It’s happening again. We are currently witnessing a profound and highly visible shift in the educational discourse. Across social media, on LinkedIn, in staffrooms, and in school board meetings, there is a growing, vocal movement advocating for a drastic reduction or outright ban of devices in schools. This includes politically and no, it’s not limited to a single country or district.
Let me be clear at the outset: I welcome this conversation.
Walking down the corridors and hallways of too many schools, or observing students during their downtime, it is undeniable that a genuine problem has taken root around the world. An overreliance on screens and the sight of children perpetually tethered to devices are valid concerns that require our immediate attention and decisive action. It’s as if we are literally plugging our children in as they start their day and unplug them when they go to bed.
However, as we rightfully begin to address this systemic issue, we must step back and ask ourselves a critical question: in our rush to correct the course, are we about to throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Education as a sector is deeply susceptible to pendulum swings. We’ve seen this countless times before and we will see it happen again and again until our AI-overlords take over (Ok, that may have been a bit much, even for me!)
A little over a decade ago, the collective, knee-jerk reaction was to go “all in” on technology. Everyone wanted to go Paper-less. No more printing or copying, Google Classroom, Canvas(YEs, the one from this months breach) and other LMS(Learning Management systems) providers boomed! Devices were rushed into classrooms under the vague promise of revolutionising learning. Carts of tablets and laptops were deployed, often without a clear pedagogical framework, robust teacher training, or a defined end goal. Now, driven by a highly visible and understandable backlash against screen time, we run the very real risk of making the exact same mistake, merely in the opposite direction. A complete, unnuanced purge of technology is just as shortsighted as its initial blind adoption.
In my daily work teaching a regular class of students, as well as leading computing for our youngest learners, the approach to digital tools must be highly deliberate and fundamentally measured. With early years and primary students, devices should be used sparingly. They are not babysitters, nor are they digital pacifiers for quiet time. They only enter the learning environment when they are carefully planned for, fully integrated into the curriculum, and serve a distinct, elevated purpose. Our focus must remain squarely on teaching the thinking, not the tool. AND, we should not, under any circumstance simply use a device with ready made lessons without carefully having planned for it.
When evaluating whether a device belongs in a specific lesson, we can look to the ‘R’ in the SAMR model: Redefinition. Technology earns its place in the classroom only when it allows us to achieve tasks that would be fundamentally impossible without it. It is about redefining the educational experience, connecting with experts across the globe in real-time, capturing and analysing data points in a primary science experiment, or allowing young students to visually code a sequence that brings a physical robot to life. But Do I want student on their devices all day long with screen time logging usage of over 5 hours a day! NO! Should King YouTube be front and centre in every lesson and as storytime books being show in video form instead of the teacher actually reading the book! Uhm, definitely not!
(I know, shocking idea, actually read the books ourselves!)
However, to completely strip schools of these capabilities is to ignore the incredible utility they offer when applied with precision. None of us genuinely want to regress to the analogue past. I certainly do not want to return to the days of endless queuing at the photocopier to run off hundreds of static worksheets, or relying on liquid paper and whiteout to painstakingly blank out answers for a quiz. Technology has successfully streamlined countless administrative and instructional bottlenecks, allowing us to focus more of our energy on actual teaching.
We must also reframe how we view our students in this landscape. We are raising a generation of digitally comfortable learners, but we must never make the mistake of assuming that comfort equates to literacy or competency. Simply removing devices from schools does not equip them to navigate the highly digitised world they live in. Instead, it creates an artificial vacuum. True progress lies in redefining the role of technology in the classroom, shifting the focus from passive consumption to purposeful creation and critical evaluation.
Ultimately, this entire debate serves as a crucial reminder of a fundamental, timeless truth in education: good pedagogy is good pedagogy, and bad pedagogy is bad pedagogy. Technology simply acts as an amplifier.
If a lesson is poorly designed, lacks clear learning objectives, or fails to engage the students’ cognitive abilities, introducing a tablet will only magnify those flaws, serving as an expensive and highly engaging distraction. But when a device is placed in the hands of a skilled educator with a firm, pedagogy-first objective, it remains a profoundly transformative instrument.
Let us not overreact. Let us use this global shift in perspective to recalibrate and refine our practices. We must ensure that every single time a screen is powered on in our schools, it is driven entirely by pedagogical purpose, not by habit or convenience. By doing so, we can find the nuance between the extremes, ensuring our students reap the benefits of the digital age without being consumed by it.