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How Much Edtech is Too Much?
How much technology is too much in today's classrooms? In Episode 2 of Edtech Explored, hosts Lauren Pozorski and Erin Werra explore the balance between meaningful innovation and digital overload in K-12 education. From classroom tools to student experience, join the conversation on what effective edtech really looks like.
Transcript
Lauren: What if we told you that many students spend more time looking at screens, than at each other, and that some states are considering limiting, or even banning certain types of edtech in school.
Lauren: Welcome to Edtech Explored, where we chat about all things edtech: what’s working, what’s not working, and what leaders need to know.
Erin: Hi, I’m Erin. I’ve been writing about edtech in schools for thirteen years. I have a lot of research to share with you today Lauren.
Lauren: And we’re excited to get your input. And I’m Lauren. I’ve been working in the edtech space for ten years, and today I’m going to be chatting with Erin about some of this research she’s done, and she’ll be sharing her insights she’s gathered over months and years of researching this topic.
Lauren: It makes me think of my time in school where it was, you know, the blackboards, eventually the whiteboards. With the blackboards, if you had eraser duty, you’d go outside and you’d clap the erasers, but you weren’t allowed to hit them on the building, which you know, because obviously we’d all want to hit them on the building to make smiley faces or something with chalk on the side of the building. But, you know, it just takes me back to those sorts of things. Or, when it would be a really exciting day and the TV would get rolled into the classroom and you’d know you get to watch something on the big TV on the TV stand.
Erin: Yeah, which was just a regular TV strapped to a cart.
Lauren: For sure. Yeah. Always with the straps ‘cause it can’t fall off.
Erin: Very impressive to students.
Lauren: Yes.
Erin: And that’s where, I think, the roots of this edtech movement started, is that we all remember how exciting that type of edtech was to be brought into the classroom when we are used to things like whiteboards and blackboards. And now, that’s archaic technology. You know, I can quote my nine year old kid saying, ‘Hey do you remember blackboards? You wrote on them with chalk and they sounded terrible with your nails on them?’ This is so archaic to them because now, that TV on the cart is on their Chromebook. That blackboard is a Smartboard or something that they are typing a response into and then it’s a receiver that their teacher can see all of it on a screen. And so, you really start to see the gulf between where edtech started out, and where edtech is today.
Lauren: That’s so funny, though, that your nine year old came to you with that. And it’s just like, that’s just how much it’s changed that kids now are like, ‘Do you, do you know what a blackboard is?’
Erin: Right.
Lauren: And you’re like do I? Yes.
Erin: Right. They want to get that over on us. Oh can you believe that this is where we came from? And it’s like yes, because this is where my education came from.
Lauren: Because it wasn’t that long ago.
Erin: Right. Right. Thirty years was not that long ago. The late 1900s was not that long ago. But if you would put those two classrooms side by side, they would look unrecognizable. There was one computer in a classroom at a ratio of 5.3 kids using this one computer. And so, with all of this edtech that is popping up in schools, it has increased over years. And so, educators are asking too, how much edtech is too much edtech. And when does it cross the line into between being a distraction for kids, and a burden for teachers. Are we at that point, or have we passed that point?
Erin: So we’re watching this envelope our schools and really kind of preparing for a tech counterrevolution. Backlash is starting. And so, the question that we have is, should we take edtech out of schools? Should we have less? And how does that work for students as they prepare and develop to work in a computer dominated and tech dominated world?
Lauren: It is crazy when you think about just how much has changed since you mentioned, you know, the late 1900s. We’re talking 25-ish years here, 30 years, and how much has changed from, you know, the single computer and the overhead projector to technology everywhere. And it was a lot of changed in a short amount of time, and now people are starting to look and go, did we go too far?
Erin: Schools across the nation are spending 30 billion dollars on edtech, as of 2024. And that number is expected to double by 2033. Which, again, is coming up real fast. So, this is a change that happened very quickly over schools, but we also know a lot about the impact that it had on schools and teachers. And research can tell us that it’s been tough. On teachers, especially.
Lauren: Early on, they didn’t have the data to show. They just had, the theories of, okay, this is gonna help. This is gonna be a good thing. But now there’s data. Some of it shows things help, some of it shows otherwise.
Erin: And, a real reason for that, is what researchers have called the optimistic consensus. The optimistic consensus essentially meant that by increasing tech in schools, it would democratize education. It would make education better for everyone. And, seeing an opportunity to do that in 1:1 technology, really makes sense on paper. When we see it in practice, that’s where things get a little bit murkier. And that’s when we get into situations where students are using median 72 apps in classrooms, up to 82 apps per student as they get older. And this was a study of Lightspeed Systems of over 100 schools. So, it’s a pretty solid number of schools, and it gives us a really good idea of what students are seeing. So, they’re seeing schools taking place on a screen. They’re seeing practice taking place on a screen. Of course, they have a teacher who they have a great relationship with hopefully and they love, and that adult is really really important, but I think the critics of edtech are worried about that device eclipsing that expert coach, and whether or not that’s healthy for kids.
Lauren: Those numbers you shared are very high.
Erin: Yeah.
Lauren: Seventy. What was it? Seventy-two-
Erin: Seventy-two is the median.
Lauren: Yeah. That’s wild. That’s so many apps and different programs that they are using on a daily basis.
Erin: Well, and that, now, I want to correct. Because it’s not necessarily the daily basis. This is all of them that they have access to.
Lauren: Sure, okay.
Erin: So, maybe they only use one app in gym class, for example. Which is crazy to even say, using apps in gym class, right? But daily use, kids are using about 9 apps daily. And I want to pause there and compare those two numbers. Because 72 is huge, 9 then sounds way more reasonable. But I want you to put yourself in the shoes of those students who are learning to read or reading to learn, and each of those transitions to a different app location is an opportunity for distraction. It's an opportunity to completely lose a kid's focus. And then I would also like you to multiply that by the whole classroom full of students. And then you start to see the picture of the challenge that educators have.
Lauren: For sure, that, yeah. Yeah, when you think of the, is the term attention residue, where you lose a little bit each time that you switch to a different task, so you're switching to a new application, and then you’re having to change and then, yeah, it’s technology. It’s meant to be addictive. It’s meant to be something that you kind of keep coming back to. But then balancing that as a kid, like you said, who’s learning, who’s learning how to be a kid, to you know, be in a classroom and interact with other people, and learning to read, like you said. All these different things. It’s just a lot.
Erin: So then, it really is no surprise that students are spending more time looking at screens than each other. We’re also finding that current kindergarteners are not talking as much to each other as other kindergarteners have been. And it’s this emphasis on, we have this edtech, we’ve paid for this edtech, they better be using this edtech. And so, that’s really what’s raising those flags for educators who have watched this ebb and flow of technology.
Lauren: So those are some of the drawbacks and the negative things that they’re starting to see in classrooms. But there’s obviously still a lot of people who think edtech in classrooms, it is a good thing. And there are benefits to having edtech in classrooms. There’s benefits to having the 1:1 devices. What’s the positive? Why would we want to keep edtech in classrooms?
Erin: Absolutely. So, one of the major reasons is that we saw students really enjoying that. So, while it presents a little bit of a challenge to teachers, students are very engaged with education technology. With devices. Things like gamification. And, you know, students, they want to be little adults. And so they see technology being used. And so, it is something that really helps them feel comfortable with these tools that they are going to be using in future careers. The next thing that I would love to bring up is, we just went through a global pandemic. We had to be really nimble and agile to get education to students when we weren’t able to get together. And it wasn’t perfect. And it was heroic. It was an emergency situation, and this 1:1 technology helped schools to be agile and to pivot and to make school happen for kids and educators. That was terrific. And so we’ve seen how education technology can be, that optimistic consensus is there. We’ve seen how education technology democratizes access to education, even when things like geography are standing in the way. Transportation issues. These are things that are barriers to students attending school that end up in situations that equal chronic absenteeism, missing 10 percent or more of school. And that really matters to get education to students where they are.
Lauren: So, does it have to be one or the other? Does it have to be yes, we’re all in on edtech, one to one devices, lots of technology in the classroom. Or, no we’re cutting it out we’re going screen free. Or, are districts trying to find more of that middle ground.
Erin: Well, right now, we’re in the early stages of identifying a problem, so that’s pretty much all we’ve done, is identify that, hey, this might be a little bit too much. And so the kneejerk right now is to go back to paper and pencil. I mean, that’s all we had, right? So like, that’s all anybody needs. And there’s that sounds good again on paper. Um, but in practice, you know, we know that students need these skills. So, it will be, a learning curve. It will be a period of transition where we try to figure out what is appropriate? What is excess?
Erin: Something else that I think is missing from this discourse is research that we have about how teachers felt as edtech was implemented in classrooms widely. And, so, we do have meta-analysis of research from fifteen years of studies of edtech in schools. Between 2005 and 2019, teachers from all over the globe reported, 50% named a lack of training and knowledge in what was making them feel uncomfortable with their edtech in schools. Another 25% named the constant push for innovation. Which, hey, if there’s one thing about K-12 schools, we’re always trying to do it better, which is a great problem to have. But that puts a lot of pressure on our educators. 18 and some change percent named the pressured to be constantly using these technologies. So, you know, teachers get into this catch 22 situation that when they’re being evaluated, if their leadership doesn’t see them using education technology, that will raise a question. And it raises a question of engagement. You know, these kids want to be on devices. Why are we not using them? We’ve invested so heavily in them. You know, but at the same time, teachers get feedback from parents saying hey my kid has got too much screentime, so I can’t do homework. So, they’re in the middle. They’re in the middle. And so then, there’s still six and a quarter percent, who, at that time, also reported just hey I’m just not comfortable on technology. And that’s still there too because in some cases, these are the same educators who were working on tools like overhead projectors, and now they’re doing tech support for 26 kids on Chromebooks. That’s a huge gulf.
Lauren: For sure. That is not something they saw coming 26 years ago.
Erin: Yes. Yes.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. So we’ve definitely been a little down on edtech today. We’re talking about, you know, the drawbacks of it. We obviously work in edtech. How can we as edtech vendors be creating and putting edtech out there that is helping students and teachers get where they want to go, not adding to their burden? Because technology isn’t all that.
Erin: You’re so right. Technology has opened a lot of doors. It has done a lot of what that optimistic consensus wanted it to. And we certainly don’t want to stop here. But I think the operative word is intentional. We want to be intentional about the solutions we’re bringing to schools and making sure that our solutions are to the problems that educators face in breaking down barriers to having a better relationship with students. So, no teacher, you’ll hear this in education circles. No teacher went to teaching for the administrative paperwork. But there’s a lot of it. There’s a lot of it that makes schools run. And that data is really valuable in helping to make the best difference for each kid. That personalized aspect of learning does run on data. And so, that’s where the double edged sword shows up. We need this data, to make teachers’ jobs easier. But we also run into situations where adding a technology facet to this would make it a little bit harder. So what we have to decide is, is it harder at first, and then it makes it easier? And how do we get to that point? Are we supporting educators? Are we training educators on the solutions that they purchase? And that is a big conversation for school leadership and vendors together. And then it’s also something that school leadership continues to check in on. And so that’s where we get teachers who don’t necessarily feel like they half of them had a lack of training and knowledge. And it really contributes a lot to how teachers feel about using these tools.
Erin: Something that in particular we really are intentional about is asking teachers how they’re proceeding through their days, rather than assuming that we know how school is done. That’s what we’ve been talking about today, right? That school looks so much different than when, you know, the folks who are working in edtech programming were in school. So we rely on teachers to tell us what they need, and then the most important part is that we listen to teachers when they tell us what they need. So those are two of the things. But it really is a partnership at every level. The vendor, the district leaders, the district users, students, and the wider community.
Lauren: So you mentioned, you know, the importance of getting input from, from teachers, from people who use the software, who are using these products. I’ll just give a little plug in case any of our listeners don’t know a couple opportunities in the Skyward family where people can contribute. We have the product ideas portal where you can submit ideas for things that you want changed in the software, things that would make your job easier. You could also vote on ideas that other people have added, so if you know someone else has added an idea and you're like that would be so helpful for my district, you can vote on that and kind of help tell Skyward that that is a priority for what you’re looking for. And then we do a lot of user experience studies with districts where like you said, we don’t know what the day-to-day operations look like as you know, people working for Skyward. But the districts know. They know what they’re looking for. They know what they need. And so our UX team does a lot of communicating with districts to figure out our UX and product teams I believe both do a lot of communicating with districts just kind of to figure out how can we best serve them and create technology that’s actually helping them. Not technology for technology's sake.
Erin. Correct. And that’s it. And I think people at Skyward really love to talk to users because every little interaction can give us more insight into. It’s always gonna be unique, down to the classroom level, down to the student level.
Lauren: Absolutely. So you mentioned the word intentional before, and I really liked that choice of word. How, when we flip from the vendor to the district side, how can districts be intentional about the technology they’re choosing to implement to make sure that it is something that’s going to move the students and the district and everyone forward. It’s not just, as I just said, technology for technology's sake.
Erin: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. And I’ll always to defer to our superintendent and our principles and they’re the experts who are making those decisions. But what I’ve gathered over witnessing that, is that, there’s a lot of communication that happens before any type of purchase is made. There’s a lot of looking at ROI. There’s a lot of looking at specs. You know, the specific things that districts need in order to be successful with their plan for education. Because the great thing about schools is the community makes those decisions in a lot of cases, whether they do so through their elected officials in a schoolboard sense of community input in surveys. And so district leaders are first and foremost mirroring that, and listening to the people who are in their population.
Lauren: That brings to mind for me a district that we visited that is a charter school in the Tomorrow River Community School District here in Wisconsin, and they are a Waldorf school and one of the things that we talked to their teachers about was kind of how they incrementally roll out technology as the students get older. So they talked about the youngest learners, they’re not gonna be on devices at all. And then as they’re getting older, they might be taking a quiz on the computer, doing a little bit more on the computer, so that by the time they are, you know, in that school goes through eighth grade, but by the time they’re in eighth grade, they are definitely using technology. They’re ready to use it when they go onto high school. They’re ready to, you know, they’re ready for it. But it doesn’t mean that they needed to be using it the entire way for everything from five years old. And so that was kind of a cool way to see how that district in particular has been kind of slowly growing the technology as the kids grow up and as they are more prepared for, you know, using those devices and having them be tools, not something that they are relying on.
Erin: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s fascinating. And I also think who I was before looking into the two sides of too much versus it’s okay edtech, I think I may have been critical of keeping those younger students off screens because I think we’ve really solidified screens are what people use to do their jobs. And so, you know, I wonder if that’s a selling point for parents who are looking into school choice or whether that’s something that some parents deliberately opt out of because they feel that need to get kids those skills as fast as possible. And so that’s where districts need to be flexible.
Lauren: Absolutely.
Erin: They need to have that option.
Lauren: And what roles do laws play in this in terms of is entirely up to the district or are there laws that are going to say to some extent this is how it needs to be?
Erin: So, that’s a great question and it’s also one of the quickest changing parts in this. So I want to bring attention to cell phone bans in schools. Now, cell phones are different than 1:1 Devices. 1:1 devices are provided by the school district. Each student has the same thing. You know, that is that optimistic consensus democratization of education. Before we had 1:1 devices, we had B-Y-O-D bring your own device. And you can see how that adds another layer of wild wild west to classrooms. And so what that has resulted in, is 37+ states who have enacted legislation saying hey students are not bringing their classroom their personal classrooms into let me take that again. Students are not bringing their personal cell phones into classrooms. Now, the biggest backlash believe it or not to that kind of legislation has come from parents. Parents are uncomfortable not having a direct connection to their students at all times during the day. But, schools are seeing a huge impact for the positive in behavior, in attention spans, in outcomes, And you know, I think we often point to test scores falling, and we blame it on pandemic era stuff. And there was a lot of disruption then. But the reality is that test scores have been falling since the early 2010s. And that really aligns with the device boom. And it aligns with a device boom inside and outside the classroom. This is where probably more teenagers, I would say, but teenagers or young students had access to music players in their room. You know, one stat I saw from the early 2000s is 21% of them had internet access in their room. You know, and now, we carry that around in our pocket.
Erin: So that’s one of the first things in legislation, is that cell phone ban piece. So now, it’s up to 17 states now, but Tennessee and Kansas were some of the first ones to bring forth legislation really curbing the use of education technology. And there’s was specific to that K-3, where their students are not reading to learn. They’re learning to read. And they should be interacting with each other in order to gain those social and emotional skills. And so, that’s really where a lot of this legislation lands is, again, using that word intentional. It’s intentional to remove those barriers for older students who need the skills and the specific tools while also removing barriers for teachers in early childhood and giving them what they need.
Lauren: Yeah. So it’s not about all or nothing. It’s about being intentional. It’s about making sure the edtech you’re choosing to implement is truly helping. It’s not putting barriers up. It’s not. It’s not, you know making things more difficult for administrators, for teachers, for students, but using the things that truly do help.
Erin: Yes.
Lauren: And using those things to move the district forward and into the future.
Erin: And the cool thing about that is we also have usage statistics. In the early 2000s, teachers had access to student data, but they were not using it widely. And so, let me explain that again. So, teachers had access to assessment data, and it was 90% of teachers who had access to that. But only 75% of them were actually using that. That has changed quite a bit. Data has become something that teachers really rely on for that personalization aspect or for the foundational assessments. Really knowing where each of those students is learning. And so that’s an example of edtech that is has really been invaluable to teachers in a way that, you know, maybe certain one-off practice apps wouldn’t necessarily be as valuable.
Lauren: So it’s about the measurement, having it for measurement. Measurement, and then like we said before, that intentionality. And those are just two great reasons to have edtech in the classroom.
Erin: Yes. That data piece is huge. And it really helps to see the progress that each student is making. And it helps teachers to be able to fall back on this data when they’re having discussions with everybody’s who’s involved with the student. Because it’s not just the teacher and the student and the district leader. It’s also their family and their community and everybody’s there to serve those students. And data can help us to do that.
Lauren: Absolutely. Well, I think that wraps up today’s exploration.
Erin: Yeah, that’s the best we can do is keep moving forward in service of students and hopefully finding some balance in that edtech.
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