Teacher shortages and social-emotional learning are not, at first glance, problems crying out for edtech solutions from your IT department. Your students and staff are, however, more certain that more classroom technology is just what the CIO ordered to help districts tackle these most pressing of issues, a new survey from the edtech company Promethean has found.
As for your students, they want more edtech and more time to use it. Nearly half of the students surveyed are looking for more technology in class and about a quarter say they don’t have enough time to use the edtech their schools already have, according to the latest findings in Promethean’s annual State of Technology in Education report.
And one in five educators shared that staff shortages have eaten away at tech funding that was already below ideal levels. Vacancies throughout K12 may also mean smaller IT departments have less time to provide each teacher with the edtech support they need, the survey of 1,700 U.S. educators suggests.
Edtech solutions to staff shortages
When asked about the biggest impact of staff vacancies, nearly one-third of teachers surveyed cited a lack of IT support.
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Some 40% of IT managers, meanwhile, weren’t confident that leaders in their district were managing staff shortages effectively. Still, very few teachers agreed with the statement “technology presents more challenges than it solves.”
Here’s a breakdown of teachers’ views on the top edtech solutions:
- 59%: Technology improves the quality of teaching I’m able to deliver
- 53%: Technology helps with my lesson planning
- 52%: Technology helps with my lesson delivery
- 43%: Technology makes engaging students easier
- 40%: My confidence in using edtech has somewhat increased.
- 38%: Technology helps my productivity
SEL: ‘Trust in tech’
More than two-thirds of educators agreed that technology is an effective tool for supporting students’ social-emotional needs, particularly when it comes to offering experiential and immersive learning opportunities. Teachers also noted that technology is an important tool for:
- Helping students connect with and understand the world
- Collecting data that allows me to create effective collaborative environments
- Collaborative and community-based learning
- Improving student engagement
- Supporting students’ face-to-face interactions
- Improving student behavior
“Technology has proven over and over again to make a big difference in my students’ learning, especially those who have social-emotional needs such as selective mutism,” a teacher in Florida said in the survey. “It allows them to participate when they feel they cannot orally. This empowerment that technology gives them makes me search for more resources to help them.”
What students want from edtech
Staff shortages and a lack of IT support may be to blame for this survey finding: One in four students said they don’t have enough time to use the technology at their school. Still, nearly every student polled asserted that technology makes instruction more “interesting and enjoyable.” Edtech, rather than serving as a distraction, helps them focus and connect with classmates.
Tablets are by far their favorite technology at school, followed by smartphones, remote learning, apps and online content and quizzes. Surprisingly perhaps, students were much less enthusiastic about 3D printers, artificial intelligence and robotics.
