conceptions of electrolyte chemistry
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' OPINIONS ON LEARNING AND TEACHING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Martina Lešnjak Opaka
Abstract
The omnipresence of digital technologies and their significance in lives of children and adolescents have been growing fast for more than two dec‐
ades. Schools try to follow this trend but research shows that unthoughtful introduction of new technologies does not have the desired effect. Teach‐
ers’ opinions on technology play an important role. Research shows that they are often positive or mixed. Besides acknowledging the learning and motivational value of digital technologies teachers express concern about possible distractions, negative influences on students’ attention and on as‐
pects of their socio‐emotional development. Purpose of present research is to contribute to our understanding of elementary school teachers’ opinions on digital technologies, their possible benefits and harms in the context of teaching, learning and development. Qualitative approach was employed.
Data were gathered transcribing a discussion of a focus group of elementary school teachers and analysed qualitatively by assigning codes and catego‐
ries. It turned out that teachers do acknowledge benefits of using digital technologies but they list many obstacles. They are more concerned about thoughtless use of technologies. They detect negative influences on cogni‐
tive and socio‐emotional development of children and adolescents. They emphasize the role of education in reducing the negative effects.
Key words: digital technology, teaching, learning, elementary school teach‐
ers’ opinions, focus group
Introduction
Share of young internet users is 94% in developed countries and almost 97%
in Europe (ITU, 2017). The share of youth who use internet daily or almost daily in Slovenia is almost 100% and exceeds the European average (SURS, 2016).
Extensive surveys of internet and other media habits of children and ado‐
lescents conducted abroad all came to similar conclusions – children and adolescents live in a media saturated environment and are early and most enthusiastic users of new technologies. Already over a decade ago data in the USA showed that the majority of preschool children (83%) spend more than two hours per day in front of screens (Rideout & Hammel, 2006). 79%
of children are placed in front of screens before the age of two and 43%
of them sit watching screens more than an hour daily. Both is contrary to
American Pediatric Association recommendations that preschool children should not be exposed to screens more than two hours per day and that children under two should not watch screens at all. Parents’ main motiva‐
tion for placing their child in front of a screen is to ensure some peace and quiet for themselves. In parent focus groups more was said about how to get kids to sit in front of a screen than about how to prevent them from do‐
ing that (Rideout & Hammel, 2006).
Research that focused on elementary and high school students found out that only half of families establish rules on media use (Roberts, Foehr, &
Rideout, 2005, 2010; Skumavc, 2016). Time the young spend with media is growing especially after personal portable media such as smart phones, tablet computers etc. were introduced. With these the young manage to use media 7 hours and 3 minutes per day on average which is practically all the time when not in school or sleeping (Roberts et al., 2010).
A recent research conducted in Great Britain with children between 5 and 15 (Ofcom, 2016) shows that for the first time in history the children spend more time on internet then in front of a TV. The importance of Youtube is overshadowing TV especially in older children. Ownership of mobile phones among children is growing. Between the ages 10 and 11 the number of chil‐
dren with a personal social network profile doubles. Slovenian adolescents between 11 and 19 (mostly 14 and 15‐year‐olds) who answered questions in an online survey also listed Youtube as the most popular internet site closely followed by Facebook (Safe.si, 2014).
The digital world hides benefits as well as dangers for a developing per‐
son. Parents express concern watching their children spend more and more time in the digital world (Roberts et al., 2005, 2010). Handbooks addressing parents, educators and teachers are multiplying fast. Examples are books such as Raising generation tech (Taylor, 2015), The Parent App (Schofield Clark, 2013), Brain‐Based Teaching in the Digital Age (Sprenger, 2010), The Information Behavior of a New Generation (Beheshti & Large, 2013), Young Children in a Digital Age (Kaye, 2017) and others.
Teachers’ opinions on use of digital technologies in school instruction The Slovenian law on elementary school states the “…development of litera‐
cy and knowledge… in information area…” (ZOsn‐F, 2007) as one of the aims of education. Teachers’ opinions on implementing digital technologies in teaching are in line with this and mainly positive. Even preschool educators are convinced in importance of digital technologies in education (Veličković
& Stošić, 2016). Elementary and high school teachers believe that the use
of digital technologies increases student motivation (Alsaeed, 2017; Bindu, 2017; Orhan‐Karsak, 2017; Scherer, Siddiq, & Teo, 2015), fosters creativity (Orhan‐Karsak, 2017; Rideout, 2012), enables visualization and concretiza‐
tion of learning content (Alsaeed, 2017; Bindu, 2017; Orhan‐Karsak, 2017), cooperation (Scherer et al., 2015) and more efficient search for information (Rideout, 2012; Scherer et al., 2015). Teachers perceive the use of digital technologies as helpful in changing their teaching approach by encouraging them to change from teacher‐oriented to student‐oriented teaching (Fairch‐
ild, Meiners, & Violette, 2016; Parsons & Adhikari, 2016).
Yet the opinions are not merely positive. Teachers perceive both positive and negative effects when introducing digital technologies into an elementary school classroom (Parsons & Adhikari, 2016). Even on higher education level teachers have more difficulties maintaining student attention on what is be‐
ing taught when in a technologically rich classroom (Fairchild et al., 2016).
Especially mixed opinions on technology are found among nonformal envi‐
ronmental teachers (e. g. teachers in museums, zoos, parks) placing greater importance on direct relationship with nature (Peffer, Bodzin, & Duffield Smith, 2013). Opinions on usefulness of digital technologies of vocational education teachers are polarized (Mažgon, Kovač Šebart, & Štefanc, 2015).
Teacher often mention numerous limitations and problems connected to digital technologies in a classroom. They doubt their skills of managing them (Mažgon et al., 2015; Veličković & Stošić, 2016; Fairchild et al., 2016; Alsaeed, 2017; Efe, 2011; Hismanoglu, 2012), they criticise the infrastructure and ac‐
cessibility (Alsaeed, 2017; Mažgon et al., 2015; Bindu, 2017), mention lack of time for dealing with digital technologies (Fairchild et al., 2016; Alsaeed, 2017), the extra effort needed (Fairchild et al., 2016; Castro Sánchez & Chiri‐
no Alemán, 2011), constant dealing with technical problems (Fairchild et al., 2016) and a mass of passwords to memorize (Parsons & Adhikari, 2016).
The scientific literature expresses doubt about the meaningfulness and op‐
timality of digital technology use in the classroom. Slovenian schools are well equipped with digital devices and well connected to internet yet these are rarely used by teachers (Mažgon et al., 2015). Various computer pres‐
entations and videos are used in classes most often whereas interactive contents which foster student activity are used less even though the teach‐
ers are aware of their educational value (Bindu, 2017; Orhan‐Karsak, 2017).
Meaningful use of digital technologies in teaching depends on teachers’
education. Teachers who already started their careers ask for more training in this field (Veličković & Stošić, 2016). Students preparing for educational profession ask for more concrete experience in this field in their course of studying and more modelling of digital technology use by faculty staff (Al‐
Ruz & Khasawneh, 2011; Efe, 2011). Too much is left to teacher’s personal
initiative (Bindu, 2017).
Even though most students of education uphold positive attitudes toward the use of digital technologies in teaching and intend to use them there are also some negative opinions on it. Vocational education teachers in Slove‐
nia generally do not ascribe much importance to the role e‐content plays in learning (Mažgon et al., 2015). Teachers exist who are against technol‐
ogy (Parsons & Adhikari, 2016). Some teachers do not experience positive feelings when teaching with digital technologies and believe it is a waste of classroom time (Hismanoglu, 2012).
PISA research (OECD, 2015) shows that school systems which invested a lot in equipping schools with new digital technologies do not record any no‐
ticeable improvement in students’ reading, writing and math. Research on effects digital technologies have on student knowledge confirms that it is the meaningfulness and thoughtfulness of its implementation that matters.
When its use is well considered the effects are positive (e.g. Folkesson &
Swalander, 2007), when not it can be merely a source of distraction and re‐
sults in poor student knowledge (e.g. McEwen & Dube, 2015; Perry & Steck, 2015; Terras & Ramsay, 2012).
Teachers’ opinions on the impact digital technologies have on learning and cognitive development
Digital technology offers many opportunities for learning but it can also hin‐
der it. Time spent playing computer games predicts lower school grades (Roberts et al., 2005). Multitasking, the use of more than one media simul‐
taneously or the use of media during the performance of academic tasks, affects learning in a particularly negative way. Media multitasking is increas‐
ingly present among youth and has become more prominent with the ex‐
pansion of portable digital devices (Foehr, 2006; Roberts et al., 2005, 2010).
In a meta‐analysis on multitasking it was shown that the main distractors are mobile phones with ringing, text messages and easy access to social networks (Chen & Yan, 2016). Learning processes that are most disrupted are reading and attention. Much research shows a negative effect of digitali‐
zation on attentive and immersed reading (Tancig, 2015, 2016). Social net‐
works and their constant accessibility were labelled as major distractors of learning process or “academic quicksand” (Flanigan & Babchuk, 2015, p. 40) by the youth themselves. The young believe that a whole generation is in an underprivileged position on its way to success because of the social media.
Beland and Murphy (2016) analysed student performance before and after banning mobile phones from schools and discovered that the ban resulted in higher student achievement.
Research on relations among use of digital technologies and attentional processes, working memory and other control processes known as execu‐
tive functions yields interesting results. Green and Bavelier (2003) proved direct effect commercial video games have on changes in visual attention.
Ophir, Nass, and Wagner (2009) proved on a sample of adults that people who media multitask more often have executive functions less developed than others. They have troubles filtering out internal and external distrac‐
tors and, surprisingly, have more difficulties switching between tasks. Simi‐
lar was found in early adolescents 11 to 15 years old (Baumgartner, Weeda, van der Heijden, & Huizinga, 2014).
Of course the question about the cause and the consequence is in place.
Do individuals with less developed executive functions have more difficul‐
ties avoiding multitasking or does multitasking impair executive function‐
ing? Probably both is possible but some related research proves that ex‐
ecutive functions ca be undermined directly as a cause of media behaviour.
Although research by Lillard and Peterson (2011) was not about multitasking it showed an immediate decline in executive functions in 4‐year‐olds after watching 9 minutes of a fast paced cartoon in comparison with children who spent this time drawing.
Teachers’ opinions about the impact digital technology has on learning and cognition are in line with scientific discoveries. They believe in positive ef‐
fects digital technology has on learning processes and student knowledge (Castro Sánchez & Chirino Alemán, 2011; Hismanoglu, 2012; Fairchild et al., 2016; Parsons & Adhikari, 2016). Nonformal environmental teachers would not agree with this – more than half of them believe that use of digital technology undermines knowledge (Peffer et al., 2013). Teachers also have negative attitudes towards entertainment media which are blamed for poor school grades (Rideout, 2012). Teachers often observe the distractive effects of digital technology which divert attention away from learning (Parsons
& Adhikari, 2016; Fairchild et al., 2016; Hismanoglu, 2012). Use of digital technology is associated by teachers with worse reading literacy (Parsons &
Adhikari, 2016; Rideout, 2012) which is noticed even by students themselves (Parsons & Adhikari, 2016).
Teachers’ opinions on the impact digital technologies have on socio-emotional development
Children and adolescents who are less satisfied with their lives or prone to sensation seeking and risky behaviours are exposed to media over an hour per day more than others (Roberts et al., 2005). These are also the ones who media multitask more often (Foehr, 2006). “Liking” photographs and
commentaries is basis for strong and non‐critical peer social influence which leads into peer pressure to perform risky behaviours such as binge drinking and smoking (Sherman, Greenfield, Hernandez, & Dapretto, 2017).
A big share of literature on digital technology is dedicated to addiction, e.
g. on non‐chemical behavioural addiction to mobile phones (Soror, Ham‐
mer, Steelman, Davis, & Limayem, 2015; Soror, Steelman, & Limayem, 2012;
Verbrugge, Stevens, & de Marez, 2013), social networks (Lee, Cheung, &
Thadani, 2012; Thadani & Cheung, 2011), internet (Macur, Király, Maraz, Nagygyörgy, & Demetrovics, 2016), and computer gaming (Pontes, Macur,
& Griffiths, 2016). The latter was accepted as a conditional disorder into the diagnostic manual DSM‐5 (APA, 2013). In Slovenian 8‐graders the preva‐
lence of this disorder was shown to be 2,5% of the population or 3,1% of all computer games players and is comparable to other European countries (Pontes et al., 2016). 8‐graders who fall into this category are less satisfied with their lives and mental health.
Teachers perceive positive socio‐emotional outcomes of digital technology use such as better opportunities for collaboration and interaction (Parsons
& Adhikari, 2016; Fairchild et al., 2016), easier teacher–student communica‐
tion (Castro Sánchez & Chirino Alemán, 2011), learning prosocial behaviours (Rideout, 2012) and last but not least positive feelings and fun (Fairchild et al., 2016; Orhan‐Karsak, 2017). But they also notice some deterioration of relationships in a class after introducing digital technology (Parsons & Adhi‐
kari, 2016), some experience negative feelings of their own while teaching with technology (Hismanoglu, 2012), students are less emotionally involved with the environment, the nature (Peffer et al., 2013) and cyber peer bully‐
ing (Parsons & Adhikari, 2016) and sexualisation of girls (Rideout, 2012) are cautioned about. Signs of addiction are being noticed. Elementary school students started using their mobile devices at homes more often for purpos‐
es other than learning after implementing BOYD (bring‐your‐own‐device) approach in their school (Parsons & Adhikari, 2016). University students are horrified if the computers have to be turned off for some time during class (Fairchild et al., 2016).