Why are tech companies the only voice talking about technology in the classroom?

I remember it’s compactness — at six years old, it’s 10 inch screen seemed almost perfectly scaled for me. Whether I wanted to write letters, draw, or use it for my neverending chain of pretend stores, it was like I had a suitcase filled with far more opportunities to create than with a pen and my limited artistic abilities. But a suitcase would have been easier to move — the Apple Macintosh I was constantly dragging around the house as a kid weighed 16 pounds and was nearly a 1 foot cube. It was hardly the iPad schools eagerly push on kids today, and discussing how to use it was simple — you just had to decide whether to use MacWrite or MacPaint.

iPads, Chromebooks, and smartphones are now ubiquitous in classrooms, and with hundreds of thousands of apps, using a simple word processor or artboard is nostalgic. We exclaim how devices can help replicate an entire library in our hands and take for granted how they might help create something as mundane as a book report. Evidently, we have graduated from using technology as a tool for creation to using it as a tool for consumption, but who determined that was preferable? This seismic shift has occurred without a collaborative conversation between parents, students, educators, school administrators, employers, workforce development professionals, and civic leaders who all have a key stake in this discussion.

How did this happen?

What discussion should we have?

“Most discussions of the role of educational technology are fundamentally flawed because they ignore one essential tenet: technology is a means, not an end” said Wade Whitehead, a teacher at Crystal Springs School in Roanoke, VA and the founder of the Teachers of Promise Foundation. Before we can get to the benefits of carrying around a virtual library or the dangers of screen time addiction, we need to begin a conversation about what we want to use technology for and who needs to be involved in that discussion. By bringing the perspectives of students, parents, educators, and employers to the table alongside the people designing these devices, we can create a constructive dialogue on using technology in education rather than allowing technology to use the classroom.

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