Educational technology doesn't always mean innovation

At the beginning of this century, digital whiteboards seemed to revolutionise the education system. Their potential, interactivity, was going to transform teaching approaches. 2014, the Spanish National Observatory for Telecommunications and the Information Society published a study. They surveyed teachers using digital whiteboards. 87.1% used them to explain and ask questions in class, something we could already do with chalkboards.

It has been a decade since the data was collected from this study. Still, it is very useful to exemplify that there is no real educational innovation if technology is not accompanied by methodological improvement. After digital whiteboards came other resources: educational robotics, augmented reality, gamification applications, etc. Various tools that have a lot of potential but which we sometimes use to do the same old things.

Years and technologies go by, but if our activities are the same, we cannot call them educational innovation. As some experts warn, we are focusing on applying the latest fashionable technology, leaving aside the foundations of educational technology and analysing why schools should incorporate these means. In other words, we are doing empty innovation, which, rather than improving, serves no purpose or even harms the teaching and learning process.

Let's identify empty innovation.

Clue 1: one resource is replaced by another.

A father recently complained on social media that his daughter hates digital textbooks as a tool for studying, to the point that they have tried to get printed textbooks so she can study. If we have technology as powerful as a tablet or a laptop and use it like a traditional book, it is better to ask students for printed textbooks since we are replacing paper with a screen but to do the same as always.

Track 2: it focuses only on the tool.

In education, no magic recipe or educational resource fits all situations. However, in empty innovation, people often focus only on the tool. They don't discuss teaching strategies or consider whether they will do a master class, collaborative work, projects, etc. We mistake technology for pedagogy. Efforts are driven at training at a technical level, but then there is no question of how to introduce it in the classroom, whether it makes sense or is necessary.

Track 3: there is an assumption that if it's new, it's good.

Empty innovation is based on using the latest trendy tool, becoming experts, and forgetting about pedagogy. In other words, putting?the?cart before?the?horse and adapting the entire educational process (students, content, tasks...) to what this tool allows or does not allow us to do, justifying its incorporation simply because it is fashionable.

When innovation becomes the enemy

The same thing is happening with innovation as with other concepts nowadays: after so much bashing, they lose their meaning. On social media, various edu-influencers (some with little or no training in Didactics and Educational Technology) talk about a type of teaching innovation that, in reality, is innovation without meaning. The concept of innovation is emptied and handed on a plate to those allergic to educational change.

Certain teachers, the so-called professaurios, consider that the best school is the one they lived in decades ago, so they should reproduce that model. Empty innovation gives reasons to this group that defends immobility in education and to those who say that innovation is bad, that technology is bad, and that what is good is what "has always been done".

Spain has the second highest school dropout rate in the EU. Immobility is not justified. As specialists say, there is a clear need for real innovation associated with improving teaching and learning processes. In addition, teachers' professional conditions need to be improved, and they need adequate training for their professional practice.

There is a world of methodological strategies between the edu-influencers who sell smoke and mirrors and those who believe that the best school is the one they lived in 40 years ago. Teachers who innovate pedagogically use all kinds of resources, from textbooks and printed worksheets to augmented reality and robotics, because they understand that the teacher's potential is to use diverse media in teaching.

A study by the universities of Oviedo and Oxford indicates that most teachers use different methodologies and tools and combine traditional and innovative teaching conceptions. Therefore, teachers find their innovative potential in diverse strategies and tools.

Innovating in a real way

To achieve meaningful innovation in schools, we must consider other contextual, educational, and organisational elements. In the wake of the pandemic, the EU's Digital Education Action Plan foresees fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem, including digital equipment and improving digital skills.

The key now is not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Technological equipment is essential, and incorporating certain resources can help teachers rethink their professional practice. Even so, providing resources is extremely necessary, but it is not enough. We are at a crucial moment to improve the professional conditions and training of teachers in the educational and innovative use of technology—real innovation.

This article was originally published in Spanish in The Conversation. Its author, María del Mar Sánchez Vera , has allowed us to publish it here in English. Thank you.