This afternoon my colleagues and I were discussing an issue with our school printer program. Something has gone awry, and we are currently unable to print (which does make your role as a teacher a little more difficult than it should be).

We were also talking about our current lack of access to laptops. Our school is beginning to implement a BYOD program (bring your own device). To make this program accessible, my school has purchased high-quality laptops for our Junior students in Years 7-10, who can lease to buy their devices.

Despite this initiative, which I am so excited about, we are in the midst of some technology changes that are making things a little bit more challenging at the moment (see the above paragraph about our current lack of access to devices).

This conversation about laptops and our impending BYOD program led to one of my colleagues stating that they ‘don’t plan to use the laptops more than they already do’. This was an interesting statement. However, I kept my mouth closed and continued to listen to their justifications and reasoning.

The argument for not utilising the laptops more than they do now (in 2024) was that at the end of Year 12, our students sit written examinations. Hence, the laptops are essentially pointless in helping students develop the skills they will need to tackle these exams successfully (because they are written exams under timed conditions).

Once again, this discussion continued to disappoint me. As a fierce advocate for educational technology, I felt sad that we are still being so conservative and antiquated when it comes to incorporating edtech into our lessons.

The argument for continuing the use of technology and the laptops that our students will have access to shortly at the current level we use them now seems irrelevant. Who says that our final Year 12 examinations will not be conducted electronically on laptops or devices in the near future? And for this reason, it is not important that we prepare our students for this by incorporating edtech into their learning from early in their schooling journeys.

In saying this, I am not against writing. I am in the belief that edtech is an additional tool, and it should not replace everything at this point in time. In my classroom, I aim to create a hybrid learning environment where we will still use pen and paper (where required) and educational technology. Why can’t we plan and draft our essays on paper and then use Google Docs to type them up? Or we can brainstorm on some good old-fashioned butcher paper before using an online tool such as bubbl.us or Figjam to create a visually appealing version of our ideas. 

This conversation with my colleagues got me thinking, which is where this blog originated. I was contemplating and reflecting on all the progress we made in education as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic that encapsulated the world in 2020. Schools, especially teachers, adapted so quickly to the changing dynamics of education worldwide (mainly because we are just amazing humans who will do almost anything for our students). We recorded videos using Loom, and we presented video lessons on Zoom and Google Meet; we created online learning sequences using Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams, and we found a whole array of edtech platforms such as Flip, Book Creator, Animoto, Pixton, Book Widgets and so many more that we could use to create valuable and engaging learning experiences for our students, despite the need for us to remaining 1.5 metres away from each other and wear a mask!

From this, I had hoped that we had turned a corner in education and that we would now see the value in edtech. However, whilst I believe we have in some capacity, I also feel like education just reverted back to the ‘old ways’ of teaching our students because that is what we know and what we have always done in the past.

The irony of this was that even though education may not have evolved to innovate as much with edtech as I had hoped, other parts of the world did. As teachers, we can now access elearning, online workshops and self-paced courses from around the globe at any time of the day or night. Once upon a time, this was not possible. But now, this is considered the new normal. If a course doesn’t have an online or live-streamed component for most of us, we probably won’t engage with it (even if it was going to be amazing). This was one of those positive changes that resulted from COVID-19.

Educational technology and helping our students develop the ability to collaborate, communicate, be creative and develop their critical thinking skills should be at the forefront of our planning when it comes to edtech in the classroom. 

Our students will be moving into a vastly different world from the world that we grew up in. Our students will need the skills to use technology that we did not grow up with confidently. Our students will work in industries that haven’t been established yet. Our students need the opportunity to be successful, and it is up to us as educators to make this happen today.

I am absolutely not anti-paper; however, I am 100% an advocate for incorporating educational technology into our teaching and learning programs (honestly, if I wasn’t 100% in support of edtech, I am not sure why I would be writing this or spending my time supporting teachers through Evolve EdTech). Edtech is a tool; it is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to learning. Edtech should support our students, it should provide our students with the skills they need to be successful in their life outside of school as they move into a whole new world (sorry if you started singing).

The past and how we have been teaching is still important. However, we also need to think about the future. We need to ensure that we are doing what is right for our students in the future.