Do we REALLY need technology to teach?

Today on my Senegal journey, we attended an International Alumni Event to discuss building networks and understanding through teacher collaboration. The current Teachers for Global Classroom from the US in Senegal and Senegalese teachers that have participated and studied in US had a very fruitful conversation. The idea of technology came up over and over again. The Senegalese teachers who studied in the US said the main thing they were taught was the use of technology in the classroom. However, nearly all of them said that they have no access to technology in the classrooms in Senegal. There is no wifi. There are computer labs in some schools, but there are not many and they are stocked with old desktops. Teachers may have personal laptops that they use for school. For example, my host teacher used his laptop to access YouTube videos and had a projector to show the videos to the class. In all of the classes I observed or co-taught in, there was only a blackboard (which was actually bumpy slate on the wall). Teachers had little pieces of chalk. I never saw a full, unused piece, let alone a full box. (I feel very guilty thinking about all of the unopened boxes of chalk I threw out when I moved to my first school with white boards!)

So even with this lack of technology, students in Sénégal ARE learning. When I began teaching in the early 1990s, we did not use technology in the classroom. I had an overhead projector and that was it. Grades were calculated by hand and notes were written on the chalkboard. My classes were still engaging and fun. My students learned. My students were communicating in the target language.

Currently, I teach in a school where every student has an iPad. Teachers have Mac Books and projectors. We are encouraged to integrate technology into all of our classes. In fact, it is part of our teacher evaluation. Now don’t get me wrong- technology has made some things so much easier for teachers. I am really glad that I do not have to pull out the old calculator at report card time. If I have to be out of school, I can easily post announcements and assignments on Google Classroom. I love having notes and resources available to students on-line for easy access.

Technology has also allowed me to bring the world to my classroom. In a global classroom, access to the world is essential. We would not be able to use authentic resources in the class without the Web. We can access and use YouTube to watch newscasts and videos and listen to music from around the world. We can find newspapers and blogs and infographics. Google Earth’s street view has been invaluable.

But I think of ways that technology has hurt my class. I do not know one teacher who wouldn’t love to toss students’ personal devices out the window. Students are constantly on their phones or using their iPads for personal use. They listen to music, watch Netflix and non-stop text. I think their exposure to these devices has definitely hurt their attention spans. Now when I plan, I never have an activity that would last longer than 10 minutes or students lose interest.

When I watched students in Senegal, they sat quietly at their desks and took notes. ALL students were paying attention and were on task. They all had a small notebook and many had just stubs of pencils. The teacher, for the most part, stood at the front of the class and taught. Now I am not at all advocating we go back to “sage on the stage”, but I think we may have gone too far in the other direction. I feel like I need to “entertain” my classes and make sure all students are having fun. I spend hours and hours planning lessons to keep my students engaged. Honestly, I am working too hard. On average, I work a 10 hour day. Then, I spend at least another 8-10 hours on the weekend planning. Teachers should not been putting in a 60 to 70 hour work weeks (we sure don’t get paid for that!). I find myself sometime thinking of the tech first and the content second. I ask myself: “What app or tech should I use?” Instead of thinking “Is there an app or tech that will improve my lesson?” (Check out the  SAMR model to read about different levels of technology integration in the classroom).

I do not at all agree with the notion that I am not a good teacher without the use of technology. For example, I watched a class in Senegal where the teacher and the students were discussing a poem. The teacher wrote all of the discussion points on the board in longhand. Then he drew a graphic organizer on the board and had students copy it into their notebook. The American teacher in me cringed at the class time he was “wasting” by doing this. I would have had all of this typed up ahead of time and uploaded to Google Classroom. The graphic organizer would have been created and copied and distributed. So I thought to myself, what if I had done this in my class? What if I had done it during an evaluation? Without a doubt, I would have been dinged for it. I would have been told that I should have used technology and that I was not utilizing class time effectively. But is it that important that I spend 20-30 minutes outside of class to save 5 minutes in class? Maybe having the students “copy” the notes from the board and the graphic organizer would give the students a little bit of much-needed “down time”. Do our kids really need to be “on” all the time?  Maybe I wouldn’t be spending an extra 20 hours a week working at home if I did more of this. And then I thought, wouldn’t the outcome be the same? Wouldn’t my students still discuss the poem and understanding the meaning?

Students can achieve so much, even with very little. I think that is a lesson I can use in my own classes when I return.