use of technology in teaching and learning essay

Essay on Importance of Educational Technology for Teaching and Learning

Technology has rapidly changed the human lifestyle as it has changed the education sector. It is gradually and steadily taking over our education systems which are a few years behind. The website is about how technology is transforming learning by modifying how, where, and when learners learn, as well as empowering them at every step of the journey by offering them a choice over how they study, improving education meaningful to their digital lives, and equipping them for their futures (Kobayashi, 2008, p. 13). When students have access to technology and resources beyond the classroom, they are motivated to become logical thinkers, collaborators, and creators. When technology is correctly incorporated into the classroom, learners acquire a passion for learning (Bishop et al., 2020, p. 26).

Equitable use of technology refers to learners gaining access to information technology despite social status, economic status, ethnicity, physical ability, age, or other qualities. Despite technology having essential opportunities to learn, it is also a basic component in aiding students with gaining the skills and knowledge they require to be digital citizens. Insufficient access to information and technology denies students learning experiences and may limit their future opportunities. Equitable use includes ensuring that each student has the chance to learn from technologically advanced teachers.

Ethical use of technology is the use of technology in an appropriate way to gain from its use rather than using technology selfishly or enviously. Technology and internet use differ for each student. Students may not be victims of cyberbullying and copyright issues, but teachers should ensure that the students obtain the right skills to use technology and the internet.

Educational technology should help instill social responsibility among learners. Social responsibility is the use of technology in an ethical framework to benefit the student, the school, and the community at large. Both teachers and students have the responsibility to use technology responsibly. Students should adopt from activities that make them irresponsible such as software pirating, hacking, and illegal online activities. This helps the students have digital etiquette. Teachers should model ethical technology usage for their learners, acting responsibly.

Research has been done on educational technology to facilitate learning. Different resources were used in this research. Such resources include statistical software, reference management, and online storage. Statistical software helps to improve research expertise, increase speed and robustness of research work, reduce human errors in data analysis, and ease and increase the efficiency of research work.

Reference management refers to archiving of research and findings. The introduction of referencing management has reduced the strictness of referencing rules. Students need to understand the referencing systems to effectively make use of them in class work or the future. Referencing management offers students with research resources such as books, journal articles, conference papers, and thesis.

Online storage is an essential resource for research. It involves moving data to the cloud. It ensures secure data management and storage. Online storage comes with several advantages such as accessing data while anywhere, easy sharing of data, quick data recovery, and many others. On the other hand, in case of improper handling, it can be hazardous. It is also a more convenient and efficient means of obtaining information from students, instructors, and guardians. First of all, web surveys ensure a short time for collecting responses and are both cost and time-effective (“Educational resources and technology,” n.d., p. 2).

Technology integration engages students and allows the teachers to differentiate their learning in multiple ways. This might be frustrating at times, but there are many innovative ways to incorporate technology into regular teaching. One such method is Game-Based Learning and Assessment. Some of the concepts that we know are important in the theory include the ideas of relevant context, having a reason for carrying out various tasks, the cognitive integrity of what is happening in one’s brain while engrossed with the game is similar to the situation in real life utilizing language, the emotional aspect – having an interaction with the game is advantageous to learning. Another method of integration is videos, podcasts. and slideshows created by students One of the key principles of digital or internet literacy is that learners should become makers and critics of media rather than merely consumers.

Technology is integrated into the curriculum instructional design for different reasons. For example, to motivate students, provide new approaches, and increase productivity. Technology must be easily accessible and be used at a point of instruction. Each level must plan well so that technology may be integrated efficiently and easily into the education curriculum. In a curriculum, technology can be integrated with specific disciplines for effectiveness, efficiency, and ease of implementation. You can benefit from considering the usage of technology is an integral part of the curriculum design process through developing new solutions to cope with educational issues and communicate ways to facilitate discussion.

Formative assessment is the process of obtaining feedback to improve the continuing teaching and learning environment. Summative assessment strategy is a method of determining a student’s measure of success by the end of each education session. Integrating technology with formative and summative assessment strategies helps students engage and promote critical thinking. Other advantages include the useful clarification of grading standards as well as the increase of the integrity and consistency of academic results.

Educational technological tools that an educator uses to instill self-directedness and independent learning nay include online education. It introduces students to a broad variety of online materials addressing their points of interest, something that they can learn at their speed. Online learning improves student learning performance. Open educational resources are also another tool offering a solution by lowering the cost of materials for students while increasing their dependence on digital resources.

Assistive technology, particularly in the classroom, is reshaping what is possible for persons with a wide range of learning, cognitive, and physical skills and impairments. Some examples include e-books and apps. There are apps for accessing digital books on handheld devices. Accessibility preferences and some other built-in accessibility options in our handheld devices support many features which are used for different purposes for example text-to-speech output.

Bishop, M. J., Boling, E., Elen, J., & Svihla, V. (2020).  Handbook of research in educational communications and technology: Learning design . Springer Nature.

Educational resources and technology. (n.d.).  https://doi.org/10.21777/2500-2112

Integrating technology into the curriculum . (n.d.). Share and Discover Knowledge on SlideShare.  https://www.slideshare.net/HinaKaynat/integrating-technology-into-the-curriculum-69929434

Keengwe, J. (2013).  Research perspectives and best practices in educational technology integration . IGI Global.

Kobayashi, R. (2008).  New educational technology . Nova Publishers.

Rolfe, V. (2012). Open educational resources: Staff attitudes and awareness.  Research in Learning Technology ,  20 (0).  https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.14395

Using technology to facilitate formative and summative assessments . (n.d.). Sherrilyn’s Classroom.  https://sherrilynhicks.weebly.com/sherrilyns-blog/using-technology-to-facilitate-formative-and-summative-assessments

What is successful technology integration?  (2007, November 6). Edutopia.  https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-description

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Harnessing Technology for Engaging Learning Experiences

Having students try podcasting or storytelling with virtual reality is an effective way to increase engagement and reinforce critical content.

In education, we often talk about student engagement. Years ago, I completely misunderstood what student engagement was, why it mattered, and its impact on student learning. Student engagement is more than just being attentive: It means that students become curious about learning and more interested in the content, and, as a result, process the information at higher levels. Engaged learners are more likely to develop their critical thinking skills and have a deeper understanding of the material, which will lead to academic success.

When we create learning experiences that shift students from consumers of content to creators, it helps to increase their engagement in and, hopefully, excitement for learning. So, how can we keep students engaged? We have to spark curiosity and perhaps take some risks in our classroom with new ideas. Providing a variety of options for students to develop their content area knowledge and skills in ways that meet their interests and needs also promotes autonomy and will lead to an increase in engagement. In my own classroom, teaching Spanish and an eighth-grade STEAM course, I decided to explore a few new ideas centered on telling stories—with the help of some emerging technology.

Immersive Storytelling

Storytelling is a fantastic way for students to be creative and engage in a variety of learning experiences that meet their specific interests and needs. Whether students create something using paper and markers or choose from the many digital options available, it is all about promoting choice in learning.

Rather than use the traditional tools that I had in the past, I took a risk and used CoSpaces Edu to explore immersive storytelling in my Spanish II class after some students asked why they couldn’t explore the augmented and virtual reality tools the way the STEAM class did. Whether using CoSpaces Edu like I did or using options available through resources like Experiments with Google , there are many ways to bring these opportunities to our students.

Although I was nervous about bringing alternate reality and virtual reality tools into the classroom, it seemed to be something they would enjoy. I thought that trying something new would boost their engagement. I randomly assigned students into groups and provided instructions for narrating a story that happened in the past.

Students could select any template and then had to work together to find the right objects and add animated characters with speech bubbles, audio, and more. The templates available helped students to get started and then focus on the content and how they could bring their stories to life. In all prior years of teaching the same content, I had not seen students enjoy an activity as much nor retain the content, especially learning how to tell stories using the different past tenses as they did. It was a risk worth taking and one that was a different way to engage students, especially with the use of an emerging technology. 

Sharing Stories through podcasts

As someone who has hosted a podcast for several years, I have always considered doing this in my classroom. This past school year, I tried something really different in my STEAM course, and I could not have predicted the benefits that I observed. We started by listening to a few podcasts that I had selected. I asked students about what they thought the focus was and if they could determine anything about the hosts or the “brand.”

When I revealed each podcast logo and host, the students were surprised at all of the different styles. I then dove into helping students design their own podcast and logo and create a brand for themselves. For some, it was uncomfortable at first, but with some guidance and collaboration with classmates, it didn’t take long for it to become something quite fun for them and me. 

I decided to focus on podcasting for about four weeks so that students could really learn about the value of podcasts and how to use them for their own learning as well as for building speaking skills and confidence. For our class, students would have time to explore podcasts before diving into creating their own. The learning activity required them to create a name, logo, intro, and topic first. Then, they had to record an intro and have some of their classmates provide feedback. The next step was to practice their interviewing skills by having a few classmates as guests. The final component was drafting an email to a teacher to invite them as a guest. I provided some templates for students to follow, and they had to take the lead to schedule and then produce the podcast. 

My students used either Spotify for Podcasters or Soundtrap for Education to record their podcasts and Canva to design the logo. As I listened to their episodes, it was great to hear their excitement, to see their confidence build during the experience, which allowed them to create, collaborate, problem-solve, and move through the classroom more. Students learned about each other and their teachers and developed their speaking skills and confidence. This was a fantastic way to learn more about my students and their interests. Students developed skills in collaboration, communication, creativity, and problem-solving that will benefit them in the future. Some students even decided to continue their podcasts after our work in class ended.

To keep students engaged, try a variety of methods and tools, and continue to model the excitement for learning.

REALIZING THE PROMISE:

Leading up to the 75th anniversary of the UN General Assembly, this “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?” publication kicks off the Center for Universal Education’s first playbook in a series to help improve education around the world.

It is intended as an evidence-based tool for ministries of education, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to adopt and more successfully invest in education technology.

While there is no single education initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere—as school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies—an important first step is understanding how technology is used given specific local contexts and needs.

The surveys in this playbook are designed to be adapted to collect this information from educators, learners, and school leaders and guide decisionmakers in expanding the use of technology.  

Introduction

While technology has disrupted most sectors of the economy and changed how we communicate, access information, work, and even play, its impact on schools, teaching, and learning has been much more limited. We believe that this limited impact is primarily due to technology being been used to replace analog tools, without much consideration given to playing to technology’s comparative advantages. These comparative advantages, relative to traditional “chalk-and-talk” classroom instruction, include helping to scale up standardized instruction, facilitate differentiated instruction, expand opportunities for practice, and increase student engagement. When schools use technology to enhance the work of educators and to improve the quality and quantity of educational content, learners will thrive.

Further, COVID-19 has laid bare that, in today’s environment where pandemics and the effects of climate change are likely to occur, schools cannot always provide in-person education—making the case for investing in education technology.

Here we argue for a simple yet surprisingly rare approach to education technology that seeks to:

• Understand the needs, infrastructure, and capacity of a school system—the diagnosis;
• Survey the best available evidence on interventions that match those conditions—the evidence; and
• Closely monitor the results of innovations before they are scaled up—the prognosis.

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The framework.

Our approach builds on a simple yet intuitive theoretical framework created two decades ago by two of the most prominent education researchers in the United States, David K. Cohen and Deborah Loewenberg Ball. They argue that what matters most to improve learning is the interactions among educators and learners around educational materials. We believe that the failed school-improvement efforts in the U.S. that motivated Cohen and Ball’s framework resemble the ed-tech reforms in much of the developing world to date in the lack of clarity improving the interactions between educators, learners, and the educational material. We build on their framework by adding parents as key agents that mediate the relationships between learners and educators and the material (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The instructional core

Adapted from Cohen and Ball (1999)

As the figure above suggests, ed-tech interventions can affect the instructional core in a myriad of ways. Yet, just because technology can do something, it does not mean it should. School systems in developing countries differ along many dimensions and each system is likely to have different needs for ed-tech interventions, as well as different infrastructure and capacity to enact such interventions.

The diagnosis:

How can school systems assess their needs and preparedness.

A useful first step for any school system to determine whether it should invest in education technology is to diagnose its:

• Specific needs to improve student learning (e.g., raising the average level of achievement, remediating gaps among low performers, and challenging high performers to develop higher-order skills);
• Infrastructure to adopt technology-enabled solutions (e.g., electricity connection, availability of space and outlets, stock of computers, and Internet connectivity at school and at learners’ homes); and
• Capacity to integrate technology in the instructional process (e.g., learners’ and educators’ level of familiarity and comfort with hardware and software, their beliefs about the level of usefulness of technology for learning purposes, and their current uses of such technology).

Before engaging in any new data collection exercise, school systems should take full advantage of existing administrative data that could shed light on these three main questions. This could be in the form of internal evaluations but also international learner assessments, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and/or the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS). But if school systems lack information on their preparedness for ed-tech reforms or if they seek to complement existing data with a richer set of indicators, we developed a set of surveys for learners, educators, and school leaders. Download the full report to see how we map out the main aspects covered by these surveys, in hopes of highlighting how they could be used to inform decisions around the adoption of ed-tech interventions.

The evidence:

How can school systems identify promising ed-tech interventions.

There is no single “ed-tech” initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere, simply because school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies. Instead, to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning, decisionmakers should focus on four potential uses of technology that play to its comparative advantages and complement the work of educators to accelerate student learning (Figure 2). These comparative advantages include:

• Scaling up quality instruction, such as through prerecorded quality lessons.
• Facilitating differentiated instruction, through, for example, computer-adaptive learning and live one-on-one tutoring.
• Expanding opportunities to practice.
• Increasing learner engagement through videos and games.

Figure 2: Comparative advantages of technology

Here we review the evidence on ed-tech interventions from 37 studies in 20 countries*, organizing them by comparative advantage. It’s important to note that ours is not the only way to classify these interventions (e.g., video tutorials could be considered as a strategy to scale up instruction or increase learner engagement), but we believe it may be useful to highlight the needs that they could address and why technology is well positioned to do so.

When discussing specific studies, we report the magnitude of the effects of interventions using standard deviations (SDs). SDs are a widely used metric in research to express the effect of a program or policy with respect to a business-as-usual condition (e.g., test scores). There are several ways to make sense of them. One is to categorize the magnitude of the effects based on the results of impact evaluations. In developing countries, effects below 0.1 SDs are considered to be small, effects between 0.1 and 0.2 SDs are medium, and those above 0.2 SDs are large (for reviews that estimate the average effect of groups of interventions, called “meta analyses,” see e.g., Conn, 2017; Kremer, Brannen, & Glennerster, 2013; McEwan, 2014; Snilstveit et al., 2015; Evans & Yuan, 2020.)

*In surveying the evidence, we began by compiling studies from prior general and ed-tech specific evidence reviews that some of us have written and from ed-tech reviews conducted by others. Then, we tracked the studies cited by the ones we had previously read and reviewed those, as well. In identifying studies for inclusion, we focused on experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of education technology interventions from pre-school to secondary school in low- and middle-income countries that were released between 2000 and 2020. We only included interventions that sought to improve student learning directly (i.e., students’ interaction with the material), as opposed to interventions that have impacted achievement indirectly, by reducing teacher absence or increasing parental engagement. This process yielded 37 studies in 20 countries (see the full list of studies in Appendix B).

Scaling up standardized instruction

One of the ways in which technology may improve the quality of education is through its capacity to deliver standardized quality content at scale. This feature of technology may be particularly useful in three types of settings: (a) those in “hard-to-staff” schools (i.e., schools that struggle to recruit educators with the requisite training and experience—typically, in rural and/or remote areas) (see, e.g., Urquiola & Vegas, 2005); (b) those in which many educators are frequently absent from school (e.g., Chaudhury, Hammer, Kremer, Muralidharan, & Rogers, 2006; Muralidharan, Das, Holla, & Mohpal, 2017); and/or (c) those in which educators have low levels of pedagogical and subject matter expertise (e.g., Bietenbeck, Piopiunik, & Wiederhold, 2018; Bold et al., 2017; Metzler & Woessmann, 2012; Santibañez, 2006) and do not have opportunities to observe and receive feedback (e.g., Bruns, Costa, & Cunha, 2018; Cilliers, Fleisch, Prinsloo, & Taylor, 2018). Technology could address this problem by: (a) disseminating lessons delivered by qualified educators to a large number of learners (e.g., through prerecorded or live lessons); (b) enabling distance education (e.g., for learners in remote areas and/or during periods of school closures); and (c) distributing hardware preloaded with educational materials.

Prerecorded lessons

Technology seems to be well placed to amplify the impact of effective educators by disseminating their lessons. Evidence on the impact of prerecorded lessons is encouraging, but not conclusive. Some initiatives that have used short instructional videos to complement regular instruction, in conjunction with other learning materials, have raised student learning on independent assessments. For example, Beg et al. (2020) evaluated an initiative in Punjab, Pakistan in which grade 8 classrooms received an intervention that included short videos to substitute live instruction, quizzes for learners to practice the material from every lesson, tablets for educators to learn the material and follow the lesson, and LED screens to project the videos onto a classroom screen. After six months, the intervention improved the performance of learners on independent tests of math and science by 0.19 and 0.24 SDs, respectively but had no discernible effect on the math and science section of Punjab’s high-stakes exams.

One study suggests that approaches that are far less technologically sophisticated can also improve learning outcomes—especially, if the business-as-usual instruction is of low quality. For example, Naslund-Hadley, Parker, and Hernandez-Agramonte (2014) evaluated a preschool math program in Cordillera, Paraguay that used audio segments and written materials four days per week for an hour per day during the school day. After five months, the intervention improved math scores by 0.16 SDs, narrowing gaps between low- and high-achieving learners, and between those with and without educators with formal training in early childhood education.

Yet, the integration of prerecorded material into regular instruction has not always been successful. For example, de Barros (2020) evaluated an intervention that combined instructional videos for math and science with infrastructure upgrades (e.g., two “smart” classrooms, two TVs, and two tablets), printed workbooks for students, and in-service training for educators of learners in grades 9 and 10 in Haryana, India (all materials were mapped onto the official curriculum). After 11 months, the intervention negatively impacted math achievement (by 0.08 SDs) and had no effect on science (with respect to business as usual classes). It reduced the share of lesson time that educators devoted to instruction and negatively impacted an index of instructional quality. Likewise, Seo (2017) evaluated several combinations of infrastructure (solar lights and TVs) and prerecorded videos (in English and/or bilingual) for grade 11 students in northern Tanzania and found that none of the variants improved student learning, even when the videos were used. The study reports effects from the infrastructure component across variants, but as others have noted (Muralidharan, Romero, & Wüthrich, 2019), this approach to estimating impact is problematic.

A very similar intervention delivered after school hours, however, had sizeable effects on learners’ basic skills. Chiplunkar, Dhar, and Nagesh (2020) evaluated an initiative in Chennai (the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu, India) delivered by the same organization as above that combined short videos that explained key concepts in math and science with worksheets, facilitator-led instruction, small groups for peer-to-peer learning, and occasional career counseling and guidance for grade 9 students. These lessons took place after school for one hour, five times a week. After 10 months, it had large effects on learners’ achievement as measured by tests of basic skills in math and reading, but no effect on a standardized high-stakes test in grade 10 or socio-emotional skills (e.g., teamwork, decisionmaking, and communication).

Drawing general lessons from this body of research is challenging for at least two reasons. First, all of the studies above have evaluated the impact of prerecorded lessons combined with several other components (e.g., hardware, print materials, or other activities). Therefore, it is possible that the effects found are due to these additional components, rather than to the recordings themselves, or to the interaction between the two (see Muralidharan, 2017 for a discussion of the challenges of interpreting “bundled” interventions). Second, while these studies evaluate some type of prerecorded lessons, none examines the content of such lessons. Thus, it seems entirely plausible that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends largely on the quality of the recordings (e.g., the expertise of the educator recording it, the amount of preparation that went into planning the recording, and its alignment with best teaching practices).

These studies also raise three important questions worth exploring in future research. One of them is why none of the interventions discussed above had effects on high-stakes exams, even if their materials are typically mapped onto the official curriculum. It is possible that the official curricula are simply too challenging for learners in these settings, who are several grade levels behind expectations and who often need to reinforce basic skills (see Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Another question is whether these interventions have long-term effects on teaching practices. It seems plausible that, if these interventions are deployed in contexts with low teaching quality, educators may learn something from watching the videos or listening to the recordings with learners. Yet another question is whether these interventions make it easier for schools to deliver instruction to learners whose native language is other than the official medium of instruction.

Distance education

Technology can also allow learners living in remote areas to access education. The evidence on these initiatives is encouraging. For example, Johnston and Ksoll (2017) evaluated a program that broadcasted live instruction via satellite to rural primary school students in the Volta and Greater Accra regions of Ghana. For this purpose, the program also equipped classrooms with the technology needed to connect to a studio in Accra, including solar panels, a satellite modem, a projector, a webcam, microphones, and a computer with interactive software. After two years, the intervention improved the numeracy scores of students in grades 2 through 4, and some foundational literacy tasks, but it had no effect on attendance or classroom time devoted to instruction, as captured by school visits. The authors interpreted these results as suggesting that the gains in achievement may be due to improving the quality of instruction that children received (as opposed to increased instructional time). Naik, Chitre, Bhalla, and Rajan (2019) evaluated a similar program in the Indian state of Karnataka and also found positive effects on learning outcomes, but it is not clear whether those effects are due to the program or due to differences in the groups of students they compared to estimate the impact of the initiative.

In one context (Mexico), this type of distance education had positive long-term effects. Navarro-Sola (2019) took advantage of the staggered rollout of the telesecundarias (i.e., middle schools with lessons broadcasted through satellite TV) in 1968 to estimate its impact. The policy had short-term effects on students’ enrollment in school: For every telesecundaria per 50 children, 10 students enrolled in middle school and two pursued further education. It also had a long-term influence on the educational and employment trajectory of its graduates. Each additional year of education induced by the policy increased average income by nearly 18 percent. This effect was attributable to more graduates entering the labor force and shifting from agriculture and the informal sector. Similarly, Fabregas (2019) leveraged a later expansion of this policy in 1993 and found that each additional telesecundaria per 1,000 adolescents led to an average increase of 0.2 years of education, and a decline in fertility for women, but no conclusive evidence of long-term effects on labor market outcomes.

It is crucial to interpret these results keeping in mind the settings where the interventions were implemented. As we mention above, part of the reason why they have proven effective is that the “counterfactual” conditions for learning (i.e., what would have happened to learners in the absence of such programs) was either to not have access to schooling or to be exposed to low-quality instruction. School systems interested in taking up similar interventions should assess the extent to which their learners (or parts of their learner population) find themselves in similar conditions to the subjects of the studies above. This illustrates the importance of assessing the needs of a system before reviewing the evidence.

Preloaded hardware

Technology also seems well positioned to disseminate educational materials. Specifically, hardware (e.g., desktop computers, laptops, or tablets) could also help deliver educational software (e.g., word processing, reference texts, and/or games). In theory, these materials could not only undergo a quality assurance review (e.g., by curriculum specialists and educators), but also draw on the interactions with learners for adjustments (e.g., identifying areas needing reinforcement) and enable interactions between learners and educators.

In practice, however, most initiatives that have provided learners with free computers, laptops, and netbooks do not leverage any of the opportunities mentioned above. Instead, they install a standard set of educational materials and hope that learners find them helpful enough to take them up on their own. Students rarely do so, and instead use the laptops for recreational purposes—often, to the detriment of their learning (see, e.g., Malamud & Pop-Eleches, 2011). In fact, free netbook initiatives have not only consistently failed to improve academic achievement in math or language (e.g., Cristia et al., 2017), but they have had no impact on learners’ general computer skills (e.g., Beuermann et al., 2015). Some of these initiatives have had small impacts on cognitive skills, but the mechanisms through which those effects occurred remains unclear.

To our knowledge, the only successful deployment of a free laptop initiative was one in which a team of researchers equipped the computers with remedial software. Mo et al. (2013) evaluated a version of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program for grade 3 students in migrant schools in Beijing, China in which the laptops were loaded with a remedial software mapped onto the national curriculum for math (similar to the software products that we discuss under “practice exercises” below). After nine months, the program improved math achievement by 0.17 SDs and computer skills by 0.33 SDs. If a school system decides to invest in free laptops, this study suggests that the quality of the software on the laptops is crucial.

To date, however, the evidence suggests that children do not learn more from interacting with laptops than they do from textbooks. For example, Bando, Gallego, Gertler, and Romero (2016) compared the effect of free laptop and textbook provision in 271 elementary schools in disadvantaged areas of Honduras. After seven months, students in grades 3 and 6 who had received the laptops performed on par with those who had received the textbooks in math and language. Further, even if textbooks essentially become obsolete at the end of each school year, whereas laptops can be reloaded with new materials for each year, the costs of laptop provision (not just the hardware, but also the technical assistance, Internet, and training associated with it) are not yet low enough to make them a more cost-effective way of delivering content to learners.

Evidence on the provision of tablets equipped with software is encouraging but limited. For example, de Hoop et al. (2020) evaluated a composite intervention for first grade students in Zambia’s Eastern Province that combined infrastructure (electricity via solar power), hardware (projectors and tablets), and educational materials (lesson plans for educators and interactive lessons for learners, both loaded onto the tablets and mapped onto the official Zambian curriculum). After 14 months, the intervention had improved student early-grade reading by 0.4 SDs, oral vocabulary scores by 0.25 SDs, and early-grade math by 0.22 SDs. It also improved students’ achievement by 0.16 on a locally developed assessment. The multifaceted nature of the program, however, makes it challenging to identify the components that are driving the positive effects. Pitchford (2015) evaluated an intervention that provided tablets equipped with educational “apps,” to be used for 30 minutes per day for two months to develop early math skills among students in grades 1 through 3 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The evaluation found positive impacts in math achievement, but the main study limitation is that it was conducted in a single school.

Facilitating differentiated instruction

Another way in which technology may improve educational outcomes is by facilitating the delivery of differentiated or individualized instruction. Most developing countries massively expanded access to schooling in recent decades by building new schools and making education more affordable, both by defraying direct costs, as well as compensating for opportunity costs (Duflo, 2001; World Bank, 2018). These initiatives have not only rapidly increased the number of learners enrolled in school, but have also increased the variability in learner’ preparation for schooling. Consequently, a large number of learners perform well below grade-based curricular expectations (see, e.g., Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2011; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). These learners are unlikely to get much from “one-size-fits-all” instruction, in which a single educator delivers instruction deemed appropriate for the middle (or top) of the achievement distribution (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). Technology could potentially help these learners by providing them with: (a) instruction and opportunities for practice that adjust to the level and pace of preparation of each individual (known as “computer-adaptive learning” (CAL)); or (b) live, one-on-one tutoring.

Computer-adaptive learning

One of the main comparative advantages of technology is its ability to diagnose students’ initial learning levels and assign students to instruction and exercises of appropriate difficulty. No individual educator—no matter how talented—can be expected to provide individualized instruction to all learners in his/her class simultaneously . In this respect, technology is uniquely positioned to complement traditional teaching. This use of technology could help learners master basic skills and help them get more out of schooling.

Although many software products evaluated in recent years have been categorized as CAL, many rely on a relatively coarse level of differentiation at an initial stage (e.g., a diagnostic test) without further differentiation. We discuss these initiatives under the category of “increasing opportunities for practice” below. CAL initiatives complement an initial diagnostic with dynamic adaptation (i.e., at each response or set of responses from learners) to adjust both the initial level of difficulty and rate at which it increases or decreases, depending on whether learners’ responses are correct or incorrect.

Existing evidence on this specific type of programs is highly promising. Most famously, Banerjee et al. (2007) evaluated CAL software in Vadodara, in the Indian state of Gujarat, in which grade 4 students were offered two hours of shared computer time per week before and after school, during which they played games that involved solving math problems. The level of difficulty of such problems adjusted based on students’ answers. This program improved math achievement by 0.35 and 0.47 SDs after one and two years of implementation, respectively. Consistent with the promise of personalized learning, the software improved achievement for all students. In fact, one year after the end of the program, students assigned to the program still performed 0.1 SDs better than those assigned to a business as usual condition. More recently, Muralidharan, et al. (2019) evaluated a “blended learning” initiative in which students in grades 4 through 9 in Delhi, India received 45 minutes of interaction with CAL software for math and language, and 45 minutes of small group instruction before or after going to school. After only 4.5 months, the program improved achievement by 0.37 SDs in math and 0.23 SDs in Hindi. While all learners benefited from the program in absolute terms, the lowest performing learners benefited the most in relative terms, since they were learning very little in school.

We see two important limitations from this body of research. First, to our knowledge, none of these initiatives has been evaluated when implemented during the school day. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish the effect of the adaptive software from that of additional instructional time. Second, given that most of these programs were facilitated by local instructors, attempts to distinguish the effect of the software from that of the instructors has been mostly based on noncausal evidence. A frontier challenge in this body of research is to understand whether CAL software can increase the effectiveness of school-based instruction by substituting part of the regularly scheduled time for math and language instruction.

Live one-on-one tutoring

Recent improvements in the speed and quality of videoconferencing, as well as in the connectivity of remote areas, have enabled yet another way in which technology can help personalization: live (i.e., real-time) one-on-one tutoring. While the evidence on in-person tutoring is scarce in developing countries, existing studies suggest that this approach works best when it is used to personalize instruction (see, e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Banerji, Berry, & Shotland, 2015; Cabezas, Cuesta, & Gallego, 2011).

There are almost no studies on the impact of online tutoring—possibly, due to the lack of hardware and Internet connectivity in low- and middle-income countries. One exception is Chemin and Oledan (2020)’s recent evaluation of an online tutoring program for grade 6 students in Kianyaga, Kenya to learn English from volunteers from a Canadian university via Skype ( videoconferencing software) for one hour per week after school. After 10 months, program beneficiaries performed 0.22 SDs better in a test of oral comprehension, improved their comfort using technology for learning, and became more willing to engage in cross-cultural communication. Importantly, while the tutoring sessions used the official English textbooks and sought in part to help learners with their homework, tutors were trained on several strategies to teach to each learner’s individual level of preparation, focusing on basic skills if necessary. To our knowledge, similar initiatives within a country have not yet been rigorously evaluated.

Expanding opportunities for practice

A third way in which technology may improve the quality of education is by providing learners with additional opportunities for practice. In many developing countries, lesson time is primarily devoted to lectures, in which the educator explains the topic and the learners passively copy explanations from the blackboard. This setup leaves little time for in-class practice. Consequently, learners who did not understand the explanation of the material during lecture struggle when they have to solve homework assignments on their own. Technology could potentially address this problem by allowing learners to review topics at their own pace.

Practice exercises

Technology can help learners get more out of traditional instruction by providing them with opportunities to implement what they learn in class. This approach could, in theory, allow some learners to anchor their understanding of the material through trial and error (i.e., by realizing what they may not have understood correctly during lecture and by getting better acquainted with special cases not covered in-depth in class).

Existing evidence on practice exercises reflects both the promise and the limitations of this use of technology in developing countries. For example, Lai et al. (2013) evaluated a program in Shaanxi, China where students in grades 3 and 5 were required to attend two 40-minute remedial sessions per week in which they first watched videos that reviewed the material that had been introduced in their math lessons that week and then played games to practice the skills introduced in the video. After four months, the intervention improved math achievement by 0.12 SDs. Many other evaluations of comparable interventions have found similar small-to-moderate results (see, e.g., Lai, Luo, Zhang, Huang, & Rozelle, 2015; Lai et al., 2012; Mo et al., 2015; Pitchford, 2015). These effects, however, have been consistently smaller than those of initiatives that adjust the difficulty of the material based on students’ performance (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Muralidharan, et al., 2019). We hypothesize that these programs do little for learners who perform several grade levels behind curricular expectations, and who would benefit more from a review of foundational concepts from earlier grades.

We see two important limitations from this research. First, most initiatives that have been evaluated thus far combine instructional videos with practice exercises, so it is hard to know whether their effects are driven by the former or the latter. In fact, the program in China described above allowed learners to ask their peers whenever they did not understand a difficult concept, so it potentially also captured the effect of peer-to-peer collaboration. To our knowledge, no studies have addressed this gap in the evidence.

Second, most of these programs are implemented before or after school, so we cannot distinguish the effect of additional instructional time from that of the actual opportunity for practice. The importance of this question was first highlighted by Linden (2008), who compared two delivery mechanisms for game-based remedial math software for students in grades 2 and 3 in a network of schools run by a nonprofit organization in Gujarat, India: one in which students interacted with the software during the school day and another one in which students interacted with the software before or after school (in both cases, for three hours per day). After a year, the first version of the program had negatively impacted students’ math achievement by 0.57 SDs and the second one had a null effect. This study suggested that computer-assisted learning is a poor substitute for regular instruction when it is of high quality, as was the case in this well-functioning private network of schools.

In recent years, several studies have sought to remedy this shortcoming. Mo et al. (2014) were among the first to evaluate practice exercises delivered during the school day. They evaluated an initiative in Shaanxi, China in which students in grades 3 and 5 were required to interact with the software similar to the one in Lai et al. (2013) for two 40-minute sessions per week. The main limitation of this study, however, is that the program was delivered during regularly scheduled computer lessons, so it could not determine the impact of substituting regular math instruction. Similarly, Mo et al. (2020) evaluated a self-paced and a teacher-directed version of a similar program for English for grade 5 students in Qinghai, China. Yet, the key shortcoming of this study is that the teacher-directed version added several components that may also influence achievement, such as increased opportunities for teachers to provide students with personalized assistance when they struggled with the material. Ma, Fairlie, Loyalka, and Rozelle (2020) compared the effectiveness of additional time-delivered remedial instruction for students in grades 4 to 6 in Shaanxi, China through either computer-assisted software or using workbooks. This study indicates whether additional instructional time is more effective when using technology, but it does not address the question of whether school systems may improve the productivity of instructional time during the school day by substituting educator-led with computer-assisted instruction.

Increasing learner engagement

Another way in which technology may improve education is by increasing learners’ engagement with the material. In many school systems, regular “chalk and talk” instruction prioritizes time for educators’ exposition over opportunities for learners to ask clarifying questions and/or contribute to class discussions. This, combined with the fact that many developing-country classrooms include a very large number of learners (see, e.g., Angrist & Lavy, 1999; Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2015), may partially explain why the majority of those students are several grade levels behind curricular expectations (e.g., Muralidharan, et al., 2019; Muralidharan & Zieleniak, 2014; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Technology could potentially address these challenges by: (a) using video tutorials for self-paced learning and (b) presenting exercises as games and/or gamifying practice.

Video tutorials

Technology can potentially increase learner effort and understanding of the material by finding new and more engaging ways to deliver it. Video tutorials designed for self-paced learning—as opposed to videos for whole class instruction, which we discuss under the category of “prerecorded lessons” above—can increase learner effort in multiple ways, including: allowing learners to focus on topics with which they need more help, letting them correct errors and misconceptions on their own, and making the material appealing through visual aids. They can increase understanding by breaking the material into smaller units and tackling common misconceptions.

In spite of the popularity of instructional videos, there is relatively little evidence on their effectiveness. Yet, two recent evaluations of different versions of the Khan Academy portal, which mainly relies on instructional videos, offer some insight into their impact. First, Ferman, Finamor, and Lima (2019) evaluated an initiative in 157 public primary and middle schools in five cities in Brazil in which the teachers of students in grades 5 and 9 were taken to the computer lab to learn math from the platform for 50 minutes per week. The authors found that, while the intervention slightly improved learners’ attitudes toward math, these changes did not translate into better performance in this subject. The authors hypothesized that this could be due to the reduction of teacher-led math instruction.

More recently, Büchel, Jakob, Kühnhanss, Steffen, and Brunetti (2020) evaluated an after-school, offline delivery of the Khan Academy portal in grades 3 through 6 in 302 primary schools in Morazán, El Salvador. Students in this study received 90 minutes per week of additional math instruction (effectively nearly doubling total math instruction per week) through teacher-led regular lessons, teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons, or similar lessons assisted by technical supervisors with no content expertise. (Importantly, the first group provided differentiated instruction, which is not the norm in Salvadorian schools). All three groups outperformed both schools without any additional lessons and classrooms without additional lessons in the same schools as the program. The teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons performed 0.24 SDs better, the supervisor-led lessons 0.22 SDs better, and the teacher-led regular lessons 0.15 SDs better, but the authors could not determine whether the effects across versions were different.

Together, these studies suggest that instructional videos work best when provided as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, regular instruction. Yet, the main limitation of these studies is the multifaceted nature of the Khan Academy portal, which also includes other components found to positively improve learner achievement, such as differentiated instruction by students’ learning levels. While the software does not provide the type of personalization discussed above, learners are asked to take a placement test and, based on their score, educators assign them different work. Therefore, it is not clear from these studies whether the effects from Khan Academy are driven by its instructional videos or to the software’s ability to provide differentiated activities when combined with placement tests.

Games and gamification

Technology can also increase learner engagement by presenting exercises as games and/or by encouraging learner to play and compete with others (e.g., using leaderboards and rewards)—an approach known as “gamification.” Both approaches can increase learner motivation and effort by presenting learners with entertaining opportunities for practice and by leveraging peers as commitment devices.

There are very few studies on the effects of games and gamification in low- and middle-income countries. Recently, Araya, Arias Ortiz, Bottan, and Cristia (2019) evaluated an initiative in which grade 4 students in Santiago, Chile were required to participate in two 90-minute sessions per week during the school day with instructional math software featuring individual and group competitions (e.g., tracking each learner’s standing in his/her class and tournaments between sections). After nine months, the program led to improvements of 0.27 SDs in the national student assessment in math (it had no spillover effects on reading). However, it had mixed effects on non-academic outcomes. Specifically, the program increased learners’ willingness to use computers to learn math, but, at the same time, increased their anxiety toward math and negatively impacted learners’ willingness to collaborate with peers. Finally, given that one of the weekly sessions replaced regular math instruction and the other one represented additional math instructional time, it is not clear whether the academic effects of the program are driven by the software or the additional time devoted to learning math.

The prognosis:

How can school systems adopt interventions that match their needs.

Here are five specific and sequential guidelines for decisionmakers to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning.

1. Take stock of how your current schools, educators, and learners are engaging with technology .

Carry out a short in-school survey to understand the current practices and potential barriers to adoption of technology (we have included suggested survey instruments in the Appendices); use this information in your decisionmaking process. For example, we learned from conversations with current and former ministers of education from various developing regions that a common limitation to technology use is regulations that hold school leaders accountable for damages to or losses of devices. Another common barrier is lack of access to electricity and Internet, or even the availability of sufficient outlets for charging devices in classrooms. Understanding basic infrastructure and regulatory limitations to the use of education technology is a first necessary step. But addressing these limitations will not guarantee that introducing or expanding technology use will accelerate learning. The next steps are thus necessary.

“In Africa, the biggest limit is connectivity. Fiber is expensive, and we don’t have it everywhere. The continent is creating a digital divide between cities, where there is fiber, and the rural areas.  The [Ghanaian] administration put in schools offline/online technologies with books, assessment tools, and open source materials. In deploying this, we are finding that again, teachers are unfamiliar with it. And existing policies prohibit students to bring their own tablets or cell phones. The easiest way to do it would have been to let everyone bring their own device. But policies are against it.” H.E. Matthew Prempeh, Minister of Education of Ghana, on the need to understand the local context.

2. Consider how the introduction of technology may affect the interactions among learners, educators, and content .

Our review of the evidence indicates that technology may accelerate student learning when it is used to scale up access to quality content, facilitate differentiated instruction, increase opportunities for practice, or when it increases learner engagement. For example, will adding electronic whiteboards to classrooms facilitate access to more quality content or differentiated instruction? Or will these expensive boards be used in the same way as the old chalkboards? Will providing one device (laptop or tablet) to each learner facilitate access to more and better content, or offer students more opportunities to practice and learn? Solely introducing technology in classrooms without additional changes is unlikely to lead to improved learning and may be quite costly. If you cannot clearly identify how the interactions among the three key components of the instructional core (educators, learners, and content) may change after the introduction of technology, then it is probably not a good idea to make the investment. See Appendix A for guidance on the types of questions to ask.

3. Once decisionmakers have a clear idea of how education technology can help accelerate student learning in a specific context, it is important to define clear objectives and goals and establish ways to regularly assess progress and make course corrections in a timely manner .

For instance, is the education technology expected to ensure that learners in early grades excel in foundational skills—basic literacy and numeracy—by age 10? If so, will the technology provide quality reading and math materials, ample opportunities to practice, and engaging materials such as videos or games? Will educators be empowered to use these materials in new ways? And how will progress be measured and adjusted?

4. How this kind of reform is approached can matter immensely for its success.

It is easy to nod to issues of “implementation,” but that needs to be more than rhetorical. Keep in mind that good use of education technology requires thinking about how it will affect learners, educators, and parents. After all, giving learners digital devices will make no difference if they get broken, are stolen, or go unused. Classroom technologies only matter if educators feel comfortable putting them to work. Since good technology is generally about complementing or amplifying what educators and learners already do, it is almost always a mistake to mandate programs from on high. It is vital that technology be adopted with the input of educators and families and with attention to how it will be used. If technology goes unused or if educators use it ineffectually, the results will disappoint—no matter the virtuosity of the technology. Indeed, unused education technology can be an unnecessary expenditure for cash-strapped education systems. This is why surveying context, listening to voices in the field, examining how technology is used, and planning for course correction is essential.

5. It is essential to communicate with a range of stakeholders, including educators, school leaders, parents, and learners .

Technology can feel alien in schools, confuse parents and (especially) older educators, or become an alluring distraction. Good communication can help address all of these risks. Taking care to listen to educators and families can help ensure that programs are informed by their needs and concerns. At the same time, deliberately and consistently explaining what technology is and is not supposed to do, how it can be most effectively used, and the ways in which it can make it more likely that programs work as intended. For instance, if teachers fear that technology is intended to reduce the need for educators, they will tend to be hostile; if they believe that it is intended to assist them in their work, they will be more receptive. Absent effective communication, it is easy for programs to “fail” not because of the technology but because of how it was used. In short, past experience in rolling out education programs indicates that it is as important to have a strong intervention design as it is to have a solid plan to socialize it among stakeholders.

Beyond reopening: A leapfrog moment to transform education?

On September 14, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) will host a webinar to discuss strategies, including around the effective use of education technology, for ensuring resilient schools in the long term and to launch a new education technology playbook “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?”

file-pdf Full Playbook – Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all? file-pdf References file-pdf Appendix A – Instruments to assess availability and use of technology file-pdf Appendix B – List of reviewed studies file-pdf Appendix C – How may technology affect interactions among students, teachers, and content?

About the Authors

Alejandro j. ganimian, emiliana vegas, frederick m. hess.

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How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

5 Ways to Use Technology to Improve Teaching and Learning

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Technology has played a critical role in sustaining schools during the pandemic: Record numbers of students now have their own school-issued digital devices, educators have become more-critical evaluators of technology tools, and a hard push is underway at the federal, state, and local levels to get all homes connected to high-speed internet.

But making all these developments translate into better use of technology in schools will not be easy.

Using in-depth reporting combined with exclusive EdWeek Research Center survey data from teachers, principals, and district leaders, Education Week’s annual Technology Counts report examines these challenges.

Below is an outline of the tech priorities schools must address now and next school year, with links to helpful resources for how to tackle those challenges.

1. Getting virtual instruction right

Teachers, principals, and district leaders should be thinking hard about how to make remote learning better, especially if they are continuing to offer it even as most students have returned to school buildings. Read the story, here.

2. Connecting SEL and technology

Social media, virtual learning, online gaming, and ubiquitous devices present new social challenges for kids. So, what social-emotional skills do they need to flourish in an increasingly tech-centric world, and are schools teaching them? Learn more, here .

3. Cutting down on excessive screen time

Without even counting digital instruction, the amount of time teenagers and tweens spend staring at computer screens rivals how much time they would spend working at a full- or a part-time job. Educators and children’s health experts alike argue students need more support to prevent the overuse of technology from leading to unhealthy behaviors in the classroom. Read more, here .

4. Protecting student data

Student data privacy encompasses a broad range of considerations, from students’ own smartphones, to classroom applications discovered and embraced by teachers, to district-level data systems, to state testing programs. Here’s why schools are struggling to protect that data .

5. Using artificial intelligence in smart ways

Schools are embracing education technologies that use artificial intelligence for everything from teaching math to optimizing bus routes. But how can educators know if the data and design processes those products rely on have been skewed by racial bias? And what happens if they’re afraid to ask? Learn more here .

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How Important Is Technology in Education? Benefits, Challenges, and Impact on Students

Many of today’s high-demand jobs were created in the last decade, according to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). As advances in technology drive globalization and digital transformation, teachers can help students acquire the necessary skills to succeed in the careers of the future.

How important is technology in education? The COVID-19 pandemic is quickly demonstrating why online education should be a vital part of teaching and learning. By integrating technology into existing curricula, as opposed to using it solely as a crisis-management tool, teachers can harness online learning as a powerful educational tool.

The effective use of digital learning tools in classrooms can increase student engagement, help teachers improve their lesson plans, and facilitate personalized learning. It also helps students build essential 21st-century skills.

Virtual classrooms, video, augmented reality (AR), robots, and other technology tools can not only make class more lively, they can also create more inclusive learning environments that foster collaboration and inquisitiveness and enable teachers to collect data on student performance.

Still, it’s important to note that technology is a tool used in education and not an end in itself. The promise of educational technology lies in what educators do with it and how it is used to best support their students’ needs.

Educational Technology Challenges

BuiltIn reports that 92 percent of teachers understand the impact of technology in education. According to Project Tomorrow, 59 percent of middle school students say digital educational tools have helped them with their grades and test scores. These tools have become so popular that the educational technology market is projected to expand to $342 billion by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum.

However, educational technology has its challenges, particularly when it comes to implementation and use. For example, despite growing interest in the use of AR, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technology, less than 10 percent of schools report having these tools in their classrooms, according to Project Tomorrow. Additional concerns include excessive screen time, the effectiveness of teachers using the technology, and worries about technology equity.

Prominently rising from the COVID-19 crisis is the issue of content. Educators need to be able to develop and weigh in on online educational content, especially to encourage students to consider a topic from different perspectives. The urgent actions taken during this crisis did not provide sufficient time for this. Access is an added concern — for example, not every school district has resources to provide students with a laptop, and internet connectivity can be unreliable in homes.

Additionally, while some students thrive in online education settings, others lag for various factors, including support resources. For example, a student who already struggled in face-to-face environments may struggle even more in the current situation. These students may have relied on resources that they no longer have in their homes.

Still, most students typically demonstrate confidence in using online education when they have the resources, as studies have suggested. However, online education may pose challenges for teachers, especially in places where it has not been the norm.

Despite the challenges and concerns, it’s important to note the benefits of technology in education, including increased collaboration and communication, improved quality of education, and engaging lessons that help spark imagination and a search for knowledge in students.

The Benefits of Technology in Education

Teachers want to improve student performance, and technology can help them accomplish this aim. To mitigate the challenges, administrators should help teachers gain the competencies needed to enhance learning for students through technology. Additionally, technology in the classroom should make teachers’ jobs easier without adding extra time to their day.

Technology provides students with easy-to-access information, accelerated learning, and fun opportunities to practice what they learn. It enables students to explore new subjects and deepen their understanding of difficult concepts, particularly in STEM. Through the use of technology inside and outside the classroom, students can gain 21st-century technical skills necessary for future occupations.

Still, children learn more effectively with direction. The World Economic Forum reports that while technology can help young students learn and acquire knowledge through play, for example, evidence suggests that learning is more effective through guidance from an adult, such as a teacher.

Leaders and administrators should take stock of where their faculty are in terms of their understanding of online spaces. From lessons learned during this disruptive time, they can implement solutions now for the future. For example, administrators could give teachers a week or two to think carefully about how to teach courses not previously online. In addition to an exploration of solutions, flexibility during these trying times is of paramount importance.

Below are examples of how important technology is in education and the benefits it offers to students and teachers.

Increased Collaboration and Communication

Educational technology can foster collaboration. Not only can teachers engage with students during lessons, but students can also communicate with each other. Through online lessons and learning games, students get to work together to solve problems. In collaborative activities, students can share their thoughts and ideas and support each other. At the same time, technology enables one-on-one interaction with teachers. Students can ask classroom-related questions and seek additional help on difficult-to-understand subject matter. At home, students can upload their homework, and teachers can access and view completed assignments using their laptops.

Personalized Learning Opportunities

Technology allows 24/7 access to educational resources. Classes can take place entirely online via the use of a laptop or mobile device. Hybrid versions of learning combine the use of technology from anywhere with regular in-person classroom sessions. In both scenarios, the use of technology to tailor learning plans for each student is possible. Teachers can create lessons based on student interests and strengths. An added benefit is that students can learn at their own pace. When they need to review class material to get a better understanding of essential concepts, students can review videos in the lesson plan. The data generated through these online activities enable teachers to see which students struggled with certain subjects and offer additional assistance and support.

Curiosity Driven by Engaging Content

Through engaging and educational content, teachers can spark inquisitiveness in children and boost their curiosity, which research says has ties to academic success. Curiosity helps students get a better understanding of math and reading concepts. Creating engaging content can involve the use of AR, videos, or podcasts. For example, when submitting assignments, students can include videos or interact with students from across the globe.

Improved Teacher Productivity and Efficiency

Teachers can leverage technology to achieve new levels of productivity, implement useful digital tools to expand learning opportunities for students, and increase student support and engagement. It also enables teachers to improve their instruction methods and personalize learning. Schools can benefit from technology by reducing the costs of physical instructional materials, enhancing educational program efficiency, and making the best use of teacher time.

Become a Leader in Enriching Classrooms through Technology

Educators unfamiliar with some of the technology used in education may not have been exposed to the tools as they prepared for their careers or as part of their professional development. Teachers looking to make the transition and acquire the skills to incorporate technology in education can take advantage of learning opportunities to advance their competencies. For individuals looking to help transform the education system through technology, American University’s School of Education online offers a Master of Arts in Teaching and a Master of Arts in Education Policy and Leadership to prepare educators with essential tools to become leaders. Courses such as Education Program and Policy Implementation and Teaching Science in Elementary School equip graduate students with critical competencies to incorporate technology into educational settings effectively.

Learn more about American University’s School of Education online and its master’s degree programs.

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Helping Girls Succeed in STEM

BuiltIn, “Edtech 101”

EdTech, “Teaching Teachers to Put Tech Tools to Work”

International Society for Technology in Education, “Preparing Students for Jobs That Don’t Exist”

The Journal, “How Teachers Use Technology to Enrich Learning Experiences”

Pediatric Research, “Early Childhood Curiosity and Kindergarten Reading and Math Academic Achievement”

Project Tomorrow, “Digital Learning: Peril or Promise for Our K-12 Students”

World Economic Forum, “The Future of Jobs Report 2018”

World Economic Forum, “Learning through Play: How Schools Can Educate Students through Technology”

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The Impact of Technology in Education Essay

Introduction, summary of the article, impact of the technologies.

Technology has become essential in education as teachers are finding it more effective to adopt and apply certain technological principles in the learning process. This essay addresses the issue of technology in education by summarizing a scholarly article on the subject and synthesizing the impact of technology in education.

In their 2009 survey, Klopfer et al. (2009) discussed how games and simulations are applied in various fields including medicine, business, government and science in promoting and improving service delivery. Although the technologies have been mainly applied in training of employees at various levels, the authors affirmed that these tools are equally useful in classroom teaching and other educational procedures.

Besides their description on how technology had transformed humanity, they argued that some people have remained reluctant to adopting certain technological ideas (Klopfer et al., 2009). Some of these technologies are social media networks which most education stakeholders believe may cause security challenges to schools and other learning institutions.

The scholars mainly focused on how digital gaming, social media networks and computer simulations had impacted the education system. Through background information, they emphasized that the three technologies had undergone a series of transformations. In addition, they explored major cognitive effects of the above mentioned technologies in the education system as many schools continue to adopt them.

In ensuring fair research details, they explored some of the challenges which had been experienced in applying technology in education. Lastly, the scholars described the future of these technologies in education (Klopfer et al., 2009).

According to Klopfer et al. (2009), digital gaming had become quite common in the United States with over forty five million homes playing these games. The games have particular characteristics like rules, objectives, feedback and competition which impact learners with skills.

With their familiarity among students and parents, learners find digital games easier and compatible when they are applied in the classroom for learning purposes (Klopfer et al., 2009). Most games create an environment which allows learners to grasp certain skills that are quite fundamental in and outside the classroom.

Some of these skills are: conflict resolution, appreciation of group work and embracing apprenticeship programs among others. They therefore reckon that adoption of these games is imperative in understanding their designs and benefits in education.

On the other hand, simulations demonstrate a modified version of the real world with teachers considering this technology as a major teaching tool. Simulations like “MOLECULAR WORKBENCH” are essential for teachers, tutors and lecturers especially in data collection and evaluation of learning using various models (Klopfer et al., 2009).

Moreover, “STARLOGO TNG” simplifies programming languages which are essential in teaching of mathematics. Lastly, customized social networks like “NING”, “THINK.COM”, “DIIGO” and “PANWARA” enhance sharing of filtered information among peers and teachers (Klopfer et al., 2009).

Since teachers have administrative powers, they are able to control web content and functions. Through these, learners share information and consult teachers outside the class.

It is evident that digital games, simulations and social networks present interesting future progress as they get adopted in more learning institutions around the world. More exploration is expected to fix existing barriers and address upcoming challenges (Quillen, 2011). By using these technologies in the current world, teachers and learners create answers for future generations.

From the analysis of the article above, it is clear that there are several technologies which continue to transform education today. Nevertheless, they present countless opportunities for exploration.

Klopfer et al. (2009). Using the technology of today, in the class room today. The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Web.

Quillen, I. (2011). Perceptive Computers and the Future of Ed Tech . Digital Education. Web.

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• Published: 12 February 2024

Education reform and change driven by digital technology: a bibliometric study from a global perspective

• Chengliang Wang 1 ,
• Xiaojiao Chen 1 ,
• Teng Yu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5198-7261 2 , 3 ,
• Yidan Liu 1 , 4 &
• Yuhui Jing 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  256 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Development studies
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Amidst the global digital transformation of educational institutions, digital technology has emerged as a significant area of interest among scholars. Such technologies have played an instrumental role in enhancing learner performance and improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning. These digital technologies also ensure the sustainability and stability of education during the epidemic. Despite this, a dearth of systematic reviews exists regarding the current state of digital technology application in education. To address this gap, this study utilized the Web of Science Core Collection as a data source (specifically selecting the high-quality SSCI and SCIE) and implemented a topic search by setting keywords, yielding 1849 initial publications. Furthermore, following the PRISMA guidelines, we refined the selection to 588 high-quality articles. Using software tools such as CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Charticulator, we reviewed these 588 publications to identify core authors (such as Selwyn, Henderson, Edwards), highly productive countries/regions (England, Australia, USA), key institutions (Monash University, Australian Catholic University), and crucial journals in the field ( Education and Information Technologies , Computers & Education , British Journal of Educational Technology ). Evolutionary analysis reveals four developmental periods in the research field of digital technology education application: the embryonic period, the preliminary development period, the key exploration, and the acceleration period of change. The study highlights the dual influence of technological factors and historical context on the research topic. Technology is a key factor in enabling education to transform and upgrade, and the context of the times is an important driving force in promoting the adoption of new technologies in the education system and the transformation and upgrading of education. Additionally, the study identifies three frontier hotspots in the field: physical education, digital transformation, and professional development under the promotion of digital technology. This study presents a clear framework for digital technology application in education, which can serve as a valuable reference for researchers and educational practitioners concerned with digital technology education application in theory and practice.

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Introduction.

Digital technology has become an essential component of modern education, facilitating the extension of temporal and spatial boundaries and enriching the pedagogical contexts (Selwyn and Facer, 2014 ). The advent of mobile communication technology has enabled learning through social media platforms (Szeto et al. 2015 ; Pires et al. 2022 ), while the advancement of augmented reality technology has disrupted traditional conceptions of learning environments and spaces (Perez-Sanagustin et al., 2014 ; Kyza and Georgiou, 2018 ). A wide range of digital technologies has enabled learning to become a norm in various settings, including the workplace (Sjöberg and Holmgren, 2021 ), home (Nazare et al. 2022 ), and online communities (Tang and Lam, 2014 ). Education is no longer limited to fixed locations and schedules, but has permeated all aspects of life, allowing learning to continue at any time and any place (Camilleri and Camilleri, 2016 ; Selwyn and Facer, 2014 ).

The advent of digital technology has led to the creation of several informal learning environments (Greenhow and Lewin, 2015 ) that exhibit divergent form, function, features, and patterns in comparison to conventional learning environments (Nygren et al. 2019 ). Consequently, the associated teaching and learning processes, as well as the strategies for the creation, dissemination, and acquisition of learning resources, have undergone a complete overhaul. The ensuing transformations have posed a myriad of novel issues, such as the optimal structuring of teaching methods by instructors and the adoption of appropriate learning strategies by students in the new digital technology environment. Consequently, an examination of the principles that underpin effective teaching and learning in this environment is a topic of significant interest to numerous scholars engaged in digital technology education research.

Over the course of the last two decades, digital technology has made significant strides in the field of education, notably in extending education time and space and creating novel educational contexts with sustainability. Despite research attempts to consolidate the application of digital technology in education, previous studies have only focused on specific aspects of digital technology, such as Pinto and Leite’s ( 2020 ) investigation into digital technology in higher education and Mustapha et al.’s ( 2021 ) examination of the role and value of digital technology in education during the pandemic. While these studies have provided valuable insights into the practical applications of digital technology in particular educational domains, they have not comprehensively explored the macro-mechanisms and internal logic of digital technology implementation in education. Additionally, these studies were conducted over a relatively brief period, making it challenging to gain a comprehensive understanding of the macro-dynamics and evolutionary process of digital technology in education. Some studies have provided an overview of digital education from an educational perspective but lack a precise understanding of technological advancement and change (Yang et al. 2022 ). Therefore, this study seeks to employ a systematic scientific approach to collate relevant research from 2000 to 2022, comprehend the internal logic and development trends of digital technology in education, and grasp the outstanding contribution of digital technology in promoting the sustainability of education in time and space. In summary, this study aims to address the following questions:

RQ1: Since the turn of the century, what is the productivity distribution of the field of digital technology education application research in terms of authorship, country/region, institutional and journal level?

RQ2: What is the development trend of research on the application of digital technology in education in the past two decades?

RQ3: What are the current frontiers of research on the application of digital technology in education?

Literature review

Although the term “digital technology” has become ubiquitous, a unified definition has yet to be agreed upon by scholars. Because the meaning of the word digital technology is closely related to the specific context. Within the educational research domain, Selwyn’s ( 2016 ) definition is widely favored by scholars (Pinto and Leite, 2020 ). Selwyn ( 2016 ) provides a comprehensive view of various concrete digital technologies and their applications in education through ten specific cases, such as immediate feedback in classes, orchestrating teaching, and community learning. Through these specific application scenarios, Selwyn ( 2016 ) argues that digital technology encompasses technologies associated with digital devices, including but not limited to tablets, smartphones, computers, and social media platforms (such as Facebook and YouTube). Furthermore, Further, the behavior of accessing the internet at any location through portable devices can be taken as an extension of the behavior of applying digital technology.

The evolving nature of digital technology has significant implications in the field of education. In the 1890s, the focus of digital technology in education was on comprehending the nuances of digital space, digital culture, and educational methodologies, with its connotations aligned more towards the idea of e-learning. The advent and subsequent widespread usage of mobile devices since the dawn of the new millennium have been instrumental in the rapid expansion of the concept of digital technology. Notably, mobile learning devices such as smartphones and tablets, along with social media platforms, have become integral components of digital technology (Conole and Alevizou, 2010 ; Batista et al. 2016 ). In recent times, the burgeoning application of AI technology in the education sector has played a vital role in enriching the digital technology lexicon (Banerjee et al. 2021 ). ChatGPT, for instance, is identified as a novel educational technology that has immense potential to revolutionize future education (Rospigliosi, 2023 ; Arif, Munaf and Ul-Haque, 2023 ).

Pinto and Leite ( 2020 ) conducted a comprehensive macroscopic survey of the use of digital technologies in the education sector and identified three distinct categories, namely technologies for assessment and feedback, mobile technologies, and Information Communication Technologies (ICT). This classification criterion is both macroscopic and highly condensed. In light of the established concept definitions of digital technology in the educational research literature, this study has adopted the characterizations of digital technology proposed by Selwyn ( 2016 ) and Pinto and Leite ( 2020 ) as crucial criteria for analysis and research inclusion. Specifically, this criterion encompasses several distinct types of digital technologies, including Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Mobile tools, eXtended Reality (XR) Technologies, Assessment and Feedback systems, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Publish and Share tools, Collaborative systems, Social media, Interpersonal Communication tools, and Content Aggregation tools.

Methodology and materials

Research method: bibliometric.

The research on econometric properties has been present in various aspects of human production and life, yet systematic scientific theoretical guidance has been lacking, resulting in disorganization. In 1969, British scholar Pritchard ( 1969 ) proposed “bibliometrics,” which subsequently emerged as an independent discipline in scientific quantification research. Initially, Pritchard defined bibliometrics as “the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication,” however, the definition was not entirely rigorous. To remedy this, Hawkins ( 2001 ) expanded Pritchard’s definition to “the quantitative analysis of the bibliographic features of a body of literature.” De Bellis further clarified the objectives of bibliometrics, stating that it aims to analyze and identify patterns in literature, such as the most productive authors, institutions, countries, and journals in scientific disciplines, trends in literary production over time, and collaboration networks (De Bellis, 2009 ). According to Garfield ( 2006 ), bibliometric research enables the examination of the history and structure of a field, the flow of information within the field, the impact of journals, and the citation status of publications over a longer time scale. All of these definitions illustrate the unique role of bibliometrics as a research method for evaluating specific research fields.

This study uses CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Charticulator to analyze data and create visualizations. Each of these three tools has its own strengths and can complement each other. CiteSpace and VOSviewer use set theory and probability theory to provide various visualization views in fields such as keywords, co-occurrence, and co-authors. They are easy to use and produce visually appealing graphics (Chen, 2006 ; van Eck and Waltman, 2009 ) and are currently the two most widely used bibliometric tools in the field of visualization (Pan et al. 2018 ). In this study, VOSviewer provided the data necessary for the Performance Analysis; Charticulator was then used to redraw using the tabular data exported from VOSviewer (for creating the chord diagram of country collaboration); this was to complement the mapping process, while CiteSpace was primarily utilized to generate keyword maps and conduct burst word analysis.

Data retrieval

This study selected documents from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) in the Web of Science Core Collection as the data source, for the following reasons:

(1) The Web of Science Core Collection, as a high-quality digital literature resource database, has been widely accepted by many researchers and is currently considered the most suitable database for bibliometric analysis (Jing et al. 2023a ). Compared to other databases, Web of Science provides more comprehensive data information (Chen et al. 2022a ), and also provides data formats suitable for analysis using VOSviewer and CiteSpace (Gaviria-Marin et al. 2019 ).

(2) The application of digital technology in the field of education is an interdisciplinary research topic, involving technical knowledge literature belonging to the natural sciences and education-related literature belonging to the social sciences. Therefore, it is necessary to select Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) as the sources of research data, ensuring the comprehensiveness of data while ensuring the reliability and persuasiveness of bibliometric research (Hwang and Tsai, 2011 ; Wang et al. 2022 ).

After establishing the source of research data, it is necessary to determine a retrieval strategy (Jing et al. 2023b ). The choice of a retrieval strategy should consider a balance between the breadth and precision of the search formula. That is to say, it should encompass all the literature pertaining to the research topic while excluding irrelevant documents as much as possible. In light of this, this study has set a retrieval strategy informed by multiple related papers (Mustapha et al. 2021 ; Luo et al. 2021 ). The research by Mustapha et al. ( 2021 ) guided us in selecting keywords (“digital” AND “technolog*”) to target digital technology, while Luo et al. ( 2021 ) informed the selection of terms (such as “instruct*,” “teach*,” and “education”) to establish links with the field of education. Then, based on the current application of digital technology in the educational domain and the scope of selection criteria, we constructed the final retrieval strategy. Following the general patterns of past research (Jing et al. 2023a , 2023b ), we conducted a specific screening using the topic search (Topics, TS) function in Web of Science. For the specific criteria used in the screening for this study, please refer to Table 1 .

Literature screening

Literature acquired through keyword searches may contain ostensibly related yet actually unrelated works. Therefore, to ensure the close relevance of literature included in the analysis to the research topic, it is often necessary to perform a manual screening process to identify the final literature to be analyzed, subsequent to completing the initial literature search.

The manual screening process consists of two steps. Initially, irrelevant literature is weeded out based on the title and abstract, with two members of the research team involved in this phase. This stage lasted about one week, resulting in 1106 articles being retained. Subsequently, a comprehensive review of the full text is conducted to accurately identify the literature required for the study. To carry out the second phase of manual screening effectively and scientifically, and to minimize the potential for researcher bias, the research team established the inclusion criteria presented in Table 2 . Three members were engaged in this phase, which took approximately 2 weeks, culminating in the retention of 588 articles after meticulous screening. The entire screening process is depicted in Fig. 1 , adhering to the PRISMA guidelines (Page et al. 2021 ).

The process of obtaining and filtering the necessary literature data for research.

Data standardization

Nguyen and Hallinger ( 2020 ) pointed out that raw data extracted from scientific databases often contains multiple expressions of the same term, and not addressing these synonymous expressions could affect research results in bibliometric analysis. For instance, in the original data, the author list may include “Tsai, C. C.” and “Tsai, C.-C.”, while the keyword list may include “professional-development” and “professional development,” which often require merging. Therefore, before analyzing the selected literature, a data disambiguation process is necessary to standardize the data (Strotmann and Zhao, 2012 ; Van Eck and Waltman, 2019 ). This study adopted the data standardization process proposed by Taskin and Al ( 2019 ), mainly including the following standardization operations:

Firstly, the author and source fields in the data are corrected and standardized to differentiate authors with similar names.

Secondly, the study checks whether the journals to which the literature belongs have been renamed in the past over 20 years, so as to avoid the influence of periodical name change on the analysis results.

Finally, the keyword field is standardized by unifying parts of speech and singular/plural forms of keywords, which can help eliminate redundant entries in the knowledge graph.

Performance analysis (RQ1)

This section offers a thorough and detailed analysis of the state of research in the field of digital technology education. By utilizing descriptive statistics and visual maps, it provides a comprehensive overview of the development trends, authors, countries, institutions, and journal distribution within the field. The insights presented in this section are of great significance in advancing our understanding of the current state of research in this field and identifying areas for further investigation. The use of visual aids to display inter-country cooperation and the evolution of the field adds to the clarity and coherence of the analysis.

Time trend of the publications

To understand a research field, it is first necessary to understand the most basic quantitative information, among which the change in the number of publications per year best reflects the development trend of a research field. Figure 2 shows the distribution of publication dates.

Time trend of the publications on application of digital technology in education.

From the Fig. 2 , it can be seen that the development of this field over the past over 20 years can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage was from 2000 to 2007, during which the number of publications was relatively low. Due to various factors such as technological maturity, the academic community did not pay widespread attention to the role of digital technology in expanding the scope of teaching and learning. The second stage was from 2008 to 2019, during which the overall number of publications showed an upward trend, and the development of the field entered an accelerated period, attracting more and more scholars’ attention. The third stage was from 2020 to 2022, during which the number of publications stabilized at around 100. During this period, the impact of the pandemic led to a large number of scholars focusing on the role of digital technology in education during the pandemic, and research on the application of digital technology in education became a core topic in social science research.

Analysis of authors

An analysis of the author’s publication volume provides information about the representative scholars and core research strengths of a research area. Table 3 presents information on the core authors in adaptive learning research, including name, publication number, and average number of citations per article (based on the analysis and statistics from VOSviewer).

Variations in research foci among scholars abound. Within the field of digital technology education application research over the past two decades, Neil Selwyn stands as the most productive author, having published 15 papers garnering a total of 1027 citations, resulting in an average of 68.47 citations per paper. As a Professor at the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Selwyn concentrates on exploring the application of digital technology in higher education contexts (Selwyn et al. 2021 ), as well as related products in higher education such as Coursera, edX, and Udacity MOOC platforms (Bulfin et al. 2014 ). Selwyn’s contributions to the educational sociology perspective include extensive research on the impact of digital technology on education, highlighting the spatiotemporal extension of educational processes and practices through technological means as the greatest value of educational technology (Selwyn, 2012 ; Selwyn and Facer, 2014 ). In addition, he provides a blueprint for the development of future schools in 2030 based on the present impact of digital technology on education (Selwyn et al. 2019 ). The second most productive author in this field, Henderson, also offers significant contributions to the understanding of the important value of digital technology in education, specifically in the higher education setting, with a focus on the impact of the pandemic (Henderson et al. 2015 ; Cohen et al. 2022 ). In contrast, Edwards’ research interests focus on early childhood education, particularly the application of digital technology in this context (Edwards, 2013 ; Bird and Edwards, 2015 ). Additionally, on the technical level, Edwards also mainly prefers digital game technology, because it is a digital technology that children are relatively easy to accept (Edwards, 2015 ).

Analysis of countries/regions and organization

The present study aimed to ascertain the leading countries in digital technology education application research by analyzing 75 countries related to 558 works of literature. Table 4 depicts the top ten countries that have contributed significantly to this field in terms of publication count (based on the analysis and statistics from VOSviewer). Our analysis of Table 4 data shows that England emerged as the most influential country/region, with 92 published papers and 2401 citations. Australia and the United States secured the second and third ranks, respectively, with 90 papers (2187 citations) and 70 papers (1331 citations) published. Geographically, most of the countries featured in the top ten publication volumes are situated in Australia, North America, and Europe, with China being the only exception. Notably, all these countries, except China, belong to the group of developed nations, suggesting that economic strength is a prerequisite for fostering research in the digital technology education application field.

This study presents a visual representation of the publication output and cooperation relationships among different countries in the field of digital technology education application research. Specifically, a chord diagram is employed to display the top 30 countries in terms of publication output, as depicted in Fig. 3 . The chord diagram is composed of nodes and chords, where the nodes are positioned as scattered points along the circumference, and the length of each node corresponds to the publication output, with longer lengths indicating higher publication output. The chords, on the other hand, represent the cooperation relationships between any two countries, and are weighted based on the degree of closeness of the cooperation, with wider chords indicating closer cooperation. Through the analysis of the cooperation relationships, the findings suggest that the main publishing countries in this field are engaged in cooperative relationships with each other, indicating a relatively high level of international academic exchange and research internationalization.

In the diagram, nodes are scattered along the circumference of a circle, with the length of each node representing the volume of publications. The weighted arcs connecting any two points on the circle are known as chords, representing the collaborative relationship between the two, with the width of the arc indicating the closeness of the collaboration.

Further analyzing Fig. 3 , we can extract more valuable information, enabling a deeper understanding of the connections between countries in the research field of digital technology in educational applications. It is evident that certain countries, such as the United States, China, and England, display thicker connections, indicating robust collaborative relationships in terms of productivity. These thicker lines signify substantial mutual contributions and shared objectives in certain sectors or fields, highlighting the interconnectedness and global integration in these areas. By delving deeper, we can also explore potential future collaboration opportunities through the chord diagram, identifying possible partners to propel research and development in this field. In essence, the chord diagram successfully encapsulates and conveys the multi-dimensionality of global productivity and cooperation, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the intricate inter-country relationships and networks in a global context, providing valuable guidance and insights for future research and collaborations.

An in-depth examination of the publishing institutions is provided in Table 5 , showcasing the foremost 10 institutions ranked by their publication volume. Notably, Monash University and Australian Catholic University, situated in Australia, have recorded the most prolific publications within the digital technology education application realm, with 22 and 10 publications respectively. Moreover, the University of Oslo from Norway is featured among the top 10 publishing institutions, with an impressive average citation count of 64 per publication. It is worth highlighting that six institutions based in the United Kingdom were also ranked within the top 10 publishing institutions, signifying their leading position in this area of research.

Analysis of journals

Journals are the main carriers for publishing high-quality papers. Some scholars point out that the two key factors to measure the influence of journals in the specified field are the number of articles published and the number of citations. The more papers published in a magazine and the more citations, the greater its influence (Dzikowski, 2018 ). Therefore, this study utilized VOSviewer to statistically analyze the top 10 journals with the most publications in the field of digital technology in education and calculated the average citations per article (see Table 6 ).

Based on Table 6 , it is apparent that the highest number of articles in the domain of digital technology in education research were published in Education and Information Technologies (47 articles), Computers & Education (34 articles), and British Journal of Educational Technology (32 articles), indicating a higher article output compared to other journals. This underscores the fact that these three journals concentrate more on the application of digital technology in education. Furthermore, several other journals, such as Technology Pedagogy and Education and Sustainability, have published more than 15 articles in this domain. Sustainability represents the open access movement, which has notably facilitated research progress in this field, indicating that the development of open access journals in recent years has had a significant impact. Although there is still considerable disagreement among scholars on the optimal approach to achieve open access, the notion that research outcomes should be accessible to all is widely recognized (Huang et al. 2020 ). On further analysis of the research fields to which these journals belong, except for Sustainability, it is evident that they all pertain to educational technology, thus providing a qualitative definition of the research area of digital technology education from the perspective of journals.

Temporal keyword analysis: thematic evolution (RQ2)

The evolution of research themes is a dynamic process, and previous studies have attempted to present the developmental trajectory of fields by drawing keyword networks in phases (Kumar et al. 2021 ; Chen et al. 2022b ). To understand the shifts in research topics across different periods, this study follows past research and, based on the significant changes in the research field and corresponding technological advancements during the outlined periods, divides the timeline into four stages (the first stage from January 2000 to December 2005, the second stage from January 2006 to December 2011, the third stage from January 2012 to December 2017; and the fourth stage from January 2018 to December 2022). The division into these four stages was determined through a combination of bibliometric analysis and literature review, which presented a clear trajectory of the field’s development. The research analyzes the keyword networks for each time period (as there are only three articles in the first stage, it was not possible to generate an appropriate keyword co-occurrence map, hence only the keyword co-occurrence maps from the second to the fourth stages are provided), to understand the evolutionary track of the digital technology education application research field over time.

2000.1–2005.12: germination period

From January 2000 to December 2005, digital technology education application research was in its infancy. Only three studies focused on digital technology, all of which were related to computers. Due to the popularity of computers, the home became a new learning environment, highlighting the important role of digital technology in expanding the scope of learning spaces (Sutherland et al. 2000 ). In specific disciplines and contexts, digital technology was first favored in medical clinical practice, becoming an important tool for supporting the learning of clinical knowledge and practice (Tegtmeyer et al. 2001 ; Durfee et al. 2003 ).

2006.1–2011.12: initial development period

Between January 2006 and December 2011, it was the initial development period of digital technology education research. Significant growth was observed in research related to digital technology, and discussions and theoretical analyses about “digital natives” emerged. During this phase, scholars focused on the debate about “how to use digital technology reasonably” and “whether current educational models and school curriculum design need to be adjusted on a large scale” (Bennett and Maton, 2010 ; Selwyn, 2009 ; Margaryan et al. 2011 ). These theoretical and speculative arguments provided a unique perspective on the impact of cognitive digital technology on education and teaching. As can be seen from the vocabulary such as “rethinking”, “disruptive pedagogy”, and “attitude” in Fig. 4 , many scholars joined the calm reflection and analysis under the trend of digital technology (Laurillard, 2008 ; Vratulis et al. 2011 ). During this phase, technology was still undergoing dramatic changes. The development of mobile technology had already caught the attention of many scholars (Wong et al. 2011 ), but digital technology represented by computers was still very active (Selwyn et al. 2011 ). The change in technological form would inevitably lead to educational transformation. Collins and Halverson ( 2010 ) summarized the prospects and challenges of using digital technology for learning and educational practices, believing that digital technology would bring a disruptive revolution to the education field and bring about a new educational system. In addition, the term “teacher education” in Fig. 4 reflects the impact of digital technology development on teachers. The rapid development of technology has widened the generation gap between teachers and students. To ensure smooth communication between teachers and students, teachers must keep up with the trend of technological development and establish a lifelong learning concept (Donnison, 2009 ).

In the diagram, each node represents a keyword, with the size of the node indicating the frequency of occurrence of the keyword. The connections represent the co-occurrence relationships between keywords, with a higher frequency of co-occurrence resulting in tighter connections.

2012.1–2017.12: critical exploration period

During the period spanning January 2012 to December 2017, the application of digital technology in education research underwent a significant exploration phase. As can be seen from Fig. 5 , different from the previous stage, the specific elements of specific digital technology have started to increase significantly, including the enrichment of technological contexts, the greater variety of research methods, and the diversification of learning modes. Moreover, the temporal and spatial dimensions of the learning environment were further de-emphasized, as noted in previous literature (Za et al. 2014 ). Given the rapidly accelerating pace of technological development, the education system in the digital era is in urgent need of collaborative evolution and reconstruction, as argued by Davis, Eickelmann, and Zaka ( 2013 ).

In the domain of digital technology, social media has garnered substantial scholarly attention as a promising avenue for learning, as noted by Pasquini and Evangelopoulos ( 2016 ). The implementation of social media in education presents several benefits, including the liberation of education from the restrictions of physical distance and time, as well as the erasure of conventional educational boundaries. The user-generated content (UGC) model in social media has emerged as a crucial source for knowledge creation and distribution, with the widespread adoption of mobile devices. Moreover, social networks have become an integral component of ubiquitous learning environments (Hwang et al. 2013 ). The utilization of social media allows individuals to function as both knowledge producers and recipients, which leads to a blurring of the conventional roles of learners and teachers. On mobile platforms, the roles of learners and teachers are not fixed, but instead interchangeable.

In terms of research methodology, the prevalence of empirical studies with survey designs in the field of educational technology during this period is evident from the vocabulary used, such as “achievement,” “acceptance,” “attitude,” and “ict.” in Fig. 5 . These studies aim to understand learners’ willingness to adopt and attitudes towards new technologies, and some seek to investigate the impact of digital technologies on learning outcomes through quasi-experimental designs (Domínguez et al. 2013 ). Among these empirical studies, mobile learning emerged as a hot topic, and this is not surprising. First, the advantages of mobile learning environments over traditional ones have been empirically demonstrated (Hwang et al. 2013 ). Second, learners born around the turn of the century have been heavily influenced by digital technologies and have developed their own learning styles that are more open to mobile devices as a means of learning. Consequently, analyzing mobile learning as a relatively novel mode of learning has become an important issue for scholars in the field of educational technology.

The intervention of technology has led to the emergence of several novel learning modes, with the blended learning model being the most representative one in the current phase. Blended learning, a novel concept introduced in the information age, emphasizes the integration of the benefits of traditional learning methods and online learning. This learning mode not only highlights the prominent role of teachers in guiding, inspiring, and monitoring the learning process but also underlines the importance of learners’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity in the learning process. Despite being an early conceptualization, blended learning’s meaning has been expanded by the widespread use of mobile technology and social media in education. The implementation of new technologies, particularly mobile devices, has resulted in the transformation of curriculum design and increased flexibility and autonomy in students’ learning processes (Trujillo Maza et al. 2016 ), rekindling scholarly attention to this learning mode. However, some scholars have raised concerns about the potential drawbacks of the blended learning model, such as its significant impact on the traditional teaching system, the lack of systematic coping strategies and relevant policies in several schools and regions (Moskal et al. 2013 ).

2018.1–2022.12: accelerated transformation period

The period spanning from January 2018 to December 2022 witnessed a rapid transformation in the application of digital technology in education research. The field of digital technology education research reached a peak period of publication, largely influenced by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Yu et al. 2023 ). Research during this period was built upon the achievements, attitudes, and social media of the previous phase, and included more elements that reflect the characteristics of this research field, such as digital literacy, digital competence, and professional development, as depicted in Fig. 6 . Alongside this, scholars’ expectations for the value of digital technology have expanded, and the pursuit of improving learning efficiency and performance is no longer the sole focus. Some research now aims to cultivate learners’ motivation and enhance their self-efficacy by applying digital technology in a reasonable manner, as demonstrated by recent studies (Beardsley et al. 2021 ; Creely et al. 2021 ).

The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a crucial backdrop for the digital technology’s role in sustaining global education, as highlighted by recent scholarly research (Zhou et al. 2022 ; Pan and Zhang, 2020 ; Mo et al. 2022 ). The online learning environment, which is supported by digital technology, has become the primary battleground for global education (Yu, 2022 ). This social context has led to various studies being conducted, with some scholars positing that the pandemic has impacted the traditional teaching order while also expanding learning possibilities in terms of patterns and forms (Alabdulaziz, 2021 ). Furthermore, the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for teacher teaching and technological innovation, and this viewpoint has been empirically substantiated (Moorhouse and Wong, 2021 ). Additionally, some scholars believe that the pandemic’s push is a crucial driving force for the digital transformation of the education system, serving as an essential mechanism for overcoming the system’s inertia (Romero et al. 2021 ).

The rapid outbreak of the pandemic posed a challenge to the large-scale implementation of digital technologies, which was influenced by a complex interplay of subjective and objective factors. Objective constraints included the lack of infrastructure in some regions to support digital technologies, while subjective obstacles included psychological resistance among certain students and teachers (Moorhouse, 2021 ). These factors greatly impacted the progress of online learning during the pandemic. Additionally, Timotheou et al. ( 2023 ) conducted a comprehensive systematic review of existing research on digital technology use during the pandemic, highlighting the critical role played by various factors such as learners’ and teachers’ digital skills, teachers’ personal attributes and professional development, school leadership and management, and administration in facilitating the digitalization and transformation of schools.

The current stage of research is characterized by the pivotal term “digital literacy,” denoting a growing interest in learners’ attitudes and adoption of emerging technologies. Initially, the term “literacy” was restricted to fundamental abilities and knowledge associated with books and print materials (McMillan, 1996 ). However, with the swift advancement of computers and digital technology, there have been various attempts to broaden the scope of literacy beyond its traditional meaning, including game literacy (Buckingham and Burn, 2007 ), information literacy (Eisenberg, 2008 ), and media literacy (Turin and Friesem, 2020 ). Similarly, digital literacy has emerged as a crucial concept, and Gilster and Glister ( 1997 ) were the first to introduce this concept, referring to the proficiency in utilizing technology and processing digital information in academic, professional, and daily life settings. In practical educational settings, learners who possess higher digital literacy often exhibit an aptitude for quickly mastering digital devices and applying them intelligently to education and teaching (Yu, 2022 ).

The utilization of digital technology in education has undergone significant changes over the past two decades, and has been a crucial driver of educational reform with each new technological revolution. The impact of these changes on the underlying logic of digital technology education applications has been noticeable. From computer technology to more recent developments such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI), the acceleration in digital technology development has been ongoing. Educational reforms spurred by digital technology development continue to be dynamic, as each new digital innovation presents new possibilities and models for teaching practice. This is especially relevant in the post-pandemic era, where the importance of technological progress in supporting teaching cannot be overstated (Mughal et al. 2022 ). Existing digital technologies have already greatly expanded the dimensions of education in both time and space, while future digital technologies aim to expand learners’ perceptions. Researchers have highlighted the potential of integrated technology and immersive technology in the development of the educational metaverse, which is highly anticipated to create a new dimension for the teaching and learning environment, foster a new value system for the discipline of educational technology, and more effectively and efficiently achieve the grand educational blueprint of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (Zhang et al. 2022 ; Li and Yu, 2023 ).

Hotspot evolution analysis (RQ3)

The examination of keyword evolution reveals a consistent trend in the advancement of digital technology education application research. The emergence and transformation of keywords serve as indicators of the varying research interests in this field. Thus, the utilization of the burst detection function available in CiteSpace allowed for the identification of the top 10 burst words that exhibited a high level of burst strength. This outcome is illustrated in Table 7 .

According to the results presented in Table 7 , the explosive terminology within the realm of digital technology education research has exhibited a concentration mainly between the years 2018 and 2022. Prior to this time frame, the emerging keywords were limited to “information technology” and “computer”. Notably, among them, computer, as an emergent keyword, has always had a high explosive intensity from 2008 to 2018, which reflects the important position of computer in digital technology and is the main carrier of many digital technologies such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Assessment and Feedback systems (Barlovits et al. 2022 ).

Since 2018, an increasing number of research studies have focused on evaluating the capabilities of learners to accept, apply, and comprehend digital technologies. As indicated by the use of terms such as “digital literacy” and “digital skill,” the assessment of learners’ digital literacy has become a critical task. Scholarly efforts have been directed towards the development of literacy assessment tools and the implementation of empirical assessments. Furthermore, enhancing the digital literacy of both learners and educators has garnered significant attention. (Nagle, 2018 ; Yu, 2022 ). Simultaneously, given the widespread use of various digital technologies in different formal and informal learning settings, promoting learners’ digital skills has become a crucial objective for contemporary schools (Nygren et al. 2019 ; Forde and OBrien, 2022 ).

Since 2020, the field of applied research on digital technology education has witnessed the emergence of three new hotspots, all of which have been affected to some extent by the pandemic. Firstly, digital technology has been widely applied in physical education, which is one of the subjects that has been severely affected by the pandemic (Parris et al. 2022 ; Jiang and Ning, 2022 ). Secondly, digital transformation has become an important measure for most schools, especially higher education institutions, to cope with the impact of the pandemic globally (García-Morales et al. 2021 ). Although the concept of digital transformation was proposed earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated this transformation process. Educational institutions must carefully redesign their educational products to face this new situation, providing timely digital learning methods, environments, tools, and support systems that have far-reaching impacts on modern society (Krishnamurthy, 2020 ; Salas-Pilco et al. 2022 ). Moreover, the professional development of teachers has become a key mission of educational institutions in the post-pandemic era. Teachers need to have a certain level of digital literacy and be familiar with the tools and online teaching resources used in online teaching, which has become a research hotspot today. Organizing digital skills training for teachers to cope with the application of emerging technologies in education is an important issue for teacher professional development and lifelong learning (Garzón-Artacho et al. 2021 ). As the main organizers and practitioners of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the pandemic, teachers must put cognitive effort into their professional development to ensure effective implementation of ERT (Romero-Hall and Jaramillo Cherrez, 2022 ).

The burst word “digital transformation” reveals that we are in the midst of an ongoing digital technology revolution. With the emergence of innovative digital technologies such as ChatGPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot, technology trends will continue to evolve, albeit unpredictably. While the impact of these advancements on school education remains uncertain, it is anticipated that the widespread integration of technology will significantly affect the current education system. Rejecting emerging technologies without careful consideration is unwise. Like any revolution, the technological revolution in the education field has both positive and negative aspects. Detractors argue that digital technology disrupts learning and memory (Baron, 2021 ) or causes learners to become addicted and distracted from learning (Selwyn and Aagaard, 2020 ). On the other hand, the prudent use of digital technology in education offers a glimpse of a golden age of open learning. Educational leaders and practitioners have the opportunity to leverage cutting-edge digital technologies to address current educational challenges and develop a rational path for the sustainable and healthy growth of education.

Discussion on performance analysis (RQ1)

The field of digital technology education application research has experienced substantial growth since the turn of the century, a phenomenon that is quantifiably apparent through an analysis of authorship, country/region contributions, and institutional engagement. This expansion reflects the increased integration of digital technologies in educational settings and the heightened scholarly interest in understanding and optimizing their use.

Discussion on authorship productivity in digital technology education research

The authorship distribution within digital technology education research is indicative of the field’s intellectual structure and depth. A primary figure in this domain is Neil Selwyn, whose substantial citation rate underscores the profound impact of his work. His focus on the implications of digital technology in higher education and educational sociology has proven to be seminal. Selwyn’s research trajectory, especially the exploration of spatiotemporal extensions of education through technology, provides valuable insights into the multifaceted role of digital tools in learning processes (Selwyn et al. 2019 ).

Other notable contributors, like Henderson and Edwards, present diversified research interests, such as the impact of digital technologies during the pandemic and their application in early childhood education, respectively. Their varied focuses highlight the breadth of digital technology education research, encompassing pedagogical innovation, technological adaptation, and policy development.

Discussion on country/region-level productivity and collaboration

At the country/region level, the United Kingdom, specifically England, emerges as a leading contributor with 92 published papers and a significant citation count. This is closely followed by Australia and the United States, indicating a strong English-speaking research axis. Such geographical concentration of scholarly output often correlates with investment in research and development, technological infrastructure, and the prevalence of higher education institutions engaging in cutting-edge research.

China’s notable inclusion as the only non-Western country among the top contributors to the field suggests a growing research capacity and interest in digital technology in education. However, the lower average citation per paper for China could reflect emerging engagement or different research focuses that may not yet have achieved the same international recognition as Western counterparts.

The chord diagram analysis furthers this understanding, revealing dense interconnections between countries like the United States, China, and England, which indicates robust collaborations. Such collaborations are fundamental in addressing global educational challenges and shaping international research agendas.

Discussion on institutional-level contributions to digital technology education

Institutional productivity in digital technology education research reveals a constellation of universities driving the field forward. Monash University and the Australian Catholic University have the highest publication output, signaling Australia’s significant role in advancing digital education research. The University of Oslo’s remarkable average citation count per publication indicates influential research contributions, potentially reflecting high-quality studies that resonate with the broader academic community.

The strong showing of UK institutions, including the University of London, The Open University, and the University of Cambridge, reinforces the UK’s prominence in this research field. Such institutions are often at the forefront of pedagogical innovation, benefiting from established research cultures and funding mechanisms that support sustained inquiry into digital education.

Discussion on journal publication analysis

An examination of journal outputs offers a lens into the communicative channels of the field’s knowledge base. Journals such as Education and Information Technologies , Computers & Education , and the British Journal of Educational Technology not only serve as the primary disseminators of research findings but also as indicators of research quality and relevance. The impact factor (IF) serves as a proxy for the quality and influence of these journals within the academic community.

The high citation counts for articles published in Computers & Education suggest that research disseminated through this medium has a wide-reaching impact and is of particular interest to the field. This is further evidenced by its significant IF of 11.182, indicating that the journal is a pivotal platform for seminal work in the application of digital technology in education.

The authorship, regional, and institutional productivity in the field of digital technology education application research collectively narrate the evolution of this domain since the turn of the century. The prominence of certain authors and countries underscores the importance of socioeconomic factors and existing academic infrastructure in fostering research productivity. Meanwhile, the centrality of specific journals as outlets for high-impact research emphasizes the role of academic publishing in shaping the research landscape.

As the field continues to grow, future research may benefit from leveraging the collaborative networks that have been elucidated through this analysis, perhaps focusing on underrepresented regions to broaden the scope and diversity of research. Furthermore, the stabilization of publication numbers in recent years invites a deeper exploration into potential plateaus in research trends or saturation in certain sub-fields, signaling an opportunity for novel inquiries and methodological innovations.

Discussion on the evolutionary trends (RQ2)

The evolution of the research field concerning the application of digital technology in education over the past two decades is a story of convergence, diversification, and transformation, shaped by rapid technological advancements and shifting educational paradigms.

At the turn of the century, the inception of digital technology in education was largely exploratory, with a focus on how emerging computer technologies could be harnessed to enhance traditional learning environments. Research from this early period was primarily descriptive, reflecting on the potential and challenges of incorporating digital tools into the educational setting. This phase was critical in establishing the fundamental discourse that would guide subsequent research, as it set the stage for understanding the scope and impact of digital technology in learning spaces (Wang et al. 2023 ).

As the first decade progressed, the narrative expanded to encompass the pedagogical implications of digital technologies. This was a period of conceptual debates, where terms like “digital natives” and “disruptive pedagogy” entered the academic lexicon, underscoring the growing acknowledgment of digital technology as a transformative force within education (Bennett and Maton, 2010 ). During this time, the research began to reflect a more nuanced understanding of the integration of technology, considering not only its potential to change where and how learning occurred but also its implications for educational equity and access.

In the second decade, with the maturation of internet connectivity and mobile technology, the focus of research shifted from theoretical speculations to empirical investigations. The proliferation of digital devices and the ubiquity of social media influenced how learners interacted with information and each other, prompting a surge in studies that sought to measure the impact of these tools on learning outcomes. The digital divide and issues related to digital literacy became central concerns, as scholars explored the varying capacities of students and educators to engage with technology effectively.

Throughout this period, there was an increasing emphasis on the individualization of learning experiences, facilitated by adaptive technologies that could cater to the unique needs and pacing of learners (Jing et al. 2023a ). This individualization was coupled with a growing recognition of the importance of collaborative learning, both online and offline, and the role of digital tools in supporting these processes. Blended learning models, which combined face-to-face instruction with online resources, emerged as a significant trend, advocating for a balance between traditional pedagogies and innovative digital strategies.

The later years, particularly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated the necessity for digital technology in education, transforming it from a supplementary tool to an essential platform for delivering education globally (Mo et al. 2022 ; Mustapha et al. 2021 ). This era brought about an unprecedented focus on online learning environments, distance education, and virtual classrooms. Research became more granular, examining not just the pedagogical effectiveness of digital tools, but also their role in maintaining continuity of education during crises, their impact on teacher and student well-being, and their implications for the future of educational policy and infrastructure.

Across these two decades, the research field has seen a shift from examining digital technology as an external addition to the educational process, to viewing it as an integral component of curriculum design, instructional strategies, and even assessment methods. The emergent themes have broadened from a narrow focus on specific tools or platforms to include wider considerations such as data privacy, ethical use of technology, and the environmental impact of digital tools.

Moreover, the field has moved from considering the application of digital technology in education as a primarily cognitive endeavor to recognizing its role in facilitating socio-emotional learning, digital citizenship, and global competencies. Researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the ways in which technology can support collaborative skills, cultural understanding, and ethical reasoning within diverse student populations.

In summary, the past over twenty years in the research field of digital technology applications in education have been characterized by a progression from foundational inquiries to complex analyses of digital integration. This evolution has mirrored the trajectory of technology itself, from a facilitative tool to a pervasive ecosystem defining contemporary educational experiences. As we look to the future, the field is poised to delve into the implications of emerging technologies like AI, AR, and VR, and their potential to redefine the educational landscape even further. This ongoing metamorphosis suggests that the application of digital technology in education will continue to be a rich area of inquiry, demanding continual adaptation and forward-thinking from educators and researchers alike.

Discussion on the study of research hotspots (RQ3)

The analysis of keyword evolution in digital technology education application research elucidates the current frontiers in the field, reflecting a trajectory that is in tandem with the rapidly advancing digital age. This landscape is sculpted by emergent technological innovations and shaped by the demands of an increasingly digital society.

Interdisciplinary integration and pedagogical transformation

One of the frontiers identified from recent keyword bursts includes the integration of digital technology into diverse educational contexts, particularly noted with the keyword “physical education.” The digitalization of disciplines traditionally characterized by physical presence illustrates the pervasive reach of technology and signifies a push towards interdisciplinary integration where technology is not only a facilitator but also a transformative agent. This integration challenges educators to reconceptualize curriculum delivery to accommodate digital tools that can enhance or simulate the physical aspects of learning.

Digital literacy and skills acquisition

Another pivotal frontier is the focus on “digital literacy” and “digital skill”, which has intensified in recent years. This suggests a shift from mere access to technology towards a comprehensive understanding and utilization of digital tools. In this realm, the emphasis is not only on the ability to use technology but also on critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ethical use of digital resources (Yu, 2022 ). The acquisition of digital literacy is no longer an additive skill but a fundamental aspect of modern education, essential for navigating and contributing to the digital world.

Educational digital transformation

The keyword “digital transformation” marks a significant research frontier, emphasizing the systemic changes that education institutions must undergo to align with the digital era (Romero et al. 2021 ). This transformation includes the redesigning of learning environments, pedagogical strategies, and assessment methods to harness digital technology’s full potential. Research in this area explores the complexity of institutional change, addressing the infrastructural, cultural, and policy adjustments needed for a seamless digital transition.

Engagement and participation

Further exploration into “engagement” and “participation” underscores the importance of student-centered learning environments that are mediated by technology. The current frontiers examine how digital platforms can foster collaboration, inclusivity, and active learning, potentially leading to more meaningful and personalized educational experiences. Here, the use of technology seeks to support the emotional and cognitive aspects of learning, moving beyond the transactional view of education to one that is relational and interactive.

Professional development and teacher readiness

As the field evolves, “professional development” emerges as a crucial area, particularly in light of the pandemic which necessitated emergency remote teaching. The need for teacher readiness in a digital age is a pressing frontier, with research focusing on the competencies required for educators to effectively integrate technology into their teaching practices. This includes familiarity with digital tools, pedagogical innovation, and an ongoing commitment to personal and professional growth in the digital domain.

Pandemic as a catalyst

The recent pandemic has acted as a catalyst for accelerated research and application in this field, particularly in the domains of “digital transformation,” “professional development,” and “physical education.” This period has been a litmus test for the resilience and adaptability of educational systems to continue their operations in an emergency. Research has thus been directed at understanding how digital technologies can support not only continuity but also enhance the quality and reach of education in such contexts.

Ethical and societal considerations

The frontier of digital technology in education is also expanding to consider broader ethical and societal implications. This includes issues of digital equity, data privacy, and the sociocultural impact of technology on learning communities. The research explores how educational technology can be leveraged to address inequities and create more equitable learning opportunities for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Innovation and emerging technologies

Looking forward, the frontiers are set to be influenced by ongoing and future technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI) (Wu and Yu, 2023 ; Chen et al. 2022a ). The exploration into how these technologies can be integrated into educational practices to create immersive and adaptive learning experiences represents a bold new chapter for the field.

In conclusion, the current frontiers of research on the application of digital technology in education are multifaceted and dynamic. They reflect an overarching movement towards deeper integration of technology in educational systems and pedagogical practices, where the goals are not only to facilitate learning but to redefine it. As these frontiers continue to expand and evolve, they will shape the educational landscape, requiring a concerted effort from researchers, educators, policymakers, and technologists to navigate the challenges and harness the opportunities presented by the digital revolution in education.

Conclusions and future research

Conclusions.

The utilization of digital technology in education is a research area that cuts across multiple technical and educational domains and continues to experience dynamic growth due to the continuous progress of technology. In this study, a systematic review of this field was conducted through bibliometric techniques to examine its development trajectory. The primary focus of the review was to investigate the leading contributors, productive national institutions, significant publications, and evolving development patterns. The study’s quantitative analysis resulted in several key conclusions that shed light on this research field’s current state and future prospects.

(1) The research field of digital technology education applications has entered a stage of rapid development, particularly in recent years due to the impact of the pandemic, resulting in a peak of publications. Within this field, several key authors (Selwyn, Henderson, Edwards, etc.) and countries/regions (England, Australia, USA, etc.) have emerged, who have made significant contributions. International exchanges in this field have become frequent, with a high degree of internationalization in academic research. Higher education institutions in the UK and Australia are the core productive forces in this field at the institutional level.

(2) Education and Information Technologies , Computers & Education , and the British Journal of Educational Technology are notable journals that publish research related to digital technology education applications. These journals are affiliated with the research field of educational technology and provide effective communication platforms for sharing digital technology education applications.

(3) Over the past two decades, research on digital technology education applications has progressed from its early stages of budding, initial development, and critical exploration to accelerated transformation, and it is currently approaching maturity. Technological progress and changes in the times have been key driving forces for educational transformation and innovation, and both have played important roles in promoting the continuous development of education.

(4) Influenced by the pandemic, three emerging frontiers have emerged in current research on digital technology education applications, which are physical education, digital transformation, and professional development under the promotion of digital technology. These frontier research hotspots reflect the core issues that the education system faces when encountering new technologies. The evolution of research hotspots shows that technology breakthroughs in education’s original boundaries of time and space create new challenges. The continuous self-renewal of education is achieved by solving one hotspot problem after another.

The present study offers significant practical implications for scholars and practitioners in the field of digital technology education applications. Firstly, it presents a well-defined framework of the existing research in this area, serving as a comprehensive guide for new entrants to the field and shedding light on the developmental trajectory of this research domain. Secondly, the study identifies several contemporary research hotspots, thus offering a valuable decision-making resource for scholars aiming to explore potential research directions. Thirdly, the study undertakes an exhaustive analysis of published literature to identify core journals in the field of digital technology education applications, with Sustainability being identified as a promising open access journal that publishes extensively on this topic. This finding can potentially facilitate scholars in selecting appropriate journals for their research outputs.

Limitation and future research

Influenced by some objective factors, this study also has some limitations. First of all, the bibliometrics analysis software has high standards for data. In order to ensure the quality and integrity of the collected data, the research only selects the periodical papers in SCIE and SSCI indexes, which are the core collection of Web of Science database, and excludes other databases, conference papers, editorials and other publications, which may ignore some scientific research and original opinions in the field of digital technology education and application research. In addition, although this study used professional software to carry out bibliometric analysis and obtained more objective quantitative data, the analysis and interpretation of data will inevitably have a certain subjective color, and the influence of subjectivity on data analysis cannot be completely avoided. As such, future research endeavors will broaden the scope of literature screening and proactively engage scholars in the field to gain objective and state-of-the-art insights, while minimizing the adverse impact of personal subjectivity on research analysis.

Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/F9QMHY

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This research was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Social Science Planning Project, “Mechanisms and Pathways for Empowering Classroom Teaching through Learning Spaces under the Strategy of High-Quality Education Development”, the 2022 National Social Science Foundation Education Youth Project “Research on the Strategy of Creating Learning Space Value and Empowering Classroom Teaching under the background of ‘Double Reduction’” (Grant No. CCA220319) and the National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of China (Grant No. 202310337023).

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Wang, C., Chen, X., Yu, T. et al. Education reform and change driven by digital technology: a bibliometric study from a global perspective. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 256 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02717-y

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Information and communication technology (ICT) in education

Information and communications technology (ict) can impact student learning when teachers are digitally literate and understand how to integrate it into curriculum..

Schools use a diverse set of ICT tools to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information.(6) In some contexts, ICT has also become integral to the teaching-learning interaction, through such approaches as replacing chalkboards with interactive digital whiteboards, using students’ own smartphones or other devices for learning during class time, and the “flipped classroom” model where students watch lectures at home on the computer and use classroom time for more interactive exercises.

When teachers are digitally literate and trained to use ICT, these approaches can lead to higher order thinking skills, provide creative and individualized options for students to express their understandings, and leave students better prepared to deal with ongoing technological change in society and the workplace.(18)

ICT issues planners must consider include: considering the total cost-benefit equation, supplying and maintaining the requisite infrastructure, and ensuring investments are matched with teacher support and other policies aimed at effective ICT use.(16)

Issues and Discussion

Digital culture and digital literacy: Computer technologies and other aspects of digital culture have changed the ways people live, work, play, and learn, impacting the construction and distribution of knowledge and power around the world.(14) Graduates who are less familiar with digital culture are increasingly at a disadvantage in the national and global economy. Digital literacy—the skills of searching for, discerning, and producing information, as well as the critical use of new media for full participation in society—has thus become an important consideration for curriculum frameworks.(8)

In many countries, digital literacy is being built through the incorporation of information and communication technology (ICT) into schools. Some common educational applications of ICT include:

• One laptop per child: Less expensive laptops have been designed for use in school on a 1:1 basis with features like lower power consumption, a low cost operating system, and special re-programming and mesh network functions.(42) Despite efforts to reduce costs, however, providing one laptop per child may be too costly for some developing countries.(41)
• Tablets: Tablets are small personal computers with a touch screen, allowing input without a keyboard or mouse. Inexpensive learning software (“apps”) can be downloaded onto tablets, making them a versatile tool for learning.(7)(25) The most effective apps develop higher order thinking skills and provide creative and individualized options for students to express their understandings.(18)
• Interactive White Boards or Smart Boards : Interactive white boards allow projected computer images to be displayed, manipulated, dragged, clicked, or copied.(3) Simultaneously, handwritten notes can be taken on the board and saved for later use. Interactive white boards are associated with whole-class instruction rather than student-centred activities.(38) Student engagement is generally higher when ICT is available for student use throughout the classroom.(4)
• E-readers : E-readers are electronic devices that can hold hundreds of books in digital form, and they are increasingly utilized in the delivery of reading material.(19) Students—both skilled readers and reluctant readers—have had positive responses to the use of e-readers for independent reading.(22) Features of e-readers that can contribute to positive use include their portability and long battery life, response to text, and the ability to define unknown words.(22) Additionally, many classic book titles are available for free in e-book form.
• Flipped Classrooms: The flipped classroom model, involving lecture and practice at home via computer-guided instruction and interactive learning activities in class, can allow for an expanded curriculum. There is little investigation on the student learning outcomes of flipped classrooms.(5) Student perceptions about flipped classrooms are mixed, but generally positive, as they prefer the cooperative learning activities in class over lecture.(5)(35)

ICT and Teacher Professional Development: Teachers need specific professional development opportunities in order to increase their ability to use ICT for formative learning assessments, individualized instruction, accessing online resources, and for fostering student interaction and collaboration.(15) Such training in ICT should positively impact teachers’ general attitudes towards ICT in the classroom, but it should also provide specific guidance on ICT teaching and learning within each discipline. Without this support, teachers tend to use ICT for skill-based applications, limiting student academic thinking.(32) To sup­port teachers as they change their teaching, it is also essential for education managers, supervisors, teacher educators, and decision makers to be trained in ICT use.(11)

Ensuring benefits of ICT investments: To ensure the investments made in ICT benefit students, additional conditions must be met. School policies need to provide schools with the minimum acceptable infrastructure for ICT, including stable and affordable internet connectivity and security measures such as filters and site blockers. Teacher policies need to target basic ICT literacy skills, ICT use in pedagogical settings, and discipline-specific uses. (21) Successful imple­mentation of ICT requires integration of ICT in the curriculum. Finally, digital content needs to be developed in local languages and reflect local culture. (40) Ongoing technical, human, and organizational supports on all of these issues are needed to ensure access and effective use of ICT. (21)

Resource Constrained Contexts: The total cost of ICT ownership is considerable: training of teachers and administrators, connectivity, technical support, and software, amongst others. (42) When bringing ICT into classrooms, policies should use an incremental pathway, establishing infrastructure and bringing in sustainable and easily upgradable ICT. (16) Schools in some countries have begun allowing students to bring their own mobile technology (such as laptop, tablet, or smartphone) into class rather than providing such tools to all students—an approach called Bring Your Own Device. (1)(27)(34) However, not all families can afford devices or service plans for their children. (30) Schools must ensure all students have equitable access to ICT devices for learning.

Inclusiveness Considerations

Digital Divide: The digital divide refers to disparities of digital media and internet access both within and across countries, as well as the gap between people with and without the digital literacy and skills to utilize media and internet.(23)(26)(31) The digital divide both creates and reinforces socio-economic inequalities of the world’s poorest people. Policies need to intentionally bridge this divide to bring media, internet, and digital literacy to all students, not just those who are easiest to reach.

Minority language groups: Students whose mother tongue is different from the official language of instruction are less likely to have computers and internet connections at home than students from the majority. There is also less material available to them online in their own language, putting them at a disadvantage in comparison to their majority peers who gather information, prepare talks and papers, and communicate more using ICT. (39) Yet ICT tools can also help improve the skills of minority language students—especially in learning the official language of instruction—through features such as automatic speech recognition, the availability of authentic audio-visual materials, and chat functions. (2)(17)

Students with different styles of learning: ICT can provide diverse options for taking in and processing information, making sense of ideas, and expressing learning. Over 87% of students learn best through visual and tactile modalities, and ICT can help these students ‘experience’ the information instead of just reading and hearing it. (20)(37) Mobile devices can also offer programmes (“apps”) that provide extra support to students with special needs, with features such as simplified screens and instructions, consistent placement of menus and control features, graphics combined with text, audio feedback, ability to set pace and level of difficulty, appropriate and unambiguous feedback, and easy error correction. (24)(29)

Plans and policies

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• Bryant, B.R., Ok, M., Kang, E.Y., Kim, M.K., Lang, R., Bryant, D.P. and Pfannestiel, K. 2015. ‘Performance of fourth-grade students with learning disabilities on multiplication facts comparing teacher-mediated and technology-mediated interventions: A preliminary investigation. Journal of Behavioral Education. 24.
• Buckingham, D. 2005. Educación en medios. Alfabetización, aprendizaje y cultura contemporánea, Barcelona, Paidós.
• Buckingham, D., Sefton-Green, J., and Scanlon, M. 2001. 'Selling the Digital Dream: Marketing Education Technologies to Teachers and Parents.'  ICT, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum: Subject to Change . London: Routledge.
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• Cheung, A.C.K and Slavin, R.E. 2012. ‘How features of educational technology applications affect student reading outcomes: A meta-analysis.’ Educational Research Review . 7.
• Cheung, A.C.K and Slavin, R.E. 2013. ‘The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis.’ Educational Research Review . 9.
• Deuze, M. 2006. 'Participation Remediation Bricolage - Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture.' The Information Society . 22 .
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Essay on Impact of Technology on Education

Students are often asked to write an essay on Impact of Technology on Education in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Impact of Technology on Education

Introduction.

Technology has greatly influenced education. It has changed the way we learn and teach, making education more accessible and engaging.

Interactive Learning

Technology has introduced interactive learning tools like smart boards and tablets. They make lessons more engaging and fun, helping students understand better.

Online Education

With the internet, learning is not limited to classrooms. Online courses, video lectures, and digital libraries have made education accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Improved Communication

Technology has improved communication between students and teachers. Emails, chats, and video calls make it easier to discuss and solve doubts.

In conclusion, technology’s impact on education is profound. It has made learning more interactive, accessible, and communicative.

250 Words Essay on Impact of Technology on Education

The advent of technology in education.

The advent of technology has revolutionized various sectors, with education being one of the most impacted. It has transformed traditional teaching methods, making learning more engaging, accessible, and efficient.

Enhancing Accessibility and Flexibility

Technology has democratized education, breaking down geographical barriers. Online learning platforms and digital libraries provide easy access to a vast range of resources. This flexibility allows students to learn at their own pace, fostering a self-driven learning environment.

Interactive Learning Experience

Technological tools like virtual reality, digital simulations, and gamified learning apps have made education more interactive. These tools cater to different learning styles, enhancing comprehension, and retention of knowledge.

Collaborative Learning

Tools like cloud-based applications and social media platforms promote collaborative learning. They enable students to work together on projects, share ideas, and gain diverse perspectives, fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Challenges Posed by Technology

Despite its benefits, technology also poses challenges. The digital divide, where some students lack access to technology, can exacerbate educational inequalities. Additionally, over-reliance on technology might hinder the development of interpersonal skills and critical thinking.

In conclusion, the impact of technology on education is profound, offering immense benefits while posing certain challenges. It’s crucial to balance the use of technology in education, maximizing its advantages while mitigating its potential drawbacks.

500 Words Essay on Impact of Technology on Education

The advent of technology has dramatically transformed various sectors globally, and education is no exception. Over the years, technology has played a pivotal role in reshaping educational landscapes, creating new opportunities for both students and educators. This essay explores the impact of technology on education, focusing on its benefits, challenges, and future implications.

The Benefits of Technology in Education

One of the most significant benefits of technology in education is the democratization of knowledge. Digital platforms such as online libraries, e-books, and educational websites have made information accessible to anyone with an internet connection, breaking down geographical and socio-economic barriers.

Technology has also fostered a more personalized learning experience. Adaptive learning systems and educational apps can tailor content to individual students’ needs, enhancing their understanding and engagement. Furthermore, technology facilitates collaborative learning through platforms that allow students to work together remotely, fostering teamwork and communication skills.

The Challenges of Technology in Education

Despite the numerous benefits, technology’s integration into education is not without challenges. One of the primary issues is the digital divide, which refers to the disparity in access to technology between different socioeconomic groups. This divide exacerbates educational inequalities, as students who lack access to digital resources are disadvantaged.

Another challenge is the potential for distraction. With the proliferation of digital devices, students may be tempted to use them for non-educational purposes, which can hinder their academic progress. Additionally, the over-reliance on technology may diminish critical thinking and problem-solving skills, as students may resort to quick online solutions rather than engaging in deep, thoughtful analysis.

Future Implications

As we look towards the future, the role of technology in education is set to grow even more prominent. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are expected to revolutionize the classroom experience, making learning more immersive and engaging. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will likely automate administrative tasks, freeing up teachers’ time to focus more on instruction and student interaction.

However, as technology continues to evolve, it is crucial to address its challenges. Policymakers and educators must work together to bridge the digital divide, ensuring that all students can benefit from technological advancements. Additionally, digital literacy programs should be implemented to teach students how to use technology responsibly and effectively.

In conclusion, technology has had a profound impact on education, offering numerous benefits but also presenting significant challenges. As we navigate the digital age, it is essential to harness technology’s potential to enhance education while mitigating its drawbacks. This balanced approach will ensure that technology serves as a powerful tool in shaping a more equitable, engaging, and efficient educational landscape.

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Center for Teaching

From the students’ view: thoughts on technology and learning.

This article was originally published in the Fall 2000 issue of the CFT’s newsletter, Teaching Forum .

Victor Sung, Senior, A&S, Neuroscience; Benjamin Crist, Freshman, A&S, English; and Dayle Savage, Graduate Student, Peabody, Human Resources Development, reflect on the use of technology in the classroom.

CFT : How do you best learn? And how does technology help you in your learning?

Benjamin : I am a visual-kinesthetic learner. What that phrase (which I learned in middle school) means for me is that I learn the quickest that which I can see before me, and when combined with activities by me or the professor, I achieve the maximum from the class. For example, I have no problem reading a book in order to do well in the class. But as man students know, this is a poor substitute if the class is less than engaging. That is why I then require active participation of the professor and the rest of the class in order to really grasp the material. But I do not sit in the back of a class waiting for this to happen. I do everything I can to start discussions or continue ones which my professor and classmates have already begun. The reason that I am so adamant about the necessity of discussion and active participation is because I know that learning is an exchange-an exchange of ideas, beliefs, and knowledge. But in any exchange you will only receive as much as the other party wishes to give. I think that the only way to truly learn is to facilitate exchange in the classroom as best I can.

Victor : I learn best by seeing things presented in different ways and then going over them again. With this I mean that I don’t think I would learn very well if I had to listen to an audio-tape of someone drone on and one about something Visual stimulations keeps me interested and also helps me remember things better.

Dayle : The focus of my doctoral work is adult education and how adults learn. Therefore, it is interesting to ponder how I learn. As a graduate student in the 40-soething generation, I value my thirst for knowledge. It is abundantly clear to me that I have always been a seeker. I question. I am very curious and my questions today do not embarrass me; they motivate me to continue learning. My greatest teachers have been those who have encouraged me to seek the answers myself with unabashed vigor while providing steady support. I have found the journey to a “higher education” is the ultimate test of independence, determination and authenticity.

CFT : Given the ways in which you learn best, how does technology help-or fail to help-that process?

Benjamin : Technology is a great aid in my learning. Not only does much of it allow the professor or students to communicate knowledge and ideas in new and exciting ways, it also eases the ability to then access that information for later perusal. For example, a group could present a PowerPoint presentation and then allow the teacher to publish or stream it from a web site which the students could access form their dorm rooms. This is a great way to reinforce an exchange that took place in a classroom earlier in the semester without requiring more time and resources by the professor in a latter class period. Also, new technologies inherently attract the attention of the younger generation as we move farther into the information revolution. Look at the number of cellular phones and laptops being carried by students today. This makes the technology transfer easier in the classroom because many times the teacher will only have to gloss over instructions on how to use the technology Because so many already use it) and there will be less new resources consumed overall. Such examples in the classroom allow one to see how the learning process is enhanced by new uses of technology.

As I said earlier, the learning process can best be defined as an exchange. That exchange requires both parties to actively participate in order to get the most out of the exchange for everyone. Technology only increases the ability to accomplish this task and eases the transition into the digital world of the future.

Victor : Technology comes into play because it can serve to enhance the visual presentation. The classic example of this is the increasing use of PowerPoint presentations in lectures. This is helpful to me because the visual gives me a clue on how I should take my notes or how the information is structured and categorized. Things like diagrams, pictures, and even movies can be integrated directly into the text of the lecture, and this helps me to get a vivid reinforcement through visual examples of the material that has just been presented. One of the greatest advantages of having lecture son PowerPoint is that the drawings and diagrams so prevalent in my science courses can be much more effective in full color and not hastily sketched onto a chalkboard or copied onto a transparency.

Some potential disadvantages of having lectures in a PowerPoint type format include the tendency of a professor to move too quickly through the slides since he or she does not have to write out or demonstrate the material much more than what is already displayed on the screen. Some students also get too caught up in copying down every last thing on the screen and do not listen as well to the professor’s deeper explanation of what the slide is showing. This is often remedied by the professor offering the chance to view the lectures online either by putting the files up on Prometheus or by putting them on the class web site. I have found both of these options extremely helpful because I do not feel pressured to copy every word off of each slide if I know that I will have access to it later on. It also helps immensely in review for a test to be able to go through and inspect the color diagrams again to test my understanding, and to review each lecture again in order as a way of grasping the big picture and seeing how the different lectures fit together.

Other instances where dependence of lectures on technology has been a hindrance have been related to the classroom setup. I have a class this semester in which the classroom itself does not have a projector, so each class, we hope that the projector to be connected to the professor’s laptop is already there by the time we arrive. If not, then we have to wait for it to get there, which uses up some class time. Also there are the frequent glitches where certain pictures or movies do not display correctly. These kinds of glitches, though, are often solved by early setup by the professor or by afterwards printing out the pictures that did not show up or otherwise correcting the presentation and then putting it up for view on the web.

All this is not to say that all lecturers must make the move towards the integration of technology into their lectures, but rather that the most effective learning occurs when the material is presented in as clear a way as possible. Sometimes this means presenting the material multiple times in multiple ways. Since all students do not learn in the same way, the availability of new technologies allows for the presentation of material in a variety of ways that can be effective for all. Finally, I think that use of technology in the classroom should not be an excuse of the educator to remain glued behind a podium without interaction with the students; instead the technology can clearly be an opportunity for interaction between the educator and the material, the material and the students, the students and each other, and finally, the educator and the students.

Dayle : Technology has been a blessing and a curse for me. Fortunately, I took a class last year on the technology of learning organizations that demystified the technology enigma. I learned that I really couldn’t break my computer. With that freedom, I became willing to experiment. Today, I can try anything. Using a learning contract was a very good tool for this class. Each student was asked to complete a contract to learn a new technology or improve a technology skill. For example, members of the class created web sites, learned video conferencing, developed digital photography, and created PowerPoint presentations with sound, movement and videos.

In addition, as a class we learned to create on-line curriculum and used the chat room on Prometheus to have discussions about articles and readings assigned. The class was paperless except for the handouts produced during our final class projects and the books we purchased online. It appeared to be a gratifying experience for the luddites and experts alike. Technology allows me abundant opportunities to explore, create and communicate.

I have witnessed the frustration of technology from my instructors, as the tools we possess sometimes do not cooperate, and the training received is inconsistent and often nonexistent. As a teaching assistant, I have found myself in techno-hell in front of a class of students. It is embarrassing but I have also found students who are very forgiving and willing to assist. None of us can be literate in all of the wonderful technology available to us-it is constantly changing and differs depending on the setting in which one finds oneself. Practicing patience, becoming willing to learn new things, and knowing that “I can’t break it” allow me to let technology enrich my world and send me to places I would have never dreamed of going.

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How Technology Changed Educations

This essay about the transformative impact of technology on education explores how digital advancements have revolutionized learning, transcending traditional boundaries and democratizing access to knowledge. It delves into the roles of educators and learners in this new landscape, highlighting the personalized and dynamic nature of modern education. Additionally, it addresses challenges such as the digital divide and concerns about screen time, emphasizing the importance of responsible technology use. Ultimately, it advocates for a balanced approach that harnesses the power of technology to create a more inclusive and vibrant educational future.

How it works

In the grand saga of human advancement, the metamorphosis of education stands as a beacon of our perpetual quest for enlightenment. From the ancient scrolls of antiquity to the digital archives of the present age, the narrative of education has been interwoven with threads of innovation and adaptation. Yet, amidst this tapestry of transformation, no force has sculpted its contours more profoundly than technology, etching its imprint onto the very essence of contemporary learning.

With the advent of the digital epoch, the horizons of education expanded exponentially, transcending the boundaries of time and space that once tethered the pursuit of knowledge.

In the labyrinth of the internet and the labyrinthine pathways of digital devices, information found liberation, cascading across continents and cultures with boundless ease. From bustling urban hubs to secluded hamlets, learners found themselves endowed with unprecedented access to a cornucopia of resources, ushering forth an era of educational egalitarianism hitherto unseen.

But technology’s impact on education transcends the mere democratization of access; it has metamorphosed the roles of both educator and apprentice alike. No longer constrained by the confines of traditional pedagogy, teachers now wield a panoply of digital tools to inspire and engage their charges. Through the alchemy of interactive multimedia presentations, virtual laboratories, and collaborative platforms, educators orchestrate symphonies of learning that resonate far beyond the confines of the classroom.

Likewise, learners have emerged as active architects of their own educational odysseys, empowered by technology to chart bespoke pathways to enlightenment. With the aid of personalized learning platforms and adaptive algorithms, students navigate the labyrinth of knowledge with a newfound sense of agency and autonomy. Whether through the crucible of interactive tutorials, the crucible of gamified quizzes, or the crucible of virtual expeditions, technology infuses the pursuit of knowledge with a vitality and vigor that invigorates the intellect and enlivens the spirit.

Moreover, technology has catalyzed a renaissance in the realm of assessment, transcending the ossified strictures of standardized testing to embrace more dynamic and holistic methodologies. Through the alchemy of machine learning algorithms and data analytics, educators glean insights into the tapestry of students’ learning trajectories, enabling them to tailor interventions with surgical precision. Similarly, students benefit from the elixir of instant feedback and the compass of progress tracking, empowering them to navigate the labyrinth of learning with confidence and clarity.

However, amid the effulgence of promise and potential, the integration of technology in education is not devoid of challenges. The specter of the digital divide looms large, casting shadows of inequity across the landscape of learning. Bridging this chasm necessitates a concerted endeavor to ensure equitable access to technology and connectivity for learners of all backgrounds, thus paving the path towards a more inclusive and just educational ecosystem.

Furthermore, there exists a chorus of concerns regarding the potential deleterious effects of prolonged screen exposure and digital distractions on student well-being. Striking a harmonious balance between the virtues of technology and the imperatives of holistic development is imperative in nurturing a generation of learners who are not only digitally adept but also emotionally resilient and physically robust.

In denouement, technology has emerged as a transformative force in the annals of education, heralding a new era of accessibility, engagement, and personalized learning. From the crucible of virtual classrooms to the crucible of adaptive assessments, technology has imbued every facet of the educational odyssey with a vitality and vibrancy that augur well for the future of learning. Yet, the realization of its full potential necessitates a judicious and nuanced approach that navigates the shoals of challenges and concerns with sagacity and foresight. By harnessing the power of technology with wisdom and prudence, we can forge a brighter and more luminous future for education—one that illuminates the minds and kindles the spirits of learners across the globe.

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Technology In Education Essay

Essay On Technology In Education- Technology makes education very easy. Technology is now very essential to maintaining society, and it will definitely have an impact on education. In today's life, technology has made study easier. Here are 100, 200 and 500 word essays on Technology In Education

Technology plays a huge part in education. The students' learning process gets simpler as technology advances. Students can easily learn the concepts thanks to technologies utilised in schools and universities, such as computer labs and high-end equipment and instruments. In today's life, technology has made study easier. Here are some sample essays on Technology In Education

100 Words Essay On Technology In Education

Technology makes education very easy. Technology is now essential to maintaining society, and it will definitely have an impact on education. Previously teachers didn't allow students to use technology in education. Today's everything is connected to technology including education,communication, etc. Although technology has been a part of our lives for many years, the development and use of technology in education have only lately started to take shape. One of the most crucial things we have now that can help students perform better academically is technology. As technology advances, it creates new opportunities for students to interact and learn through a variety of sources. Online classes are the best example of technology.

200 Words Essay On Technology In Education

The word "technology" is derived from the Greek word "tekhnologia," where "tekh" signifies an art, a skill, etc., and "logy" defines a subject of interest. Technology makes our tasks easy and makes life easy. Today, technology plays a significant role in our lives and offers a digital platform. The term "smart classes" is being used increasingly in schools and colleges, and these classes are the best use of technology.

Technology And Education

Technology made education easy and attractive. Students study because of technology with their mobile phones and laptops.

By using technology, online classes have started, and students love doing smart classes.

Technology keeps students updated on the world and shows the right direction to do good in education.

Through technology, students can read newspapers daily wise. Technology made education easy and attractive.

From technology, schools make their app and take attendance online, which helps the environment also by not using paper and pen.

Technology attracts children more, which helps them to choose their path.

Education should not be done with only books; students should get a chance to explore their knowledge and try something new. Technology is the best thing to explore. By using technology, students' knowledge will grow faster than before.

500 Words Essay On Technology In Education

Technology has become an integral part of education because of different apps and websites. Nowadays, if you want to clear your doubts or to know your syllabus, everything is available online. Nowadays, education is nothing without technology.

Is Technology Helpful In Education?

Yes, technology is helpful to education. Nowadays, you will see the difference in how technology has changed teaching. In older days, students read from their books, and if they faced any problem, they would ask their teachers the next day at school or for tuition.

But nowadays, students clear their doubts by using apps and websites. Due to technology, they can also ask a question or can have live interaction with their teachers personally. Education has progressed a lot.

Technology has made education easy, and today we have multiple options to clear our doubts and interact online with our teachers. Nowadays, we have easy access to the internet, and other helping apps have made education accessible and exciting.

Technology is essential for students. Parents and teachers should permit their children to use technology for their students because time has changed, and the mode of education should also be changed. Students should be given a chance to learn something new and exciting and technology makes it possible.

Different Technologies for Education

Many devices make education easier for students and clear students' doubts. Some of them are-

Laptops | One of the best tools for learning is a laptop. You can obtain information on the Internet either in written form, video form, or audio form. On several applications and websites, you can find tutors who can give you a thorough explanation. Students can acquire extensive information and have their questions answered thanks to it. You may effortlessly visit several educational portals using a laptop.

Smartphone | Smartphones are smaller versions of laptops; you can use them more easily than laptops and take them with you wherever you go. It is user-friendly due to its compact size and simple internet connection. Students can speak with their teacher about questions using a smartphone. Many students have smartphones, which they use for academic purposes. Numerous apps were available for students on mobile devices.

Kindle for Textbooks | Kindle Textbooks are a type of online book. Kindle books are available at half the price of paper books. This helps to reduce the production of paper, which allows our environment and online books to be easily stored. Kindle Textbooks are popular these days. Many students use them.

My Experience

From the 12th standard, I used a smartphone and laptop for education. Technology makes study easier. When I didn't understand something from school, I used to look for those online and try to clear all my doubts by watching topic specific videos. In my school days, I learned different crafts and drawing skills by watching videos online. I used to take help from online videos to understand many science experiments and easy tricks to solve various mathematical questions. Technology in education is perfect for the future because the use of technology in education will bring a drastic change in our education system.

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Jessica Grose

Every tech tool in the classroom should be ruthlessly evaluated.

By Jessica Grose

Opinion Writer

Educational technology in schools is sometimes described as a wicked problem — a term coined by a design and planning professor, Horst Rittel, in the 1960s , meaning a problem for which even defining the scope of the dilemma is a struggle, because it has so many interconnected parts that never stop moving.

When you have a wicked problem, solutions have to be holistic, flexible and developmentally appropriate. Which is to say that appropriate tech use for elementary schoolers in rural Oklahoma isn’t going to be the same as appropriate tech use in a Chicago high school.

I spent the past few weeks speaking with parents, teachers, public school administrators and academics who study educational technology. And while there are certainly benefits to using tech as a classroom tool, I’m convinced that when it comes to the proliferation of tech in K-12 education, we need “ a hard reset ,” as Julia Freeland Fisher of the Christensen Institute put it, concurring with Jonathan Haidt in his call for rolling back the “phone-based childhood.” When we recently spoke, Fisher stressed that when we weigh the benefits of ed tech, we’re often not asking, “What’s happening when it comes to connectedness and well-being?”

Well said. We need a complete rethink of the ways that we’re evaluating and using tech in classrooms; the overall change that I want to see is that tech use in schools — devices and apps — should be driven by educators, not tech companies.

In recent years, tech companies have provided their products to schools either free or cheap , and then schools have tried to figure out how to use those products. Wherever that dynamic exists, it should be reversed: Districts and individual schools should first figure out what tech would be most useful to their students, and their bar for “useful” should be set by available data and teacher experience. Only then should they acquire laptops, tablets and educational software.

As Mesut Duran — a professor of educational technology at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, and the author of “Learning Technologies: Research, Trends and Issues in the U.S. Education System” — told me, a lot of the technology that’s used in classrooms wasn’t developed with students in mind. “Most of the technologies are initially created for commercial purposes,” he said, “and then we decide how to use them in schools.”

In many cases, there’s little or no evidence that the products actually work, and “work” can have various meanings here: It’s not conclusive that tech, as opposed to hard-copy materials, improves educational outcomes. And sometimes devices or programs simply don’t function the way they’re supposed to. For example, artificial intelligence in education is all the rage, but then we get headlines like this one, in February, from The Wall Street Journal: “ We Tested an A.I. Tutor for Kids. It Struggled With Basic Math. ”

Alex Molnar, one of the directors of the National Educational Policy Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that every school should be asking if the tech it’s using is both necessary and good. “The tech industry’s ethos is: If it’s doable, it is necessary. But for educators, that has to be an actual question: Is this necessary?” Even after you’ve cleared the bar of necessary, he said, educators should be asking, “Is doing it this way good, or could we do it another way that would be better? Better in the ethical sense and the pedagogical sense.”

With that necessary and good standard in mind, here are some specific recommendations that I’ve taken away from several discussions and a lot of reading. It’s unrealistic — and considering that we’re in a tech-saturated world, not ideal — to get rid of every last bit of educational technology. But we’re currently failing too many children by letting it run rampant.

At the State and Federal Levels: Privacy Protections and Better Evaluation

A complaint I heard from many public school parents who responded to my March 27 questionnaire and wanted a lower-tech environment for their kids is that they’re concerned about their children’s privacy. They couldn’t opt out of things like Google Classroom, they said, because in many cases, all of their children’s homework assignments were posted there. Molnar has a radical but elegant solution for this problem: “All data gathered must be destroyed after its intended purpose has been accomplished.” So if the intended purpose of a platform or application is grading, for example, the data would be destroyed at the end of the school year; it couldn’t be sold to a third party or used to further enhance the product or as a training ground for artificial intelligence.

Another recommendation — from a recent paper by the University of Edinburgh’s Ben Williamson, Molnar and the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Faith Boninger outlining the risks of A.I. in the classroom — is for the creation of an “independent government entity charged with ensuring the quality of digital educational products used in schools” that would evaluate tech before it is put into schools and “periodically thereafter.” Because the technology is always evolving, our oversight of it needs to be, as well.

At the District Level: Centralize the Tech-Vetting Process

Stephanie Sheron is the chief of strategic initiatives for the Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest district in Maryland, and all the district’s technology departments report to her. She likened the tech landscape, coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic remote school period, to the “Wild West.” School districts were flooded with different kinds of ed tech in an emergency situation in which teachers were desperately trying to engage their students, and a lot of relief money was pouring in from the federal government. When the dust settled, she said, the question was, “Now what do we do? How do we control this? How do we make sure that we’re in alignment with FERPA and COPPA and all of those other student data privacy components?”

To address this, Sheron said, her district has secured grant funding to hire a director of information security, who will function as the hub for all the educational technology vending and evaluate new tech. Part of the standardization that the district has been undergoing is a requirement that to be considered, curriculum vendors must offer both digital and hard-copy resources. She said her district tried to look at tech as a tool, adding: “A pencil is a tool for learning, but it’s not the only modality. Same thing with technology. We look at it as a tool, not as the main driver of the educational experience.”

At the Classroom Level: Ruthlessly Evaluate Every Tool

In my conversations with teachers, I’ve been struck by their descriptions of the cascade of tech use — that more tech is often offered as a solution to problems created by tech. For example, paid software like GoGuardian, which allows teachers to monitor every child’s screen, has been introduced to solve the problem of students goofing off on their laptops. But there’s a simple, free, low-tech solution to this problem that Doug Showley, a high school English teacher in Indiana I spoke to, employs: He makes all his students face their computer screens in his direction.

Every teacher who is concerned about tech use in his or her classroom should do a tech audit. There are several frameworks ; I like the worksheet created by Beth Pandolpho and Katie Cubano, the authors of “Choose Your Own Master Class: Urgent Ideas to Invigorate Your Professional Learning.” In the chapter “Balancing Technology Use in the Classroom,” they suggest that teachers list every tech tool they are using and evaluate its specific functions, asking, “Are these novel or duplicative?” They also encourage teachers to write out a defense of the tool and the frequency of use.

I like these questions because they make clear that the solutions are not going to be one size fits all.

Students Deserve Authentic Connection

As I close out this series, I want to return to what Fisher said about the importance of student connection and well-being. Of course academic outcomes matter. I want our kids to learn as much about as many different topics as they can. I care about falling test scores and think they’re an important piece of data.

But test scores are only one kind of information. A key lesson we should have learned from 2020 and ’21 is that school is about so much more than just academics. It’s about socialization, critical thinking, community and learning how to coexist with people who are different from you. I don’t know that all of these are things that can be tracked in a scientific way, which brings me back to the idea of tech in schools as a wicked problem: These aren’t easily measurable outcomes.

Jeff Frank, a professor of education at St. Lawrence University, expresses a sense that I’ve had very well in a paper , “Sounding the Call to Teach in a Social Media Age: Renewing the Importance of Philosophy in Teacher Education.” He says students are “hungry for experiences that make them feel alive and authentically connected to other people and to deeper sources of value. Though filtering and managing life through technologies offers safety, predictability and a sense of control, it also leads to life that can feel extremely small, constraining and lonely. Teaching can offer a powerful way to pierce this bubble.”

Ultimately, I believe the only way kids will be able to find that deeper meaning is through human relationships with their peers and teachers, no matter how shiny an A.I. tutor appears to be at first blush.

Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The Times, covering family, religion, education, culture and the way we live now.

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The transformative impact of technological advancements in educational leadership on student experiences and outcomes

• Published: 26 April 2024

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• Afam Uzorka   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4653-1619 1 &
• Kagezi Kalabuki 1  

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In the context of Ugandan higher education, this study investigates the revolutionary effects of technology developments in educational leadership on student experiences and outcomes. A purposive sampling strategy was used to select 161 participants from 12 universities in Uganda, focusing on those with significant influence and expertise in educational leadership. Email invitations were sent out explaining the goal and parameters of the research. Four major themes emerged from the qualitative interviews: digital learning environments, data-driven decision-making, remote and blended learning models, and collaboration and communication. The results indicate a paradigm shift toward digital platforms, more dynamic, and individualized learning experiences. Strategic use of data analytics by educational leaders informs decision-making processes, resulting in better academic outcomes and customized interventions. The adoption of flexible learning models, such as blended and remote learning, is a response to changing dynamics in education that is adaptive. A more integrated educational ecosystem is also supported by technology, which improves collaboration and communication. This study shed light on how technological innovations in educational leadership might have a revolutionary effect on students. It is clear that changes in learning environments, decision-making procedures, learning models, and communication techniques from leaders continuing to leverage technology’s potential result in a more engaging, inclusive, and productive learning environment for students. In light of the study’s findings, we recommend educational authorities keep embracing and advancing technology integration in higher education. To guarantee that educators can effectively use technology to benefit students, this entails providing them with continual professional development to improve their digital literacy.

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MIT faculty, instructors, students experiment with generative AI in teaching and learning

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How can MIT’s community leverage generative AI to support learning and work on campus and beyond?

At MIT’s Festival of Learning 2024, faculty and instructors, students, staff, and alumni exchanged perspectives about the digital tools and innovations they’re experimenting with in the classroom. Panelists agreed that generative AI should be used to scaffold — not replace — learning experiences.

This annual event, co-sponsored by MIT Open Learning and the Office of the Vice Chancellor, celebrates teaching and learning innovations. When introducing new teaching and learning technologies, panelists stressed the importance of iteration and teaching students how to develop critical thinking skills while leveraging technologies like generative AI.

“The Festival of Learning brings the MIT community together to explore and celebrate what we do every day in the classroom,” said Christopher Capozzola, senior associate dean for open learning. “This year's deep dive into generative AI was reflective and practical — yet another remarkable instance of ‘mind and hand’ here at the Institute.”   

Incorporating generative AI into learning experiences 

MIT faculty and instructors aren’t just willing to experiment with generative AI — some believe it’s a necessary tool to prepare students to be competitive in the workforce. “In a future state, we will know how to teach skills with generative AI, but we need to be making iterative steps to get there instead of waiting around,” said Melissa Webster, lecturer in managerial communication at MIT Sloan School of Management. 

Some educators are revisiting their courses’ learning goals and redesigning assignments so students can achieve the desired outcomes in a world with AI. Webster, for example, previously paired written and oral assignments so students would develop ways of thinking. But, she saw an opportunity for teaching experimentation with generative AI. If students are using tools such as ChatGPT to help produce writing, Webster asked, “how do we still get the thinking part in there?”

One of the new assignments Webster developed asked students to generate cover letters through ChatGPT and critique the results from the perspective of future hiring managers. Beyond learning how to refine generative AI prompts to produce better outputs, Webster shared that “students are thinking more about their thinking.” Reviewing their ChatGPT-generated cover letter helped students determine what to say and how to say it, supporting their development of higher-level strategic skills like persuasion and understanding audiences.

Takako Aikawa, senior lecturer at the MIT Global Studies and Languages Section, redesigned a vocabulary exercise to ensure students developed a deeper understanding of the Japanese language, rather than just right or wrong answers. Students compared short sentences written by themselves and by ChatGPT and developed broader vocabulary and grammar patterns beyond the textbook. “This type of activity enhances not only their linguistic skills but stimulates their metacognitive or analytical thinking,” said Aikawa. “They have to think in Japanese for these exercises.”

While these panelists and other Institute faculty and instructors are redesigning their assignments, many MIT undergraduate and graduate students across different academic departments are leveraging generative AI for efficiency: creating presentations, summarizing notes, and quickly retrieving specific ideas from long documents. But this technology can also creatively personalize learning experiences. Its ability to communicate information in different ways allows students with different backgrounds and abilities to adapt course material in a way that’s specific to their particular context. 

Generative AI, for example, can help with student-centered learning at the K-12 level. Joe Diaz, program manager and STEAM educator for MIT pK-12 at Open Learning, encouraged educators to foster learning experiences where the student can take ownership. “Take something that kids care about and they’re passionate about, and they can discern where [generative AI] might not be correct or trustworthy,” said Diaz.

Panelists encouraged educators to think about generative AI in ways that move beyond a course policy statement. When incorporating generative AI into assignments, the key is to be clear about learning goals and open to sharing examples of how generative AI could be used in ways that align with those goals. 

The importance of critical thinking

Although generative AI can have positive impacts on educational experiences, users need to understand why large language models might produce incorrect or biased results. Faculty, instructors, and student panelists emphasized that it’s critical to contextualize how generative AI works. “[Instructors] try to explain what goes on in the back end and that really does help my understanding when reading the answers that I’m getting from ChatGPT or Copilot,” said Joyce Yuan, a senior in computer science. 

Jesse Thaler, professor of physics and director of the National Science Foundation Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions, warned about trusting a probabilistic tool to give definitive answers without uncertainty bands. “The interface and the output needs to be of a form that there are these pieces that you can verify or things that you can cross-check,” Thaler said.

When introducing tools like calculators or generative AI, the faculty and instructors on the panel said it’s essential for students to develop critical thinking skills in those particular academic and professional contexts. Computer science courses, for example, could permit students to use ChatGPT for help with their homework if the problem sets are broad enough that generative AI tools wouldn’t capture the full answer. However, introductory students who haven’t developed the understanding of programming concepts need to be able to discern whether the information ChatGPT generated was accurate or not.

Ana Bell, senior lecturer of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and MITx digital learning scientist, dedicated one class toward the end of the semester of Course 6.100L (Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python) to teach students how to use ChatGPT for programming questions. She wanted students to understand why setting up generative AI tools with the context for programming problems, inputting as many details as possible, will help achieve the best possible results. “Even after it gives you a response back, you have to be critical about that response,” said Bell. By waiting to introduce ChatGPT until this stage, students were able to look at generative AI’s answers critically because they had spent the semester developing the skills to be able to identify whether problem sets were incorrect or might not work for every case. 

A scaffold for learning experiences

The bottom line from the panelists during the Festival of Learning was that generative AI should provide scaffolding for engaging learning experiences where students can still achieve desired learning goals. The MIT undergraduate and graduate student panelists found it invaluable when educators set expectations for the course about when and how it’s appropriate to use AI tools. Informing students of the learning goals allows them to understand whether generative AI will help or hinder their learning. Student panelists asked for trust that they would use generative AI as a starting point, or treat it like a brainstorming session with a friend for a group project. Faculty and instructor panelists said they will continue iterating their lesson plans to best support student learning and critical thinking. 

Panelists from both sides of the classroom discussed the importance of generative AI users being responsible for the content they produce and avoiding automation bias — trusting the technology’s response implicitly without thinking critically about why it produced that answer and whether it’s accurate. But since generative AI is built by people making design decisions, Thaler told students, “You have power to change the behavior of those tools.”

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Technology as a Tool for Improving Patient Safety

Introduction .

In the past several decades, technological advances have opened new possibilities for improving patient safety. Using technology to digitize healthcare processes has the potential to increase standardization and efficiency of clinical workflows and to reduce errors and cost across all healthcare settings. 1 However, if technological approaches are designed or implemented poorly, the burden on clinicians can increase. For example, overburdened clinicians can experience alert fatigue and fail to respond to notifications. This can lead to more medical errors. As a testament to the significance of this topic in recent years, several government agencies [(e.g. the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS)] have developed resources to help healthcare organizations integrate technology, such as the Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) guides developed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). 2,3,4  However, there is some evidence that these resources have not been widely used.5 Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) started requiring hospitals to use the SAFER guides as part of the FY 2022 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems (IPPS), which should raise awareness and uptake of the guides. 6

During 2022, research into technological approaches was a major theme of articles on PSNet. Researchers reviewed all relevant articles on PSNet and consulted with Dr. A Jay Holmgren, PhD, and Dr. Susan McBride, PhD, subject matter experts in health IT and its role in patient safety. Key topics and themes are highlighted below.  

Clinical Decision Support  

The most prominent focus in the 2022 research on technology, based on the number of articles published on PSNet, was related to clinical decision support (CDS) tools. CDS provides clinicians, patients, and other individuals with relevant data (e.g. patient-specific information), purposefully filtered and delivered through a variety of formats and channels, to improve and enhance care. 7   

Computerized Patient Order Entry  

One of the main applications of CDS is in computerized patient order entry (CPOE), which is the process used by clinicians to enter and send treatment instructions via a computer application. 8 While the change from paper to electronic order entry itself can reduce errors (e.g., due to unclear handwriting or manual copy errors), research in 2022 showed that there is room for improvement in order entry systems, as well as some promising novel approaches. 

Two studies looked at the frequency of and reasons for medication errors in the absence of CDS and CPOE and demonstrated that there was a clear patient safety need. One study found that most medication errors occurred during the ordering or prescribing stage, and both this study and the other study found that the most common medication error was incorrect dose. Ongoing research, such as the AHRQ Medication Safety Measure Development project, aims to develop and validate measure specifications for wrong-patient, wrong-dose, wrong-medication, wrong-route, and wrong-frequency medication orders within EHR systems, in order to better understand and capture health IT safety events.9 Errors of this type could be avoided or at least reduced through the use of effective CPOE and CDS systems. However, even when CPOE and CDS are in place, errors can still occur and even be caused by the systems themselves. One study reviewed duplicate medication orders and found that 20% of duplicate orders resulted from technological issues, including alerts being overridden, alerts not firing, and automation issues (e.g., prefilled fields). A case study last year Illustrated one of the technological issues, in this case a manual keystroke error, that can lead to a safety event. A pharmacist mistakenly set the start date for a medication to the following year rather than the following day , which the CPOE system failed to flag. The authors recommended various alerts and coding changes in the system to prevent this particular error in the future.  

There were also studies in 2022 that showed successful outcomes of well-implemented CPOE systems. One in-depth pre-post, mixed-methods study showed that a fully implemented CPOE system significantly reduced specific serious and commonly occurring prescribing and procedural errors. The authors also presented evidence that it was cost-effective and detailed implementation lessons learned drawn from the qualitative data collected for the study. A specific CPOE function that demonstrated statistically significant improvement in 2022 was automatic deprescribing of medication orders and communication of the relevant information to pharmacies. Deprescribing is the planned and supervised process of dose reduction or stopping of a medication that is no longer beneficial or could be causing harm. That study showed an immediate and sustained 78% increase in successful discontinuations after implementation of the software. A second study on the same functionality determined that currently only one third to one half of medications are e-prescribed, and the study proposed that e-prescribing should be expanded to increase the impact of the deprescribing software. It should be noted, however, that the systems were not perfect and that a small percentage of medications were unintentionally cancelled. Finally, an algorithm to detect patients in need of follow-up after test results was developed and implemented in another study . The algorithm showed some process improvements, but outcome measures were not reported. 

Usability  

Usability of CDS systems was a large focus of research in 2022. Poorly designed systems that do not fit into existing workflows lead to frustrated users and increase the potential for errors. For example, if users are required to enter data in multiple places or prompted to enter data that are not available to them, they could find ways to work around the system or even cease to use it, increasing the potential for patient safety errors. The documentation burden is already very high on U.S. clinicians, 10 so it is important that novel technological approaches do not add to this burden but, if possible, alleviate it by offering a high level of usability and interoperability.  

One study used human-factored design in creating a CDS to diagnose pulmonary embolism in the Emergency Department and then surveyed clinician users about their experiences using the tool. Despite respondents giving the tool high usability ratings and reporting that the CDS was valuable, actual use of the tool was low. Based on the feedback from users, the authors proposed some changes to increase uptake, but both users and authors mentioned the challenges that arise when trying to change the existing workflow of clinicians without increasing their burden. Another study gathered qualitative feedback from clinicians on a theoretical CDS system for diagnosing neurological issues in the Emergency Department. In this study too, many clinicians saw the potential value in the CDS tool but had concerns about workflow integration and whether it would impact their ability to make clinical decisions. Finally, one study developed a dashboard to display various risk factors for multiple hospital-acquired infections and gathered feedback from users. The users generally found the dashboard useful and easy to learn, and they also provided valuable feedback on color scales, location, and types of data displayed. All of these studies show that attention to end user needs and preferences is necessary for successful implementation of CDS.  However, the recent market consolidation in Electronic Health Record vendors may have an impact on the amount of user feedback gathered and integrated into CDS systems. Larger vendors may have more resources to devote to improving the usability and design of CDS, or their near monopolies in the market may not provide an incentive to innovate further. 11 More research is needed as this trend continues.  

Alerts and Alarms 

Alerts and alarms are an important part of most CDS systems, as they can prompt clinicians with important and timely information during the treatment process. However, these alerts and alarms must be accurate and useful to elicit an appropriate response. The tradeoff between increased safety due to alerts and clinician alert fatigue is an important balance to strike. 12

Many studies in 2022 looked at clinician responses to medication-related alerts, including override and modification rates. Several of the studies found a high alert override rate but questioned the validity of using override rates alone as a marker of CDS effectiveness and usability. For example, one study looked at drug allergy alerts and found that although 44.8% of alerts were overridden, only 9.3% of those were inappropriately overridden, and very few overrides led to an adverse allergic reaction. A study on “do not give” alerts found that clinicians modified their orders to comply with alert recommendations after 78% of alerts but only cancelled orders after 26% of alerts. A scoping review looked at drug-drug interaction alerts and found similar results, including high override rates and the need for more data on why alerts are overridden. These findings are supported by another study that found that the underlying drug value sets triggering drug-drug interaction alerts are often inconsistent, leading to many inappropriate alerts that are then appropriately overridden by clinicians. These studies suggest that while a certain number of overrides should be expected, the underlying criteria for alert systems should be designed and regularly reviewed with specificity and sensitivity in mind. This will increase the frequency of appropriate alerts that foster indicated clinical action and reduce alert fatigue. 

There also seems to be variability in the effectiveness of alert systems across sites. One study looked at an alert to add an item to the problem list if a clinician placed an order for a medication that was not indicated based on the patient’s chart. The study found about 90% accuracy in alerts across two sites but a wide difference in the frequency of appropriate action between the sites (83% and 47%). This suggests that contextual factors at each site, such as culture and organizational processes, may impact success as much as the technology itself.  

A different study looked at the psychology of dismissing alerts using log data and found that dismissing alerts becomes habitual and that the habit is self-reinforcing over time. Furthermore, nearly three quarters of alerts were dismissed within 3 seconds. This indicates how challenging it can be to change or disrupt alert habits once they are formed. 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning  

In recent years, one of the largest areas of burgeoning technology in healthcare has been artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. AI and machine learning use algorithms to absorb large amounts of historical and real-time data and then predict outcomes and recommend treatment options as new data are entered by clinicians. Research in 2022 showed that these techniques are starting to be integrated into EHR and CDS systems, but challenges remain. A full discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this review. Here we limit the discussion to several patient-safety-focused resources posted on PSNet in 2022.  

One of the promising aspects of AI is its ability to improve CDS processes and clinician workflow overall. For example, one study last year looked at using machine learning to improve and filter CDS alerts. They found that the software could reduce alert volume by 54% while maintaining high precision. Reducing alert volume has the potential to alleviate alert fatigue and habitual overriding. Another topic explored in a scoping review was the use of AI to reduce adverse drug events. While only a few studies reviewed implementation in a clinical setting (most evaluated algorithm technical performance), several promising uses were found for AI systems that predict risk of an adverse drug event, which would facilitate early detection and mitigate negative effects.  

Despite enthusiasm for and promising applications of AI, implementation is slow. One of the challenges facing implementation is the variable quality of the systems. For example, a commonly used sepsis detection model was recently found to have very low sensitivity. 13 Algorithms also drift over time as new data are integrated, and this can affect performance, particularly during and after large disturbances like the COVID-19 pandemic. 14 There is also emerging research about the impact of AI algorithms on racial and ethnic biases in healthcare; at the time of publication of this essay, an AHRQ EPC was conducting a review of evidence on the topic. 15  These examples highlight the fact that AI is not a “set it and forget it” application; it requires monitoring and customization from a dedicated resource to ensure that the algorithms perform well over time. A related challenge is the lack of a strong business case for using high-quality AI. Because of this, many health systems choose to use out-of-the-box AI algorithms, which may be of poor quality overall (or are unsuited to particular settings) and may also be “black box” algorithms (i.e., not customizable by the health system because the vendor will not allow access to the underlying code). 16 The variable quality and the lack of transparency may cause mistrust by clinicians and overall aversion to AI interventions.  

In an attempt to address these concerns, one article in 2022 detailed best practices for AI implementation in health systems, focusing on the business case. Best practices include using AI to address a priority problem for the health system rather than treating it as an end itself. Additionally, testing the AI using the health system’s patients and data to demonstrate applicability and accuracy for that setting, confirming that the AI can provide a return on investment, and ensuring that the AI can be implemented easily and efficiently are also important. Another white paper described a human-factors and ergonomics framework for developing AI in order to improve the implementation within healthcare systems, teams, and workflows. The federal government and international organizations have also published AI guidelines, focusing on increasing trustworthiness (National Artificial Intelligence Initiative) 17 and ensuring ethical governance (World Health Organization). 18   

Conclusion and Next Steps 

As highlighted in this review, the scope and complexity of technology and its application in healthcare can be intimidating for healthcare systems to approach and implement. Researchers last year thus created a framework that health systems can use to assess their digital maturity and guide their plans for further integration.  

The field would benefit from more research in several areas in upcoming years. First and foremost, high-quality prospective outcome studies are needed to validate the effectiveness of the new technologies. Second, more work is needed on system usability, how the systems are integrated into workflows, and how they affect the documentation burden placed on clinicians. For CDS specifically, more focus is needed on patient-centered CDS (PC CDS), which supports patient-centered care by helping clinicians and patients make the best decisions given each individual’s circumstances and preferences. 19 AHRQ is already leading efforts in this field with their CDS Innovation Collaborative project. 20 Finally, as it becomes more common to incorporate EHR scribes to ease the documentation burden, research on their impact on patient safety will be needed, especially in relation to new technological approaches. For example, when a scribe encounters a CDS alert, do they alert the clinician in all cases? 

In addition to the approaches mentioned in this article, other emerging technologies in early stages of development hold theoretical promise for improving patient safety. One prominent example is “computer vision,” which uses cameras and AI to gather and process data on what physically happens in healthcare settings beyond what is captured in EHR data, 21 including being able to detect immediately that a patient fell in their room. 22  

As technology continues to expand and improve, researchers, clinicians, and health systems must be mindful of potential stumbling blocks that could impede progress and threaten patient safety. However, technology presents a wide array of opportunities to make healthcare more integrated, efficient, and safe.  

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This project was funded under contract number 75Q80119C00004 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The authors are solely responsible for this report’s contents, findings, and conclusions, which do not necessarily represent the views of AHRQ. Readers should not interpret any statement in this report as an official position of AHRQ or of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. None of the authors has any affiliation or financial involvement that conflicts with the material presented in this report. View AHRQ Disclaimers

Perspective

Perspectives on Safety

Annual Perspective

Patient Safety Innovations

Suicide Prevention in an Emergency Department Population: ED-SAFE

WebM&M Cases

The Retrievals. August 9, 2023

Agent of change. August 1, 2018

Amid lack of accountability for bias in maternity care, a California family seeks justice. August 16, 2023

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An Update on the Quality of American Health Care Through the Patient's Lens. April 12, 2006

Improving patient safety by shifting power from health professionals to patients. October 25, 2023

Patient Safety Primers

Discharge Planning and Transitions of Care

Medicines-related harm in the elderly post-hospital discharge. March 27, 2019

Emergency department crowding: the canary in the health care system. November 3, 2021

Advancing Patient Safety: Reviews From the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Making Healthcare Safer III Report. September 2, 2020

Exploring Alternatives To Malpractice Litigation. January 15, 2014

Making Healthcare Safer III. March 18, 2020

Special Section: Patient Safety. May 24, 2006

The Science of Simulation in Healthcare: Defining and Developing Clinical Expertise. November 19, 2008

Compendium of Strategies to Prevent HAIs in Acute Care Hospitals 2014. September 1, 2014

Quality, Safety, and Noninterpretive Skills. November 11, 2015

Patient Safety. November 21, 2018

Ambulatory Safety Nets to Reduce Missed and Delayed Diagnoses of Cancer

Remote response team and customized alert settings help improve management of sepsis.

Using sociotechnical theory to understand medication safety work in primary care and prescribers' use of clinical decision support: a qualitative study. May 24, 2023

Human factors and safety analysis methods used in the design and redesign of electronic medication management systems: a systematic review. May 17, 2023

Journal Article

Reducing hospital harm: establishing a command centre to foster situational awareness.

The potential for leveraging machine learning to filter medication alerts. May 4, 2022

Improving the specificity of drug-drug interaction alerts: can it be done? April 6, 2022

A qualitative study of prescribing errors among multi-professional prescribers within an e-prescribing system. December 23, 2020

The tradeoffs between safety and alert fatigue: data from a national evaluation of hospital medication-related clinical decision support. July 29, 2020

Assessment of health information technology-related outpatient diagnostic delays in the US Veterans Affairs health care system: a qualitative study of aggregated root cause analysis data. July 22, 2020

Reducing drug prescription errors and adverse drug events by application of a probabilistic, machine-learning based clinical decision support system in an inpatient setting. August 21, 2019

Improving medication-related clinical decision support. March 7, 2018

The frequency of inappropriate nonformulary medication alert overrides in the inpatient setting. April 6, 2016

The effect of provider characteristics on the responses to medication-related decision support alerts. July 15, 2015

Best practices: an electronic drug alert program to improve safety in an accountable care environment. July 1, 2015

Impact of computerized physician order entry alerts on prescribing in older patients. March 25, 2015

Differences of reasons for alert overrides on contraindicated co-prescriptions by admitting department. December 17, 2014

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