Taming Tech: How Rotations and Class Tools Cure "Digital Drift"

Following the recent release of the Digital Delusion book by Jared Cooney Horvath, there has been an increasingly passionate debate about the role and value of devices in classrooms.

All technology tends to amplify our existing behaviours - a point that I have been making for many years is that we need to make sure that human behaviours are optimised before we introduce technology. We can’t just blame inanimate devices - it’s not whether they are being used in a classroom, it’s how they are being used. This seems to be what is fueling much of the current debate. A debate which is understandably being further heightened with the advent of AI into our schools - now an even more high-stakes example to focus on the human behaviours we are amplifying before we introduce any further new technology, like AI.

When I think about all of the schools that I have worked with and am working with, 6 issues regularly come up when I work with teachers:

1. The width of the bell curve of capability in their classrooms is typically between 3 and 5 years.

2. This wide bell curve then results in embedded behaviours with students who may identify as early finishers, late finishers, and never finishers. This, in turn, is connected to what I call “Digital Drift”, where students are sitting in front of devices and not necessarily completing work to the best of their ability, in a time-efficient manner.

3. Feedback issues, where feedback is often given verbally, and it's not necessarily retained by or acted on by the student. It goes without saying that the students who attract the most feedback, particularly around writing, are the ones least able to retain it and least motivated to act on it.

4. A lack of accountability with students who tend to be doing less work in more time to a lower standard when using devices.

5. All of these issues can combine, unfortunately, as it's based in a low-trust model, to negatively impact the relationship between students and teachers who often feel that they have inadvertently become (digital) speed cops.

The good news is that there are some amazing solutions to these problems. These solutions are partly pedagogical and partly technical. The impact of these solutions is felt equally by both teachers and students, so that student outcomes improve radically and teacher workload and stress load can be seen to drop.

The pedagogical solutions rely heavily on rotations whereby a class is typically divided into 3 capability-based groupings for writing. At any one time, one group is with the teacher, one group is using devices to complete a well-scaffolded digital (writing) task, and one group is doing a self-directed task. While the task does not need to be differentiated, for each group, the time and conversation with the teacher are differentiated, and the time spent on devices is also differentiated. There is also potential for rubrics to be differentiated for each of these groups where necessary.

What this means is that within a block of time, typically an hour, everyone has completed their work. Every student has had quality, differentiated time with the teacher in a safe space, and everyone has also completed a self-directed piece of work. The result of this is that there are no more early finishers, late finishers, and never finishers. The relationship between teacher and student is much tighter, much more effective, much safer, and much more trusting, as each child is in a group that is based around their current (writing) capability.

This brings us onto the technical solution, which is partly provided by the effective use of Google Classroom. It allows writing tasks to be better scaffolded and for rubrics to be used, which are student-facing and incredibly quick at giving students feedback that is both numerical and written. The creation of rich tasks and ambitious rubrics can be streamlined with many of the AI tools, now built into Google Classroom. Formative marking can happen in a matter of seconds for each student.

In addition to this, many teachers are now using a free Google App called <<Class Tools>>. This allows the teacher to have complete control over the Chromebooks in their classroom. As well as focusing students much more tightly on their work, it also means that when a teacher is working with a small group, they can be completely focused on that group and not be worried about any “Digital Drift” amongst the other students, as they are unable to open any other tabs or Apps.

Currently, Class tools can only be used by a teacher who is using a Chromebook. While some may see this as a significant limitation, I don't, as there are often now excess Chromebooks in a classroom when only a third of the students are using Chromebooks at any one time. Another budget-friendly option is to use Flex to convert an old machine into a Chromebook that the teacher can use in addition to their Tela laptop. I recently spent 3 days working at a large primary school in the North Island, which has started a programme of replacing their Tela laptops with teacher Chromebooks so that teachers can use these amazing tools. LINK to post on CB/Interface winners!

When these tools and strategies are used together, student outcomes ramp up very quickly, and teacher workload and stress load can also drop quite quickly. As mentioned in the other blog post in this issue, there is much time available in Term 3 and Term 4 to experiment with these tools and strategies to firm up an approach for Term 1, 2027 and beyond that will meet the needs of both teachers and students.

Here’s an excerpt from an email from a Teacher I worked with for about an hour, describing the impact of these strategies:

A student who really struggles went from barely writing anything on Monday to scoring 110/110 by Thursday! We switched to dictation, edited his work together, and he nailed every rubric criterion. He was thrilled and celebrated by making a poster about what he learned on the Earth and Moon.

Feel free to contact me to learn more, and I'm happy to visit your school to discuss and demonstrate some of these tools and strategies.

Link to the articles about the book: Digital Delusion Book Review Pt1 | Digital Delusion Book Review Pt2