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As debates about screen time ramp up, the technology whiplash in schools continues. Once touting the edtech tools they had adopted, many districts are heeding the increasing calls to limit screen time—sometimes almost removing it entirely. But there’s a vast difference between using an educational tool to create a presentation and endlessly scrolling on a phone.

During the edLeader Panel “More Than Minutes: A Smarter Look at Screen Time,” ERDI’s Jeff McCoy, Chief Education Officer, and Dr. Jennifer Ferrari, Chief Executive Officer, discussed a human-centered framework for edtech that focuses on thoughtful use in the classroom and productive conversations with parents. The session was part of Trailblazing Leadership Week, featuring thought-provoking conversations with education leaders from across the nation.

First, before engaging families about the role of technology in education, school leaders and teachers must think about how they are using it in the classroom. With the COVID-era rush to find any tech that works being over, schools should start with a critical examination of what digital resources they plan to use and why.

• Make learning goals the foundation: Administrators should base every decision about instructional materials on how they serve educational needs. What standards do they address? What pedagogy do they support? How can we measure the effectiveness? In other words, whether digital or analog, they must support educational objectives—not dictate them.
• Require calculated screen time: Additionally, each educational resource should have a clear role in advancing student learning. When buying technology, administrators need to understand exactly how students will use it, what outcomes the teachers should expect, and how to use the resource to achieve those outcomes. Instead of focusing on how many minutes the students use the tool, the teacher should look at what skills they mastered.
• Intentionally design learning sequences: Finally, the question isn’t screen time or no screen time, but when is the best time to use it in a lesson, i.e., where will it have the most impact on student outcomes. For instance, if students are working on a social studies presentation, they might need to use computers to do research, but then they can have discussions about their research with classmates without using any tech. Every time a teacher uses digital tools, they need to show how that tool provides the best support for the lesson.

To support these measures, administrators should lead discussions on reframing technology so that its use is bound to advancing student learning.

• Human first: Instead of technology replacing teachers, talk about how it can help them. Look for ways that technology can handle repetitive tasks, such as grading multiple-choice questions, and give the teacher more time to work with students. And when choosing to use technology, it should be a human-first sandwich. For example:

1. 1. Human: The teacher delivers differentiated instruction on a math concept.
   2. AI: The students take a brief quiz through a digital resource at the end of the class to check their understanding; the teacher and students receive automatic feedback from the program.
   3. Human: The teacher analyzes the feedback and develops new lesson plans based on the data.

• Equity and accessibility: Technology can be the great leveler of education, allowing all students to access the material in the format and at the difficulty they need. This could range from a student taking an online advanced science class to a multilingual learner receiving their literacy lessons in their home language as well as English. Students with learning differences also benefit greatly from adaptive technology.
• Data as a diagnostic mirror: One invaluable benefit of high-quality digital materials and learning-management systems is the ability to collect real-time information on student progress. This allows teachers to help students at the moment they need it rather than waiting until the end of the quarter or semester.
• Purpose over presence: Again, instead of using tech for tech’s sake, every digital resource should have a quantifiable impact on student learning.

Finally, in order to have meaningful discussions with families, educators must understand their concerns, including:

• Too much screen time: There’s not much difference to them between edtech and consumer tech, and they worry about the impact on their children’s attention span.
• Data breaches: With new incidents constantly reported, parents worry about what’s being collected through schools and control over the data.
• Passive learning: They worry about students being told what to do instead of doing the work themselves.
• Harmful content: From cyberbullying to age-inappropriate materials, parents fret over not being in control of what their children see online.

Many of their concerns are valid, and school staff should acknowledge that. Then, they can talk about how they address those concerns with the purposeful use of technology. Show them exactly what digital resources will be used, how they are used, and the expected results. Also, emphasize the continuing role of human interaction in their education. Instead of dismissing parents, empathize with them and highlight the intentional design of your programs.

Learn more about this edWeb broadcast, More Than Minutes: A Smarter Look at Screen Time, presented by ERDI

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Article by Stacey Pusey, based on this edLeader Panel