When looking through the Saskatchewan Digital Citizenship Continuum, one of the first key skills students will need to do is look at their schools technology policy and use that to co-create a “Responsible Use Policy” (2015). This policy should make it clear how students can use technology in the classroom, and what appropriate use would look like. However, before these kinds of policies can be created, proper modelling of what proper use means and what that could look like in the classroom.
In our current climate, the use of technology in the classroom is becoming a very hot topic. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has even recently found that one in four countries have banned the use of smartphones in schools, with it being mose common in South and Central Asia (2023). Proponents for such bans claim that they help to raise student grades, and help to protect students from the frequent distractions that come from frequent smartphone notifications. However, there is also contention that the outright banning of technology from schools will lead to even greater disadvantages for students as they will be unable to work with the technologies that make it necessary to succeed in the modern world.
This is why it is necessary to find a balance between the two sides. Students need to understand that technology is like any other tool. There are times to use them, and times when they may not be the best help. As well, outright bans of technology from schools takes one group out of the discussion: the students.
Students need to be empowered to have a voice in how technology will be used in their classrooms and how they use to look. At the start of the school year, students should take part in a discussion about what technology should look like in their classroom, and what appropriate classroom technology behaviour is.
The Purpose of the Survey
I created an example survey on Google Forms that could be used at the beginning of the semester to get an understanding of students use of technology.
My reasoning in creating this survey was to understand students access to technology at home, and to also get a feeling for what they think would be appropriate when it comes to classroom technology use. Their suggestions around what an appropriate classroom policy would be would allow for students to have more agency in how class is conducted, and it would also allow them to reflect on their own technology use. Hopefully, this would set a baseline for what appropriate behaviour would look like in the classroom. As well, the survey could be used as a way to gage what knowledge students are coming into the classroom with when it comes to technology. It should give some idea of what skills students have when they come into the classroom, as well as what technological skills they want to work on the most for the semester.
Conclusion
While some believe that using technology in the classroom should be limited to try and prevent distraction, forbidding technology in the classroom may lead to students being further behind in the digital skills they need to be developing. Hopefully, by allowing students to have a voice in how technology should be used in their classrooms students will feel like they have contributed to the discussion of what is appropriate or not, and they will have a clearer idea of what appropriate online behaviour looks like in their circumstances.
References
Couros, A. & Hildebandt, K. (2015). Digital Citizenship Education in Saskatchewan Schools. Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. file:///Users/jordanhalkyard/Downloads/83322-DC_Guide_-_ENGLISH_2%20(5).pdf.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (2023). Global education monitoring report 2023: Technology, in Education: A Tool on Whose Terms? https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000385723.
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