No Dinosaurs Here

When I told my middle school students that I remember not having a computer, they didn't seem as surprised as I'd expected.
"My auntie doesn't have a computer either," one student told the class.
"That's not that weird," another student agreed, "I mean, you had an iPhone so probably you didn't need one that much."
I was about to shock them. "Actually, I didn't have an iPhone until I was about 27. That was only about five years ago. In fact, I remember not having the internet at all."
Stunned silence.
"Yeah, you would just be reading a book and then turn and see a dinosaur pass by your window!" exclaimed one of the sillier students in the class.
We all laughed.

When the internet took off, I knew I was a witness to a big moment in history. I imagined being an old woman telling stories of Y2K and the creation of the internet. I didn't realize that I'd be baffling my students with these stories at the age of 32.

My students don't know a world without the internet. It is so ingrained in their everyday lives that they can barely get through one 45-minute class without checking their Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. Imagining a world where they couldn't constantly connect is unthinkable to them.

According to the Office of Adolescent Health, 94% of teenagers use their mobile devices to access the internet on a daily basis and 71% of teenagers are connected to multiple social media sites.

Office of Adolescent Health

According to these statistics, the internet plays an important part of my students' lives. However, my own use of technology in the classroom is limited. My students don't have one-to-one technology, and they aren't allowed to have their cell phones in class. The only technology we have available is my Smart Board. However, 53% of students prefer classes that use technology as a way of learning, according to Rhea Kelly from Campus Technology. 

Campus Technology

According to this study, technology has helped students be engaged in the content and has improved their grades. While I'm not incredibly surprised that students find technology helpful, I am surprised to find how high these percentages are. For example, Kelly claims "82 percent of students said they use laptops for homework assignments, compared to 59 percent using print materials." I so rarely give homework assignments that require technology because several of my students don't have access to computers at home. In every grade of my K-12 charter, teachers are struggling to get students to turn in assignments. If Kelly's statistic is correct, we might have a higher rate of homework completion if more assignments were computer-based. Certainly, my school would then have to provide one-to-one technology to make this requirement equitable. While that would be costly, the payoff of improved engagement, improved grades, and potentially improved test scores would be huge.

These studies strike me as particularly interesting as my school and certainly many others seem to be in a strange dance with students' access to technology. While we have computer classes at the school that teach basic computer skills, those classes are only twice per week for most students. Increasing the availability and usage of technology in the classrooms would benefit the majority of students, if the statistics from Kelly's study are accurate. Of course some students may be distracted and want to access social media to communicate with friends instead of engaging with the content, but it would seem that the majority of students would find the use of technology beneficial. If the trend of internet usage continues, the next generation of students I teach will be even more connected than my current students. Technology will play a bigger role in their lives. Embracing technology and teaching students helpful ways to use the internet and think critically about what they're reading on social media could be incredibly valuable to them later in life.