Column: Does classroom technology improve student achievement

Julie Mack | By Julie Mack | The Kalamazoo Gazette
on March 01, 2011 at 11:10 AM, updated March 01, 2011 at 3:45 PM
Spencer Frisbie, Vicksburg High School, Post-concussion Assessment Cognitive Test, IMPACT

When I was in high school and college, I had a slide ruler instead of a calculator and a  typewriter instead of a word processor.

There was no Internet, so our primary research resource at home was an old encyclopedia set, in which history stopped at the end of the Eisenhower administration.

No question, technology has made life much, much easier for today’s students. But does it make them smarter?

That’s a $52 billion question — $52 billion being the estimate for spending on educational technology in 2011, and that’s just the expenditure by educational institutions. Locally, school districts from Portage and Gobles to Bloomingdale and Hopkins are making major investments in netbooks and handheld computers on the theory it will boost academic achievement.

There are two schools of thought here: One is that technology is revolutionizing education as we know it. The more cynical view is that technology is one of the black holes of school spending, with billions spent on gee-gaws with little impact on actual results.

Consider, for instance, the impact of the calculator. It’s certainly changed math instruction, but has it been a change for the better?

On one hand, it’s taken some of the drudgery out of higher math. On the other hand, there’s an alarming number of students who assume they don’t need to learn math because they can just use a calculator — ignoring that effective use of a calculator requires a thorough grasp of math formulas.

So it’s no surprise, perhaps, that research on the impact of educational technology on student achievement is decidedly mixed. There are cases where technology appears to make a difference. There are cases where it appears to make no difference at all. 

“Educational technology is not, and never will be, transformative on its own,” says a 2005 report by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. But technology “can play a critical role in creating new circumstances and new opportunities for learning that can be rich and exciting.”

It boils down to this: Student achievement is primarily related to rigor, relevance and relationships. Students do best when they are given challenging material; they feel invested in learning that material; and they have peer and adult relationships that nurture learning. To the extent that technology can improve on any of those factors, it’s useful. But too often, technology is simply an expensive distraction.

Not so incidentally, teachers make a huge difference in the effectiveness of classroom technology. Ideally, technology allows teachers to rethink the way they operate — they can tailor lessons for individual students, for instance, or chat online with students who need homework help.

For some, that’s an exciting opportunity; for others, it’s way out of their comfort zone. That’s why a critical element of investing in classroom technology has to be in-depth and long-term teacher training and support.

There’s also another area in which technology can boost student achievement, and it rests in the ability to document trends in student learning, allowing teachers to better evaluate individual students and their academic needs. It also allows principals and central administrators to better evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum and individual teachers, and address weaknesses. But once again, maximizing use of data involves more than just buying the right software; it requires making sure that staff has access to the data and knows how to use it — a major issue in many districts.

The point is that just buying technology isn’t enough. It would be the same as buying expensive cookware and assuming that purchase alone will turn someone into a master chef. Good tools make the job easier, and at times are even essential. But the tools themselves are not the key; it’s the skill of the operator and how the tools get used.
