A “Digital Technology boom” or ‘jump” in education has become a commonplace expression to describe the transition the education had to recently undergo, mostly due to the pandemic. A very steep learning curve for some of us! There are plenty of articles about “technology for education”, describing how it can benefit students’ learning, but there is much less literature on how it can make teachers’ life easier.
Actually, the un-orderly take-off of technologies in education has made the non-tech savvy teacher’s life much more difficult and very often have they been left alone on the edge of the technological cliff. At best, have they benefited from improvised support – necessity ruling- with no real plan or structure. It is about time that we place back under the spotlight the people who truly need to develop a deeper understanding of these tools or to consolidate it.
Identify the stakeholders:
In User-Centered Design, DT students learn to identify the needs of all stakeholders :
Just like in the video, you need to satisfy the cat, of course, but also the cat owner. And the manufacturers. All of them have different expectations, needs and experiences.
When designing life monitoring medical devices that have to be moved around rooms, the patient’s needs are obviously primordial. They are the ones on which, after all, the device is being used first-hand. The needs of the nurses, who operate the machines at times in emergency situations, are however certainly not less important.
I think of the teachers as the nurses in the example above. Yes, the students must be at the center of our preoccupations, but yes, the needs of the teachers who have to design meaningful and engaging learning activities, are not less important.
Other crucial stakeholders I haven’t mentioned yet are the parents who sometimes struggle to support their children with the technological tools, but this would be the topic of another article.
Students, teachers and parents are target audiences that have distinct expectations, needs and experiences. Recognizing them is the first step to identify the actions and support that Innovation and IT directors should set in place to transform the digital tools into a successful teaching and learning experience.
Relevant resources:
The platform and tools we use cannot be another burden to put on the shoulders of teachers. And the great news is that they do not have to be. It is only that, quite often, teachers are not shown to what extent digital tools can make their workflow better.Continuous training and easy access to reference material are crucial.
If you are tech savvy and have ever attempted to learn a more complex software (Illustrator or Fusion 360 for instance), you will know that you promptly forget how to perform certain actions. The ones you need on a daily basis are very clear in your mind, but what about these less-common – yet useful – actions ? Chances are you will remember WHAT you can do, but not necessarily HOW. Creating, therefore, a video channel on Stream, Youtube or Framatube with short, targeted, tailor-made (and clearly labelled) tutorials can be of great help. So much the better if that video channel can live within your LMS: it will be centrally located, easy to access and therefore fully relevant.
Regrouping all your resources and containing the number of platforms you are using can be a determining factor for the user experience. This is, in my humble opinion, the greatest strength of platforms such as MS Teams: they enable you to integrate a great number of third party apps and websites into one single space, providing a consistent learning and teaching experience. There again, you must select and limit them to a number that is both serving the need for efficient learning and developing a sense of confidence or comfort with the tools. Throwing a constant tsunami of new apps at your students and teachers won’t serve any purpose and is not what a “sustained innovation approach” should be.
Stream the communication channels:
Posts with non-informative titles (if any) in a plethora of different Teams pages and sites, emails messages, notifications, Teams groups chats, tailor made Sharepoint sites, shared documents in different spaces, from One-drive to Teams channels, Yammer messaging etc. have become the daily work experience for many.
All of the above are very powerful communication and collaboration tools, don’t get me wrong, but it can take several minutes – and a lot of frustration – to search for simple information or to retrieve a “2-minutes survey” that was sent during your last teaching period.
If not properly channeled – and it is very often the case – too much information will kill information and a teacher in search for a particular item, be it a deadline or the latest update on Academic Honesty, will spend a considerable amount of time searching for it before potentially giving up.
Creating a communication protocol is a MUST. This would consist in a few steps: define what should be sent through email, clarify what is appropriate or not in a chat; explain how to create a post on your Teams channels, demonstrate good practices for informative titles and posting; save time for community management, at least at the implementation stage, and ensure poor practices do not become bad habits; consider ethics and define when it is acceptable to send an email and when an answer should be expected.
Consider workflow.
iPads are a great teaching tool. They free away the teachers from their screen and keyboard, they enable them to move around the room and interact with the students while teaching.
Online notebooks such as ClassOneNote are great to enable teachers to follow step by step the progress of their students on the go.
If you can combine both, then you are dramatically improving the teacher’s workflow.
Provide your teachers with an Apple pencil (or a cheaper alternative) and you will make their life way easier.
When coupled with OneNote in Teams, or when using the annotation tools of a LMS such as Managebac, they enable educators to directly comment on the student’s work. Using the keyboard to annotate is a real hassle and takes much more time than free-hand annotation (when all the necessary symbols exist which is not always the case e.g in Maths). Plus, it will ensure the students receive more timely feedback. Finally, the ones who complain about the teachers’ handwriting will learn an important life skill: they definitely will have to decipher their bosses handwriting one day !
To sum it up :
Identifying your target audience and clearly pinpointing their needs is a first step in consolidating the technology up-scaling of your school. Students, teachers and parents all have different needs that must equally be addressed. Teachers will appreciate having easy access to relevant training and support material. In building consistency in the LMS you will help them develop their IT confidence and willingness to expand their skills. Giving choice and opportunity is empowering, it is however important to remember that multiplying platforms (SIS, Teams, Seesaw and others…) without a prior careful selection will only unsettle the users.
Communication protocols, duly discussed and properly implemented, will definitely support the consistent use of the platform and have a positive impact on the workflow.
The addition of a tablet PC with a stylus, if possible, will greatly facilitate the workflow of teachers and help empower them back with their time and ensure the learning experience will stay focused on the students.
January 2022
Video credit : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dln9xDsmCoY
Photo credit: on <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re10/6781dde6″>VisualHunt.com</a>
ePortfolio : // Christophe.Gigon 
I appreciate the perspective you’ve shared on the impact of the digital technology boom in education, particularly highlighting the challenges faced by teachers who may not be as tech-savvy. It’s certainly true that much of the discourse around educational technology focuses on student benefits, often neglecting the teacher’s experience and needs.
However, while acknowledging the steep learning curve and the potential feelings of abandonment some educators may have faced, I think it’s important to consider that this rapid transition also offered opportunities for professional growth and development. The forced adaptation to digital tools can serve as a catalyst for teachers to reimagine their pedagogical practices and engage with students in new ways.
Moreover, while improvised support is far from ideal, it has fostered a sense of community among educators as they navigate these challenges together. Many have turned to informal networks, online forums, and social media groups to share resources, tips, and moral support.
That said, your call for a more structured support system is well-founded. Professional development programs tailored to enhancing digital literacy among educators are essential. Such initiatives would not only ease the current burden but also equip teachers with skills that will remain valuable long after the pandemic has subsided.
In moving forward, how do you envision these support systems being implemented? Do you see this as a responsibility that should fall primarily on individual schools or districts, or is there a role for broader policy initiatives at the state or national level? Engaging in dialogue about these questions can help us find a balanced approach that honors both the immediate needs and long-term professional growth of educators.
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