Nothing pushes you to do something more than a necessity. This is what happened when the pandemic hit, and most of the students were forced to attend classes online. This caused what would normally take decades, just one week to accomplish. Now we have reached closer than ever to the goal of every student having their own laptop or tablet to learn from. In this post, we will go through the pros, the cons, and the potential pitfalls that an educational institute must know.
Before we begin, let us look at some data that was collected by the EdWeek Research Center. In May 2020, it was reported that 59% of the schools questioned had at least one device for every student. It is also reported that 78% of teachers had at least 75% of their students with good enough internet access that it did not hinder their online learning. Two of the most common challenges for schools were that students were distracted by one technology when they used another technology, and that their parents were unable to help them use the technology at home. 53% of the educators were also concerned about the internet connectivity in their student’s homes. It has also been reported by 80% of the educators that when the screen time for students increases, their behavior gets worse.
If you asked a traditionally educated student where they learn, they would say that they learn in the classroom. This might be true for many students, but a school’s primary goal should be to make their students life-long learners. When students say that they learn in the classroom and are incapable of learning outside of the classroom, it uncovers a hole in the education process. What this push towards 1:1 computing does is that it opens the minds of the students to see the internet, or a laptop as a source of information. It shows them that learning is more than just the classroom. The fact that they can learn to turn on their devices and Google a fact is a good start to making them lifelong learners. It will ingrain into them the point that learning just does not stop the minute they leave the classroom or the school.
Many students are not fortunate enough to get to use new devices. So, when they transition into 1:1 learning, they get to use an up-to-date device. This will start the process of technological education for them. This is especially useful because of the fact that the workplace is increasingly becoming technologically advanced. A student that learns how to use various technologies from a young age will become efficient workers of the future.
One of the many disadvantages of using technology to learn is that corporations spend billions of dollars to make those technologies as addictive as possible so that they can make a profit. This is very hard to circumvent even after educating students about the potential addictiveness of technology. This might cause students to spend less time doing physical activities and more time wasted on their screens. This can be easily reversed by having the parents monitor their kids and how much time they spend on the screens but the parents cannot be there 24 hours a day. If you are a parent of a kid with technology, you should install apps that track their screen time and instill into your kids a healthy boundary between the digital world and the real world.
A very big disadvantage when transitioning to online learning is the amount of money required to do so. The Wake County District of North Carolina ended up spending $48 million on new devices. This is fine if you are from a rich district, but many districts will not be able to spend so much money on new devices. Buying all those devices is just the beginning, you need to spend money on training the teachers to effectively use the devices in education, you need to spend money on maintaining the devices, and so many other underlying costs. If the districts skip buying devices for the students and ask them to buy the devices themselves, the households of the students will feel the crunch. When it comes to money, there is no easy way to solve the problem.
Let us move on to the potential pitfalls that an educational institute might fall into when they start the transition. The first one that has been recorded is that when the transition is too fast, the teachers need to adapt quickly. This causes every teacher to use a different software without much research into what type of software it is. The teachers were not informed that the district would be liable if student data was not properly handled. To not fall into this pitfall, the institutions should mandate the use of proper software for every subject. This might mean buying licenses or subscribing to a service. Google Education is a great start for educational technologies.
Another pitfall that an educational institute might fall into is the hardware constraints they might face. When every single student has a device, there will be hundreds of devices that need to be connected to the network. This might mean hiring more technology staff to make sure that everything runs smoothly and buying better network hardware. If the institute decides on a permanent 1:1 learning strategy, they also need to make sure that their access points are capable of handling the huge influx of wireless devices.
In conclusion, introducing technology into the world of education is seen as both a positive thing, as well as a bad thing. Right now, there is no definitive proof that it is entirely positive, or that it is entirely bad. It is good when students get to learn how to use newer technologies, and the students understand that learning is much more than just sitting and listening in the classroom. It can be bad because the profits of the companies making the software for the devices depend on the attention of their users. It is also important for an institution to educate their teachers about the laws on handling student data, and the negatives of free software available on the internet when it comes to data handling. If institutes decide on going full-time with 1:1 computing, then they should also be prepared to upgrade their hardware and their networking.