technology integration in education

How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

Become an Insider

Sign up today to receive premium content.

Technology in the Classroom & The Benefits for K-12 Schools

Rebecca Torchia is a web editor for  EdTech: Focus on K–12 . Previously, she has produced podcasts and written for several publications in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and her hometown of Pittsburgh.

Technology integration is no longer about whether tech belongs in classrooms. In today’s education landscape, it pertains to how technology is chosen and used for learning.

Schools have received waves of government funding for educational technology. Administrators and IT leadership still have  until September 2022 and September 2023  to obligate ESSER I and ESSER II funds, respectively. To get the best return on investment with this funding, districts must ensure technology integration is done effectively.

Students benefit from technology integration when it is done well. It can lead to a more equitable educational experience and give students the tools to be successful in life.

Click the banner to unlock exclusive tech content when you register as an Insider.

What Does Technology in The Classroom Look Like Today?

Technology integration is the use of technology in teaching and learning to achieve academic goals.

“I don’t use tech unless it solves a problem I have in the classroom,” says Lisa Highfill, a technology integration specialist at  Pleasanton Virtual Academy  in California.

For example, Highfill says, she’ll use a  Jamboard  where students can post their responses instead of calling on them one at a time. “Then, when they’re all quiet, what are they doing? They’re reading each other’s comments.”

Meaningful tech integration should be done thoughtfully to enhance a learning experience. “You don’t want to use technology just for technology’s sake,” says Melissa Lim, a technology integration specialist at Oregon’s  Portland Public Schools . “We recommend using the Triple E Framework as a simple tool to help determine if it’s worth using technology or if you’re just using it as a substitute.”

The Triple E Framework  was developed by Liz Kolb, a clinical associate professor of education and learning technologies at the University of Michigan. When K–12 IT leaders evaluate new tech based on this framework, they can determine “how well technology tools integrated into lessons are helping students engage in, enhance and extend learning goals,” according to Kolb’s website for the framework.

“It’s all about the learning first,” Lim says.

Why Is Integrating Technology Important in Education?

Technology integration in Education is important for multiple reasons. It makes learning more equitable for K–12 students, and — when used in lower grades — it sets them up for success in school and, moving forward, in their careers.

“If you’re a teacher who doesn’t use a lot of technology, your students aren’t getting equitable access to learning experiences that another teacher who uses technology is giving to their students,” Lim says.

Melissa Lim Technology Integration Specialist, Portland Public Schools

Now that many students have devices and access to technology, educators and school leaders must work to  narrow the digital divide  through equity of use. If students aren’t exposed to technology and taught how to use it, they will fall behind their peers.

“Educators should make sure logging in is a really easy, smooth process,” Highfill says. “Once I get everyone logged in, the No. 1 thing I have to get students to learn how to do is share their screen.”

This not only helps her work through problems with students, she says, but also helps students take  a more active role in their learning . Students will find new ways to achieve a goal or manipulate a technology and can show the class — and the teacher — how they’ve accomplished it by sharing their screen. “You empower them and put them in the teaching role,” Highfill adds.

What Are the Benefits of Technology for Students?

Through technology, schools can support all students. There are roughly 60 grade school students and nearly 250 high school students enrolled at Pleasanton Virtual Academy. “I’m so excited our district put in that investment,” Highfill says. “We’re a public school virtual academy. They invested in a quality virtual academy to meet the needs of all students.”

Even students who are learning in an in-person environment are  using technology in their daily lives . Integrating it into the classroom gives them an opportunity to learn to use tech in a meaningful way.

READ MORE:   Build the themes of digital citizenship into instruction and business planning.

“If you have the skills and know how to research and find information and discern whether that information is true or not, that’s going to help you not only in school with your schoolwork, but also with life in general,” Lim says.

“I watch the kids, and they’re very addicted to their devices,” says Highfill. “So, it’s my new teaching point: How can you take a digital diet, and how can you identify when tech is not doing good things for you?”

Highfill says that anytime there’s a fear about introducing technology to the classroom, educators should use that. “We have to teach students how to take care of themselves if they’re going to use technology,” she says.

• Digital Content
• Online Learning
• Digital Workspace
• Digital Citizenship
• Digital Transformation

Related Articles

Unlock white papers, personalized recommendations and other premium content for an in-depth look at evolving IT

Copyright © 2024 CDW LLC 200 N. Milwaukee Avenue , Vernon Hills, IL 60061 Do Not Sell My Personal Information

School of Education

How to use technology in the classroom: benefits & effects, drexel university school of education.

Technology provides instant accessibility to information, which is why its presence in the classroom is so vital. Smart phones, computers, and tablets are already an omnipresent element of everyday life for students and teachers alike. It’s only natural that the use of technological devices in the classroom are explored to create meaningful learning experiences for students of all ages.

Utilizing different types of technology in the classroom, including a virtual classroom , creates learners who are actively engaged with learning objectives. The implementation of technology also creates pathways for differentiated instruction to meet the unique needs of students as individual learners within a broader classroom climate.

What Does Technology Integration Mean in Education?

Integration of technology in education simply refers to the use of technology to enhance the student learning experience. Utilizing different types of technology in the classroom, including a virtual classroom , creates learners who are actively engaged with learning objectives. The implementation of technology also creates pathways for differentiated instruction to meet the unique needs of students as individual learners within a broader classroom climate.

How to Integrate Technology in the Classroom

There is a common misconception that the integration of technology in the classroom can be a financial burden for school districts, but students do not necessarily need their own tablets or laptops to succeed with technology. The use of technology during whole-class instruction can foster student engagement for auditory and visual learners. Integrating simple technologies Power Points, games, internet homework assignments, or online grading systems can be difference makers in students' growth in the classroom.

Power Points and Games

Powerpoint presentations can be used to introduce a classroom concept while providing the opportunity for engagement. Along with the use of graphics and bulleted information, links to videos that accompany the ideas presented in the Powerpoint can be embedded within the slides.

Educational apps in the classroom like Kahoot can be used to review information after a lesson or unit. Teachers can create and share Kahoots with one another while students can create anonymous user names to participate in the game. This allows for whole-class participation from students who may usually be reluctant to participate in class. Kahoot is accessible to play on phones or computers and teachers can determine if they want students to work independently or be assigned to teams.

Internet Homework Assignments

Posting homework assignments online (via learning platforms like Blackboard, Brightspace, and Moodle) is one way many teachers can begin to integrate technology in the classroom. Assignments are easily accessible, which can increase student engagement and help students become more organized.

Online grading Systems

Communication is a key element in education that helps teachers, administrators, parents, and students recognize a student’s strengths and areas for improvement. Online grading systems such as PowerSchool open and facilitate lines of communication where teachers can post grades, analyze student attendance patterns, and manage transcript data.

Classroom Tablets

For classrooms that are fortunate enough to have tablets for students, technology can allow teachers to implement differentiation throughout instruction. Students can work at their own pace during assignments and teachers have the opportunity for one-on-one instruction.

Software such as Listserv allows parents to manage and organize their emails. Parents can receive updates from teachers about important announcements, newsletters, and discussions that keep frequent lines of communication open.

Strategies of Implementation for Age Groups

The benefits of technology can enhance any contemporary classroom. However, the way technology is implemented and used in classrooms of various grade levels and content areas will differ.

Ways to Incorporate Technology in the Elementary Classroom

For younger students, technology can be used to build fundamental skills to prepare them for future independent learning. Students can use interactive games to reinforce math, spelling, phonetic, and reading skills. Sites like Spelling Training permit students or teachers to upload their own word lists to practice word pronunciation and create interactive games. Parents can also use these sites to exercise fundamental skills beyond the walls of the classroom.

Using Technology in the Middle School Classroom

As students begin to take steps to transform into independent thinkers, they can use technology to develop basic life skills. Students at the middle school level will gain independence by having different teachers for each subject. Using technology to acquire skills such as conducting research can be applied to any content area. Websites like Easy Bib guide students to find credible sources through a variety of search engines and teach students to correctly cite those sources to avoid plagiarism.

Technology in High School Classrooms

Once students reach their secondary education, they can discover ways to use technology that can be beneficial for college and career development. Familiarization with Microsoft Office and Google Drive teach students to make spreadsheets, slide show presentations, and share documents where they can receive fluid feedback on their work. Many careers use these elements of Microsoft and Google to organize information and collaborate between colleagues or clients.

Why is it Important to Integrate Technology in the Classroom

Teachers often find success when they present the opportunity to use technology in the classroom. There are various benefits and effects when technology is used for educational instruction and some may argue that not all of the effects are positive. Having an infinite flow of information and entertainment available at any given time could be seen as a distraction, but if technology is integrated into the classroom with routines in place that are monitored or assessed, the pros of using technology in the classroom outweigh the cons.

Keeping students engaged

Active engagement is a key part of any lesson plan. Whether students are working independently or collaboratively, technology engages students because it is interactive.

Helps students with different learning styles

Not all students learn and retain information in the same way or at the same speed. Technology is an opportunity for teachers to differentiate instruction to modify information for the appropriate learning capabilities of their students. The use of technology can also allow students to work at their own paces.

Prepare students with life skills

Technology has become its own form of literacy because of how often it is used in everyday life. Many careers use at least one aspect of Microsoft Office or Google Drive on a daily basis: balancing budgets on spreadsheets, creating decks or slide shows to be presented, or attaching documents to emails to communicate important information. Allowing students to learn and refine these skills prepares them for life beyond the classroom.

For additional information about programs or certifications associated with technology in the classroom, visit Drexel University’s School of Education  Instructional Technology Specialist Certification program.

REALIZING THE PROMISE:

Leading up to the 75th anniversary of the UN General Assembly, this “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?” publication kicks off the Center for Universal Education’s first playbook in a series to help improve education around the world.

It is intended as an evidence-based tool for ministries of education, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to adopt and more successfully invest in education technology.

While there is no single education initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere—as school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies—an important first step is understanding how technology is used given specific local contexts and needs.

The surveys in this playbook are designed to be adapted to collect this information from educators, learners, and school leaders and guide decisionmakers in expanding the use of technology.  

Introduction

While technology has disrupted most sectors of the economy and changed how we communicate, access information, work, and even play, its impact on schools, teaching, and learning has been much more limited. We believe that this limited impact is primarily due to technology being been used to replace analog tools, without much consideration given to playing to technology’s comparative advantages. These comparative advantages, relative to traditional “chalk-and-talk” classroom instruction, include helping to scale up standardized instruction, facilitate differentiated instruction, expand opportunities for practice, and increase student engagement. When schools use technology to enhance the work of educators and to improve the quality and quantity of educational content, learners will thrive.

Further, COVID-19 has laid bare that, in today’s environment where pandemics and the effects of climate change are likely to occur, schools cannot always provide in-person education—making the case for investing in education technology.

Here we argue for a simple yet surprisingly rare approach to education technology that seeks to:

• Understand the needs, infrastructure, and capacity of a school system—the diagnosis;
• Survey the best available evidence on interventions that match those conditions—the evidence; and
• Closely monitor the results of innovations before they are scaled up—the prognosis.

RELATED CONTENT

Podcast: How education technology can improve learning for all students

To make ed tech work, set clear goals, review the evidence, and pilot before you scale

The framework.

Our approach builds on a simple yet intuitive theoretical framework created two decades ago by two of the most prominent education researchers in the United States, David K. Cohen and Deborah Loewenberg Ball. They argue that what matters most to improve learning is the interactions among educators and learners around educational materials. We believe that the failed school-improvement efforts in the U.S. that motivated Cohen and Ball’s framework resemble the ed-tech reforms in much of the developing world to date in the lack of clarity improving the interactions between educators, learners, and the educational material. We build on their framework by adding parents as key agents that mediate the relationships between learners and educators and the material (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The instructional core

Adapted from Cohen and Ball (1999)

As the figure above suggests, ed-tech interventions can affect the instructional core in a myriad of ways. Yet, just because technology can do something, it does not mean it should. School systems in developing countries differ along many dimensions and each system is likely to have different needs for ed-tech interventions, as well as different infrastructure and capacity to enact such interventions.

The diagnosis:

How can school systems assess their needs and preparedness.

A useful first step for any school system to determine whether it should invest in education technology is to diagnose its:

• Specific needs to improve student learning (e.g., raising the average level of achievement, remediating gaps among low performers, and challenging high performers to develop higher-order skills);
• Infrastructure to adopt technology-enabled solutions (e.g., electricity connection, availability of space and outlets, stock of computers, and Internet connectivity at school and at learners’ homes); and
• Capacity to integrate technology in the instructional process (e.g., learners’ and educators’ level of familiarity and comfort with hardware and software, their beliefs about the level of usefulness of technology for learning purposes, and their current uses of such technology).

Before engaging in any new data collection exercise, school systems should take full advantage of existing administrative data that could shed light on these three main questions. This could be in the form of internal evaluations but also international learner assessments, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and/or the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS). But if school systems lack information on their preparedness for ed-tech reforms or if they seek to complement existing data with a richer set of indicators, we developed a set of surveys for learners, educators, and school leaders. Download the full report to see how we map out the main aspects covered by these surveys, in hopes of highlighting how they could be used to inform decisions around the adoption of ed-tech interventions.

The evidence:

How can school systems identify promising ed-tech interventions.

There is no single “ed-tech” initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere, simply because school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies. Instead, to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning, decisionmakers should focus on four potential uses of technology that play to its comparative advantages and complement the work of educators to accelerate student learning (Figure 2). These comparative advantages include:

• Scaling up quality instruction, such as through prerecorded quality lessons.
• Facilitating differentiated instruction, through, for example, computer-adaptive learning and live one-on-one tutoring.
• Expanding opportunities to practice.
• Increasing learner engagement through videos and games.

Figure 2: Comparative advantages of technology

Here we review the evidence on ed-tech interventions from 37 studies in 20 countries*, organizing them by comparative advantage. It’s important to note that ours is not the only way to classify these interventions (e.g., video tutorials could be considered as a strategy to scale up instruction or increase learner engagement), but we believe it may be useful to highlight the needs that they could address and why technology is well positioned to do so.

When discussing specific studies, we report the magnitude of the effects of interventions using standard deviations (SDs). SDs are a widely used metric in research to express the effect of a program or policy with respect to a business-as-usual condition (e.g., test scores). There are several ways to make sense of them. One is to categorize the magnitude of the effects based on the results of impact evaluations. In developing countries, effects below 0.1 SDs are considered to be small, effects between 0.1 and 0.2 SDs are medium, and those above 0.2 SDs are large (for reviews that estimate the average effect of groups of interventions, called “meta analyses,” see e.g., Conn, 2017; Kremer, Brannen, & Glennerster, 2013; McEwan, 2014; Snilstveit et al., 2015; Evans & Yuan, 2020.)

*In surveying the evidence, we began by compiling studies from prior general and ed-tech specific evidence reviews that some of us have written and from ed-tech reviews conducted by others. Then, we tracked the studies cited by the ones we had previously read and reviewed those, as well. In identifying studies for inclusion, we focused on experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of education technology interventions from pre-school to secondary school in low- and middle-income countries that were released between 2000 and 2020. We only included interventions that sought to improve student learning directly (i.e., students’ interaction with the material), as opposed to interventions that have impacted achievement indirectly, by reducing teacher absence or increasing parental engagement. This process yielded 37 studies in 20 countries (see the full list of studies in Appendix B).

Scaling up standardized instruction

One of the ways in which technology may improve the quality of education is through its capacity to deliver standardized quality content at scale. This feature of technology may be particularly useful in three types of settings: (a) those in “hard-to-staff” schools (i.e., schools that struggle to recruit educators with the requisite training and experience—typically, in rural and/or remote areas) (see, e.g., Urquiola & Vegas, 2005); (b) those in which many educators are frequently absent from school (e.g., Chaudhury, Hammer, Kremer, Muralidharan, & Rogers, 2006; Muralidharan, Das, Holla, & Mohpal, 2017); and/or (c) those in which educators have low levels of pedagogical and subject matter expertise (e.g., Bietenbeck, Piopiunik, & Wiederhold, 2018; Bold et al., 2017; Metzler & Woessmann, 2012; Santibañez, 2006) and do not have opportunities to observe and receive feedback (e.g., Bruns, Costa, & Cunha, 2018; Cilliers, Fleisch, Prinsloo, & Taylor, 2018). Technology could address this problem by: (a) disseminating lessons delivered by qualified educators to a large number of learners (e.g., through prerecorded or live lessons); (b) enabling distance education (e.g., for learners in remote areas and/or during periods of school closures); and (c) distributing hardware preloaded with educational materials.

Prerecorded lessons

Technology seems to be well placed to amplify the impact of effective educators by disseminating their lessons. Evidence on the impact of prerecorded lessons is encouraging, but not conclusive. Some initiatives that have used short instructional videos to complement regular instruction, in conjunction with other learning materials, have raised student learning on independent assessments. For example, Beg et al. (2020) evaluated an initiative in Punjab, Pakistan in which grade 8 classrooms received an intervention that included short videos to substitute live instruction, quizzes for learners to practice the material from every lesson, tablets for educators to learn the material and follow the lesson, and LED screens to project the videos onto a classroom screen. After six months, the intervention improved the performance of learners on independent tests of math and science by 0.19 and 0.24 SDs, respectively but had no discernible effect on the math and science section of Punjab’s high-stakes exams.

One study suggests that approaches that are far less technologically sophisticated can also improve learning outcomes—especially, if the business-as-usual instruction is of low quality. For example, Naslund-Hadley, Parker, and Hernandez-Agramonte (2014) evaluated a preschool math program in Cordillera, Paraguay that used audio segments and written materials four days per week for an hour per day during the school day. After five months, the intervention improved math scores by 0.16 SDs, narrowing gaps between low- and high-achieving learners, and between those with and without educators with formal training in early childhood education.

Yet, the integration of prerecorded material into regular instruction has not always been successful. For example, de Barros (2020) evaluated an intervention that combined instructional videos for math and science with infrastructure upgrades (e.g., two “smart” classrooms, two TVs, and two tablets), printed workbooks for students, and in-service training for educators of learners in grades 9 and 10 in Haryana, India (all materials were mapped onto the official curriculum). After 11 months, the intervention negatively impacted math achievement (by 0.08 SDs) and had no effect on science (with respect to business as usual classes). It reduced the share of lesson time that educators devoted to instruction and negatively impacted an index of instructional quality. Likewise, Seo (2017) evaluated several combinations of infrastructure (solar lights and TVs) and prerecorded videos (in English and/or bilingual) for grade 11 students in northern Tanzania and found that none of the variants improved student learning, even when the videos were used. The study reports effects from the infrastructure component across variants, but as others have noted (Muralidharan, Romero, & Wüthrich, 2019), this approach to estimating impact is problematic.

A very similar intervention delivered after school hours, however, had sizeable effects on learners’ basic skills. Chiplunkar, Dhar, and Nagesh (2020) evaluated an initiative in Chennai (the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu, India) delivered by the same organization as above that combined short videos that explained key concepts in math and science with worksheets, facilitator-led instruction, small groups for peer-to-peer learning, and occasional career counseling and guidance for grade 9 students. These lessons took place after school for one hour, five times a week. After 10 months, it had large effects on learners’ achievement as measured by tests of basic skills in math and reading, but no effect on a standardized high-stakes test in grade 10 or socio-emotional skills (e.g., teamwork, decisionmaking, and communication).

Drawing general lessons from this body of research is challenging for at least two reasons. First, all of the studies above have evaluated the impact of prerecorded lessons combined with several other components (e.g., hardware, print materials, or other activities). Therefore, it is possible that the effects found are due to these additional components, rather than to the recordings themselves, or to the interaction between the two (see Muralidharan, 2017 for a discussion of the challenges of interpreting “bundled” interventions). Second, while these studies evaluate some type of prerecorded lessons, none examines the content of such lessons. Thus, it seems entirely plausible that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends largely on the quality of the recordings (e.g., the expertise of the educator recording it, the amount of preparation that went into planning the recording, and its alignment with best teaching practices).

These studies also raise three important questions worth exploring in future research. One of them is why none of the interventions discussed above had effects on high-stakes exams, even if their materials are typically mapped onto the official curriculum. It is possible that the official curricula are simply too challenging for learners in these settings, who are several grade levels behind expectations and who often need to reinforce basic skills (see Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Another question is whether these interventions have long-term effects on teaching practices. It seems plausible that, if these interventions are deployed in contexts with low teaching quality, educators may learn something from watching the videos or listening to the recordings with learners. Yet another question is whether these interventions make it easier for schools to deliver instruction to learners whose native language is other than the official medium of instruction.

Distance education

Technology can also allow learners living in remote areas to access education. The evidence on these initiatives is encouraging. For example, Johnston and Ksoll (2017) evaluated a program that broadcasted live instruction via satellite to rural primary school students in the Volta and Greater Accra regions of Ghana. For this purpose, the program also equipped classrooms with the technology needed to connect to a studio in Accra, including solar panels, a satellite modem, a projector, a webcam, microphones, and a computer with interactive software. After two years, the intervention improved the numeracy scores of students in grades 2 through 4, and some foundational literacy tasks, but it had no effect on attendance or classroom time devoted to instruction, as captured by school visits. The authors interpreted these results as suggesting that the gains in achievement may be due to improving the quality of instruction that children received (as opposed to increased instructional time). Naik, Chitre, Bhalla, and Rajan (2019) evaluated a similar program in the Indian state of Karnataka and also found positive effects on learning outcomes, but it is not clear whether those effects are due to the program or due to differences in the groups of students they compared to estimate the impact of the initiative.

In one context (Mexico), this type of distance education had positive long-term effects. Navarro-Sola (2019) took advantage of the staggered rollout of the telesecundarias (i.e., middle schools with lessons broadcasted through satellite TV) in 1968 to estimate its impact. The policy had short-term effects on students’ enrollment in school: For every telesecundaria per 50 children, 10 students enrolled in middle school and two pursued further education. It also had a long-term influence on the educational and employment trajectory of its graduates. Each additional year of education induced by the policy increased average income by nearly 18 percent. This effect was attributable to more graduates entering the labor force and shifting from agriculture and the informal sector. Similarly, Fabregas (2019) leveraged a later expansion of this policy in 1993 and found that each additional telesecundaria per 1,000 adolescents led to an average increase of 0.2 years of education, and a decline in fertility for women, but no conclusive evidence of long-term effects on labor market outcomes.

It is crucial to interpret these results keeping in mind the settings where the interventions were implemented. As we mention above, part of the reason why they have proven effective is that the “counterfactual” conditions for learning (i.e., what would have happened to learners in the absence of such programs) was either to not have access to schooling or to be exposed to low-quality instruction. School systems interested in taking up similar interventions should assess the extent to which their learners (or parts of their learner population) find themselves in similar conditions to the subjects of the studies above. This illustrates the importance of assessing the needs of a system before reviewing the evidence.

Preloaded hardware

Technology also seems well positioned to disseminate educational materials. Specifically, hardware (e.g., desktop computers, laptops, or tablets) could also help deliver educational software (e.g., word processing, reference texts, and/or games). In theory, these materials could not only undergo a quality assurance review (e.g., by curriculum specialists and educators), but also draw on the interactions with learners for adjustments (e.g., identifying areas needing reinforcement) and enable interactions between learners and educators.

In practice, however, most initiatives that have provided learners with free computers, laptops, and netbooks do not leverage any of the opportunities mentioned above. Instead, they install a standard set of educational materials and hope that learners find them helpful enough to take them up on their own. Students rarely do so, and instead use the laptops for recreational purposes—often, to the detriment of their learning (see, e.g., Malamud & Pop-Eleches, 2011). In fact, free netbook initiatives have not only consistently failed to improve academic achievement in math or language (e.g., Cristia et al., 2017), but they have had no impact on learners’ general computer skills (e.g., Beuermann et al., 2015). Some of these initiatives have had small impacts on cognitive skills, but the mechanisms through which those effects occurred remains unclear.

To our knowledge, the only successful deployment of a free laptop initiative was one in which a team of researchers equipped the computers with remedial software. Mo et al. (2013) evaluated a version of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program for grade 3 students in migrant schools in Beijing, China in which the laptops were loaded with a remedial software mapped onto the national curriculum for math (similar to the software products that we discuss under “practice exercises” below). After nine months, the program improved math achievement by 0.17 SDs and computer skills by 0.33 SDs. If a school system decides to invest in free laptops, this study suggests that the quality of the software on the laptops is crucial.

To date, however, the evidence suggests that children do not learn more from interacting with laptops than they do from textbooks. For example, Bando, Gallego, Gertler, and Romero (2016) compared the effect of free laptop and textbook provision in 271 elementary schools in disadvantaged areas of Honduras. After seven months, students in grades 3 and 6 who had received the laptops performed on par with those who had received the textbooks in math and language. Further, even if textbooks essentially become obsolete at the end of each school year, whereas laptops can be reloaded with new materials for each year, the costs of laptop provision (not just the hardware, but also the technical assistance, Internet, and training associated with it) are not yet low enough to make them a more cost-effective way of delivering content to learners.

Evidence on the provision of tablets equipped with software is encouraging but limited. For example, de Hoop et al. (2020) evaluated a composite intervention for first grade students in Zambia’s Eastern Province that combined infrastructure (electricity via solar power), hardware (projectors and tablets), and educational materials (lesson plans for educators and interactive lessons for learners, both loaded onto the tablets and mapped onto the official Zambian curriculum). After 14 months, the intervention had improved student early-grade reading by 0.4 SDs, oral vocabulary scores by 0.25 SDs, and early-grade math by 0.22 SDs. It also improved students’ achievement by 0.16 on a locally developed assessment. The multifaceted nature of the program, however, makes it challenging to identify the components that are driving the positive effects. Pitchford (2015) evaluated an intervention that provided tablets equipped with educational “apps,” to be used for 30 minutes per day for two months to develop early math skills among students in grades 1 through 3 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The evaluation found positive impacts in math achievement, but the main study limitation is that it was conducted in a single school.

Facilitating differentiated instruction

Another way in which technology may improve educational outcomes is by facilitating the delivery of differentiated or individualized instruction. Most developing countries massively expanded access to schooling in recent decades by building new schools and making education more affordable, both by defraying direct costs, as well as compensating for opportunity costs (Duflo, 2001; World Bank, 2018). These initiatives have not only rapidly increased the number of learners enrolled in school, but have also increased the variability in learner’ preparation for schooling. Consequently, a large number of learners perform well below grade-based curricular expectations (see, e.g., Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2011; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). These learners are unlikely to get much from “one-size-fits-all” instruction, in which a single educator delivers instruction deemed appropriate for the middle (or top) of the achievement distribution (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). Technology could potentially help these learners by providing them with: (a) instruction and opportunities for practice that adjust to the level and pace of preparation of each individual (known as “computer-adaptive learning” (CAL)); or (b) live, one-on-one tutoring.

Computer-adaptive learning

One of the main comparative advantages of technology is its ability to diagnose students’ initial learning levels and assign students to instruction and exercises of appropriate difficulty. No individual educator—no matter how talented—can be expected to provide individualized instruction to all learners in his/her class simultaneously . In this respect, technology is uniquely positioned to complement traditional teaching. This use of technology could help learners master basic skills and help them get more out of schooling.

Although many software products evaluated in recent years have been categorized as CAL, many rely on a relatively coarse level of differentiation at an initial stage (e.g., a diagnostic test) without further differentiation. We discuss these initiatives under the category of “increasing opportunities for practice” below. CAL initiatives complement an initial diagnostic with dynamic adaptation (i.e., at each response or set of responses from learners) to adjust both the initial level of difficulty and rate at which it increases or decreases, depending on whether learners’ responses are correct or incorrect.

Existing evidence on this specific type of programs is highly promising. Most famously, Banerjee et al. (2007) evaluated CAL software in Vadodara, in the Indian state of Gujarat, in which grade 4 students were offered two hours of shared computer time per week before and after school, during which they played games that involved solving math problems. The level of difficulty of such problems adjusted based on students’ answers. This program improved math achievement by 0.35 and 0.47 SDs after one and two years of implementation, respectively. Consistent with the promise of personalized learning, the software improved achievement for all students. In fact, one year after the end of the program, students assigned to the program still performed 0.1 SDs better than those assigned to a business as usual condition. More recently, Muralidharan, et al. (2019) evaluated a “blended learning” initiative in which students in grades 4 through 9 in Delhi, India received 45 minutes of interaction with CAL software for math and language, and 45 minutes of small group instruction before or after going to school. After only 4.5 months, the program improved achievement by 0.37 SDs in math and 0.23 SDs in Hindi. While all learners benefited from the program in absolute terms, the lowest performing learners benefited the most in relative terms, since they were learning very little in school.

We see two important limitations from this body of research. First, to our knowledge, none of these initiatives has been evaluated when implemented during the school day. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish the effect of the adaptive software from that of additional instructional time. Second, given that most of these programs were facilitated by local instructors, attempts to distinguish the effect of the software from that of the instructors has been mostly based on noncausal evidence. A frontier challenge in this body of research is to understand whether CAL software can increase the effectiveness of school-based instruction by substituting part of the regularly scheduled time for math and language instruction.

Live one-on-one tutoring

Recent improvements in the speed and quality of videoconferencing, as well as in the connectivity of remote areas, have enabled yet another way in which technology can help personalization: live (i.e., real-time) one-on-one tutoring. While the evidence on in-person tutoring is scarce in developing countries, existing studies suggest that this approach works best when it is used to personalize instruction (see, e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Banerji, Berry, & Shotland, 2015; Cabezas, Cuesta, & Gallego, 2011).

There are almost no studies on the impact of online tutoring—possibly, due to the lack of hardware and Internet connectivity in low- and middle-income countries. One exception is Chemin and Oledan (2020)’s recent evaluation of an online tutoring program for grade 6 students in Kianyaga, Kenya to learn English from volunteers from a Canadian university via Skype ( videoconferencing software) for one hour per week after school. After 10 months, program beneficiaries performed 0.22 SDs better in a test of oral comprehension, improved their comfort using technology for learning, and became more willing to engage in cross-cultural communication. Importantly, while the tutoring sessions used the official English textbooks and sought in part to help learners with their homework, tutors were trained on several strategies to teach to each learner’s individual level of preparation, focusing on basic skills if necessary. To our knowledge, similar initiatives within a country have not yet been rigorously evaluated.

Expanding opportunities for practice

A third way in which technology may improve the quality of education is by providing learners with additional opportunities for practice. In many developing countries, lesson time is primarily devoted to lectures, in which the educator explains the topic and the learners passively copy explanations from the blackboard. This setup leaves little time for in-class practice. Consequently, learners who did not understand the explanation of the material during lecture struggle when they have to solve homework assignments on their own. Technology could potentially address this problem by allowing learners to review topics at their own pace.

Practice exercises

Technology can help learners get more out of traditional instruction by providing them with opportunities to implement what they learn in class. This approach could, in theory, allow some learners to anchor their understanding of the material through trial and error (i.e., by realizing what they may not have understood correctly during lecture and by getting better acquainted with special cases not covered in-depth in class).

Existing evidence on practice exercises reflects both the promise and the limitations of this use of technology in developing countries. For example, Lai et al. (2013) evaluated a program in Shaanxi, China where students in grades 3 and 5 were required to attend two 40-minute remedial sessions per week in which they first watched videos that reviewed the material that had been introduced in their math lessons that week and then played games to practice the skills introduced in the video. After four months, the intervention improved math achievement by 0.12 SDs. Many other evaluations of comparable interventions have found similar small-to-moderate results (see, e.g., Lai, Luo, Zhang, Huang, & Rozelle, 2015; Lai et al., 2012; Mo et al., 2015; Pitchford, 2015). These effects, however, have been consistently smaller than those of initiatives that adjust the difficulty of the material based on students’ performance (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Muralidharan, et al., 2019). We hypothesize that these programs do little for learners who perform several grade levels behind curricular expectations, and who would benefit more from a review of foundational concepts from earlier grades.

We see two important limitations from this research. First, most initiatives that have been evaluated thus far combine instructional videos with practice exercises, so it is hard to know whether their effects are driven by the former or the latter. In fact, the program in China described above allowed learners to ask their peers whenever they did not understand a difficult concept, so it potentially also captured the effect of peer-to-peer collaboration. To our knowledge, no studies have addressed this gap in the evidence.

Second, most of these programs are implemented before or after school, so we cannot distinguish the effect of additional instructional time from that of the actual opportunity for practice. The importance of this question was first highlighted by Linden (2008), who compared two delivery mechanisms for game-based remedial math software for students in grades 2 and 3 in a network of schools run by a nonprofit organization in Gujarat, India: one in which students interacted with the software during the school day and another one in which students interacted with the software before or after school (in both cases, for three hours per day). After a year, the first version of the program had negatively impacted students’ math achievement by 0.57 SDs and the second one had a null effect. This study suggested that computer-assisted learning is a poor substitute for regular instruction when it is of high quality, as was the case in this well-functioning private network of schools.

In recent years, several studies have sought to remedy this shortcoming. Mo et al. (2014) were among the first to evaluate practice exercises delivered during the school day. They evaluated an initiative in Shaanxi, China in which students in grades 3 and 5 were required to interact with the software similar to the one in Lai et al. (2013) for two 40-minute sessions per week. The main limitation of this study, however, is that the program was delivered during regularly scheduled computer lessons, so it could not determine the impact of substituting regular math instruction. Similarly, Mo et al. (2020) evaluated a self-paced and a teacher-directed version of a similar program for English for grade 5 students in Qinghai, China. Yet, the key shortcoming of this study is that the teacher-directed version added several components that may also influence achievement, such as increased opportunities for teachers to provide students with personalized assistance when they struggled with the material. Ma, Fairlie, Loyalka, and Rozelle (2020) compared the effectiveness of additional time-delivered remedial instruction for students in grades 4 to 6 in Shaanxi, China through either computer-assisted software or using workbooks. This study indicates whether additional instructional time is more effective when using technology, but it does not address the question of whether school systems may improve the productivity of instructional time during the school day by substituting educator-led with computer-assisted instruction.

Increasing learner engagement

Another way in which technology may improve education is by increasing learners’ engagement with the material. In many school systems, regular “chalk and talk” instruction prioritizes time for educators’ exposition over opportunities for learners to ask clarifying questions and/or contribute to class discussions. This, combined with the fact that many developing-country classrooms include a very large number of learners (see, e.g., Angrist & Lavy, 1999; Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2015), may partially explain why the majority of those students are several grade levels behind curricular expectations (e.g., Muralidharan, et al., 2019; Muralidharan & Zieleniak, 2014; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Technology could potentially address these challenges by: (a) using video tutorials for self-paced learning and (b) presenting exercises as games and/or gamifying practice.

Video tutorials

Technology can potentially increase learner effort and understanding of the material by finding new and more engaging ways to deliver it. Video tutorials designed for self-paced learning—as opposed to videos for whole class instruction, which we discuss under the category of “prerecorded lessons” above—can increase learner effort in multiple ways, including: allowing learners to focus on topics with which they need more help, letting them correct errors and misconceptions on their own, and making the material appealing through visual aids. They can increase understanding by breaking the material into smaller units and tackling common misconceptions.

In spite of the popularity of instructional videos, there is relatively little evidence on their effectiveness. Yet, two recent evaluations of different versions of the Khan Academy portal, which mainly relies on instructional videos, offer some insight into their impact. First, Ferman, Finamor, and Lima (2019) evaluated an initiative in 157 public primary and middle schools in five cities in Brazil in which the teachers of students in grades 5 and 9 were taken to the computer lab to learn math from the platform for 50 minutes per week. The authors found that, while the intervention slightly improved learners’ attitudes toward math, these changes did not translate into better performance in this subject. The authors hypothesized that this could be due to the reduction of teacher-led math instruction.

More recently, Büchel, Jakob, Kühnhanss, Steffen, and Brunetti (2020) evaluated an after-school, offline delivery of the Khan Academy portal in grades 3 through 6 in 302 primary schools in Morazán, El Salvador. Students in this study received 90 minutes per week of additional math instruction (effectively nearly doubling total math instruction per week) through teacher-led regular lessons, teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons, or similar lessons assisted by technical supervisors with no content expertise. (Importantly, the first group provided differentiated instruction, which is not the norm in Salvadorian schools). All three groups outperformed both schools without any additional lessons and classrooms without additional lessons in the same schools as the program. The teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons performed 0.24 SDs better, the supervisor-led lessons 0.22 SDs better, and the teacher-led regular lessons 0.15 SDs better, but the authors could not determine whether the effects across versions were different.

Together, these studies suggest that instructional videos work best when provided as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, regular instruction. Yet, the main limitation of these studies is the multifaceted nature of the Khan Academy portal, which also includes other components found to positively improve learner achievement, such as differentiated instruction by students’ learning levels. While the software does not provide the type of personalization discussed above, learners are asked to take a placement test and, based on their score, educators assign them different work. Therefore, it is not clear from these studies whether the effects from Khan Academy are driven by its instructional videos or to the software’s ability to provide differentiated activities when combined with placement tests.

Games and gamification

Technology can also increase learner engagement by presenting exercises as games and/or by encouraging learner to play and compete with others (e.g., using leaderboards and rewards)—an approach known as “gamification.” Both approaches can increase learner motivation and effort by presenting learners with entertaining opportunities for practice and by leveraging peers as commitment devices.

There are very few studies on the effects of games and gamification in low- and middle-income countries. Recently, Araya, Arias Ortiz, Bottan, and Cristia (2019) evaluated an initiative in which grade 4 students in Santiago, Chile were required to participate in two 90-minute sessions per week during the school day with instructional math software featuring individual and group competitions (e.g., tracking each learner’s standing in his/her class and tournaments between sections). After nine months, the program led to improvements of 0.27 SDs in the national student assessment in math (it had no spillover effects on reading). However, it had mixed effects on non-academic outcomes. Specifically, the program increased learners’ willingness to use computers to learn math, but, at the same time, increased their anxiety toward math and negatively impacted learners’ willingness to collaborate with peers. Finally, given that one of the weekly sessions replaced regular math instruction and the other one represented additional math instructional time, it is not clear whether the academic effects of the program are driven by the software or the additional time devoted to learning math.

The prognosis:

How can school systems adopt interventions that match their needs.

Here are five specific and sequential guidelines for decisionmakers to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning.

1. Take stock of how your current schools, educators, and learners are engaging with technology .

Carry out a short in-school survey to understand the current practices and potential barriers to adoption of technology (we have included suggested survey instruments in the Appendices); use this information in your decisionmaking process. For example, we learned from conversations with current and former ministers of education from various developing regions that a common limitation to technology use is regulations that hold school leaders accountable for damages to or losses of devices. Another common barrier is lack of access to electricity and Internet, or even the availability of sufficient outlets for charging devices in classrooms. Understanding basic infrastructure and regulatory limitations to the use of education technology is a first necessary step. But addressing these limitations will not guarantee that introducing or expanding technology use will accelerate learning. The next steps are thus necessary.

“In Africa, the biggest limit is connectivity. Fiber is expensive, and we don’t have it everywhere. The continent is creating a digital divide between cities, where there is fiber, and the rural areas.  The [Ghanaian] administration put in schools offline/online technologies with books, assessment tools, and open source materials. In deploying this, we are finding that again, teachers are unfamiliar with it. And existing policies prohibit students to bring their own tablets or cell phones. The easiest way to do it would have been to let everyone bring their own device. But policies are against it.” H.E. Matthew Prempeh, Minister of Education of Ghana, on the need to understand the local context.

2. Consider how the introduction of technology may affect the interactions among learners, educators, and content .

Our review of the evidence indicates that technology may accelerate student learning when it is used to scale up access to quality content, facilitate differentiated instruction, increase opportunities for practice, or when it increases learner engagement. For example, will adding electronic whiteboards to classrooms facilitate access to more quality content or differentiated instruction? Or will these expensive boards be used in the same way as the old chalkboards? Will providing one device (laptop or tablet) to each learner facilitate access to more and better content, or offer students more opportunities to practice and learn? Solely introducing technology in classrooms without additional changes is unlikely to lead to improved learning and may be quite costly. If you cannot clearly identify how the interactions among the three key components of the instructional core (educators, learners, and content) may change after the introduction of technology, then it is probably not a good idea to make the investment. See Appendix A for guidance on the types of questions to ask.

3. Once decisionmakers have a clear idea of how education technology can help accelerate student learning in a specific context, it is important to define clear objectives and goals and establish ways to regularly assess progress and make course corrections in a timely manner .

For instance, is the education technology expected to ensure that learners in early grades excel in foundational skills—basic literacy and numeracy—by age 10? If so, will the technology provide quality reading and math materials, ample opportunities to practice, and engaging materials such as videos or games? Will educators be empowered to use these materials in new ways? And how will progress be measured and adjusted?

4. How this kind of reform is approached can matter immensely for its success.

It is easy to nod to issues of “implementation,” but that needs to be more than rhetorical. Keep in mind that good use of education technology requires thinking about how it will affect learners, educators, and parents. After all, giving learners digital devices will make no difference if they get broken, are stolen, or go unused. Classroom technologies only matter if educators feel comfortable putting them to work. Since good technology is generally about complementing or amplifying what educators and learners already do, it is almost always a mistake to mandate programs from on high. It is vital that technology be adopted with the input of educators and families and with attention to how it will be used. If technology goes unused or if educators use it ineffectually, the results will disappoint—no matter the virtuosity of the technology. Indeed, unused education technology can be an unnecessary expenditure for cash-strapped education systems. This is why surveying context, listening to voices in the field, examining how technology is used, and planning for course correction is essential.

5. It is essential to communicate with a range of stakeholders, including educators, school leaders, parents, and learners .

Technology can feel alien in schools, confuse parents and (especially) older educators, or become an alluring distraction. Good communication can help address all of these risks. Taking care to listen to educators and families can help ensure that programs are informed by their needs and concerns. At the same time, deliberately and consistently explaining what technology is and is not supposed to do, how it can be most effectively used, and the ways in which it can make it more likely that programs work as intended. For instance, if teachers fear that technology is intended to reduce the need for educators, they will tend to be hostile; if they believe that it is intended to assist them in their work, they will be more receptive. Absent effective communication, it is easy for programs to “fail” not because of the technology but because of how it was used. In short, past experience in rolling out education programs indicates that it is as important to have a strong intervention design as it is to have a solid plan to socialize it among stakeholders.

Beyond reopening: A leapfrog moment to transform education?

On September 14, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) will host a webinar to discuss strategies, including around the effective use of education technology, for ensuring resilient schools in the long term and to launch a new education technology playbook “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?”

file-pdf Full Playbook – Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all? file-pdf References file-pdf Appendix A – Instruments to assess availability and use of technology file-pdf Appendix B – List of reviewed studies file-pdf Appendix C – How may technology affect interactions among students, teachers, and content?

About the Authors

Alejandro j. ganimian, emiliana vegas, frederick m. hess.

• Media Relations
• Terms and Conditions
• Privacy Policy

Donate Subscribe to our newsletter

Search form

Technology integration practices (tip) guide, a process to design lessons that integrate technology in ways that support students to engage in content, connect and collaborate, and learn new skills in supported and equitable ways..

In this moment, we must ensure we are taking care of each other as human beings first. Before engaging in this, or any guide, we encourage you to assess your head and your heart.  In order to be of optimal service to students, we must first reflect on where we are and what we need from ourselves and our community. We want to remind you that learning can’t happen when students don’t feel safe.  In order to establish a safe space, we need to prioritize building and re-building community with students, their families, and our colleagues. We must remember to center what’s important, not just what’s urgent in order to be of service to all learners.  This is not a linear process and your feelings and experiences, and those of your students, will fluctuate. We ask you to keep this actively in mind as you use this guide.

Introduction

As technology shapes our public discourse, and students engage with technology on a daily basis, it becomes imperative for classrooms to serve as spaces to teach about the responsible and ethical uses of technology while meeting the diverse needs of students and the various ways they access technology. There is an additional level of urgency as our classrooms have swiftly moved to remote learning with little, if any, preparation of teachers or acknowledgment of the equity issues access may present for families, students, and the learning community.  We need to remember that our teaching should not focus on the tools, but rather the students’ needs as human beings, interests as learners, community building, and the content. Our collective work is to be ready and prepared to seize the unexpected opportunities this disruption gives us to actually create a more equitable educational system for all learners.

The Technology Integration Practices (TIP) Guide supports school districts, schools, teachers, and instructional coaches to infuse technologies and research-based pedagogy to ensure that instructional practices are anchored in the learning needs and interests of all students.

To build equitable learning communities, school districts must meet a set of basic requirements to make certain all students can engage remotely as well as ensure teachers are prepared to support equitable remote learning. 

The first step in planning is for the teacher to consider instructional goals and student interests in order to design a lesson or lesson sequence that reflects these goals. The following is a set of planning questions to complete to help ground technology integration goals and ensure the use of technology supports planned student learning objectives.

Click here for a writable PDF of the worksheet below.

Once the learning objectives are set and technology integration goals established, the teacher can begin planning lessons. When creating experiences for students to engage in remotely, the following conditions can support the creation of an equitable space in which students learn with one another and engage with content in a collaborative and collective way.

Build Equitable Learning Communities

Types of tasks, assess learning.

Committing to a reflection practice is one of the best ways to authentically learn and strengthen your teaching practice.  Documenting your experience and reflecting on the glows and grows helps develop your ideas in real time. The following is a set of reflection questions for you to consider after teaching a remote learning experience.

Designed in collaboration with Molly B. Zielezinksi, MBZ Labs | mbzlabs.com

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Terms of Use
• Non-Discrimination
• Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

Teaching Commons Conference 2024

Join us for the Teaching Commons Conference 2024 –  Cultivating Connection. Friday, May 10.

Technology Integration Framework

Main navigation.

The integration of technology into the classroom, whether face-to-face, online or hybrid presents both opportunities and challenges. Fortunately, there is a rich body of educational research focused on this intersection. This research includes both practical application and theoretical frameworks. One such framework, TPACK, argues that in modern contexts, technological knowledge is an essential skill for all teachers to possess. This is because technology itself is woven inextricably through most aspects of modern society. This article will introduce the TPACK framework so that you can begin to consider it when integrating technology in your teaching.

The TPACK framework was first introduced by Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler of Michigan State University in 2006. This framework identifies three domains of knowledge needed to successfully integrate educational technology:

• Content Knowledge (CK)
• Pedagogical Knowledge (PK)
• Technological Knowledge (TK) 

Each domain also intersects with the other domains. The knowledge, skills, and abilities developed where all three domains overlap and integrate cohesively is referred to as TPACK and forms the basis for effective technology integration. In order to teach effectively in today's modern classroom, it is important to balance all three of these domains.

In TPACK, all three domains of content, pedagogy, and technology are of equal importance and interdependent with one another.

Content, pedagogy, and technology integration

Throughout the course design process, consider how technology will integrate with content and pedagogy. In the same way that learning assessments and activities are selected to support the learning objectives, technology tools and abilities should be selected based on how they enhance and support the assessments and activities. With TPACK we see that technology is like salt, flavorings and broth in a stew. It enhances and supports the whole, and is not just a garnish to be added at the end of the course design process. 

TPACK manifests as a variety of skills such as the ability to evaluate and select the right tool for your pedagogic need, finding digital content specific to your discipline area, or operating a specific tool effectively.

An example of the TPACK for a social science class might be the knowledge of how to manage and assess student contributions to an online discussion forum in Canvas (TK), where students cite evidence arguing for and against (PK) the authenticity of authorship of key historical manuscripts (CK). 

In a medical context, an instructor might require knowledge of the interactive features of Zoom (TK) in order to deliver both a lecture (CK) and a perform a telehealth standardized patient simulation (PK), in a remote context.

Applying TPACK for students

The TPACK framework can also be extended to understand how students might engage with the instructional elements of the course. Particularly in an online course, careful consideration should be put into the TPACK intersections. If students are not comfortable or proficient with a technology tool, they may struggle to engage with the content. If pedagogic goals are unclear or poorly aligned, students may struggle to select an appropriate technology tool or technique to accomplish the course learning goals and objectives.

At Stanford, there are many experts to support instructors in developing the TPACK needed to effectively facilitate in person and online learning. Connect to academic technology specialists in CTL or in your program for more. 

• TPACK resources from author Punya Mishra

Mishra, P., &  Koehler, M. J.  (2006).  Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for teacher knowledge .  Teachers College Record. 108 (6), 1017-1054.

Why technology in education must be on our terms

The relationship between technology and education has been a topic of interest for decades. While technology presents remarkable opportunities, it's essential to approach its integration thoughtfully and responsibly. The  2023 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report offers valuable insights into how technology has transformed education, its benefits, limitations, and the challenges associated with its implementation.  

The flagship UNESCO report highlights the lack of appropriate governance and regulation, especially amidst rapidly emerging generative artificial intelligence tools. It urges countries to urgently set their own terms for the way technology is designed and used in learning so that it never replaces in-person, teacher-led instruction, and supports quality education for all. Here are some insights from the report. 

What has been the evolution of technology in education?

While the use of technology in education dates back to the emergence of radio in the 1920s, it's the digital technology of the last 40 years that holds the greatest potential for educational transformation. This period has witnessed a revolution in content distribution, learning management systems, testing methods, and language instruction. From augmented reality to personalized tutoring, technology has reshaped our learning experiences. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have amplified the capabilities of educational technology, even raising questions about the role of human interaction in education.

What is the impact of technology on learning?

Technology undeniably enhances learning in specific contexts. However, it is crucial to recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach does not apply. Digital technology's primary contributions to learning lie in its ability to personalize instruction and extend available learning time. Additionally, it fosters engagement by encouraging interaction and collaboration among learners. Notably, the report highlights that technology need not be cutting-edge to be effective. For instance, in China, providing high-quality lesson recordings to rural students resulted in a 32% improvement in outcomes and a 38% reduction in urban-rural learning gaps.

How do we evaluate technology's effectiveness in education?

The report emphasizes that evaluating technology's impact must focus on learning outcomes rather than the mere implementation of digital tools. Cases such as Peru, where laptops were distributed without integrating them into pedagogy, demonstrate that technology alone doesn't guarantee improved learning. Similarly, exclusive reliance on remote instruction in the United States widened learning gaps. The report further warns against inappropriate or excessive technology use, citing instances of negative links between excessive ICT use and student performance.

How reliable is the evidence?

The rapid evolution of technology often outpaces its evaluation. Evidence primarily comes from affluent countries, raising concerns about generalizability. The report reveals that a mere 7% of education technology companies in the United Kingdom conducted randomized controlled trials, reflecting a lack of rigorous evaluation. The challenge of isolating technology's impact from other factors complicates precise assessment. Additionally, the influence of technology companies on evidence generation poses credibility challenges.

What are the recommendations for effective integration of technology in education?

As artificial intelligence gains prominence, the report emphasizes that not all technological change equates to progress. The adoption of technology must be guided by a learner-centric, rights-based framework, ensuring appropriateness, equity, evidence-based decisions, and sustainability. The report presents a four-point compass for policy-makers:

• Look down: Evaluate the context and learning objectives to ensure technology choices strengthen education systems.
• Look back: Prioritize marginalized groups to ensure that technology benefits all learners and narrows educational disparities.
• Look up: Ensure evidence-based decision-making and consider hidden long-term costs before scaling up technology initiatives.
• Look forward: Align technology integration with sustainable development goals, considering financial implications, children's well-being, and environmental impact.

Technology in education: A tool on whose terms

From 4 to 7 September, UNESCO's  Digital Learning Week will gather policy-makers, practitioners, educators, private sector partners, researchers and development agencies to jointly explore how public digital learning platforms and generative AI can be steered to reinforce and enrich human-centered quality education.

• Download the  2023 GEM Report  
• Read the  press release  
• Join the conversation on social media via  #TechOnOurTerms
• More on the  Global Education Monitoring Report
• More on UNESCO's  Digital Learning Week

Related items

• Artificial intelligence
• Educational technology
• Digital learning week
• Topics: Display
• See more add

More on this subject

Other recent articles

This site belongs to UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning

IIEP Learning Portal

Search form

• issue briefs
• Improve learning

Information and communication technology (ICT) in education

Information and communications technology (ict) can impact student learning when teachers are digitally literate and understand how to integrate it into curriculum..

Schools use a diverse set of ICT tools to communicate, create, disseminate, store, and manage information.(6) In some contexts, ICT has also become integral to the teaching-learning interaction, through such approaches as replacing chalkboards with interactive digital whiteboards, using students’ own smartphones or other devices for learning during class time, and the “flipped classroom” model where students watch lectures at home on the computer and use classroom time for more interactive exercises.

When teachers are digitally literate and trained to use ICT, these approaches can lead to higher order thinking skills, provide creative and individualized options for students to express their understandings, and leave students better prepared to deal with ongoing technological change in society and the workplace.(18)

ICT issues planners must consider include: considering the total cost-benefit equation, supplying and maintaining the requisite infrastructure, and ensuring investments are matched with teacher support and other policies aimed at effective ICT use.(16)

Issues and Discussion

Digital culture and digital literacy: Computer technologies and other aspects of digital culture have changed the ways people live, work, play, and learn, impacting the construction and distribution of knowledge and power around the world.(14) Graduates who are less familiar with digital culture are increasingly at a disadvantage in the national and global economy. Digital literacy—the skills of searching for, discerning, and producing information, as well as the critical use of new media for full participation in society—has thus become an important consideration for curriculum frameworks.(8)

In many countries, digital literacy is being built through the incorporation of information and communication technology (ICT) into schools. Some common educational applications of ICT include:

• One laptop per child: Less expensive laptops have been designed for use in school on a 1:1 basis with features like lower power consumption, a low cost operating system, and special re-programming and mesh network functions.(42) Despite efforts to reduce costs, however, providing one laptop per child may be too costly for some developing countries.(41)
• Tablets: Tablets are small personal computers with a touch screen, allowing input without a keyboard or mouse. Inexpensive learning software (“apps”) can be downloaded onto tablets, making them a versatile tool for learning.(7)(25) The most effective apps develop higher order thinking skills and provide creative and individualized options for students to express their understandings.(18)
• Interactive White Boards or Smart Boards : Interactive white boards allow projected computer images to be displayed, manipulated, dragged, clicked, or copied.(3) Simultaneously, handwritten notes can be taken on the board and saved for later use. Interactive white boards are associated with whole-class instruction rather than student-centred activities.(38) Student engagement is generally higher when ICT is available for student use throughout the classroom.(4)
• E-readers : E-readers are electronic devices that can hold hundreds of books in digital form, and they are increasingly utilized in the delivery of reading material.(19) Students—both skilled readers and reluctant readers—have had positive responses to the use of e-readers for independent reading.(22) Features of e-readers that can contribute to positive use include their portability and long battery life, response to text, and the ability to define unknown words.(22) Additionally, many classic book titles are available for free in e-book form.
• Flipped Classrooms: The flipped classroom model, involving lecture and practice at home via computer-guided instruction and interactive learning activities in class, can allow for an expanded curriculum. There is little investigation on the student learning outcomes of flipped classrooms.(5) Student perceptions about flipped classrooms are mixed, but generally positive, as they prefer the cooperative learning activities in class over lecture.(5)(35)

ICT and Teacher Professional Development: Teachers need specific professional development opportunities in order to increase their ability to use ICT for formative learning assessments, individualized instruction, accessing online resources, and for fostering student interaction and collaboration.(15) Such training in ICT should positively impact teachers’ general attitudes towards ICT in the classroom, but it should also provide specific guidance on ICT teaching and learning within each discipline. Without this support, teachers tend to use ICT for skill-based applications, limiting student academic thinking.(32) To sup­port teachers as they change their teaching, it is also essential for education managers, supervisors, teacher educators, and decision makers to be trained in ICT use.(11)

Ensuring benefits of ICT investments: To ensure the investments made in ICT benefit students, additional conditions must be met. School policies need to provide schools with the minimum acceptable infrastructure for ICT, including stable and affordable internet connectivity and security measures such as filters and site blockers. Teacher policies need to target basic ICT literacy skills, ICT use in pedagogical settings, and discipline-specific uses. (21) Successful imple­mentation of ICT requires integration of ICT in the curriculum. Finally, digital content needs to be developed in local languages and reflect local culture. (40) Ongoing technical, human, and organizational supports on all of these issues are needed to ensure access and effective use of ICT. (21)

Resource Constrained Contexts: The total cost of ICT ownership is considerable: training of teachers and administrators, connectivity, technical support, and software, amongst others. (42) When bringing ICT into classrooms, policies should use an incremental pathway, establishing infrastructure and bringing in sustainable and easily upgradable ICT. (16) Schools in some countries have begun allowing students to bring their own mobile technology (such as laptop, tablet, or smartphone) into class rather than providing such tools to all students—an approach called Bring Your Own Device. (1)(27)(34) However, not all families can afford devices or service plans for their children. (30) Schools must ensure all students have equitable access to ICT devices for learning.

Inclusiveness Considerations

Digital Divide: The digital divide refers to disparities of digital media and internet access both within and across countries, as well as the gap between people with and without the digital literacy and skills to utilize media and internet.(23)(26)(31) The digital divide both creates and reinforces socio-economic inequalities of the world’s poorest people. Policies need to intentionally bridge this divide to bring media, internet, and digital literacy to all students, not just those who are easiest to reach.

Minority language groups: Students whose mother tongue is different from the official language of instruction are less likely to have computers and internet connections at home than students from the majority. There is also less material available to them online in their own language, putting them at a disadvantage in comparison to their majority peers who gather information, prepare talks and papers, and communicate more using ICT. (39) Yet ICT tools can also help improve the skills of minority language students—especially in learning the official language of instruction—through features such as automatic speech recognition, the availability of authentic audio-visual materials, and chat functions. (2)(17)

Students with different styles of learning: ICT can provide diverse options for taking in and processing information, making sense of ideas, and expressing learning. Over 87% of students learn best through visual and tactile modalities, and ICT can help these students ‘experience’ the information instead of just reading and hearing it. (20)(37) Mobile devices can also offer programmes (“apps”) that provide extra support to students with special needs, with features such as simplified screens and instructions, consistent placement of menus and control features, graphics combined with text, audio feedback, ability to set pace and level of difficulty, appropriate and unambiguous feedback, and easy error correction. (24)(29)

Plans and policies

• India [ PDF ]
• Detroit, USA [ PDF ]
• Finland [ PDF ]
• Alberta Education. 2012. Bring your own device: A guide for schools . Retrieved from http://education.alberta.ca/admin/technology/research.aspx
• Alsied, S.M. and Pathan, M.M. 2015. ‘The use of computer technology in EFL classroom: Advantages and implications.’ International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies . 1 (1).
• BBC. N.D. ‘What is an interactive whiteboard?’ Retrieved from http://www.bbcactive.com/BBCActiveIdeasandResources/Whatisaninteractivewhiteboard.aspx
• Beilefeldt, T. 2012. ‘Guidance for technology decisions from classroom observation.’ Journal of Research on Technology in Education . 44 (3).
• Bishop, J.L. and Verleger, M.A. 2013. ‘The flipped classroom: A survey of the research.’ Presented at the 120th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. Atlanta, Georgia.
• Blurton, C. 2000. New Directions of ICT-Use in Education . United National Education Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO).
• Bryant, B.R., Ok, M., Kang, E.Y., Kim, M.K., Lang, R., Bryant, D.P. and Pfannestiel, K. 2015. ‘Performance of fourth-grade students with learning disabilities on multiplication facts comparing teacher-mediated and technology-mediated interventions: A preliminary investigation. Journal of Behavioral Education. 24.
• Buckingham, D. 2005. Educación en medios. Alfabetización, aprendizaje y cultura contemporánea, Barcelona, Paidós.
• Buckingham, D., Sefton-Green, J., and Scanlon, M. 2001. 'Selling the Digital Dream: Marketing Education Technologies to Teachers and Parents.'  ICT, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum: Subject to Change . London: Routledge.
• "Burk, R. 2001. 'E-book devices and the marketplace: In search of customers.' Library Hi Tech 19 (4)."
• Chapman, D., and Mählck, L. (Eds). 2004. Adapting technology for school improvement: a global perspective. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning.
• Cheung, A.C.K and Slavin, R.E. 2012. ‘How features of educational technology applications affect student reading outcomes: A meta-analysis.’ Educational Research Review . 7.
• Cheung, A.C.K and Slavin, R.E. 2013. ‘The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis.’ Educational Research Review . 9.
• Deuze, M. 2006. 'Participation Remediation Bricolage - Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture.' The Information Society . 22 .
• Dunleavy, M., Dextert, S. and Heinecke, W.F. 2007. ‘What added value does a 1:1 student to laptop ratio bring to technology-supported teaching and learning?’ Journal of Computer Assisted Learning . 23.
• Enyedy, N. 2014. Personalized Instruction: New Interest, Old Rhetoric, Limited Results, and the Need for a New Direction for Computer-Mediated Learning . Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center.
• Golonka, E.M., Bowles, A.R., Frank, V.M., Richardson, D.L. and Freynik, S. 2014. ‘Technologies for foreign language learning: A review of technology types and their effectiveness.’ Computer Assisted Language Learning . 27 (1).
• Goodwin, K. 2012. Use of Tablet Technology in the Classroom . Strathfield, New South Wales: NSW Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre.
• Jung, J., Chan-Olmsted, S., Park, B., and Kim, Y. 2011. 'Factors affecting e-book reader awareness, interest, and intention to use.' New Media & Society . 14 (2)
• Kenney, L. 2011. ‘Elementary education, there’s an app for that. Communication technology in the elementary school classroom.’ The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications . 2 (1).
• Kopcha, T.J. 2012. ‘Teachers’ perceptions of the barriers to technology integration and practices with technology under situated professional development.’ Computers and Education . 59.
• Miranda, T., Williams-Rossi, D., Johnson, K., and McKenzie, N. 2011. "Reluctant readers in middle school: Successful engagement with text using the e-reader.' International journal of applied science and technology . 1 (6).
• Moyo, L. 2009. 'The digital divide: scarcity, inequality and conflict.' Digital Cultures . New York: Open University Press.
• Newton, D.A. and Dell, A.G. 2011. ‘Mobile devices and students with disabilities: What do best practices tell us?’ Journal of Special Education Technology . 26 (3).
• Nirvi, S. (2011). ‘Special education pupils find learning tool in iPad applications.’ Education Week . 30 .
• Norris, P. 2001. Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide . Cambridge, USA: Cambridge University Press.
• Project Tomorrow. 2012. Learning in the 21st century: Mobile devices + social media = personalized learning . Washington, D.C.: Blackboard K-12.
• Riasati, M.J., Allahyar, N. and Tan, K.E. 2012. ‘Technology in language education: Benefits and barriers.’ Journal of Education and Practice . 3 (5).
• Rodriquez, C.D., Strnadova, I. and Cumming, T. 2013. ‘Using iPads with students with disabilities: Lessons learned from students, teachers, and parents.’ Intervention in School and Clinic . 49 (4).
• Sangani, K. 2013. 'BYOD to the classroom.' Engineering & Technology . 3 (8).
• Servon, L. 2002. Redefining the Digital Divide: Technology, Community and Public Policy . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
• Smeets, E. 2005. ‘Does ICT contribute to powerful learning environments in primary education?’ Computers and Education. 44 .
• Smith, G.E. and Thorne, S. 2007. Differentiating Instruction with Technology in K-5 Classrooms . Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
• Song, Y. 2014. '"Bring your own device (BYOD)" for seamless science inquiry in a primary school.' Computers & Education. 74 .
• Strayer, J.F. 2012. ‘How learning in an inverted classroom influences cooperation, innovation and task orientation.’ Learning Environment Research. 15.
• Tamim, R.M., Bernard, R.M., Borokhovski, E., Abrami, P.C. and Schmid, R.F. 2011. ‘What forty years of research says about the impact of technology on learning: A second-order meta-analysis and validation study. Review of Educational Research. 81 (1).
• Tileston, D.W. 2003. What Every Teacher Should Know about Media and Technology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
• Turel, Y.K. and Johnson, T.E. 2012. ‘Teachers’ belief and use of interactive whiteboards for teaching and learning.’ Educational Technology and Society . 15(1).
• Volman, M., van Eck, E., Heemskerk, I. and Kuiper, E. 2005. ‘New technologies, new differences. Gender and ethnic differences in pupils’ use of ICT in primary and secondary education.’ Computers and Education. 45 .
• Voogt, J., Knezek, G., Cox, M., Knezek, D. and ten Brummelhuis, A. 2013. ‘Under which conditions does ICT have a positive effect on teaching and learning? A call to action.’ Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 29 (1).
• Warschauer, M. and Ames, M. 2010. ‘Can one laptop per child save the world’s poor?’ Journal of International Affairs. 64 (1).
• Zuker, A.A. and Light, D. 2009. ‘Laptop programs for students.’ Science. 323 (5910).

Related information

• Information and communication technologies (ICT)

Learning, Design, and Technology pp 3929–3952 Cite as

Gauging the Effectiveness of Educational Technology Integration in Education: What the Best-Quality Meta-analyses Tell Us

• Robert M. Bernard 4 ,
• Eugene Borokhovski 5 ,
• Richard F. Schmid 4 &
• Rana M. Tamim 6  
• Reference work entry
• First Online: 15 October 2023

26 Accesses

This chapter examines quantitative research in the literature of technology integration in education from the perspective of the meta-analyses of primary studies conducted from 1982 to 2015. The intent is to identify and review the best of these meta-analyses. Fifty-two meta-analyses were originally identified and evaluated for methodological quality using the Meta-Analysis Methodological Quality Review Guide ( MMQRG ), and the best 20 were selected and are included for review here. Some describe the effects of technology integration within specific content areas and some are more general. Technology integration in education is one of the most fluid areas of research, reflecting the incredible pace of the evolution of computer-based tools and applications. Just navigating through the vast primary empirical literature presents a real challenge to those interested in evaluating the educational effectiveness of technology. Systematic reviews in the field are numerous and quite diverse in their methodological quality, introducing potential bias in the interpretation of findings (Bernard RM, Borokhovski E, Schmid RF, Tamim RM. J Comput High Educ 26(3):183–209, 2014), thus bringing into question their applied value. This chapter identifies and reviews the best of these meta-analyses. In addition to overall statistical analyses of this collection, the findings of six of the most recent and best meta-analyses (after 2010) are summarized in more detail. The discussion focuses on the interpretation of the current findings, considers future alternatives to primary research in this area, and examines how meta-analysts might address them.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution .

Buying options

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

(References marked with an * are meta-analyses in this review)

Google Scholar  

*Bayraktar, S. (2000). A meta-analysis on the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction in science education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ohio University, Athens.

Bernard, R. M. (2014). Things I have learned about meta-analysis since 1990: Reducing bias in search of ‘The Big Picture’ Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology , 40 (3). Available from http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/issue/current

Bernard, R. M., Abrami, P. C., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Tamim, R., Surkes, M., … Bethel, E. C. (2009). A meta-analysis of three interaction treatments in distance education. Review of Educational Research, 79 (3), 1243–1289. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654309333844

Article   Google Scholar  

Bernard, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Schmid, R. F., & Tamim, R. M. (2014). An exploration of bias in meta-analysis: The case of technology integration research in higher education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 26 (3), 183–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-014-9084-z

Bethel, E. C., & Bernard, R. M. (2010). Developments and trends in synthesizing diverse forms of evidence: Beyond comparisons between distance education and classroom instruction. Distance Education, 31 (3), 231–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2010.513950

Borenstein, M., Hedges, L., Higgins, J., & Rothstein, H. (2009). Introduction to meta-analysis . Chichester, UK: Wiley.

Book   Google Scholar  

Bushman, B. J., & Wang, M. C. (2009). Vote counting methods in meta-analysis. In H. M. Cooper, L. V. Hedges, & J. C. Valentine (Eds.), Handbook of research synthesis (2nd ed., pp. 207–220). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

*Cheung, A. C., & Slavin, R. E. (2012). How features of educational technology applications affect student reading outcomes: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 7 (3), 198–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2012.05.002

*Cheung, A. C. K., & Slavin, R. E. (2013). The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 9, 88–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2013.01.001

Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53 , 445–449. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543053004445

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 42 (2), 7–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299088

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Cooper. (2017). Research synthesis and meta-analysis: A step-by-step approach (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

*D’Angelo, C., Rutstein, D., Harris, C., Bernard, R., Borokhovski, E., & Haertel, G. (2014). Simulations for STEM learning: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Retrieved from SRI International website: https://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/publications/simulations-for-stem-learning-full-report.pdf

Friedman, L. (2001). Why vote-count reviews don’t count. Biological Psychiatry, 49 (2), 161–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3223(00)01075-1

*Goldberg, A., Russell, M., & Cook, A. (2003). The effect of computers on student writing: A meta-analysis of studies from 1992 to 2002. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 2 (1). Retrieved from http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/jtla/article/view/1661/1503

*Grgurović, M., Chapelle, C. A., & Shelley, M. C. (2013). A meta-analysis of effectiveness studies on computer technology-supported language learning. ReCALL, 25 (2), 165–198. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344013000013

Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement . New York, NY: Routledge.

Hedges, L. V., & Olkin, I. (1980). Vote counting methods in research synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 88 , 359–369. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.88.2.359

Hedges, L. V., & Olkin, I. (1985). Statistical methods for meta-analysis . Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

*Hsu, Y. C. (2003). The effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction in statistics education: A meta-analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Arizona, Tucson.

Jackson, G. B. (1980). Methods for integrative reviews. Review of Educational Research, 50 , 438–460. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543050003438

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology, Research & Development, 42 (2), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299087

*Kuchler, J. M. (1998). The effectiveness of using computers to teach secondary school (grades 6–12) mathematics: A meta-analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA.

*Lejeune, J. V. (2002). A meta-analysis of outcomes from the use of computer-simulated experiments in science education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Texas A & M University, College Station.

*Lin, H. (2015). A meta-synthesis of empirical research on the effectiveness of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in SLA. Language Learning & Technology, 19 (2), 85–117. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2015/lin.pdf

Lipsey, M. W., & Wilson, D. B. (2001). Practical meta-analysis . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

*Michko, G. M. (2007). A meta-analysis of the effects of teaching and learning with technology on student outcomes in undergraduate engineering education (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Houston, Houston.

*Onuoha, C. O. (2007). Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of computer-based laboratory versus traditional hands-on laboratory in college and pre-college science instructions (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Capella University, Minneapolis.

Polanin, J. R., Maynard, B. R., & Dell, N. A. (2017). Overviews in educational research: A systematic review and analysis. Review of Educational Research, 87 (1), 172–203. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316631117

Rothstein, H. R., Sutton, A. J., & Borenstein, M. (Eds.). (2005). Publication bias in meta-analysis-prevention, assessment and adjustments . Chichester, UK: Wiley.

*Schenker, J. D. (2007). The effectiveness of technology use in statistics instruction in higher education: A meta-analysis using hierarchical linear modeling (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Kent State University, Kent.

*Schmid, R. F., Bernard, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Tamim, R. M., Abrami, P. C., Surkes, M. A., … Woods, J. (2014). The effects of technology use in postsecondary education: A meta-analysis of classroom applications. Computers & Education, 72 , 271–291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.11.002

Sitzmann, T. (2011). A meta-analytic examination of the instructional effectiveness of computer-based simulation games. Personnel Psychology, 64 (2), 489–528. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2011.01190.x

*Sosa, G. W., Berger, D. E., Saw, A. T., & Mary, J. C. (2011). Effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction in statistics: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 81 (1), 97–128. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310378174

*Takacs, Z. K., Swart, E. K., & Bus, A. G. (2015). Benefits and pitfalls of multimedia and interactive features in technology-enhanced storybooks: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 85 , 698–739. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654314566989

Tamim, R. M., Bernard, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Abrami, P. C., & Schmid, R. F. (2011). What forty years of research says about the impact of technology on learning: A second-order meta-analysis and validation study. Review of Educational Research., 81 (3), 4–28. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310393361

Tamim, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Bernard, R. M., Schmid, R. F., & Abrami, P. C. (2015, April). A Methodological quality tool for meta-analysis: The case of the educational technology literature . A paper presented to the systematic review and meta-analysis SIG at the 2015 meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Chicago.

*Timmerman, C. E., & Kruepke, K. A. (2006). Computer-assisted instruction, media richness, and college student performance. Communication Education, 55(1) , 73–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520500489666

*Torgerson, C. J., & Elbourne, D. (2002). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of information and communication technology (ICT) on the teaching of spelling. Journal of Research in Reading, 25 (2), 129–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.00164

*Yaakub, M. N. (1998). Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction in the technical education and training (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg.

Yettick, H. (2016). Five simple steps for reading policy research . Bolder, CO: National Educational Policy Center, University of Colorado. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/research-reading

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Education, Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP), Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Robert M. Bernard & Richard F. Schmid

Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP), Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Eugene Borokhovski

Zayed University, Dubai, UAE

Rana M. Tamim

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert M. Bernard .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Department of Learning Technologies, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

J. Michael Spector

Instructional Design and Technology, Virginia Tech School of Education, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Barbara B. Lockee

Marcus D. Childress

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Bernard, R.M., Borokhovski, E., Schmid, R.F., Tamim, R.M. (2023). Gauging the Effectiveness of Educational Technology Integration in Education: What the Best-Quality Meta-analyses Tell Us. In: Spector, J.M., Lockee, B.B., Childress, M.D. (eds) Learning, Design, and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17461-7_109

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17461-7_109

Published : 15 October 2023

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-17460-0

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-17461-7

eBook Packages : Education Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Education

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Acknowledgements
• Author List
• Part 1. Foundations
• 1.1. Technology Integration
• 1.2. Connectivism
• 1.3. Lifelong Learning
• 1.4. Information Literacy
• Part 2. Classroom Applications
• 2.1. Blogging
• 2.2. Coding
• 2.3. Computational Thinking
• 2.4. English Language Learning
• 2.5. Foreign Language Teaching, Part 1
• 2.6. Foreign Language Teaching, Part 2
• 2.7. Gamification
• 2.8. iPad Learning Centers
• 2.9. Open Educational Resources
• 2.10. STEAM Mindset
• Part 3. Legal, Ethical, and Socially-Responsible Use
• 3.1. Copyright and Open Licensing
• 3.2. Digital Equity
• 3.3. Online Professionalism
• 3.4. Online Safety
• 3.5. Universal Design for Learning
• Glossary of Terms
• Index of Topics
• Translations

Technology Integration

Choose a sign-in option.

Tools and Settings

Questions and Tasks

Citation and Embed Code

Learning Objectives

• Develop a foundational understanding of learning theories driving current technology development and adoption for K-12;
• Develop a foundational understanding of prominent technology integration models;
• Consider your own values guiding effective technology integration in the classroom.

Technology Integration in education refers to the meaningful use of technology to achieve learning goals. This chapter seeks to answer the question: what is effective technology integration? Though on the surface this may seem like a simple question, it is actually quite difficult to answer, because any answer will be based upon our beliefs and values, how we view learning, and how we view technology's role in the learning process. To approach this question, we will proceed in this chapter by (1) revisiting some common learning theories and how they might influence our perspective of technology's role in learning, (2) exploring the beliefs and values that individuals and institutions might apply when evaluating technology use in the classroom, and (3) providing an overview of some common technology integration models that are used to help teachers better understand the process and goals of technology integration.

a learning theory popularized in the mid-20th century, it treats learning as a response to stimulus and it conditions students to properly react to stimuli; the brain's processes are not considered and viewed as a "black box"

a learning theory that focuses on brain functions and how information is processed, stored, retrieved, and applied

legal, ethical, and institutional requirements of technology use (in contrast to their pragmatic use)

a learning theory that believes that learning need not be isolated to the mind, but becoming a learned and capable citizen in a digital society requires learners to become connected with one another in such a way that they can make use of the network as an extension of their own mind and body

a learning theory in which students construct artifacts in the outside world that support and reflect their internal construction of knowledge

a learning theory that considers individual and social factors by holding that learning is constructed by learners on top of previous experience, attitudes, and beliefs

the ease at which a new technology can be learned, implemented, or managed at the teacher- or student-level

infrastructural compatibility, cost, lifespan, and management scale of new technologies

evidence-based efficiency or efficacy of a technology to help improve student learning

a technology integration model that holds that technology use either Replaces, Amplifies, or Transforms (RAT) pedagogical practices (Hughes, Thomas, & Scharber, 2006)

the meaningful implementation of technology in educational settings to achieve learning goals

a technology integration model that illustrates the complex interplay between Technological Knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge, and Content Knowledge

Learning Theories

Ever since there have been educators trying to teach students, there have been theories that guide how those educators view the learning process. These learning theories encompass our beliefs about the nature of knowledge and how a person learns.

Debates surrounding learning theories have existed for millennia, and even in the modern world, there is great diversity in how scientists, psychologists, and educators view learning. Some of the major learning theories that shape modern conversations surrounding technology integration include behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, constructionism, and connectivism. Each of these theories has been studied and written about at length, and it is impossible to devote sufficient time and attention to each theory in the limited space provided in this chapter. Rather, all educators should study competing learning theories and develop their own understanding of how people learn. In this chapter, we will merely provide an extremely high level overview of each of these theories, briefly explaining what each entails and what each might mean for teaching and learning with technology.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism was popularized in the mid-20th century as psychologists studied behavior patterns and response systems in humans and other animals. Behaviorism treats learning as a response to stimulus. That is, humans and other animals are trained to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli, such as salivating when a dinner bell rings or repeating a memorized fact to receive some external reward. Teaching and learning, then, is a process of conditioning students to properly react to stimuli, and technology can help facilitate this training by providing incentives to learning, such as games or other rewards, or by providing systems to efficiently develop stimulus-response conditioning, such as drill-and-kill practices.

Cognitivism

Cognitivism arose as an alternative to behaviorism in part because behaviorism treated the processes of the brain as an imperceptible black box, wherein understanding how the brain worked was not considered important for helping people learn. Cognitivism, therefore, dealt with brain functions and how information is processed, stored, retrieved, and applied. By treating humans as thinking machines, rather than as animals to be trained, research in cognitivism for teaching and learning focused on helping people develop efficient teaching and studying strategies that would allow their brains to make meaningful use of presented information. Through this lens, technology can help in providing information and study resources that assist the brain in efficiently storing and retrieving information, such as through the use of mnemonic devices or multiple modalities (e.g., video, audio).

Constructivism

However, both behaviorism and cognitivism tended to treat learning the same for all humans, despite their age, culture, or personal experiences. Recognizing that these factors might influence how learning occurs, constructivism arose as a means for understanding how individual and social factors might influence the process of learning for different groups of people and individuals. Constructivism holds that learning is constructed by learners on top of previous experience, attitudes, and beliefs. This means that for learning to occur, new learning experiences must take into consideration these human factors and assist the individual in assimilating new knowledge to their existing knowledge constructs. Thus, if you are teaching students about fractions, you must teach them using language that they will understand and connect their learning to experiences in their own lives that will have meaning for them. Technology can help the constructivist learning process by making abstract concepts and facts more grounded in personal experiences and the values of learners and also by allowing the learning experience to be differentiated for individual learners (e.g., through personalized developmentally-appropriate software).

Constructionism

Believing that knowledge is constructed in the mind, some then took constructivism to the stage of a pedagogical process and called it constructionism . From the constructionist viewpoint, the most effective way to teach in a constructivist manner is to have students construct artifacts in the outside world that support and reflect their internal construction of knowledge. For instance, if a student needs to learn about basic engineering concepts, in order to build the internal mind models necessary to understand engineering, students must construct external models, which might take the form of a bridge or catapult. Technology can support constructionist approaches to teaching and learning by empowering students and teachers to create and construct external models reflecting internal mind models with resources and possibilities not available in the real world. By using a simulation, for instance, students can construct any structure or machine without the need of expensive materials, or they might seek to understand economic principles of supply and demand by creating a simulated community that allows them to influence supply chains in ways that would not be possible in the real world.

Connectivism

Even with these competing theories, some still believed that learning experiences and processes as they actually exist in the real world were not fully represented, and this has become especially obvious now that we live in a society that is heavily networked and connected via electronic and social media. All traditional views about learning had placed knowledge and learning squarely in the mind or body of the student, but modern technologies in particular lead us to consider whether all memory, information processing, and other aspects of learning traditionally ascribed to the mind might not also be distributed with external devices. Connectivism  holds that the process and goals of learning in a highly networked and connected world is different than learning in the predigital world, because learners are now persistently connected to information sources and other resources through their electronic devices, such as smartphones or laptops. From the connectivist perspective, learning need not be isolated to the mind, but becoming a learned and capable citizen in a digital society requires learners to become connected with one another in such a way that they can make use of the network as an extension of their own mind and body. Thus from a connectivist perspective, the goal of education is to more fully and efficiently connect learners with one another and with information resources in a manner that is persistent and in which learners can make ongoing use of the network to solve problems. From this perspective, technology can be used to improve learning experiences by more fully connecting students with one another and information resources in a persistent manner.

Differing Assumptions

Each of these learning theories views the learner, the learner's relationship with society, and the learner's relationship to technology quite differently. For that reason, when we begin to consider what constitutes effective technology integration, we must acknowledge that different people and groups who have differing assumptions about how students learn will view technology integration very differently. A connectivist would believe that guiding students to use modern technologies to develop networked relationships with peers and experts in the field is an essential element of learning. However, this may require very little information processing and recall to be occurring in the mind of the learner, which would seem dubious to a cognitivist. Similarly, a constructionist would look to an architecturally sound structure created in a physics engine as evidence of understanding of mathematical engineering concepts, while a behaviorist might consider such an artifact useless in determining the student's ability to recite foundational mathematical equations that every engineer should know. In short, the effectiveness of technology integration requires evidence that the integration is effective, but what is believed to be effective for learning will depend upon our view of learning.

Thus, the first step toward defining effective technology integration for yourself is to consider how you define learning and what constitutes evidence of learning. Similarly as teachers work within educational institutions, the criteria by which they and their students are evaluated will rely upon one or more of the learning theories mentioned above. If there is misalignment between how the teacher views learning and how the institution views learning, then misunderstandings will arise, because what the teacher views to be effective technology integration may not be recognized or valued by the institution and vice versa.

As such, teachers need to decide for themselves what learning is to them and also understand what learning means in the institutions in which they operate. So, before you can ask yourself what is effective technology integration, you must first ask yourself the following two questions:

• What are my beliefs about learning and how learning occurs?
• What are my institution's beliefs about learning and how learning occurs?

Learning Check

Which learning theory emphasizes networked thinking?

Which learning theory emphasizes stimulus and response relationships?

Which learning theory emphasizes the inner workings of the mind?

Which learning theory emphasizes prior personal and cultural experiences?

Beliefs and Values

Once you understand how both you and your institution view the learning process, then you can move to the next step and consider your beliefs and values with regard to technology. Some people might value the acquisition of technical skills for the sake of technical skills to be a good thing, while others might believe that technology should only be used if it is helping students to learn content better or to learn more. Though all students should learn some level of technical skill competency in order to make them suitable for the modern workplace (e.g., productivity software, keyboarding, basic programming), most technologies in education are not focused on this type of learning.

Rather, when we talk about technology integration, we are generally talking about using technology to improve the learning of content knowledge, such as science, math, history, or language arts. When viewed in this way, teachers and institutions need to consider how well new technologies will help them to teach age-old content in better or more efficient ways and what are the opportunity costs associated with a shift to new technologies.

There is a common myth in education related to technology adoption that older or more experienced teachers are less likely to adopt new technologies and to innovate upon their practice than younger teachers. Though this may sometimes be the case, many people do not stop to consider why this might be happening. Evidence suggests that age ultimately has nothing to do with a person's willingness to innovate, but rather, experience may help people to more quickly identify the transient nature of some changes or that some so-called innovations are actually harmful or ineffective for students.

In the case of technology in education, experienced teachers may have a wealth of understanding of how their students learn and how they can teach in effective ways, whereas new teachers may be eager to try new things and to adopt technologies that they think will help them be effective in the classroom. The problem is that sometimes the most eager teachers are also the least capable of making informed decisions, because they may lack the experiential knowledge necessary to make informed choices about these technologies, how much time to invest in learning them, and what to expect in terms of student outcomes. In every case, a teacher's beliefs and values will drive how they view technology integration, whether old or young, and their willingness to use technologies in their classrooms.

Similarly, schools and districts have their own beliefs and values about technology, how it should be used, and how it will impact students. For this reason it is important for us to understand each of these groups' beliefs and values, how they may be different, and how this influences the process of technology integration. Though personal beliefs and values are complicated and will vary between different people, we will consider four areas of belief and value that guide teachers and institutions in their technology integration practices. These include: Proof, Facility, Compliance, and Institutionalization.

First, proof  deals with the efficiency or efficacy of a technology to help improve student learning. Proof requires some form of discernible or measurable outcome and will be most important to teachers in the classroom or to principals and other administrators who invest time and money into technology and must prove that it is improving student achievement. From a teacher's or principal's perspective, if a technology does not directly improve students' ability to learn in a discernible or measurable way, then the value of that technology will be dubious. Teachers are stressed for time and they do not want to invest the effort necessary to learn and implement new technologies if they are not going to see actual results in how their students are learning. Likewise, principals face financial and other stressors which require them to provide evidence of student learning and that they are being wise stewards of institutional resources.

Proof might be slightly different for teachers and principals, however, due to their level of vision and operation. A teacher will want evidence that a technology works in her classroom through the creation of student artifacts or saved time, while a principal might want evidence that a technology works in all classes, preferring more generalizable research evidence over anecdotal evidence from one or two teachers. This means that teachers and principals might not always see eye-to-eye when it comes to identifying meaningful evidence for technology integration, because a classroom teacher will not care about what the research says if she is not seeing success in her classroom, and a principal might not care what an individual teacher says as long as the evidence from other teachers is strong.

Second, facility (as in facile or easy) deals with the ease at which a new technology can be learned, implemented, or managed at the teacher- or student-level. Teachers want to use tools that are easy to learn, and the greater the learning curve associated with a new technology the less likely a teacher will be willing to invest the time and energy necessary to learn it. Similarly, if the technology requires teachers to invest a large amount of time troubleshooting or providing tutorials to students, then they are much less likely to use it. Teachers value technologies that they can pick up, easily use, and put away. Technology support personnel value these technologies as well, because it means that they can provide less support to teachers in learning and troubleshooting them, but principals and other administrators may not believe that facility is very important in comparison to other values, because in their eyes the value of the technology for learning would outweigh the difficulties in terms of time or effort. Thus, a principal might require all teachers to learn a new technology, because she believes that it will drastically improve student learning, even though that technology is very difficult to use and requires high levels of support.

Third, compliance  deals with the legal and ethical requirements of technology use in contrast to their pragmatic use. Those who value compliance will ensure that new technologies meet security requirements or legal requirements regarding student security. Teachers and administrators rarely think about compliance when integrating new technologies, or if they do, they only do so as an afterthought. Rather, strategic technology support personnel deal most heavily with this issue and seek to ensure that technologies that are used in the classroom and across institutions will not pose legal risk to the institution. Thus, the teacher may have students use an online blogging platform without letting school or district personnel know, because those same personnel might tell her to stop, because the platform does not meet mandated security, accessibility, or privacy requirements. Similarly, filtering of web searches is typically managed at the school or district level to ensure compliance with state and federal regulations, while classroom teachers might complain about how strict filtering systems are or may have little say in determining what is allowed and what is banned. In short, compliance is an essential consideration for schools to ensure safe, legal, and ethical technology use, but it is typically only considered by those in specialized positions, such as technology administrators or those in a disabilities office.

Institutionalization

And fourth, institutionalization deals with infrastructural compatibility, cost, lifespan, and management scale of new technologies. When a teacher purchases a new device or set of devices for her classroom she may not think ahead about the long-term costs associated with those devices (e.g., the price of apps or software updates, breakage, replacement), whether or not the devices are compatible with the school's technology infrastructure (e.g., can they access the network?), or the work involved in keeping those devices up-to-date and working. Rather, technology support personnel often understand these issues very well, and this will guide them to prefer certain technologies over others. For instance, technology personnel might want to provide Chromebooks to students (which are easy to manage at scale) instead of iPads (which are not), even though teachers might want iPads. This can create a tension between technology personnel and teachers, where teachers want to use technologies that may be too difficult to support or technology personnel might want to use technologies that have limited classroom value.

Differing Beliefs and Values

Based on these four values, it is easy to see why technology integration in school settings can be so complicated. On the one hand, a principal might value proof by wanting to use technologies that are shown through research to improve student learning, while the teacher may want to use a technology that is easy to learn, and a technology support professional might want to use a technology that is compliant and that can easily be implemented at an institutional level. The problem is that a single technology rarely does all things well, and for that reason, certain groups will gravitate toward certain technologies while others will take a very different view.

Thus, though a classroom teacher might want to purchase iPads, a technology administrator might want to purchase Chromebooks, and a principal might want to purchase PC or Mac laptops. Each person in this scenario has certain values driving why they are picking one technology over another, and if the teacher does not understand the reason why a principal or tech support professional might have a differing view about what technologies to adopt, this can cause problems for integrating technology, because the teacher may not be able to get the technologies that she wants, she may not have the support necessary to manage and support them, or she might be required to use a technology that she does not want to use.

In all cases, the best approach to technology integration involves considering the beliefs and values of everyone involved in the institution and making selections and necessary compromises to best meet their needs. As a teacher, you must understand at least at a basic level the beliefs and values that principals and technology support personnel are working under so that you can understand their perspectives and help to inform technology decision-making with your own. So, you must consider the following:

• What are the most important factors that will guide my own technology integration decision-making?
• How do I communicate and collaborate with others who may have different values?

Which two values would probably be most important to a classroom teacher ?

Which two values would probably be most important to a technology administrator ?

Which two values would probably be most important to a principal ?

Technology Integration Models

Once you have a basic grasp of your own approach to learning and the beliefs and values that will guide your technology integration, you are ready to begin exploring how to make this happen effectively. Technology integration models are theoretical models that are designed to help teachers, researchers, and others in the education field to think about technology integration in meaningful ways. There are many, many technology integration models that are used by different groups. Some models are very popular while some are only used by very small groups of people, and some are very similar to one another, while others are very unique. Rather than provide an exhausting description of each technology integration model, we will now proceed by providing a brief overview of a few that we believe to be most widely used or valuable to help you begin thinking about technology integration in your classroom. The models we will explore will include the following: TPACK, RAT, SAMR, and PICRAT.

TPACK is the most commonly used technology integration model amongst educational researchers. The goal of TPACK is to provide educators with a framework that is useful for understanding technology's role in the educational process. At its heart, TPACK holds that educators deal with three types of core knowledge on a daily basis: technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge. Content knowledge is knowledge of one's content area such as science, math, or social studies. Pedagogical knowledge is knowledge of how to teach. And technological knowledge is knowledge of how to use technology tools.

These core knowledge domains, however, interact with and build on each other in important and complicated ways. For instance, if you are going to teach kindergarten mathematics, you must both understand mathematics (i.e. content knowledge) and how to teach (i.e. pedagogical knowledge), but you must also understand the relationship between pedagogy and the content area. That is you must understand how to teach mathematics, which is very different from teaching other subject areas, because the pedagogical strategies you use to teach mathematics will be specific to that content domain. When we merge content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge together, a hybrid domain emerges called pedagogical content knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge includes knowledge about content and pedagogy, but it also includes the specific knowledge necessary to teach the specified content in a meaningful way.

TPACK goes on to explain that when we try to integrate technology into a classroom setting, we are not merely using technological knowledge, but rather, we are merging technological knowledge with pedagogical content knowledge to produce something new. TPACK or technological pedagogical content knowledge is the domain of knowledge wherein technology, pedagogy, and content meet to create a meaningful learning experience. From this, educators need to recognize that merely using technology in a classroom is not sufficient to produce truly meaningful technology integration. Rather, teachers must understand how technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge interact with one another to produce a learning experience that is meaningful for students in specific situations.

Knowing how to send an email would be an example of what kind of knowledge?

Knowing how to teach biology would be an example of what kind of knowledge?

Knowing how to use virtual reality headsets to teach about the Renaissance would be an example of what kind of knowledge?

How useful does TPACK seem to you?

• Not at all useful
• Somewhat useful
• Very useful
• Extremely useful

RAT and SAMR

RAT and SAMR are very similar technology integration models, though RAT has been used more often by researchers and SAMR has been used more often by teachers. Both of these models assume that the introduction of technology into a learning experience will have some effect on what is happening, and they try to help us understand what this effect is and how we should be using technology in meaningful ways.

RAT is an acronym for replace, amplify, and transform, and the model holds that when technology is used in a teaching setting, technology is either used to replace a traditional approach to teaching (without any discernible difference on student outcomes), to amplify the learning that was occurring, or to transform learning in ways that were not possible without the technology (Hughes, Thomas, & Scharber, 2006). Similarly, SAMR  is an acronym for substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition (Puentedura, 2003). To compare it to RAT, substitution and replacement both deal with technology use that merely substitutes or replaces previous use with no functional improvement on efficiency. Redefinition and transformation both deal with technology use that empowers teachers and students to learn in new, previously impossible ways.

The difference between these two models rests in the center letters, wherein RAT's amplification is separated into two stages as SAMR's augmentation and modification. All of these stages deal with technology use that functionally improves what is happening in the classroom, but in the SAMR model, augmentation represents a small improvement, and modification represents a large improvement.

Both of these models are helpful for leading educators to consider the question: what effect is using the technology having on my practice? If the technology is merely replacing or substituting previous practice, then it is a less meaningful use of technology. Whereas technology use that transforms or redefines classroom practice is considered to be more valuable.

Building off of the ideas presented in the models above, we will now provide one final model that may serve as a helpful starting point for teachers to begin thinking about technology integration. PICRAT  assumes that there are two foundational questions that a teacher must ask about any technology use in their classrooms. These include:

• What is the students' relationship to the technology? (PIC: Passive, Interactive, Creative)
• How is the teacher's use of technology influencing traditional practice? (RAT: Replace, Amplify, Transform; cf. Hughes, Thomas, & Scharber, 2006)

The provided illustration maps these two questions on a two-dimensional grid, and by answering these two questions, teachers can get a sense for where any particular practice falls.

For instance, if a history teacher shifts from writing class notes on a chalkboard to providing these notes in a PowerPoint presentation, this would likely be categorized in the bottom-left (PR) section of the grid, because the teacher is using the technology to merely replace a traditional practice, and the students are passively taking notes on what they see. In contrast, if an English teacher guides students in developing a creative writing blog, which they use to elicit feedback from peers, parents, and the online community on their short stories, this would likely be categorized in the top-right (CT) section, because the teacher is using the technology to transform her practice to do something that would have been impossible without the technology, and the students are using the technology as a tool for creation.

Experience has shown that as teachers begin using technologies in their classrooms, they will typically begin doing so in a manner that falls closer to the bottom-left of the grid. However, many of the most exciting and valuable uses of technology for teaching rest firmly in the top-most and right-most sections of this grid. For this reason, teachers need to be encouraged to evolve their practice to continually move from the bottom-left (PR) to the top-right (CT) of the grid.

Application

• A teacher uses PowerPoint as part of her lecture.
• Students are asked to keep an online journal in a blog.
• Students pass a touch-enabled tablet around the room and write a collaborative poem.
• Students play an online role-playing game about John Smith and Pocahontas.
• Students write answers to math problems on an interactive whiteboard.
• Students organize geometric shapes in patterns on an iPad.
• A teacher creates a video to introduce herself to her students on the first day.
• Students make an animated video to tell a story.
• A teacher designs a WebQuest (inquiry-driven online lesson) for students to complete on their own time.
• A teacher uses Facebook to remind her students about homework.

What does PCK stand for?

Passive Content Knowledge

Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Passive Creative Knowledge

Pedagogical Creative Knowledge

What does PIC in PICRAT stand for?

Pedagogical, Informational, Constructive

Primary, Interactional, Concomitant

Practical, Intuitive, Collaborative

Passive, Interactive, Creative

What does RAT stand for?

Replace, Amplify, Transform

Redefinition, Augmentation, Transition

Remedial, Acceptable, Transitive

Represent, Approximate, Triangulate

How useful does PICRAT seem to you?

Model Comparison

Which model do you think would be most useful to you in the classroom?

This chapter has provided a theoretical foundation for considering how we might determine the effectiveness of technology integration in educational settings. As you can probably tell, there are no easy, universal answers for determining whether a particular use of technology is meaningful or effective. Rather, our determination of effectiveness relies heavily upon our own understanding and acceptance of learning theories, our beliefs and values, and the technology integration models that guide our thinking. Thus, as you approach technology integration in your own teaching, you should use these foundational understandings to articulate the value of your decisions and to guide you in making choices that will be beneficial for your students.

Kimmons, R., Graham, C., & West, R. (2020). The PICRAT model for technology integration in teacher preparation. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 20 (1).

Hughes, J., Thomas, R., & Scharber, C. (2006, March). Assessing technology integration: The RAT–replacement, amplification, and transformation-framework. In  Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference  (pp. 1616-1620). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Brigham Young University

This content is provided to you freely by EdTech Books.

Access it online or download it at https://edtechbooks.org/k12handbook/technology_integration .

• Our Mission

Technology Integration

Explore new tools and strategies for empowering students to fully participate in a connected, technology-rich society.

.css-13ygqr6:hover{background-color:#d1ecfa;}.css-13ygqr6:visited{color:#979797;}.css-13ygqr6.node--video:before{content:'';display:inline-block;height:20px;width:20px;margin:0 4px 0 0;background:url(data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20width%3D%2242px%22%20height%3D%2242px%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%2042%2042%22%20alt%3D%22Video%20icon%22%20data-testid%3D%22play-circle%22%20version%3D%221.1%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%3E%3Ctitle%3EVideo%3C%2Ftitle%3E%3Cdefs%3E%3C%2Fdefs%3E%3Cg%20id%3D%22play-circle%22%20fill%3D%22%23000000%22%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M21%2C0%20C9.38%2C0%200%2C9.38%200%2C21%20C0%2C32.62%209.38%2C42%2021%2C42%20C32.62%2C42%2042%2C32.62%2042%2C21%20C42%2C9.38%2032.62%2C0%2021%2C0%20L21%2C0%20Z%20M21%2C36.7733333%20C12.32%2C36.7733333%205.22666667%2C29.7266667%205.22666667%2C21%20C5.22666667%2C12.2733333%2012.32%2C5.22666667%2021%2C5.22666667%20C29.68%2C5.22666667%2036.7733333%2C12.32%2036.7733333%2C21%20C36.7733333%2C29.68%2029.68%2C36.7733333%2021%2C36.7733333%20L21%2C36.7733333%20Z%22%20id%3D%22circle%22%3E%3C%2Fpath%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M29.54%2C19.88%20L17.7333333%2C12.9733333%20C16.8466667%2C12.46%2015.7733333%2C13.1133333%2015.7733333%2C14.0933333%20L15.7733333%2C27.9066667%20C15.7733333%2C28.9333333%2016.8933333%2C29.54%2017.7333333%2C29.0266667%20L29.5866667%2C22.12%20C30.4266667%2C21.6066667%2030.4266667%2C20.3933333%2029.54%2C19.88%20L29.54%2C19.88%20Z%22%20id%3D%22triangle%22%3E%3C%2Fpath%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E) no-repeat left bottom/18px 18px;} Using AI to Enhance Universal Design for Learning

Teaching Students How to Make Movies to Document Their Learning

10 Student-Tested Chrome Extensions

Why Are Some Kids Thriving During Remote Learning?

Using Google Tools to Support Newcomer ELLs

8 Strategies to Improve Participation in Your Virtual Classroom

Using Collaborative Slide Decks to Promote Engagement

6 Ways to Use ChatGPT to Save Time

What Teachers in China Have Learned in the Past Month

Educators Turn to Bitmoji to Build Community and Engagement

Defending a Teacher’s Right to Disconnect

9 Tips for Using AI for Learning (and Fun!)

7 Digital Tools That Help Bring History to Life

Accommodating Students With Dyslexia

10 Teacher Picks for Best Tech Tools