Technology in the Classroom:Tools or Temptation?

•  If your school/district were to go 1:1 (one laptop/tablet per student) or BYOD (students bring own devices), how would you approach this issue (e.g., behavior management strategies, have a conversation with students, have students develop an acceptable use policy)?

Um, Brittany, could you please put that away?

It was Tuesday, the second day of my new placement.  I was circulating the class during independent summary work.  I passed by Brittany's desk and noticed her phone openly displayed. She was bent over her device, entering lines of text; long blonde hair falling neatly around the corners of her cluttered desk space.  I was a bit taken aback at her seemingly bold defiance, and wondered what the school wide policy was on texting in class.  Coming straight from a junior high that enforced a total technology lockdown, I began preparing my spiel, complete with pink-rimmed allusions to the assistant principal, all framed in a neat 'for your own good' message--a language I've recently become so fluent in.  She turned to look at me, with a mixed expression of slight fear and self-justification on her face:  

But Ms. Nordwall, this is my dictionary.

Her voice carried a thick, graceful German accent.  She revealed the screen of her iPhone, in which I could see the parallel German-to-English translation occurring. I felt  an immediate sense of guilt--I had called out an innocent student, who was struggling to understand the article we were reading and using technology as support.  the iPhone screen imaged what must have been going on in her mind as she read the article--a translation of every English word on the pages into her home language of German, mental processing, and restructuring into English on her summary page.  She had discovered an app on her phone that merely speeded up the process for her, and allowed her to keep pace with her tenth grade English-language-native colleagues. I marveled at her speed with her "dictionary", and her ability to keep up with her classmates.  I wonder if she would have the same success a dictionary in print form.  Her ability to enter the answers and quickly retrieve them certainly made the process much faster than had she been struggling with Mr. Webster in full printed form.  

Five minutes later I looked up from a conversation with a student and saw one of my student smiling down at the broad "unknown" under her desk.  Unlike her classmate, Ali was not likely academically engaged.  This time I walked over and glanced at the screen of her phone before beginning a discussion.  Not even the shadows of her desk could hide the brightly shaded emoticons from my peering eyes.  All she needed was a reprimanding glance from the head teacher (precursor to a lecture on the consequences of cell phone use in class)--the cell phone disappeared from sight, and this time, fully.  

And herein lies my question.  Within the span of ten minutes or less, I had experienced every high school teacher's conundrum: when is technology a tool, and when does it merely lead towards temptation?  The allure of the device is sweet--sleek silicone city's lights bloom brightly.  The desire to know, the desire to hear, and be heard--the desire to share our human experience, even if it's just to a vague audience of psuedo-friends on social media. 

How can they resist the pull, when their textbook lies open on their desk, every page creating knowledge for them; an unwelcome virtual reality buried in foreign jargon. And why should they, when they can create their own reality through their personal virtual portal.  

When is technology a tool?  In my yet unproved and unexperienced opinion, it is the format of the class itself that determines the use of technology.  If a class allows students to create their learning, perhaps students won't need a virtual escape.  At least their longing for it might be lessened. When knowledge is presented to them, they needn't search for it.  The difference between my two students is not merely the way they used technolgy, but more their need for technology.  My German student needed technology to create an interpretation of the article, and to engage with the material that otherwise would have been inaccessible.  Her whole world in that moment was needfully in the classroom, in the present moment.  My American student's article was fully unlocked to her--she had no trouble decoding the words on the page.  In fact, she had no trouble slightly participating AND creating her own reality via text, all in the same moment. She could effectively be present in the technological middle-earth--the place in which one is neither here nor there, neither present nor absent. 

 

When is technology a temptation?  When the class allows it.  When the coursework is such that opens the door to boredom, to an escape.  Maybe if we designed classes and assignments that engaged students, and them to create something in the classroom environment, they wouldn't have time to slip out the cell phone escape.  Maybe they wouldn't want to.  

Call me an idealist.  Call me anything you want.  But I would like to believe that given the right academic environment and class structure, technology becomes a tool for students to use, not a temptation for them to abuse.