Technology’s role in schools is under tremendous scrutiny.
Education Week’s recently published “Technology Counts” special report examines how districts are weighing the pressure—from parents, teachers, and advocates—to scale back tech use, at the same time they’re trying to protect what they see as its most beneficial applications.
Schools’ reliance on tech soared during the pandemic, a time when many of them by necessity moved to 1-to-1 computing programs. Those decisions, supercharged by billions of dollars in federal stimulus aid, put a device in the hands of nearly all students in most districts. School systems also poured money into myriad other tech tools and platforms designed to engage students and deliver academic content online.
Now, many families and educators are having a tech rethink.
Emerging research on the negative impact of student immersion in social media, and concerns about students becoming overly reliant on AI, have contributed to those anxieties.
A nationally representative online survey conducted in February and March by the EdWeek Research Center captured this sentiment.
It found that strong majorities of teachers and administrators in middle and high schools say that that the parents they’re in touch with believe the amount of time students spend with technology is too high.
The survey was conducted of 79 district leaders, 122 school leaders, and 395 teachers.
But with all the talk of a tech backlash, are schools actually moving aggressively to scale it back?
The answers to another question the EdWeek Research Center put forward on the same survey this year suggests the answer is no.
A strong majority of those surveyed, asked if their district had reduced investments in tech because of parental concerns, said they had not.
Richard Culatta, the CEO of ISTE+ASCD, a professional development organization that supports effective tech use in schools, has argued that educators should avoid falling into extremes, when weighing tech’s role.
Much of the rhetoric being put forward about tech misses the necessary context—namely, how it’s being used in individual schools and classrooms, said Culatta in an interview with Education Week Assistant Editor Alyson Klein.
“A lot of schools handed out devices far faster than they were preparing their teachers [to teach with them],” said Culatta, the former director of the office of ed tech during the Obama administration. (That office was closed by the second Trump administration).
The tech backlash, he said, “is what happens when you [don’t prepare teachers].”
So-called “techlash” is a major undercurrent at this year’ ISTE + ASCD conference, being held in Orlando, Fla.
Added Culatta: “What we don’t want to see is the really impactful, effective ways that technology is helping change students’ lives for the better be thrown out because some schools weren’t able to figure out how to keep kids from watching YouTube all day.”
