creative ways that allow stakeholders to more intuitively adapt from one context to another” (Freeman et al., 2017, p. 9). 

The article mentions six technologies that will gain widespread acceptance in school communities over the five years following its publication in 2017. Of these, makerspace has really come into its own, especially in STEAM classes and in school libraries. Makerspace “has gained significant traction in mainstream education in part because the concept is often used as a catch-all for any hands-on experiences that place learners in the role of creators,” (Freeman et al., 2017, p. 40). Led by our two school librarians, our district deployed makerspaces in both the elementary and the middle/high school libraries, providing opportunities for students to come and complete projects and competitions, as well as design their own challenges for other students. 

In my previous role as school librarian, I aimed to make the library the heart of technology use. I attended every professional development opportunity I could find on Google, Schoology, and iPads. In collaboration with the Director of Technology and the curriculum team, I provided workshops for teachers and students on adopting technology and its best practices. I supported efforts to increase effective technology integration with teachers, and introduced several resources, such as Kahoot! and EasyBib that were later adopted district-wide. As Freeman et al. point out, library media centers and learning commons “are also at the nexus for rethinking learning spaces because they are the largest yet often least-utilized spaces. Experiential learning through robotics, 3D printing, and virtual reality often occurs in the library media centers, requiring the purging of some reference items to create more room for these activities” (2017, p. 18). I eliminated an entire shelving section in the library to make room for makerspace, and we suddenly noticed a spike in library usage. I collaborated with teachers to create activities for whole classes, as well as offering individual after school challenges. 

Robotics is also an area that has become commonplace in schools. In partnership with First, one enterprising math teacher began offering a Lego robotics club in 2017 that aimed to solve a specific problem with ingenuity and Lego pieces. Though it attracted two handfuls of students its first year, it soon grew to needing three teachers, and, prior to Covid, some of our students participated in regional challenges. We had similar engagement with Minecraft and Code.org clubs. 

We have recently begun deploying data analytics, or the ability to “analyze and identify previously undetected patterns,” (Freeman et al., 2017, p. 44). The data contained in PowerSchool, our student information system, allows us to extract information that can identify very specific groups of students. After ten years of a declining drop-out rate, we have seen an uptick in the last two years. Using data analytics, we cross-referenced all data points on student dropouts for the last fifteen years, including grades, attendance, disciplinary issues, counseling services, medical issues, special education or 504 identification, length of time for receiving services, length of time in the district, multiple entries and exits from the district, ethnicity, gender, and other data points. Data analytics revealed that our dropouts are in majority male, have received between 3 and 7 years of special education services, have been in the district an average of 9 years, and had irregular attendance, with the average dropout cohort of 3 students representing an average of 35% of all absences for their graduating class over the previous 8 years. Prior to big data, it would have been time-consuming and required much labor to achieve these results. Data analytics have allowed us to target a specific population with intervention strategies at a much earlier stage, and we expect to see a gradual decline in our dropout rate in the next few years, followed by a more precipitous decline in 3 to 5 years, with the ultimate goal of reaching 100% graduation rate, something we attained twice in the last ten years. 

Despite predictions that virtual reality would become widespread in three to five years (Freeman et al., 2017, p. 46), it remains uncommon in most schools. Our district has not adopted virtual reality, mainly due to the cost of the infrastructure required to run it when compared to the impact on the curriculum and student achievement that it would be expected to have. As more applications are developed and as the price of hardware and software solutions providing virtual reality drop in price, I fully expect that within the next five years it will move beyond the novelty stage in our district, and within ten years be widely adopted. I have seen some amazing virtual expeditions, and can see the value of consulting books equipped with virtual reality, but until more studies demonstrate an impact on student achievement, it will remain a hard sale, considering the cost and the professional learning that will need to occur to effectively deploy virtual reality. 

Finally, artificial intelligence has percolated down to schools in surprising ways. Computer systems that deploy artificial intelligence “accomplish tasks and make decisions based on inferences drawn from machine learning or from consumption and processing of massive data sets” (Freeman et al., 2017, p. 48). Opaque algorithms and ethical issues continue to plague the use of artificial intelligence, but there are usages that are already providing benefits to our school district. Our Internet filter, iBoss, uses artificial intelligence to identify sites we access frequently, and discern patterns of student usage during the school day and beyond. Sites that become suddenly popular, such as game sites or proxies that were misidentified by our filter, are flagged for manual review and can then be blocked. Our network infrastructure, Extreme Networks, also has some artificial intelligence capabilities, identifying times where excessive demands are made on access points and rerouting traffic to alleviate some of the resulting signal conflict issues. The artificial intelligence built in SonicWall identifies intrusion attempts and attacks in real time, taking countermeasures and sending alerts to school officials. The use of artificial intelligence in other aspects of our educational experience remains limited, but I expect more systems, including our student information system, to adopt some form of artificial intelligence that will identify patterns and report suggestions for improvement. 

One of the technologies that was simply not mentioned in the report was video conferencing. Like most school districts, my school district is filled with committees and meetings. It was simply unthinkable not to have committees examine issues and propose possible changes to the administrative team. The pandemic upended this model, and over the course of sixteen months we have seen the power of having less committees and less meetings. Of the committees that remain, attention has been more focused and meetings have been shortened. Virtual meetings are now the norm, even if we are in the same building. Special education offered meetings to parents during the school day, and these parents needed to take the time off work to come in and participate. Virtual meetings can now be held in the evening, and everyone is comfortable with the idea. Bells have disappeared. The administrative team was adamant in the past that students needed the signals provided by the bells to move from one place to the other. Pandemic short-circuited that idea, and we have realized that both teachers and students are responsible enough in middle and high school to move at the appropriate times without a reminder that it is time to do so. We now stream our athletic and scholar events, for parents who are not able to attend in person. We’ve implemented outdoor time in all classes, something that the administrative team frowned upon prior to the pandemic. I pat myself on the back for having purchased several Zoom licenses in the spring of 2019, to provide Special Educators the ability to connect parents who were unable to attend in person meetings. We provided professional development to special educators, and this suddenly became very handy at the beginning of March when we purchased a district-wide license, arranged impromptu trainings by our special educators on how to run a Zoom and the best practices they had learned, and implemented a software client rollout on all iPads and staff devices in one week, right before we went virtual for the rest of the school year. I looked like a genius for having pushed this issue back in 2019! 

Technology continues to evolve, and schools will always be behind the curve, trying to catch the next wave as it has already washed over us. Yet it is imperative that we continue to adopt and deploy the technology that will improve student achievement, as well as provide opportunities to develop creative and digitally responsible citizens who can tackle the big problems that are already affecting our world. 

References 

Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., and Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). NMC/CoSN horizon report: 2017 K–12 edition. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium.

Vision and Mission Statement

Educational technology has always existed, but its prevalence in schools has increased exponentially in the last thirty years or so. From transforming a stick into a tool to draw in the dirt to Roman wax tablets, from the creation of paper to the printing press, from the quill and feather to the graphite pencil, technology has been used in education since time immemorial. What is different from the eras that came before us now is the global and instantaneous reach of technology, its ability to deliver information anywhere at anytime, and the facility it provides to quickly and efficiently create and distribute knowledge throughout the world. Technology is only a tool. It can help, or it can hurt. An important question to ask is how is it used in education. A more important question is why is it used in education. 

Driven by both objectivist and constructivist theories of learning, educational technologies adopt elements of both. The acquisition of hard facts, like math fluency in elementary grades or chemical equations in high school can readily be accomplished in direct methods imparting knowledge such as behaviorist-inspired drills. The creation and deployment of information, on the other hand, is better accomplished through the constructivist building of “both mechanisms for learning and that person’s own unique version of the knowledge informed by background, experiences, and aptitudes” (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, p. 37). Effective educational technologies combine elements of both approaches. 

Technology has transformed the classroom. Overnight, the pandemic sent students and teachers home for what was supposed to be a short period. Suddenly the classroom was thrusted into the virtual world, and tools that have existed for a decade or more became essential, alongside newer arrivals. Teachers who were pioneers of technology integration found themselves innovating yet again in uncharted waters. Teachers who were reluctant to embrace technology found they had to jump in the same waters. Educational technologies were validated through trial by fire, and the way schools did business in February 2020 have been upended for the better. 

Educational technologies possess the power to fundamentally transform the relationship of teachers and students away from one of teachers imparting knowledge to students to one where the students are “active agents in their own learning” (Romano, 2020-present). Educational technologies are inclusive. They allow all students to learn at their own pace and to acquire both a basic skill set shared by everyone, along with more specialized skills driven by a student’s passions and interests. Educational technologies provide “channels for helping teachers communicate better with students—ways of making their instructional relationships more meaningful and productive” (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019, p. v). They facilitate the shift from consumer of information to creator of knowledge. Ultimately, they unleash the passions that motivate our students to continuously learn. 

For teachers, administrators, and parents, this means we need to “redesign the work and the roles of the learner and educator to tap the potential of our new technologies” (November, 2017). We must create more flexible models of learning. We must empower our students to own their learning: “Only when children learn what they want to learn and begin to take the responsibility for learning and living can they stay truly engaged” (Zhao, 2012, p. 171). By themselves, educational technologies are the new shiny objects we continue to chase after, one more puzzle piece that will facilitate a task or improve an aspect of teaching and learning. That’s the answer to the how question in the first paragraph. We need to figure out how all the puzzle pieces fit together to form a new picture. We need to understand how educational technologies work together with teachers and students to solve problems, but more than that, to create new ways to engage and promote students’ ownership of the learning in authentic contexts. That’s the why of the first paragraph, and that’s the most important question to ask of educational technologies. 

References 

November, A. (2017, Jan 23). Crafting a vision for empowered learning and teaching: Beyond the $1,000 pencil. November Learning. https://novemberlearning.com/article/crafting-vision-empowered-learning-teaching-beyond-1000-pencil/

 Roblyer, M.D., & Hughes, J.E. (2019). Integrating educational technology into teaching (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. 

Romano, R. (Host). (2020-present. The CoSN Podcast [Audio podcast]. MindRocket Media Group. https://cosn.org/podcast 

Zhao, Y. (2012). World class learners: Educating creative and entrepreneurial students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.