| This, ALL DAY LONG. Having significant roles in the design, funding, and implementation of various public and private school educational projects which integrated some minimal technology I have seen this firsthand as far back as it has existed. The schools which had the GOOGLE Classroom crap 'sold' to administrators and forced upon the teachers and students were examples of absolutely abysmal failure at every role to which they were supposed to help. GC is s complete waste of the schools limited budgets, a waste of instructors already over-committed time, and a complete failure to deliver improved educational outcomes for the students. They may have been more 'engaged' in the screens, but they learned less. In the end the GC framework becomes a leash, used by schools to monitor and invade the out-of-school aspects of student lives, and tilts the field more steeply where disparities of home income levels exist. My particular programs' inclusions of technology were never for 'education' with the exception of elective CS and robotics classes. Otherwise the technology was for records management and course content preparation help for teachers. One project's tech use case stands out distinct from that limit. A charter school project - instructors and students working to create video and online course materials documenting the conversion of a school program from single grade standard 'science' classes to multi-age, collaborative, hands-on STEM science programs. But the tech use and coursework were more for documentation and dissemination of the conversion process than for the principle educational objectives. Actual students did use adapted legacy Samsung android devices to record observations and collaborate among peers during the observations of field studies and workshop classes. The handhelds checked out to students' on a 'per project' basis each day, so there was no 'individual content' on any of the devices. The repurposing of these devices wasn't accomplished through 'locking down' an overcapable platform, but by building from the kernel up and only including the specific functionality as required to collect and collaborate - so, no web, no chat, no games, no distractions. The specific workshop content and objectives were available via the handheld, and at specific places in the progression the students were required to input observations and record still or videos. Those images were not shared among students and there was no incentive for shenanigans as all content was directly attached each student's workshop performance and we were clear in the start of the classes that because this was going to be part of the conversion process documentary, no people in any film.
we has a big library of already categorized required captures: Plants in various stages, equipment set-ups, insects in situ for ID, test-strip color comparisons, reagent container labels, etc. Some of the kids called them something from a scifi TV show, complete with "Beam me outta here" jokes. So, technology can be very useful, but not when it comes with external motives and further widens socio-economic disparity. If the objective is MORE engaging content and MORE accurate records of student progress, then sure. But, that usefulness is usually directly inverse to the cost and functionality of the devices: cheaper, limited capability tech will usually if not always outperform fancier, overcapable tech. A $very-cheap refurbished Samsung Galaxy stripped down to whitelisted bluetooth and Wifi LAN, with an distributed storage layer and local-only browsing (Apache Cordova based app) can get alot done without adding tools not required for the specific needs of the student [or educator in many cases]. Campus server infrastructure de-minimus was a solved problem with bittorrent sync and each device only subscribing to the specific file-tree required for the specific workshop/class, and student submissions are only accessible to that student, and the course instructor(s) - eliminates the bullying and other misuses of technology. We also were able to use a direct approach to resolve the personal phones in class problem, at least for the part f the campus participating in the STEM conversion (4th to 7th grades). Students had to turn off phones, lock them in a pouch, and hand that in to receive a handheld. If a parent needed to reach the student in school, that's why the school front office had phones. Otherwise, student's were 'in class' and not to be disturbed. But this was over ten years ago, and today's parents and students would probably throw a toddler sized tantrum at these rules. Too bad the project got rug-pulled for funding in between years 1 and 2 for the documentation and distributable methods layer; but the school did get to keep teaching the hands-on STEM focus to completion of the then enrolled students - we baked in the costs for that into the first year at the insistence of the participating teachers and parents. TLDR; don't let your school get SCROOGLED. |