What stands out here is that the real shift isn’t the technology itself, it’s what it changes about attention.
Once tech enters the classroom, it quietly rewrites how focus is distributed, what gets prioritized, and how learning is experienced in real time. The tool looks neutral, but the behavior it creates isn’t.
I appreciate your thinking and the way you share your experience. I left the classroom the year before my district went 1:1. Device use was still an "event" for us at that point.
One thing I was shocked to learn once I hit the admin side was how expensive the physical device carts are. It makes me chuckle when folks act like switching from 1:1 to carts will save money. (I know that wasn't your argument here.)
Interesting! I’d be curious to see how it pencils out in the long term. My district just did a big budget presentation (spoiler: things are bad) and we buy about 50% of our total student enrollment in Chromebooks each year. Most of those are to replace broken Chromebooks. I wonder how much you save by drastically reducing use/not having students carry them around all the time? Even if the carts themselves are expensive, it could be a net positive by increasing longevity.
50% of total enrollment needing replacements each year is a really high percentage.
Willingness to fine students for Chromebook damage is a thorny topic, to say the least. You don't want to fine students for normal wear and tear, true accidents, or charge them a fee the family can't afford, but if you don't put any accountability in place at all, you get excessive damage rates.
Relatively speaking 1:1 devices can help with cash flow because many districts either lease them or purchase them in installments, and depending on the specific device, they have resale value at some point. We're likely to switch to from Chromebooks to MacBook Neos soon: sturdier devices + increased resale value likely equal lower total costs in our area.
Carts are a huge upfront expense and then you need places to put them. 1:1 devices that stay in school are the worst case financially but might be the best case instructionally. I hope that's where we land for the younger grades at least.
I am a middle school math teacher. I think that it is important for students at this level to do math on paper, possibly with the assistance of a scientific (but not graphing) calculator. When students use online tools that give problems and ask students to input answers, they often try to do all problems in their heads without writing very much down. I feel like if they are not used to showing work for the simple problems they won't develop the skill to show work for harder problems.
I think that graphing equations (with relatively simple numbers) by hand on paper is an aid to learning and helps (at least some students) make connections between equations and graphs that they would not make if they worked exclusively with automated graphing tools
Having said that, DeltaMath was useful for teaching skills when students were at different levels of expertise. It turned out to be a good way of differentiating.
I also think that being able to solve and rewrite equations by hand is important even when using automated tools like Mathematica or Matlab. There have been times where I've solved a problem by hand, then used Mathematica, and the answer that Mathematica gives is in a different form. I sometimes needed to do some work by hand to convince myself that the soutions were equivalent.
My reason for adopting a 1:1 Chromebook approach in my high school classroom?
The ability to digitize my handouts and assignments allowed me to circumvent the all too common broken copier problem - no paper - no staples - epic jam - that plagued the schools I worked in.
So while removing tech from the classroom may address one concern, schools must also be prepared and willing to support educators with the resources they need to make their lives a little easier.
Let's call this the floor.
Doing so will allow them to support their students without having to worry about the basic essentials needed to do their jobs
That’s fair. Gotta make paper-and-pencil possible. That said, I had tons of issue with Chromebooks that were often obstacles. It moved the challenges from outside the classroom (fighting with the copier) to inside the classroom (fighting with software, trying to get students not to destroy Chromebooks).
Certainly no one size fits all approach in education. Something that makes it difficult and amazing at the same time. We as educators need lots of different tools in our kit and the discretionary skills to know when to use them. Onward.
I don’t find this sentiment helpful. Sure, it’s not the tool it’s how you use it. But the tool shapes the user. Some tools encourage thinking and learning more than others.
I was an early adopter of 1:1 student technology in my classroom. I thought integrating technology into my classroom would improve my pedagogical practice. I thought that gamifying lessons and plugging students into computers made me a more creative (and even a better) teacher. I’ve since tried to reduce how much technology I use with students, and unsurprisingly, I found that I struggled to teach. I had become accustomed to letting the app or edtech tool do the teaching. Now, when I’m in a small group, armed with only a whiteboard, I have to explain concepts in multiple ways for my students to learn. Reducing technology has definitely improved my craft!
Middle schoolers having to type math responses into a computer for state tests is just terrible. This year I thought like you and figured they should practice typing for tests year round, but next year I’m just going to focus on “let’s get them really good at thinking and justifying so that when it comes time to type, they already know what needs to go there.”
And yep, Desmos is the reason I’d never go completely tech free! Especially useful at the high school level when graphing calculators are necessary on a nearly daily basis.
Yea I just watched my students take state tests on computers. It’s a nightmare. What’s interesting is, the state tests change the cut score. Kids do worse on digital tests even if the questions are the same, so the digital tests adapt to calibrate scores.
What stands out here is that the real shift isn’t the technology itself, it’s what it changes about attention.
Once tech enters the classroom, it quietly rewrites how focus is distributed, what gets prioritized, and how learning is experienced in real time. The tool looks neutral, but the behavior it creates isn’t.
That’s the layer most conversations skip.
Holy crap, you're in The Atlantic!
Haha yea that happened..
I appreciate your thinking and the way you share your experience. I left the classroom the year before my district went 1:1. Device use was still an "event" for us at that point.
One thing I was shocked to learn once I hit the admin side was how expensive the physical device carts are. It makes me chuckle when folks act like switching from 1:1 to carts will save money. (I know that wasn't your argument here.)
Interesting! I’d be curious to see how it pencils out in the long term. My district just did a big budget presentation (spoiler: things are bad) and we buy about 50% of our total student enrollment in Chromebooks each year. Most of those are to replace broken Chromebooks. I wonder how much you save by drastically reducing use/not having students carry them around all the time? Even if the carts themselves are expensive, it could be a net positive by increasing longevity.
50% of total enrollment needing replacements each year is a really high percentage.
Willingness to fine students for Chromebook damage is a thorny topic, to say the least. You don't want to fine students for normal wear and tear, true accidents, or charge them a fee the family can't afford, but if you don't put any accountability in place at all, you get excessive damage rates.
Relatively speaking 1:1 devices can help with cash flow because many districts either lease them or purchase them in installments, and depending on the specific device, they have resale value at some point. We're likely to switch to from Chromebooks to MacBook Neos soon: sturdier devices + increased resale value likely equal lower total costs in our area.
Carts are a huge upfront expense and then you need places to put them. 1:1 devices that stay in school are the worst case financially but might be the best case instructionally. I hope that's where we land for the younger grades at least.
I am a middle school math teacher. I think that it is important for students at this level to do math on paper, possibly with the assistance of a scientific (but not graphing) calculator. When students use online tools that give problems and ask students to input answers, they often try to do all problems in their heads without writing very much down. I feel like if they are not used to showing work for the simple problems they won't develop the skill to show work for harder problems.
I think that graphing equations (with relatively simple numbers) by hand on paper is an aid to learning and helps (at least some students) make connections between equations and graphs that they would not make if they worked exclusively with automated graphing tools
Having said that, DeltaMath was useful for teaching skills when students were at different levels of expertise. It turned out to be a good way of differentiating.
I also think that being able to solve and rewrite equations by hand is important even when using automated tools like Mathematica or Matlab. There have been times where I've solved a problem by hand, then used Mathematica, and the answer that Mathematica gives is in a different form. I sometimes needed to do some work by hand to convince myself that the soutions were equivalent.
My reason for adopting a 1:1 Chromebook approach in my high school classroom?
The ability to digitize my handouts and assignments allowed me to circumvent the all too common broken copier problem - no paper - no staples - epic jam - that plagued the schools I worked in.
So while removing tech from the classroom may address one concern, schools must also be prepared and willing to support educators with the resources they need to make their lives a little easier.
Let's call this the floor.
Doing so will allow them to support their students without having to worry about the basic essentials needed to do their jobs
- reposted from an earlier note
That’s fair. Gotta make paper-and-pencil possible. That said, I had tons of issue with Chromebooks that were often obstacles. It moved the challenges from outside the classroom (fighting with the copier) to inside the classroom (fighting with software, trying to get students not to destroy Chromebooks).
Certainly no one size fits all approach in education. Something that makes it difficult and amazing at the same time. We as educators need lots of different tools in our kit and the discretionary skills to know when to use them. Onward.
A pencil never inspired a kid. Neither did a Smartboard. Great teaching isn’t in the device…….it’s in the person holding it!
I don’t find this sentiment helpful. Sure, it’s not the tool it’s how you use it. But the tool shapes the user. Some tools encourage thinking and learning more than others.
I was an early adopter of 1:1 student technology in my classroom. I thought integrating technology into my classroom would improve my pedagogical practice. I thought that gamifying lessons and plugging students into computers made me a more creative (and even a better) teacher. I’ve since tried to reduce how much technology I use with students, and unsurprisingly, I found that I struggled to teach. I had become accustomed to letting the app or edtech tool do the teaching. Now, when I’m in a small group, armed with only a whiteboard, I have to explain concepts in multiple ways for my students to learn. Reducing technology has definitely improved my craft!
Yeah I agree with this sentiment. It’s easy to farm out the instruction because instruction is hard!
Middle schoolers having to type math responses into a computer for state tests is just terrible. This year I thought like you and figured they should practice typing for tests year round, but next year I’m just going to focus on “let’s get them really good at thinking and justifying so that when it comes time to type, they already know what needs to go there.”
And yep, Desmos is the reason I’d never go completely tech free! Especially useful at the high school level when graphing calculators are necessary on a nearly daily basis.
Yea I just watched my students take state tests on computers. It’s a nightmare. What’s interesting is, the state tests change the cut score. Kids do worse on digital tests even if the questions are the same, so the digital tests adapt to calibrate scores.