Educational Technology

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How do we fix the trajectory of the American education system? By remembering that technology is a tool, not a panacea.

Key Points

Introduction

Since the 1990s, a veritable smorgasbord of personal technology tools, resources, and gadgets has reinvented the way we interact with the world. Cell phones, tablets, cloud computing, social networking, games, and other media of all types infiltrate almost every aspect of our daily lives. The proliferation of personal technologies has, for all intents and purposes, reached near saturation, particularly among our younger citizens. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life project (Perrin & Duggan, 2015) found an excess of 90% of all teens (13-17 years) and young adults (18-29 years) go online every day. The dominant access point for these individuals is through mobile devices, particularly smart phones (Lenhart, 2015). These findings are consistent across income levels and racial backgrounds, indicating an end to the traditional digital divide debate that argues the existence of significant gaps between those that have access to technology and those that do not.

Current State of Technology in Schools

While technology has fundamentally revolutionized how we communicate, work, think, and live, our schools, in the United States at least, have remained remarkably absent from the revolution (Means, 2010; Mouza & Lavigne, 2013). Classrooms are still set up, by and large, in didactic form; teaching focuses around standards, objectives, and competencies; learning continues to center on the ability to consume and regurgitate information. According to the most recent national survey of teachers regarding the use of technology in their classrooms (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES]; Gray, Thomas, & Lewis, 2010), nearly 70% of the teachers reported that basic skills practice was the most common use of technology among their students. Data from the NCES survey also indicate only minimal integration of technology to address real-world problems or enable collaboration on joint projects. Technology-based demonstrations, modeling, and simulations appeared in only about 17% of classrooms, and using technology to develop digital products such as movies was even scarcer. The problem is not relegated to only the K-12 educational context.

A large multi-institutional study comprising more than 2,000 observations of instructional units in teacher preparation courses (Pellegrino, Goldman, Bertenthal, & Lawless, 2007) found that the dominant uses of technology in educational methods courses were content delivery and productivity, with the more powerful affordances of technology almost non-existent. The study followed this new generation of teachers from their university-based courses into their field placements and observed them enacting the same pattern of technology use with their K-12 students. Schools’ impoverished implementation of technology is a self-perpetuating cycle.

These data patterns worsen at lower socioeconomic status (SES). More than 85% of teachers of students on free or reduced lunch report computer-based drill and practice as their primary utilization of technology in the classroom, compared with 61% of teachers in higher SES schools. Similarly (Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010), African American students, more than any other racial group, have teachers who reported not participating in professional development in technology use in the previous 5 years. Low-SES students have less home computer experience, and thus take more time to adapt to using the technologies (Warschauer, 2006). And teachers had difficulty figuring out the best way to integrate laptops in situations with many English-language learners and students below basic reading levels (Warschauer, Knobel, & Stone, 2004). The implications of these SES and racial disparities regarding computers in schools also manifest in learning outcomes for students. Frequency of technology use for remediation or drill and practice of content relates to lower standardized test scores (Dynarski et al., 2007). By contrast, frequency of using technology as a tool for production, collaboration, or analytic problem solving related positively to national test scores (Suhr, Hernandez, Grimes, & Warschauer, 2010).

In essence, technology, as a learning tool in the classroom, is still predominately a means to more efficiently transmit information, better track student progress, and share data about student learning with a broader audience of stakeholders (Klein & Rice, 2014; Waks, 2011). This persists, even under local, state, and national policies promoting the uses of educational technology. For example, the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) promised revolutionary transformation of learning, schools, teaching, and assessment through technology (Office of Educational Technology, 2010). The plan states that we must

leverage the learning sciences and modern technology to create engaging, relevant, and personalized learning experiences for all learners that mirror students’ daily lives and the reality of their futures. In contrast to traditional classroom instruction, this requires that we put students at the center and empower them to take control of their own learning by providing flexibility. (http://tech.ed.gov/netp/netp-executive-summary/)

But alas, the United States has failed in this mission to innovate our approach to formal learning in schools, and the impact of this failure is clear. Despite some gains recently in students’ national test scores in the core disciplines of math, science, and language arts, the United States ranking on cross-national tests like the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) continues to decline. For example, of 64 countries participating in the 2009 PISA, the United States ranked 23rd in science. On the most recent PISA round in 2012, the United States dropped to 27th place. The same trends hold for other assessed academic domains. America’s lack of change in its educational enterprise, the inability to embrace and leverage technology for preparing students for the 21st-century world, places the United States in a precarious position to remain competitive in the global economy and retain its world leadership role (Kozma, 2011; Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010; Zhao, 2012).

The New Digital Divide

These issues represent the new digital divide in America. It is not about who has access to technology, but how, within school settings, students can use technology, through what pedagogical approach and to what end. The new digital divide illustrates that technology, in and of itself, is not the panacea for educational issues in the United States. Rather, how technology is currently used in today’s classrooms is a symptom of the failings of the larger educational enterprise. Several research summaries of effective practices in teaching and learning illustrated this. The How People Learn (Bransford, Brown, Cocking, & U.S. National Research Council, 1999) authors wrangle with what constitutes high-quality learning environments. Their recommendations indicate formal research grounding for four components: learner, knowledge, assessment, and community. Learning environments centered on these targets foster deeper learning and learning that can transfer to a novel situation. Similarly, a more recent report, Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012), concludes that meaningful learning is facilitated by instruction that helps learners develop deep understanding of the structure of a problem domain and applicable solution methods but is not supported by rote learning of knowledge or problem-solving procedures. Despite over 40 years worth of research summarized in these reports, high-quality learning environments, instructional methods, and the assessment of student outcomes supported by the research on what works, with or without technology, are all too rare.

Yet, technology remains a hopeful tool to help turn the tide in U.S. education. New technologies could enhance learning in ways unimagined even a few years ago. But to harness these new technologies’ potential, we must move beyond a definition of technology as a tool for learning (Halverson & Smith, 2009). This definition construes technologies as generic tools that confine learning around specific content targets, regulate student learning, and facilitate the accountability of standards-based learning, without regard to individual learning needs (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013). Such connotations for technology do not reform formal education in schools. However, conceptualized tools for learners (Halverson & Smith, 2009), technology becomes a conduit to afford students greater self-agency in both what they learn and how they learn it. These freedoms necessitate altering the concept of school, allowing greater degrees of learning and teaching latitude. These changes would reduce gaps in technology use between in-school and out-of-school environments.

To help stimulate these changes in educational institutions and integrate technology for learners, rather than for learning, this article briefly reviews what is known about the use of contemporary technologies (i.e., digital games, social media, Massively Open Online Courses [MOOCs], and augmented reality) as tools for learners. Although not comprehensive, the aggregate findings can stimulate dialogue on altering our conception of formal education in the United States, as well as additional research and policy to support instantiating these new conceptions.

Video Games

Researchers have considered the educational implications of digital video games since their inception (Bowman, 1982), and interest has grown in the past two decades (Gee, 2009; O’Brien, Lawless, & Schrader, 2011; Squire, 2006). With 97% of U.S. teens playing some type of video game on a regular basis (Lenhart et al., 2008), intensifying interest regards the applicability of video games for educational purposes. Educators familiar with video games are often eager to capitalize on them for instruction, because of the well-known power of video games to motivate players (Gee, 2009; Martens, Gulikers, & Bastiaens, 2004). Advocates also describe video games as a foundation for designed educational experiences (Squire, 2006), ideological contexts for interaction (Young, Schrader, & Zheng, 2006), third spaces for developing complex social networks (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006), and flourishing venues for authentic mentoring and literacy practices (Schrader & Lawless, 2010; Schrader, Lawless, & McCreery, 2009; Schrader & McCreery, 2007). Yet, adopting video games in the classroom also meets apprehensiveness. Some feel that video games in the classroom might disrupt learning, be a waste of time, control behavior, or be an immoral influence (Baek, 2008; Kutner, Olson, Warner, & Hertzog, 2008).

Learning outcomes, both cognitive and behavioral, from engaging with video games in the classroom, obtain both positive and negative findings. Negative aspects of video game play include gender bias, addiction, and aggression (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004; Kafai, 1996; Salguero & Moran, 2002; Webber, Ritterfeld, & Mathiak, 2006). Positive results increase motivation, spatial ability, and complex motor skills (Day, Arthur, & Gettman, 2001; Greenfield, Brannon, & Lohr, 1994; Malouf 1987; Mane, Adams, & Donchin, 1989; Millar & Navarick, 1984; Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1994). Despite the debate on how games can improve education and how they can teach complex concepts and skills, little research examines the relationship between games and academic performance (Girard, Ecalle, & Magnan, 2013; Ke, 2009; McClarty et al., 2012). A recent comprehensive review concluded, “We determined that, to date, there is limited evidence to suggest how educational games can be used to solve the problems inherent in the structure of traditional K–12 schooling and academia” (Young et al., 2012, p. 62).

Much of the research has examined classroom experiences built around a pre-existing game, with educational objectives based on what seems possible to achieve using that game (O’Brien et al., 2011). Said another way, the game, which may or may not have been developed for educational purposes, was driving both curriculum and research. This may not be the best model for researching the ability of games to yield learning gains. Curriculum should drive the development and use of tools; tools should not drive curriculum. Rather than revising traditional curriculum structures, many games merely assimilate into existing practice, reducing play to 20-min bursts and therefore masking the potential benefits of games as learning tools (Young et al., 2012). Finally, a meta-analytic review (Wouters, van Nimwegen, van Oostendorp, & van der Spek, 2013) concluded that to harness their true educational value, serious video games need to supplement other instruction methods, engage students across multiple sessions, and be collaborative in nature.

Social Media

Social media evolved from primarily out-of-school contexts, gaining formal acceptance by students, teachers, and administrators (Aviles & Eastman, 2012; Tess, 2013; Voorn & Kommers, 2013). Social media tools span blogs, wikis, social networking, and virtual worlds (Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011). Examples of social media include experience- and resource-sharing tools (e.g., Twitter, Delicious), collaborative workspaces (e.g., Google Docs), media sharing tools (e.g., YouTube, Flickr), and social networking sites (e.g., Instagram, Facebook). These tools, and others like them, comprise Web 2.0. They afford two-way interactions between users and sites on the Web, enabling the Web to be more than a massive information repository, where students are passive recipients, to a vehicle enabling students to be active contributors and producers of knowledge.

Given that social media is the most popular form of communication among teenagers in out-of-school contexts (Ellison, 2008; Shapiro & Margolin, 2014), many have argued their potential as a means to transfer motivation, associated information, and communication literacies into an educational context. Strong student engagement occurs through social media in the classroom (Beckenham, 2008; Ito et al., 2008; McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). However, using social media to facilitate content learning and academic skills in formal school environments has limited support. A comprehensive review of more than 4,600 research articles examining the impact of various incarnations of social media in the classroom (Hew & Cheung, 2013) identified only 27 studies deemed sufficiently rigorous to merit deeper examination of student learning outcomes, indicating a weak evidence base. Although no studies reported a detrimental effect of social media on learning, various methodological concerns prevented the review from isolating any conclusive evidence regarding the positive impact of these tools on student learning. Any significant impacts could not be attributed to the social media technologies themselves but more likely reflected how technologies were used. It was the pedagogy and instructional strategy, along with the use of Web 2.0 technologies, that likely co-contributed to any reported increase in performance.

MOOCs

MOOCs have received much attention in education recently. A MOOC is an online course with the option of free and open registration, a publicly shared curriculum, no predefined expectations for participation, and no formal accreditation (Clow, 2013). MOOCs bring together people interested in learning (i.e., students) and experts who seek to facilitate the learning (Liyanagunawardena, Adams, & Williams, 2013). They integrate a variety of online media to deliver content and often leverage collaborative technologies to increase interaction among participants (McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, & Cormier, 2010).

Not all MOOCs are created equal however. The dominant instructional model underlying MOOCs is primarily based on behaviorist pedagogy, to rely merely on information transmission (Clarà & Barberà, 2013). The pervasiveness of this MOOC approach may explain their consistent failure to inspire deep learning and transfer (Riel & Lawless, in press). A prominent example is the low completion rates when San Jose State University partnered with Udacity to provide online-only courses for credit for their students. Low course passage rates (20%-30%) for three courses in this pilot experiment prompted school officials to suspend any future MOOCs (Collins et al., 2013). Where MOOCs have succeeded, student variables, rather than the learning environment, predict this success. For example (Terras & Ramsay, 2015), psychological factors influence students’ achievement in MOOCs: self-regulation skills, perception of time, and level of motivation. The higher students’ personal expectations of the time they would spend on a course, as well as students’ prior educational experiences, predicted achievement (Greene, Oswald, & Pomerantz, 2015). Altogether, students used to traditional education methods, and having done well, are also more likely to succeed in MOOCs. This can be problematic, as MOOCs are intended to reach students underrepresented in traditional education.

Despite MOOCs’ high drop rates and poor performance of students not well served by traditional model of education, leveraging MOOC materials in a blended, face-to-face course is more encouraging. In a blended-course model, MOOC content was used in traditional, face-to-face courses in lieu of textbooks; a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) course that had a 41% failure rate was reduced to 9% during a MOOC-blended pilot program (Agarwal & TED, 2014). However, the pedagogical approach that appropriated MOOC content was underpinned by connectivism, a sophisticated and innovative reconceptualization of what it means to know and to learn. Rather than placing the full onus of learning on the student, this course used a flipped-course model, where students viewed online content and lectures independently, outside of class time, and utilized their face-to-face interactions in class to focus on application of the content, problem solving, and collaborative exploration. Leveraging technology changes the traditional structure of the classrooms and holds some promise for how technology can help us transform teaching and learning in the 21st century.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality combines three basic features: real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects (Azuma, 1997). This may include systems that superimpose context-specific information on top of the real world by digital means (Klopfer & Squire, 2008). Augmented reality exploits real-world affordances by providing additional contextual information that augments learners’ experience of reality (Squire & Klopfer, 2007). This conception is not constrained to any specific technological tool and may integrate the use of multiple technologies. Like many new technologies, augmented reality spans degrees of immersion and interaction that might help engage students in learning activities. A simple augmented-reality context may be a cell phone that uses global positioning system (GPS) technologies to provide information about what users see in their real-world environment—such as a virtual tour guide. More complex systems would allow a user, wearing a head-mounted unit, to navigate through a virtual 3D space without physically being there. Augmented-reality environments may be designer controlled (i.e., all of the information is prescribed by the designer and received by the user), or they may be crowd developed (i.e., as different users interact with the space, they add information to the virtual space for the next users).

Potential benefits of augmented reality, from an educational standpoint, are limitless. However, many technologies needed for full immersion are currently out of reach of most schools. But, as cost drops, and more such environments develop, more augmented-reality tools will begin to filter into K-12 classrooms. Proponents purport that learning within science may benefit the most from such educational tools (Cheng & Tsai, 2013), specifically for spatial ability (Martin-Gutierrez et al., 2010; Nunez, Quiros, Nunez, Carda, & Camahort, 2008), practical laboratory skills (Andujar, Mejías, & Marquez, 2011; Eursch, 2007), and conceptual understanding and change (Lin, Hsieh, Wang, Sie, & Chang, 2011; Shelton & Stevens, 2004). Unfortunately, educational research on augmented-reality applications is still in its infancy (Dunleavy & Dede, 2013; Wu, Lee, Chang, & Liang, 2013). Many such studies still center on the development, usability, and initial implementation of augmented-reality tools (Argotti, Davis, Outters, & Rolland, 2002; Blake & Butcher-Green, 2009; El Sayed, Zayed, & Sharawy, 2011; Kaufmann & Schmalstieg, 2003). Although promising, the evidence examining augmented reality’s effects on teaching and learning is, at best, superficial. Furthermore, current data that do examine student outcomes are inconsistent, some studies reporting positive effects on student motivation (e.g., Di Serio, Ibáñez, & Kloos, 2013), with others indicating negative effects on learning, such as low engagement (Kerawalla, Luckin, Seljeflot, & Woolard, 2006). Also, although teachers recognized the benefits of using such systems in classrooms, they would like to have more control over its content, so they could adapt it to more fully meet their students’ needs.

Conclusion and Implications

The research just reviewed regarding technology for educational purposes, in general, and contemporary technologies, in particular, is at best disheartening. Especially troubling are schools’ and districts’ heavy investments to secure the necessary technological infrastructure. During 2014, U.S. K-12 schools spent close to US$10 billion on educational technology, an increase of 2.5% over the previous year. This trend is not likely to lessen in the future, as schools continue to increase technology within their walls and constantly refresh out-of-date hardware and software. However, this overview carries the following caveat: Conducted at a meta-level, it examined the large body of data in aggregate. Taken as a whole, research on the effectiveness of general contemporary technologies does not yield enough decisive evidence to support conclusive proof of their effectiveness in improving educational outcomes. Certainly, some meritorious projects are encouraging. However, data from these studies are either tenuous or too few to be authoritative.

Even with this qualification, however, the failure of technology to live up to its promise is not actually a failure of technology at all. Digital tools, physical and virtual, are merely objects caught within an enterprise that is not functioning well—an enterprise comprising policymakers, instructional leaders, educational researchers, and industry. The technological sublime (Thomas, in press) describes affording technology the responsibility of fixing the broken system, as if the system itself is not a key player. Such a stance sets up technology as a false prophet—foretelling something that fails to come to pass. But is technology a false profit, or is it education’s sacrificial lamb? Policies place computers in every classroom, telling schools they had to get students using the computers or they would be unprepared for their future worlds. We have appropriated technologies and created digital learning environments for instructional settings, just to see what they will do. Research on learning and instruction is complex and influenced by multiple players. And we have brought into the technology industry’s agenda, whose primary intention is to sell their product, not reinvent education.

Through each of these acts, we have forgotten some fundamental principles of education. Good instruction requires having an objective, what we want students to know after instruction that they did not know before. To meet this objective, some form of interaction between a teacher (broad definition here) and students must occur. To be fruitful, this interaction must be based on sound pedagogy, which not only matches the instructional objective but also takes into account the learner’s needs. Tools, technological or otherwise, should follow these decisions not lead them. Finally, to know if the instruction was indeed good, high-quality assessments are required, and to know if it was better than alternative approaches, rigorous comparisons must be made.

For policymakers, the ramification of this regrounding is simple; emphasize the development and training of new pedagogies that embrace the affordances of technology, rather than forcing pedagogy to bend to technology’s presence. Furthermore, schools and teachers must have the opportunity to learn these new approaches and be continuously supported in their implementation (Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007). Individuals cannot enact what they do not know and do not have the resources to accomplish. Such an emphasis will enable a mind shift among current and future educators, school leaders, parents, and students. Absent this mind shift, the enterprise of education will never change, no matter what technologies are available.

As researchers, we need to stop talking about the affordances of contemporary technologies and quit playing show-and-tell about the innovative things that we did with technology in our courses. We need authentic research, in collaboration with teachers, in classrooms of students, focused on outcomes that really matter. Although issues regarding satisfaction and motivation matter, they are futile if students are not learning in the first place. Moreover, we need to create a longitudinal perspective on research examining these new pedagogies and their embedded educational technologies. Although this trajectory may begin with small contextualized studies to design and develop technology-enabled interventions, we need to progress through larger and more complex stages of research, examining implementation and efficacy studies with comparison groups. These endeavors are expensive and will require substantial investment from local, state, and federal entities. And, finally, we must figure out a way to build partnerships with industry to bring validated curricula to market for mass access. Only when the components of the enterprise begin to work together, toward a collective goal, will we begin to see the large-scale benefits of leveraging technology in our schools and realize the goals outlined in the current NETP concerning the transformation of teaching, learning, and instruction in the 21st century.