Education is often filled with strategies and tactics that come and go. This pendulum swing helps maintain a balance in instructional practices. In one area of education, educational technology (edtech), the pendulum has been swinging more aggressively. Even before the COVID-19 lockdown, edtech has been taking hold of classrooms. Most of the time, this results in positive outcomes, and the teachers who find these outcomes strike a careful balance with these tools. This blog will highlight the side effects of not striking a careful balance with edtech in your schools and how to attain positive technology usage.
The Brain Burden Put on Educators
Educators have countless things on their plate to take care of each day, spanning from lesson planning and delivery to answering peer emails. Recent studies have shed light on the impact this has on teachers’ cognitive load. As they navigate this maze of edtech, they are finding themselves trapped in deciding which options to choose, how often to use them, and the time it takes to embed this into their classroom.
Key challenges include:
- The majority of teachers feel overwhelmed with the quantity of edtech tools they are expected to use.
- Teachers already lack time outside of teaching. Most teachers spend 5 hours planning for instructional time.
- The stress teachers feel impacts how students perform. Research indicates that teacher stress negatively affects the quality of instruction and classroom environment.
The EdTech Challenge
One of the leading causes of teacher frustration with edtech is the lack of integration between tools. Tech fragmentation has emerged as one of the most impactful pain points for schools today. Schools enlist multiple tools to solve many problems but find the lack of connection between them leads to using each tool less effectively.
Tech fragmentation has many consequences, each of which should not be overlooked:
- Data critical for making sound instructional decisions is often hard to gather.
- Multiple tools mean multiple interfaces to learn or teach to students.
- The onboarding process takes up precious teaching time.
- The ultimate consequence is an overwhelming lack of usage stemming from frustration.
Many teachers ultimately put technology aside simply because it is easier than trying to manage the wave of tools at their disposal.
Achieving Tech Integration Efficiency
Reaching the point where positive technology usage improves the daily lives of students, teachers, and families is not an easy task. Schools need to rethink their approach to technology, carefully balancing why they are choosing to adopt tools and measuring the impact on the integrated school system.
Strategies for effective technology integration include:
- Conduct regular audits to identify tools making a strong impact and understand the process behind this positive impact.
- Prioritize tools that serve multiple use cases.
- Develop a strategic and achievable technology integration plan.
- Embed feedback from classrooms and students to ensure a positive path forward.
- Invest in training, either by empowering in-house experts or bringing in third-party support.
- Create checks and balances when choosing new tools, ensuring educators have a seat at the table during purchasing decisions.
Leading a Tech-Balanced School
The future of educational technology is about balance and streamlined solutions. As leaders, you have the power to ensure your school travels down a path of positive technology usage and strong connections. Take advantage of the advice here to remove the hidden costs of technology misuse.
Carve a path forward to create digital innovators from the very start of students’ educational journeys. Be the change agent that ensures technology is a tool used to amplify students’ potential and not a barrier that obscures it.
