technology in the k-12 education field: putting money where it really matters.

K-12 education is a big business and we all probably know that. Big money is spent on district and statewide assessments to professional development to textbooks/publishers, etc. A lot of money is tied into it. 

We can also recall the significant shift and dependence on technology with the Covid-19 pandemic. Face-to-face instructors and learners became "online" instructors and learners...with little to no preparation. Dr. Dennen's articleTechnology transience and learner data: Shifting notions of privacy in online learning (2015) made many excellent points that I wish I had known when I was online teaching during the pandemic. One of the points that stood out to me the most was the importance of online instructors and learners needing a basic degree of technological competence.

"Because technology underpins so much of online learning, online instructors and learners need to have a basic degree of technological competence. At minimum, online instructors and learners need to know how to use the course technology (e.g., to navigate course websites, and to interact with one another via communication tools)." 

The shift to online instruction and learning was a hard one for me. Suddenly, we began using programs we had never used before and received zero training. Districts spend a lot of money on technology. They typically train their teachers for 1-3 days on this new technology and expect them to implement it during the new school year. Zero time is the training spent on technologic pedagogy or the affordances of technology. I really wish school districts spent the money where it really matters - training their educators not only to implement the technology effectively but ensuring there is a basic degree of technological competence that goes along with it. 

Many of the points made by Dr. Dennen are important for K-12 educators to learn, especially with the emergence of new technology.