I have written a few times on balance however a recent post by my Digital Futures Colleague (DFG) Darren White talking about risk (“Lets talk about risk”) got me thinking it was about time for another balance post. Now it is easier to explore balance by looking at a specific situation so I would like to look briefly at 1:1 devices. As with a lot of things there are those who evangelise about 1:1 devices and about the many ways they benefit students, meanwhile there are the doomsayers who plead that we must avoid the evil of 1:1 devices due to all the damage they will do to our youths. It’s the old binary arguments. But the world is not that clean and simple with clear demarcation of the good and the evil, the positive and the negative. We need to get better at adapting to pluralism and the fact that 1:1 devices, and other things, can be both good and bad. If we can adapt to this we can start doing what we really need to do which is to take a risk based view and reach a reasoned professional judgment, understanding both the pros and the cons.
So lets just dip into the positives of 1:1 devices then; Lets start with the fact that the world is increasingly digital. As such getting students to work in a digital world, to establish their skills and experience, and even establish their identity online, can be good in preparing them for life beyond compulsory education. We also have the benefits of the various accessibility tools which exist within devices which might assist SEND students with accessing learning content or with contributing to lessons, or producing coursework, homework and other materials. The same can be said in terms of language and how technology can help EAL students better access learning through being able to easily translate content into their principal language, or from their principal language into English. And I note tools which will help SEND and EAL students often have a positive impact on all students, rather than just SEND and EAL students. Next we have access to communications, collaboration and creativity tools, to research materials, to a wealth of content way beyond what any school can offer on its own, all through devices in the hands of the students.
But there are drawbacks; 1:1 devices are great but when the student goes home do they have access to high speed internet, parents that understand and embrace technology, etc. 1:1 devices can open a digital divide where the same divide isn’t as apparent when it comes to pen and paper, and school text books. We also have the issue of students possibly spending too much time staring at screens particularly late at night, or if using devices simply to mindlessly scroll through social media content. And linked to this students may start to suffer reduced attention spans and become more easily distracted as they become used to the constant notifications and alerts, the quick surfing from site to site, which is the staple of the internet. We also have safeguarding risks, as although devices might be included in school filtering and monitoring, no filtering and monitoring solution is perfect meaning there is a risk students may be able to access upsetting or even dangerous content.
The issue with all of this is that we cannot have the advantages without the disadvantages. Its like having your cake and wanting to eat it. And the same can be said for mobile phones in schools, generative AI and many other things. Its not a binary, it’s a pluralism, that the good and the bad are linked and you cant have one without the other. Faced with this it then becomes about risk or value based assessment. Does the value of a tool, solution or process, outweigh the risk? It also becomes about communication and transparency, being open within the school community including with parents about why something is being done, what the benefits are, what the risks are and how reasonable efforts are being made to reduce the risks,
Additionally, this gets me thinking of some discussion in Nassim Talebs “The Black Swan”. It breaks down to, the more we learn, the less we know, which I think is attributed to Einstein. So, as we learn more about the risks and about the complexity of the world we live in, plus the more we come to need to adapt to rapid change, the more we need to accept we know less than we think we do. Given this, binary arguments as to how we should or shouldn’t use technology need to become a thing of the past. The world is not that simple and clean. We need to adapt a risk based decision making process, accepting pluralism.
Technology and Learning 