Speck-ology

Some of the issues in digital learning in public education are outdated machines, money, and not enough readily available content online. Currently, in my class, my machines are getting old and slow. They are unable to run a simple program like Photoshop due to how large the file is and how much memory it takes to run. I have to call technology to come and wipe them so students can work on their designs in class. Technology is constantly evolving and changes so rapidly that sometimes the physical machine cannot keep up with the digital age. Money is the biggest factor that makes the world go round, and oftentimes it leads to people being greedy or not putting their desires aside for what really needs to happen. Some students don’t have the money to buy a computer for home, and the internet needed to go with it. 

Also, another issue is that not everyone is a digital learner. Some students need the traditional brick and mortar to learn or interact with other human beings physically, and some do fine with self-pacing online. Take our master's program, for example. Every time we meet for our online class, very few people will use the microphone or talk in the chat box. There are roughly 20 students who join our Zoom class, but only 5 of us actually contribute. Oftentimes, Dr. Harrison is waiting for a response, but no one says anything, and it makes it a little uncomfortable, and I feel sorry for him. You know he wants that interaction and feedback to assess thoughts or what people are thinking regarding the topic, but sometimes no one says anything for fear of saying the wrong answer, or they just don’t like public speaking. So then we sit in silence until either Dr. Harrison moves the topic along or someone chimes in. I wait to speak to give others a chance to voice their opinions, etc., on the topic, but sometimes I feel bad when no one answers. The same thing happens in my classroom with 30 8th graders too.

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Sometimes I think, since our school system is so far behind, the teachers don’t want to reinvent the wheel again, or are afraid of technology. Teachers have created their content on paper and transitioning to digital is more work for teachers to do in addition to all of their other responsibilities. Many educators are hesitant to incorporate technology because of how quickly it changes. I am currently dealing with this from a colleague. He teaches 7th-grade Social Studies and has been teaching for 15 years. Everything he has done is on paper or from the teacher's guidebook he was given. While these are great resources, he is losing out on some of the benefits the digital age can provide. At the end of last school year, he asked me to help him take his class to a digital class and really start utilizing Google Classroom. I was beyond thrilled. We have started to slowly incorporate small fragments of his lessons into Google Classroom for the students to access and participate in. I do not believe he will ever be 100% online like my class is. He makes them create a notebook and paste papers in it from their notes, then reference it periodically and for tests. These 7th graders are not self-disciplined enough to really utilize the digital age yet fully. This brings us to the next issue I see with the transition from pen-and-paper to digital. 

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Students still need that pen and paper to really have the material sink in. According to an article written by Corissa Haury,  “Writing by hand on paper creates a tactile, personalized experience each time a person takes notes. The complex experience of handwriting on paper contains a multitude of variable elements: the creativity of an individual’s written representation of language, the texture of the paper itself, the fine motor skills needed to translate thoughts into written language, the engagement of the physical senses, and even the reading comprehension strength that we learned of earlier. All of these complexities create a stronger memory of the information that is taken in during the note-taking. A recent study led by neuroscientist Professor Kuniyoshi Sakai at the University of Tokyo, published in March 2021, showed that subjects who recorded calendar event information on paper showed more brain activity than subjects who recorded the same information onto a smartphone when they attempted to recall details about that calendar information later. And they recalled/entered the information 25% faster when writing it by hand.” We can see that those who used pen and paper recalled their information faster than those who did not. Therefore, it shows the importance of writing information down versus just using a smartphone. Further down in the article, we see, “…that typing does not engage the brain with the same level of cognitive interaction as handwriting for various reasons.” (Haury, 2022) Therefore, losing this skill set could pose potential issues as students grow in a digital age. Students need to build the cognitive connections that the digital age lacks.