Student Engagement Requires More Than EdTech Tools

Key points:

Student engagement is critical to academic achievement, but it can often be difficult to get students engaged in meaningful and relevant ways. During a session at FETC 2024, Tom Murray, Chief Innovation Officer for Future Ready Schools, dove into what exactly contributes to the effective use of educational technology to support student engagement.

“Just because it's digital doesn't mean it's good,” Murray said. “We could be 100 percent digital and also 100 percent low-level learning.”

Simply adding a device to the classroom does not mean that students will automatically engage in their learning.

“A Chromebook can be a storage center for digital worksheets, but it can also be an avenue to unleash genius,” because the level of student engagement comes from how a device is used: the device itself is neutral, Murray said.

There are three components involved in finding educational technology tools that work and support student engagement:

1. Interactive learning: Consider how much interaction the student has while using the tool

2. Use technology to explore, design and create, not a digital simulation: Evaluate learning levels. Leveraging technology for low-level tasks leads to investing time in low-level learning.

3. The right combination of teachers and technology: What is right for one student may be different from what is right for another.

The Department of Education's recently updated National Educational technology Plan introduces a component that Murray says is critical for the nation: not just the digital divide, but the digital usage divide. Closing the digital gap ensures that all students understand how to use technology as a tool to engage in creative and productive learning, she said.

“The more time we invest in passive use, the more time we invest in low-level learning. So how do we focus on the interactive piece? she asked. Active use includes media production, global connections, peer-to-peer collaboration, and immersive simulation. To that end, Murray linked those attending the session with a Google document with technological tools for student participation. Resources in that document include educational tools, digital content, assessment tools, efficiency and management tools, communication tools, and more.

Citing his 2019 book, Personal and authenticMurray said, “In the classroom, teachers can be incredibly innovative with little or no technology and extremely traditional with every possible technological tool at their disposal.”

Laura Ascione is the editorial director of eSchool Media. She graduated from the prestigious Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

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