I share the seemingly global angst with social media. These spaces whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat are not what many would have hoped they would be even a few years ago. And yes, while schools engage in these spaces, they are not core to the learning experiences of our students. But when I hear that technology is a real problem in our schools and then critics go on to list the problems of social media, they are not being fair to the more broader application of modern learning tools that has come with technological change in the last decade. We have ongoing work to do with social media and how we treat each other online, but we can say this and still champion the amazing ways technology is being used in our classrooms.
In schools this fall, I have been so impressed with how seamlessly modern tools are used in classrooms. Whether it is students on their laptops in their Google suite of tools, doing science via Discovery Techbook, 3D printing, VR (virtual reality) goggles or a host of other tools their use to enhance learning and engage students is impressive. Then there are entire areas, like robotics that simply don’t exist without modern tools. I often note how less noticeable our digital use is in classrooms. Technology use is not an event that happens in a specific place, whether in a grade 4 class or a grade 12 class, students often bounce back and forth between technologies, traditional pen and paper and collaborative work – often in unison. I think for some students they may use technology less now than five years ago, but it is far more purposeful when the do. No elementary classes are staring at screens in computer labs several times a week.
It has become popular to pile-on technology as a real problem. We need to be more specific. Social media, and its use by kids and adults, raises a lot of questions. We had a recent threat incident in our community that spread via social media from kids and parents in minutes. And even after the issue was dealt with, the social media continued to echo with hurtful comments and lies. And yes, schools have ownership over some of this. We are places where students can learn good habits and have behaviours reinforced, and the community also have great responsibility when it comes to this. Ten years ago I would say since parents are not on social media they looked to their friends as guides. Well, now parents are on social media and they need to be good models for their children on how to use these powerful tools.
We have to be smart enough to separate the amazing advances in our classrooms that would not be possible without technology, while still realizing all of us of all ages, are going to have to come to grips with how we treat each other and respond to events in our digital social spaces.
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