Speculative Futures Essay: Back to Basics
Marion Goetze
School of Education and Technology, Royal Roads University
LRNT 523: Foundations of Learning and Technologies
Dr. Elizabeth Childs
October 30, 2022
Education technology has transitioned from non-digital to digital over the last few hundred years from using horn books (Clifton, 1904) in the mid 1400s to the 1800s to writing on chalkboards or slates in the 1800s to now students using tablets or laptops. For many, the edtech revolution over the past twenty-five years has been a panacea for learners across the globe. Being able to access the Internet changed not only how we learn but also what we can learn. We now have a multitude of digital devices to choose from, a variety of open learning platforms to mull over, not to mention the sheer number of online schools available. However, I contend that digital technologies have evolved so quickly and have become so ubiquitous that we are becoming inundated and overwhelmed. I anticipate that in elementary and high schools across the country, the trend will be to move away from the extensive use of technology media in the classroom. We will stress the importance and need for face-to-face communication, to use technology as a tool to supplement learning rather than seeing it as a medium to take over learning, and that learning will become more individualized with the use of platforms like personal learning management systems (LMS). Reflecting on previous pedagogy and current compromises will be more important than looking at emerging digital trends and implementing them in our schools.
Children playing outside with their peers away from technology seems to be a thing of the past (Howarth, 2022). A survey by Common Sense Media and published in the New York Times claimed that children ages eight to eighteen who are online are not using the Internet to stay in touch with peers, but instead spend more than three hours a day on average watching videos or television and nearly two hours a day playing computer games (Moyer, 2022). Ultimately, they only spend twenty minutes a day chatting online with their peers (2022). I contend that because of the amount of time children spend looking at a screen, their social skills have worsened and will only continue to deteriorate. In a study conducted at the University of Alberta, the researchers found that the more that children had screen time, the more their social skills suffered which resulted in lower expressive language and compliance scores and higher disruption scores (Carson, 2020).
I predict that educators, parents and even our communities will finally come to terms with how continuously being online negatively impacts their children’s academics, mental health and social skills abilities. According to the Mayo Clinic, elementary aged students who spend more than two hours a day watching television, playing computer games or using a smartphone are more likely to have emotional, social and attention problems and tend to perform poorly on tests (Christensen, 2022). I believe that there will be a return to having children learn to play outside again, or ride a bike, or go to a playground, or swim in a pool. Not long ago the concern was that students who were well-off would have access to the internet earlier, gain technology skills thereby creating a digital divide between them and the children of poorer or middle-class parents. Parents in Silicon Valley have been worrying over the impact screens have on their children and want to move toward a no-screen lifestyle (Brown, 2019).
Not only do we need interactions for socialization, but daily interactions are an important part of learning. Communicating in a school setting with their peers has proven to be effective in helping students to organize their thoughts, reflect on what they have learned, and find gaps in their critical thinking (Okita, 2012). While being online can somewhat mitigate social interactions, and provide students with learning opportunities, it does so in a very limited way. Connecting on Zoom, for example, only allows for one person at a time to speak. Others need to patiently wait for their turn. This is hardly the lively interactions we might see in a physical setting. Additionally, if the classes offered online are not led by an adept teacher, the materials and resources available will not make much difference in the learning outcomes (Howarth, 2022). Even Clark (1994) maintains that if learning happens due to being exposed to media of any kind, it is because of the instructional method that is embedded in the media that is the reason. He goes on to say that the method is the use of a cognitive process or strategy that is necessary for learning but that students cannot provide for themselves (1994). I believe educators will realize that as long as they employ a student-centered approach, such as teaching through the lens of constructivism or cognitive learning theory, concepts and skills can be taught to students utilizing a range of media, both digital and non-digital. Therefore, similar learning outcomes can be achieved (1994) and being online is not necessary for learning.
Technology is a tool and should not be viewed as a means to take over the education system, which is what I think many teachers and administrators believe nowadays. The idea that school districts will have the funds, not to mention the approval from parents to utilize artificial intelligence, adaptive learning software, or predictive analytics (Macgilchrist, Allert & Bruch, 2020) is preposterous. I believe that stakeholders in the education sector will come to this realization and see that we have all been misguided into believing that without digital media, we cannot teach effectively. Most schools will become a cobbled collection of new and old resources anyway, with new devices having to find a place among the old technology (Selwyn et al., 2019). Teachers will be challenged to figure out not only what to use but how to use it and when.
The Internet, laptops, tablets, and smartphones should be seen as tools that help people learn, not as objects that replace teaching pedagogy. An LMS (Learning Management System), for example, is only as good as those who create course content and those who teach it. My belief is that some LMSs will become a variation of what they currently are and will die out as the large scale systems that they are now. While I do not concur with Kumar (2018) that LMSs are dead or will die soon, I think that learning may be delivered more individually or more student-centered. “Content authoring should be simple enough to be delivered direct[ly] to the [D]evice” (Kumar, para. 1, 2018). According to Stringer (2020) we are at a crossroads where schools and technology lie. What I believe will challenge and disrupt a lot of thinking is the changing nature of students’ learning needs which will have been driven by media technology use, and how students are unique learners with different strengths and passions. Personal devices will support student learning in such a way that the device will be the LMS, not a platform created by an outside source to be managed by outside instructional designers and instructors. By creating a library of learning objects that could be curated to a device, teachers can design lessons customized to individual needs according to concept or skill gaps (Kumar, 2018). According to Weller, learning objects are a digitized entity which can be used, reused or refurbished but never really gained widespread adoption. To the contrary, I concur with the authors, Ally et al. (2006), that a learning object (LO) is a digital, open educational resource designed to aid in a learning event, with learning and reusability as its primary functions. There is a need for designing a repository of LOs which such as videos, presentations, and lectures, live or recorded, which could be delivered to the students as needed. Furthermore, as Weller (2020) stated so eloquently in his book, 25 Years of Ed Tech, we seem to suffer from a sort of collective amnesia, “…the ed tech field is … remarkably poor at recording its own history and reflecting critically on its development…” (p. 3). I anticipate this will continue and that we will not hesitate to jump on the various technological bandwagons that come our way in education and fail to recognize that we seem to have this “year-zero mentality” (2020, p. 4) when it comes to edtech.
In conclusion, in schools across the nation, I anticipate a shift away from the intensive use of technological media. We will emphasize the value and necessity of face-to-face communication over media use, the utilization of technology as a supplement to learning rather than as a medium that must replace it, and that learning will become ever-more personalized with digital tools being used to augment rather than supplant how students learn. Twenty years ago, the Internet was seen as a means to escape from the real world. In the future, the read world will be viewed as an escape from this desire to be constantly connected, and society will return to a slower pace of a bygone less digitized era.
References
Brown, M. (n.d.). Too much screen time hurts toddlers’ social skills, new study shows. Folio. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2019/06/too-much-screen-time-hurts-toddlers-social-skills-new-study-shows.html
Christensen, J. C. (2022, June 8). Children and screen time: How much is too much? Mayo Clinic Health System. https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/children-and-screen-time
Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.
Clifton, J. (1904). Old time school and school-books [Digital]. The Macmillan Company. https://archive.org/details/oldtimeschoolss00john
Howarth, J. (2022, September 21). Alarming Average Screen Time Statistics (2022). Exploding Topics. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats
Kumar, S. (2018, March 8). The Death of the LMS. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/death-lms-shanath-kumar
Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H., & Bruch, A. (2019). Students and society in the 2020s. Three future ‘histories’ of education and technology. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 76–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1656235
Mohamed Ally, Stefan Hrastinski, Natasha Boskic, & Sandra Larwill. (2006). Learners’ Use of Learning Objects. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education / Revue Internationale Du E-Learning Et La Formation À Distance, 21(2), 44–57. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ807803.pdf
Neil Selwyn, Luci Pangrazio, Selena Nemorin & Carlo Perrotta (2020) What might the school of 2030 be like? An exercise in social science fiction, Learning, Media and Technology, 45:1, 90-106, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1694944
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nytimes.com. (2022, March 24). https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/well/family/child-social-media-use.html
Okita, S. Y. (2012). Social Interactions and Learning. SpringerLink. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_1770?error=cookies_not_supported&code=896acacc-c436-4e34-b3dc-bdc86c56b5a4
Stringer, G. (2022, July 22). The (lack of) evolution of the LMS and how it caused its downfall. HowNow. https://gethownow.com/blog/the-lack-of-evolution-of-the-lms-and-how-it-caused-its-downfall/
Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech. Athabasca University Press. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771993050.01