Being a so-called digital native doesn’t necessarily make educators more enthusiastic about education technology.
In fact, educators with fewer than 10 years of experience are less likely to say that technology increases learning than those with a decade or more in the profession, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey of 596 educators conducted in February and March.
About 1 in 6 educators with less than 10 years’ experience—17%—said that technology does more to increase than decrease learning.
By contrast, nearly 2 in 5 teachers with 10 to 14 years’ experience—39%—see tech as a net plus for learning.
The data suggest that earlier-career educators are more open to the idea that tech has the potential to be both a positive and a negative, however.
Almost half of educators with less than 10 years of experience say that technology is equally likely to increase or decrease learning. That’s higher than those with more time in the profession.
The debate over whether digital tools help or hinder learning isn’t new. But the survey findings come as school districts and states are moving to limit students’ technology use, amid rising concerns that screen time is damaging to students’ mental health.
EdWeek explored young teachers’ complicated views of technology in this year’s State of Teaching report. Gen Z teachers entered the profession just as smartphones were become ubiquitous, but some educators in that age group say their experiences have led them to set boundaries on their own use of tech, and encourage their students to limit their tech immersion.
To younger teachers, technology is not “cool or fresh or new,” said Cory Montreuil, an instructional coach in Denver who has worked in K-12 education for 14 years. “[It’s] the thing [they] do Snapchat with.”
But for Montreuil, who grew up playing video games now considered old-school, it feels “really cool” to assign students to build a website as a capstone project.
One educator’s views of tech jaundiced by the pandemic
On the other hand, Tyler Hunt, a middle school teacher in suburban Chicago, now in her eighth year of teaching, had to deal with the pandemic—and a sudden pivot to virtual learning—near the beginning of her teaching career.
“It was the worst experience,” Hunt said, and may have influenced her views of education technology.
What’s more, Hunt, 30, is part of a generation that spent their teen years in a tech “haze,” to the detriment of their mental health, she said. “We see how it affected us and how we had to fight it.”
Hunt, who leads computer science classes, uses technology in her classroom. But she also loves giving her students a break from screen time.
“Some of the best learning that I have is when we unplug the screens, we stop, and we talk to each other,” she said.
