Page vs Screen: Technology in the Classroom isn’t Hobson’s Choice! (Dorian Love)
Dorian Love teaches ICT and 8th grade English at Roedean, a private school in Johannesburg, South Africa. He says at his blog: “I am passionate about educational technology and critical thinking.” He wrote this post on May 12, 2016.
It seems to me that in any class I teach there are three distinct groups of students: one consisting of enthusiastic adopters of digital technologies; a second group of those comfortable enough with the technology, but rather less gung-ho about it; and finally a group which struggles with anything to do with a device, and is all at sea. I gave my grade 8 English class a writing task the other day, and told them they could submit digitally, or on paper. A large group reached immediately for their devices, but some put their tablets to one side, and took out pen and paper. Likewise, when it comes to reading, most of my students have a textbook, but a few use eBooks downloaded on their kindles.
This is, I believe, exactly what it should be. The introduction of technology in the classroom should never amount to an all or nothing affair. The research on the effects of reading and writing on page and screen is by no means conclusive, and with something as important as reading and writing, I believe we should be very cautious about any change. On the other hand so much reading and writing is done on devices these days, we would be ill-advised to ignore it. My common sense, unscientific intuition is that both page and screen form important modalities for literacy practices, and that we need to cultivate good habits in both.
I try to give my students opportunities throughout the year to read and write on Page vs Screen: Technology in the Classroom isn’t Hobson’s Choice! (Dorian Love) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:
