Is my lesson more relevant because I'm using technology?

It happens all. the. time. And the argument is often the same, despite the faulty reasoning behind the logic.


1. Students love technology.
2. Students don't love my classroom lessons.
3. If I use technology, students will love my classroom lessons.

A variation of the argument might be:

1. This lesson needs to be more engaging.
2. Technology is engaging (students love it!)
3. If I use digital resources, my lessons will be more engaging.

So where did the idea that simply adding technology to a lesson suddenly makes it more relevant or more interesting for students?

For some, the argument may be promoted by colleagues, or by administrators, or by students. But is technology really the solution to student disengagement?

I recently found a blog article focused on Digital Transformation in the business world, but one quote really struck me, particularly as we are examining similar shifts in education.

"If you want to deliver experiences that customers will love and your team will be thrilled to deliver — you must determine if new technology is what you really need. Is a digital transformation what your company needs? Do you understand what that really means?"

Let that sink in as you consider the parallels between education and the private sector. Who are our customers? Without a doubt, most teachers would say our students. Who is our team? Most would say our colleagues. Do your students need new technologies? Will our colleagues be "thrilled to deliver" lessons using new technology? Do we understand what a digital transformation of our classroom really means?

In many cases - No.

Using technology and integrating technology are not the same thing.  Technology has the ability to take our students further, to open their eyes to a world of opportunity, and to create connections between the content in our lessons and the challenges and experiences they have every day of the week.

If we really want to deliver an experience that our customer - the student - will love, we need to recognize that technology might not be the silver bullet that revitalizes a low-energy classroom full of disengaged students. As with so much else, if we don't have a vision for its use, beyond just using it, the digital transformation in our schools lacks a solid foundation.

At this year's Indiana Connected Educators Conference, I have the opportunity, along with my Casey Stansifer, to share and discuss the difficult challenge we all face with striking the right balance between promoting complex thinking among students and leveraging the technologies available within our classrooms. At the core of our presentation we'll examine how we can promote knowledge transfer and we'll share some key technology resources that can support our shared outcomes.
colleague,

We can't start with the technology. Alone, it won't make much difference and we're wasting the most precious of resources - our students' opportunities to achieve more.

Good lesson design isn't just about the technology. Rather, it's about the the purposeful, outcomes-focused inclusion of technology that helps move our lessons further (increasing the cognitive complexity (rigor)) and challenges our students to think differently about the skills (not just the content - we want knowledge transfer (relevance)) we are teaching.

In short, it's time for us, as teachers, to step back and take a closer look at "what" we are teaching - not just how we're doing it. We need to rethink the cognitive range we ask our students to span and we need to re-examine the depth of application we ask our students to demonstrate.

"As with any technology used in the classroom, its power to transform is only as good as its strategic implementation."

As my colleague, Andy Deatrick, so often asks - "are we teaching students to 'solve [math] problems' (content focused) or are we teaching them to be problem solvers?" Relevance is dependent upon transferability of knowledge.

So back to the initial question: Is my lesson more relevant because I'm using technology?

As revealed earlier, "Relevant" refers to something being closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered. What a great definition!

Instructional Relevance does not mean that students enjoy a lesson because we've integrated technology, rather it reveals that there is a connection between the designed application of technology and the skill students will improve during the learning exercise.

Image Source: Bryan Mather

The lesson becomes more relevant when we ask our students to use what we teach, not when we ask them to use technology to do something.

It becomes more relevant when we challenge them to demonstrate their mastery of the skills. 

It becomes more relevant when we empower them to embrace trial and error, to make mistakes and to revise and reflect on their thinking. 

It becomes more relevant when we allow healthy and safe spaces for collaboration and for asking difficult questions and justifying complex answers, building each student's collective competency to transfer understanding to unforeseen situations.

It becomes more relevant when students create solutions, not just PowerPoint presentations.

So let's start planning our lessons by focusing on the skills students gain not on the technology students use. 

Let's start planning our units with an awareness of how students will demonstrate the depth of their knowledge, and not with the task they will complete.

And let's start planning our school year by focusing on the relationships we will develop with our students, supporting them when they take risks, encouraging them to persevere in the face of difficult experiences, and challenging them to revise and reflect on their experiences.

What about our use of technology? Yes - use it when it empowers students to go further and to do more than they ever thought possible.

“It is much easier to add technology to do exactly what has been done before—the same curriculum, same assessments, same schedule, same assignments—than to fundamentally redesign the work and the culture of learning.”

- Alan November