Seventy-three percent of surveyed teachers agree that technology has changed dramatically in the last 5 years–not a big surprise based on technology’s fast-changing nature.
Now, only 42 percent of assignments are done by hand, and 73 percent of teachers say their students use laptops and tablets in class each day.
Sixty-six percent of schools provide tablets and laptops, 25 percent of students bring their own, and 9 percent of schools do not permit tablets or laptops. Most schools (93 percent) have rules for using smartphones and the internet, and common rules include turning off phones and putting them away during exams.
Eighty-six percent of teachers have WiFi in their classrooms and 62 percent of students use personal tech tools in classrooms. But this personal use doesn’t come without drawbacks–70 percent of teachers say student smartphone use causes tension and disruption in the classroom. In fact, 50 percent of teachers say they deal with disruptions each week, and 36 percent say they deal with disruptions each day.
Not all tech tools are viewed negatively, however. While teachers say smartphones have a negative impact on the classroom, they say WiFi, laptops, learning software, interactive whiteboards, and web portals have a positive effect on the classroom.
Teachers say technology makes students:
- More productive (66 percent), less productive (17 percent), and as productive as before (17 percent)
- More social (38 percent), less social (36 percent), and as social as before (26 percent)
- More physically active (17 percent), less physically active (61 percent), and as physically active as before (22 percent)
- More intellectually stimulated (60 percent), less intellectually stimulated (21 percent), and as intellectually stimulated as before (19 percent)
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