Online or Offline: Designing With Intention

In today’s episode, we'll explore 5 guiding questions that can help you determine if technology should be integrated into your lesson. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

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Paul Beckermann 0:00 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16 The topic of today's episode is online or offline, designing with intention. At one time or another, you've probably all been part of a conversation about the pros and cons of using digital devices in your classroom. You know the question: Should students be using Chromebooks, iPads, and laptops to complete their work, or should they be learning with traditional pencil and paper?

On one side of the online/offline debate, some teachers default every lesson to phrases like, "Grab your Chromebook," "Submit in Google Classroom," and "Make a slide deck." On the other side of the equation, there are classrooms where student devices are tucked away in backpacks or under desks collecting dust every day—expensive tools and investments not being used.

Both of these scenarios are problematic, and best practices likely land somewhere in the middle. What that middle ground looks like is continually a subject of debate, and definitive research is still being conducted in this area. Still, there are a few guiding questions that you can use to determine the amount of classroom technology you integrate into a given lesson.

In today's episode, I'm going to offer five questions that you can use to help guide your classroom tech decision-making. It's not intended to give you a definitive, one-size-fits-all answer to every situation because those answers are seldom clear-cut. Rather, they are questions that can help guide you in making informed, professional, student-centered ed-tech decisions in your classroom. Think of it as an episode about intentional instructional design. It's not anti-tech; it's not pro-paper. Rather, it's pedagogy first. Here is that potential decision-making five-question checklist to consider.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 2:07 Let's count it. Let's count it. Let's count it down.

Paul Beckermann 2:10 Number one: What is the learning goal? It doesn't matter what approach you're considering—tech or no tech, collaborative or independent, mastery or reinforcement work—your planning should always begin with your objective. What is it that students should know and be able to do because of the lesson? Are you teaching skill development, content knowledge, or transferable skills like the Four Cs: collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity? Or maybe something else?

With your objective in mind, you should then ask an important follow-up question: Will the integration of technology into this lesson potentially improve the student outcome, or might it impede learning? This is a complex, multifaceted question with lots of variables. To help you simplify things a bit, you can ask this: Would adding or removing a digital device change student thinking or just the format?

If the only impact is changing the format, then the likely learning benefit is probably minimal. On the other hand, if student thinking shifts—say, from recall to analysis and creation—then technology has the potential to improve the learning experience in a meaningful way. This is where the SAMR model of tech integration fits in. The SAMR model—S-A-M-R—consists of four levels of integration: Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition.

The first two levels are about task enhancement, while the second two transform the learning experience. At the substitution level, tech simply replaces an analog task. This might be typing a paper rather than writing it out by hand. Although it may be easier to read student writing when it's typed, there's minimal gain if that's where the use of digital tools ends.

At the augmentation level, technology now introduces functional improvements. In the case of the writing example, it might mean spell check, speech-to-text, dictionary and thesaurus access, or maybe grammar checkers. It may also result in an increased ease in revision. Augmentation is clearly a step up from substitution, and it offers more meaningful advantages. Still, if tech use stops with either of these steps, the benefits gained from technology integration may still remain limited.

When we move up the SAMR scale to modification, we're introducing a more transformational task redesign that has the potential of benefiting students in more significant ways. In the example of tech in the writing process, this might mean using the tech to facilitate real-time peer editing or inline teacher feedback comments. It might also mean leveraging automated AI-powered feedback to help guide students' thinking and writing without doing the writing for them. These examples modify the writing process by improving the feedback loop and, in turn, potentially helping students improve their writing more quickly.

At the top end of the SAMR scale is redefinition. At this level, students are now allowed to complete redesigned tasks and processes that would have been impossible or inconceivable without technology. This might include expanding the audience beyond the classroom through writing that is shared on published blogs or websites. It might mean transforming a written text into a multimedia message that also includes video, audio, or maybe even an interactive ebook format.

While the SAMR scale is helpful in understanding the impact that ed-tech can make, it's important to always return to your objective. If the technology ends up doing the thinking for the student, that's a problem. However, if the technology preserves the thinking targeted in your learning objective while adding enhancements or supports that allow students to achieve higher levels of thinking, then tech integration becomes a winning formula.

Paul Beckermann 6:06 Question number two: How is technology impacting cognitive processing? This one is related to number one in that you want to make sure that the tech is not replacing or hindering the student thinking outcomes related to your learning targets. When those learning targets are being shortcutted by the technology, it's not a good choice.

There is research suggesting that students may be able to process printed text more deeply than online text, and a strong case can be made for having students complete complex reading tasks using printed-out text. Printed text often includes fewer distractions, like the temptation to open a new tab or multitask. Printed text may also slow down the reading process, resulting in less skimming. The printed page is also more stable and stationary.

Despite these potential advantages, it's also critical that we consider how much digital text our students will encounter as adults. To be successful in adult life, students will need to gain the skills necessary to read and comprehend in digital environments. This process includes developing skills that translate into a digital space—strategies like using digital highlighters, posing questions in the margins, using the comments feature, and avoiding the temptation to constantly click and scroll.

As students get older, they may be better equipped to process text digitally and handle these more complex digital interactions. In other words, it may be much more appropriate for a high school student to research, read, and write digitally versus a kindergarten student who might benefit more from print-based resources. In this way, learning reading strategies using print becomes a scaffold for applying those strategies to a digital environment.

When it comes to note-taking, the same ideas apply. We want to make sure students are not simply taking dictation when they type their notes. They need to be mentally processing what they hear and write down. When taking digital notes, students should be taught active listening strategies like summarizing rather than typing verbatim, asking themselves questions, and highlighting or grouping key ideas. These strategies work with both digital and analog texts, but they may feel and look different depending on the environment. In both cases, teachers will need to directly teach these skills and call out the differences.

Paul Beckermann 8:27 Question number three: Who's doing the work? If you're saying to yourself, "This one seems related to the first two questions as well," you're absolutely correct. In fact, all of these questions are related, yet with nuanced differences. In question one, we asked about the learning objective. In that same vein, we should be asking: What is the essential work a student will need to do to achieve that learning objective, and is technology doing that work for the student?

This question may not be as straightforward as it first appears. After all, the point of technology is to make student work easier and to do things for us. A shovel helps us dig. A car lets us travel more quickly and easily. A word processor helps us put the correct words onto a document. While this will always be nuanced, it's critical that you ask if the work that the technology is doing is critical to that learning objective. Is it shortcutting or short-circuiting the intended learning? If so, that particular technology is probably not the right tool for that lesson.

However, if technology is doing work that is unrelated to the learner outcome and actually allows students to get through unnecessary busy work faster in order to spend more time on the thinking that actually does matter for the lesson, then in those cases, technology might be an accelerator of learning and should strongly be considered.

Advancements in artificial intelligence are amplifying the importance of this question. In terms of writing, AI can definitely do the thinking for the students. Does that mean AI should never be used, or does that mean that the use of AI needs to be carefully considered and strategically placed? Probably the latter. After all, students will again be graduating into an AI-infused world, so banning it in all cases likely doesn't make sense and could harm our students in the future.

Because of those considerations, we need to consider how AI is being integrated into the process. Allowing students to put their topic into an AI chatbot and then have it write the entire paper with little input is a poor choice. On the other hand, a tool like Khan Academy's writing coach does not do the actual writing for the students. Instead, it coaches or guides the student through the writing process, much like a teacher would do. It asks questions and prods students to complete the next step of the process. Because it is an AI assistant, the feedback and coaching is immediate and personalized to the student, freeing up the teacher to work individually and personally with students who need that extra help. In some situations, AI might very well be a tool you should consider.

Paul Beckermann 11:10 Question number four: Is a human at the center of the learning process? Learning is, and always will be, a human endeavor. We are working with classrooms of complex people who need to learn academic content but also must learn how to work collaboratively and live in a complicated human society to become successful adults. Student human interactions cannot be outsourced to computers. Our students need to learn to work together as humans to develop creative solutions to complex problems.

Can technology help in this endeavor? Absolutely. The resources our students have available to them are unprecedented in their scale and scope. The possibilities that they can help our students unlock are nearly endless, and it would be harmful to withhold these opportunities from our children. At the same time, our students need to know how to work effectively and safely within these environments while also bringing the benefits of digital resources to their humanity and to human interactions.

As you consider the place digital tools should have in the learning process, consider how you can ensure that the learning experiences retain a meaningful "human in the loop." This might mean having students create a digital product while working collaboratively in face-to-face groups. It might mean making sure the student voice is present before, during, and after an interaction with an AI chatbot. In other words, the student would generate the prompt, monitor and review the output, and then use their own judgment to determine the validity and usefulness of that output. If students are getting feedback from an AI writing coach, at some point, they should also be interfacing with their peers and teacher. It's all about balance and intentionality.

Paul Beckermann 12:57 Question five: What is the sweet spot? Speaking about balance and intentionality, you'll need to find that sweet spot between no tech and all tech. Where does technology enhance or transform learning? Where does it impede learning or do too much of the work for the student?

Many times, the answer is a combination of online and offline learning in the same lesson. For example, part of the process might be enhanced with tech while another part of the task is completed offline. Maybe brainstorming happens offline, a product is created digitally, and then humans work collaboratively to test and evaluate the outputs. Maybe the first step is independent work in a digital environment and that work is later debriefed in a face-to-face group. Or maybe the initial learning activity is completed offline, followed by digital practice that includes immediate feedback and a face-to-face debrief with a teacher or peers.

Again, it's all about balance and purpose. Tech integration may also look different at different grade levels. Younger students might begin with a short, targeted use of ed-tech. As they get older and better able to self-regulate, the tasks may become more student-centered, longer, and open-ended. This natural evolution may help to scaffold student skills while preparing them for the digital world that they will ultimately graduate into.

Paul Beckermann 14:21 In the end, what this looks like in practice will be determined by the learning situation, available resources, and, most importantly, your professional decision-making. While there is no set answer for every situation, these five guiding questions can help point you in the right direction with your decision-making. And remember, the goal isn't less tech or more tech; the goal is better learning.

Paul Beckermann 14:47 To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org—specifically, I encourage you to check out the article collection, "AI in the K-12 Classroom." And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care, and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.