With the backlash against digital technology in schools gaining momentum, how can public faith be restored in ed-tech?

Even the most bullish of ed-tech boosters can’t fail to have noticed that the use of digital technology in schools is facing something of a backlash. High profile advocacy groups and well-organised parent lobbies are pushing for getting tech out of classrooms – arguing for a ‘pause’ on tech investment and for schools to limit themselves to ‘safe’ and ‘intentional’ uses of technology. US states are considering legislation to limit ‘non-essential’ student screentime, while the EU AI act continues to deem a wide raft of educational AI applications as ‘high-risk’, with some seen to pose ‘unacceptable’ risks. Much has also been made of moves from governments in Sweden and Norway to get screens out of primary classrooms and generally encourage a return to book-based learning. All told, the wide-eyed excitement that surrounded the digitisation of schools during the 2000s and 2010s seems to have well and truly passed. 

This disquiet should not come as a surprise for anyone with even passing familiarity with education in the 2020s. School systems in many parts of the world have become dominated by a certain class of ed-tech that is impersonal, inflexible and uninspiring. Students spend increasing amounts of time on their devices locked into tutoring software, slide-decks and Google Docs. Communication takes place through email and message apps, while guidance and support is outsourced to chatbots and pedagogical agents. We have reached the point where the day-to-day running of schools is funnelled through learning management systems and corporate mega-platforms such as Google Classroom, with progress displayed through dashboards and analytics systems, more akin to monitoring hospital patients than nurturing young people’s development. In comparison to the hype about ‘virtual learning communities’ and ‘cyberschools’ during the 1990s and 2000s, the ed-tech dream of the 2020s seems to have soured. This is not the technological liberation and digital creativity that we were promised!

Growing public discontent

The current digital malaise is fuelling popular sentiment that schools have simply become too dependent on digital technology, and the digitalisation of education over the past 15 years or so has steadily sucked the joy and humanity out of learning. For sure, some of this public swing against ed-tech is not specifically triggered by school technology per se, but by broader concerns over tech in general. Indeed, some of this ed-tech backlash is symptomatic of general public concerns over screen-time, digital distraction, kids spending too much time on phones, worrying reports of spiralling mental health, lethargy and disenchantment – all amplified by high-profile figures like Jonathan Haidt fuelling panic around a pernicious ‘great rewiring’ of children’s lives. As ever, it is easier to kick out at ‘what schools are doing’ than take a closer look at what is going in our family homes and neighbourhoods.

Nevertheless, many people are piqued specifically by with they believe is going wrong with school tech use in the 2020s. Many of the parents pushing back against tech in schools are understandably exasperated by seeing their children on the receiving-end of robotic teaching and sub-standard homework apps.  Indeed, many parents are also exasperated by their own experiences of the ‘Computer Says No’ forms of school admin and school messaging fed to them through their school’s platforms and systems. Forty-five years after the first computers were brought into classrooms, public opinion finally seems to be dramatically shifting – could the promise of digital education be turning out to be more of a curse than a blessing?

Acknowledging the problem

Rather than dismissing these sentiments as ill-informed or irrational, the ed-tech community needs to take this growing backlash seriously. Indeed, there is much to the backlash that does point to some systematic failings to the ways in which ed-tech has developed over the past ten years or so. On one hand, as UNESCO’s Mark West points out, schools are still suffering from the aftermath of COVID remote schooling – when schools invested heavily into laptops and online systems that they now continue to be financially committed to through long-term subscriptions and Big Tech ‘vendor lock-in’. Corporations such as Google and Microsoft now have strangleholds over school technology in ways that were not the case even ten years ago. It is increasingly obvious that our education systems are beholden to Big Tech in ways that people are increasingly uncomfortable with.

Yet, this is not just a problem of there being too much tech in schools, but more accurately, there being too much crappy tech in schools. Much of the tech now produced for schools is undeniably clunky, glitchy and with an ever-worsening user experience for the students and teachers compelled to use them. It is far too easy for critics to pick up on Cory Doctorow’s ‘enshittification’ critique and apply it to much of the tech now found in schools. While ed-tech industry might decry such claims, these criticisms are clearly striking a chord with the general public. A popular consensus is forming that ed-tech is increasingly doing more harm than good, and there is too much of it in our schools.

Restoring public faith in ed-tech – some ways forward

So, the key question that now needs to be asked is how can we set about restoring public trust in ed-tech? Certainly, one obvious supply-side change would be building better ed-tech – making sure that ed-tech firms put much more effort into designing and developing educational software and other digital products for schools that are genuinely great rather than simply good enough. We need to see much more learning software that is elegantly programmed and pedagogically sophisticated. We want schools to be supported by administrative platforms and systems that are genuinely helpful and user-centred. The education sector should also put more effort into promoting non-commercial alternatives – supporting the growth of free-software and open-source production of educational resources for schools.

On the flipside, it also seems sensible for individual schools and their wider communities to begin taking back control of their tech use. A lot of schools complain of having little or no meaningful choice when it comes to their tech use – locked into long-term contracts and licensing agreements, often at a school district level, with municipalities dictating what tech can – and cannot – be used. This is leading to burgeoning calls to give schools a greater ‘digital autonomy’. One obvious step in this direction is to rethink the procurement logics that have got schools into the current mess. Part of the problem with schools digital technology over the past twenty years has been that the people purchasing ed-tech products are usually not the people who end up using the products. Most ed-tech products are designed and sold to school leaders and education administrators. As such, there is something to be said for making schools’ tech investment a more deliberative and democratic process – something that is led by a whole school community.

Indeed, school communities could be given much more say in how technology is used throughout their own schools – giving democratic oversight of ed-tech to whole-school ‘tech councils’ involving students, parents and non-specialist teachers. These tech councils would be well placed to tell school leaders what tech is genuinely useful, and which tech needs to be given a hard pass. These tech councils would also be a great way for schools to limit themselves to forms of digital use that genuinely add value to what is already taking place, and freeing up schools to do distinctly new and different things with digital technology. Too much digital technology simply replicates things that schools can do perfectly well without technology. When digital technology is to be used in schools, students, then teachers and parents should know that it is extending and improving quality education.