"I like to keep an old-school paper grade book because you never know when the system will crash and lose everything."
Quote from a teacher who has just closed out one school and is preparing her planner (a paper one) for the next. How is it that in this day and age, we still have educators keeping duplicate records, hand-recording grades and formative assessments, and writing out weekly lesson plans with excruciating detail? How is it that our systems and technology are so antiquated and a step behind in education that the very practitioners using it and teaching our children are so skeptical about its stability that they feel compelled to keep a physical backup copy?
Technology has made so many advances and yet our education systems are unable to keep up. Many purchased Chromebooks or other tablet device during the pandemic as a band-aid fix for online learning. Now, the schools are faced with challenges of how to maintain them, integrate--if it is even possible--digital programs onto the devices, much less how to ensure they are safe and firewalls are secure. The knee-jerk purchases have now left many institutions crippled with digital devices rendered virtually useless.
Education has often been short-changed in annual government budgets. They can't afford the same type of technology updates the private and corporate sectors do. So, what can be done? What if, those private and corporate entities, volunteered their services as technology consultants to help schools determine a long-range plan, what devices are best for their use case, which ones will last the longest, and host the many ad-hoc digital programs used in a school? What if all of the digital programs were universal across operating systems so a school could use any configuration of devices? What if businesses helped educators learn and understand the use of technology in the world and the advances in such a way they felt some level of comfort in understanding them so they could teach their students? Or, better yet, why not volunteer that time at the school assisting that teacher in that instruction?
I have long worked at the intersection of secondary, postsecondary, and workforce. Each one points the finger at the others as the reasons why students are not prepared for college and a career. Let's stop pointing fingers and roll up our sleeves and partner with our schools. Teachers and schools should not be the ones left with old-school devices and methods for educating our young people for the future.
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