Learning Manifesto
As an educator I have two main passions. Early literacy and technology (specifically with littles). Both of these are hot button issues in classrooms right now. I see change trying to erupt for both and flourishing in some classrooms and schools, while it is struggling to silently emerge in others. I believe that the body of research known as the Science of Reading is the best (and researched backed) way to teach our learners to read and also that technology belongs in our classrooms. I am passionate about teaching our littlest of learners how to use technology as a tool and that it can go far beyond something that is just a toy.
The Issues:
Among my region alone I see major inequalities among school districts. I was in a small district just a few years ago and they are still not one to one and teachers are still having to write grants just to get interactive whiteboards in their classrooms. How can we teach digital natives to use technology responsibly if it is not even available to them more than once a week? How can 3rd-6th graders learn the typing skills needed if there are not enough computers on a campus for them to have access daily? This is a problem. Ultimately, this is one of the reasons I decided to move on from this district to one right down the road because I felt that I was not equipped to use one of my strongest passions in my own classroom. Technology would never be more than a toy when students were only given sporadic access to it. When I came to my current district I was met with a much more robust technology plan where I could exercise my passion with much greater flexibility. These districts are less than 20 miles apart. 73% of Texas school districts are underfunded (Turley & Selsberg, 2024). This leads to an impact on technology. Whether it is on devices available, subscriptions or infrastructure or all three. Nationally and globally digital equity continues to be a concern not only with just access, but with the foundational skills that students are having prior to coming to school. This goes all the way up to the collegiate level (Xuefei Deng & El Hag, 2024). We are also seeing a rise of hacking of school servers and questionable student behavior which raises safety concerns.
My Beliefs:
While the above issues are certainly scary and give us something to ponder when we put a device in students’ hands, I do not think it is a reason to shy away from use in our education system. The fact of the matter is that technology is here and here to stay. It is an important part of everyday life and the younger we teach our students the proper way to use it the more well rounded little humans they can be. As a Kindergarten teacher I fought to integrate technology into my learners’ hands early and often. This was often scrutinized by other teachers that didn’t understand and quite frankly those were people who often used student devices as babysitters when they needed to get testing done. We often underestimate our little learners and just assume they are incapable of doing things. For instance, many believed that Kindergarten students struggled to login to their computers. This was not true… If they were TAUGHT how to properly do it. Even my lowest babies could log in to their computer and navigate to Google Classroom. A task that some of my colleagues would not dare tackle. Again, you just have to teach them. They can do it. We were creating with Seesaw, documenting the growth of plants with Google slides, creating word chains with Lumio and sharing out with the class on the Newline. When it came time to progress monitor I declined the extra help because I knew my kids could login. I will always advocate for simply teaching our youngest learners HOW to use technology effectively in an education setting. They are going to be using it for so much of their learning in their upper elementary grades, why not get them comfortable as a young learner? This may sound contradictory as at the beginning I also said I am passionate about early literacy. Both can be true and can coexist quite nicely. I still taught my kids to write with a pencil too. Why? Because this helps make them better readers and link their sounds. The fact of the matter is, our kids need to be good readers and have fluent technology skills.
I also believe that bringing technology into the classroom is important to help make teachers more efficient. Things that AI and digital assessments can maximize our teaching time and time spent outside of class. I turned a years old paper assessment into an auto read, digital, gamified assessment that my kids loved. Previously this assessment was given one on one and took days. When done digitally, it was then done in 15 minutes! I also quickly embraced the Seesaw assessment feature and got so much valuable data from my kids' center time. This saved me a lot of time when it came to doing my kids standards based report cards. Bottom line, when technology is not used as a babysitter it can be so valuable in a primary classroom!
I believe that embracing technology with our littles is the way forward and when done correctly can set them up for the best success. Many will argue that they are already addicted to their screens, but I will argue back that we just need to TEACH them the best practices when it comes to tech!
