EDLEAD 6420: Blog Post #2: Discussions of Educational Tech via Google Hangouts

How is the ever changing world of technology impacting schools and school leaders? What skills are needed by principals in technology rich learning environments? What are the most exciting and the most concerning aspects of these tech trends?

Today's technology-rich world is a bit like the Wild Wild West in education circles. Innovations come spilling into the marketplace so fast and touch on so many different skills, thinking and calculating processes, systems, and social connections that there are simply no rules surrounding their adoption. System-wide adoptions, community adoptions, collaborative adoptions and individual adoptions all happen simultaneously and democratically, meaning that it's not only difficult to keep up, but it's also difficult to evaluate efficacy. The excitement about tech often leads to two opposing reactions: 1) Tech is awesome and we should be using it all the time! or 2) Tech is dangerous; we don't know what we're getting into and so we should continue with traditional methods that we know best. I tend to be a centrist, or at least an aspiring centrist, and so would say that yes, tech can be awesome, but we should develop structures for evaluating its efficacy and, in schools, only adopt if it has sound pedagogical foundations.

In a Google Hangout just this afternoon, I was discussing this very issue with my colleagues and classmates in the UNI Educational Leadership Masters program, Anna Sneller (@AnnaSneller) and Karen Callahan (@karcallahan). We all teach in a tech-rich environment at Korea International School, where students in grades 3-12 participate in a 1:1 program. When faced with the question about the impact that the world of technology is having on schools, we discussed many of the trends that we see in our environment while being fully aware that this question will differ significantly depending on the school and location. For us, tech is everywhere and we are all encouraged to use fully integrate it into our classroom. We all use it, have developed our own systems for it, and in many ways love it. Tech is exciting because new apps and tools can stimulate creativity and innovation in the classroom, simply by forcing teachers and students to think about their learning differently. We all agreed, however, that sometimes low-tech is the way to go. Studies have shown, for example, that we tend to remember what we physically write down more often than what we type, underscoring the "cognitive benefits" of handwriting. We also discussed the draw of devices, like sugar. The more you use them, the more you want them, and that's not always the best thing. Sometimes, you need to choose the apple or broccoli instead.

So, where does this leave us in schools, as educators, as leaders and as parents? In our technology-rich global society, we have to ask good questions about our practices. We have to push our students out of their comfort zones -- sometimes that involves tech and sometimes it doesn't. We cannot blindly accept new tech as the answer, but must always ask why it's useful, how it can enhance or advance student learning. The biggest service that principals can offer to their students and teachers is to encourage innovation and experimentation while also asking questions that demand a critical perspective to frame that activity. Hopefully, asking these questions will focus the school's approach to technology in a balanced way, avoiding the pitfalls of the all-tech or no-tech extremes.