What's keeping your ed tech from being used?
Wednesday, December 26, 2018 at 05:57AM ...70% of districts’ software licenses never get used, and a median of 97.6% of licenses are never used intensively. Arnett, "There's a Reason Why Teachers Don't Use the Software Provided By Their Districts." Education Next November 30, 2018
Quite frankly, I find these numbers rather shocking. Am I blind or naive, or is my district simply an outlier? We also use BrightBytes to analyze our tech usage, and while the numbers may not be as good as we would like them, they are nowhere close to being this grim. Not every teacher in our district uses all provided software, of course, but our LMS, our GSuites tools, and IWB software are all used by the majority of teachers and on a regular basis. Tools like SeeSaw, MyOnReader, and WeVideo are growing in popularity with student access to their own devices. We study the usage stats of the commercial software we license each year and drop those programs from which we are not getting our money's worth.
Arnett's theory on software needing to help teachers get "jobs done" is a good one. For many teachers, the expectation that they reach and teach every student, especially those from culturally diverse backgrounds, has been a major challenge. Higher expectations for parents about home/school communication have grown. And the expectation that students not just memorize and apply factual information and skills, but problem solve and create is becoming more common. We try to focus on those expectations in collaboration with our curriculum department when selecting software.
I personally have been trying to understand why some educational technologies soar and others crash for 25 years. In PLSA Predictors (Education Technology Solutions (Australia), Vol 22, May 2008, I offered the following criteria based on observation and experience:
About this rubric, I asked:
Getting a “zero” in either the Usefulness or Affordability categories would seem to negate high scores in the others. Should these be more heavily weighted? And usefulness in itself seems to be a trump card – if the need is great enough, other factors are less important.
In 2007 when I was writing this piece, I asked "Right now, what are the chances of large scale adoption in your district of these technologies?
- Internet 2
- MUVEs (Second Life)
- Wiki spaces
- Interactive white boards
- Voice amplification systems
- New reading/math programs
- Online testing"
What are the new technologies today that are being touted in your technology conference vendor areas? How will you evaluate them?
As an educator, a child advocate, and tax payer, I find the numbers from Arnett's study appalling. Especially when dollars spent on un- or under-used resources could be better spent in so many other areas of education.
Reader Comments (2)
The Covid-19 pandemic is dramatically restricting the opportunity of Indian students who want to study abroad, governments around the world have focused more on safety and public health with lockdown and travel restrictions. Covid-19 has undoubtedly acted as a significant disruption for the student who graduates this year and would like to study abroad and starting new academic programs.
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Guarav,
Thank you for the reminder that this is indeed a global pandemic. And countries with less wealth I am sure a suffering at a higher rate.
Doug