Digital Use: How can leaders ensure students actively use technology as a core learning component?

Even though access to technology is increasing, the way students use technology varies greatly. Some students use technology actively to deepen their learning through critical analysis, creatively demonstrate understanding, and engage in real-world exploration. Others primarily use technology in passive ways, consuming digital content often for lower-level learning purposes such as test preparation and basic skills practice. This challenge is commonly referred to as one of creation versus consumption.

This disparity in how students are using technology falls along predictable demographic lines. Students of color, those learning English, and those enrolled in remedial courses receive fewer opportunities to use technology in powerful and creative ways than their peers, furthering inequalities.

Active use of technology is not just a way to increase engagement in the classroom, but most importantly it supports deeper learning and the transfer of new knowledge. Active use of technology also prepares students to learn with new tools, better preparing them to navigate rapid advances in and the growing influence of new technologies – such as artificial intelligence (AI) – in our broader lives. This is critical for supporting equity, and school and system leaders need to ensure active use is a core part of learning so all students develop the knowledge, skills, and capacities to become expert learners.

• Technology creates opportunities to actively engage students in the learning process, the importance of which is supported by decades of learning sciences research.

• Technology can be used to provide multiple means of engagement, representation, action, and expression within learning experiences, which benefits all students.

• Students from low-income and predominantly minority communities experience vastly different realities with technology compared to their peers. Rather than using technology to create, design, build, explore, and collaborate, they predominantly engage in content acquisition, test preparation, and other passive uses.

All students benefit from actively using technology rather than passively consuming it, and leaders play a critical role in making these opportunities a reality. Below are three ways leaders can ensure all students can use technology to create, collaborate, and explore.

Establish a Vision for Teaching and Learning that Includes Technology

Technology creates new opportunities not only to support high-quality learning experiences through active technology use but also to serve as a vehicle to address learner variability, tie learning to real-world contexts, and foster connections between students and their communities. To fully harness this potential, leaders must establish a vision for teaching and learning and define clear expectations for how students will use technology to deepen their learning.

What this looks like in practice:

• Explore frameworks to deepen understanding. To help leaders’ conceptual understanding of how to approach technology use in the classroom, leaders can explore frameworks that describe technology-enabled instructional practices (e.g., TLA's Teaching and Learning Framework) and frameworks for integrating technology into instruction (e.g., TPACK, SAMR, and the ISTE Standards).

• Describe what should be true for every student’s learning experience. To address disparities in the use of technology, leaders must start with students at the center. Powerful learning is targeted, relevant, engaging, socially connected, and growth-oriented and helps students develop the skills needed to thrive in our rapidly changing society. Consider what this means for your students and their communities, and explicitly describe your overall instructional vision using tools like a portrait of a graduate.

• Clearly articulate the role of technology within this vision. Again, this must center students and what we want to be true about how they use technology for learning. Consider what skills and knowledge your students need to develop to use technology in powerful, critically thoughtful, and creative ways, as well as the actions students will demonstrate when actively engaged with technology in these ways. This may include separately building a shared vision and definition just for innovative learning practices.

• Audit current instructional practices against this vision. Leaders can collaborate with teachers using this self-assessment tool to understand the current state of their school or system’s instructional practices and how well it aligns with their vision. They might also conduct instructional walkthroughs and observations or solicit feedback from students and families.

With a vision and an understanding of the realities in their schools and classrooms, leaders can determine where they are already creating powerful, technology-enabled learning opportunities for students and where they need to improve.

Nurture Students As Active Technology Users

The active use of technology requires far greater engagement, self-direction, and technological skill than the passive use of technology; watching videos and clicking through quizzes differs greatly from creating interactive presentations and collaboratively designing web apps. Actively using technology requires students to not only have the ability to navigate and use a variety of technology tools but also the self-direction to persist in using them. Therefore, leaders must ensure that students are supported in mastering their digital literacy and self-direction skills.

What this looks like in practice:

• Build students' digital literacy and technology skills. Clicking through videos and quizzes requires minimal tech skills, and shifting from passive to active technology use requires an elevated technology skill set. Provide opportunities for students to safely explore tools and develop skills before using technology for learning; doing so helps students to direct their cognitive attention on the learning and not the tool. Schools can also adopt digital literacy curricula, such as Common Sense Media and Google’s Applied Digital Skills.

• Foster students' self-direction skills. Self-direction skills allow students to fully access learning experiences that incorporate active technology use. Building on students' existing self-direction skills, leaders can support teachers in helping students understand how to learn independently.

• Create opportunities for student agency. Technology creates new opportunities for students to drive their own learning, making choices in what, when, and with whom they learn, as well as how they demonstrate mastery. Leaders can support teachers in establishing systems of support aligned with a culture of choice and accountability to foster student agency.

Adapt to New Technologies As Part of Ongoing Practice

Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, creating new opportunities and challenges not yet captured in leaders’ visions for teaching and learning. Schools must adapt to emerging technologies by critically and curiously exploring them to ensure that students will continue to actively use technology in the classroom.

School leaders should foster a culture of innovation that encourages exploration and purposefully includes the broader school community.

What this looks like in practice:

• Engage stakeholders in planning for the future. As leaders make plans for integrating new technologies in the classroom, such as artificial intelligence, considering who is at the table is critical. Bringing a diversity of perspectives, ideas, and experiences by including a variety of stakeholders in decision-making not only leads to better decisions that reflect the needs and desires of the community, but it also builds bridges to connect the community in authentic, empowering ways with the school.

• Encourage innovation through piloting. Integrating new technology tools in instruction can be intimidating and risky, depending on how well-vetted and thoughtfully planned the integration is. Leaders can encourage teachers to try out new technology tools and create a culture of innovation by supporting pilots. Pilots allow teachers to test out a tool or solution to a problem in a limited timeframe and with a targeted group of students, creating a safe opportunity to learn about the effectiveness and implementation of the tool before committing significant resources.

To learn more about ways leaders can help close the digital use divide by enabling students’ active use of technology, explore these additional resources:

Additional Resources:

• Digital Equity in the Classroom: This section of our Digital Equity Guide provides examples and strategies to help school and system leaders have meaningful, actionable, and iterative conversations about active technology use and to develop concrete action plans.

• NETP Digital Use Divide: A deeper review of the digital use divide, including recommendations and school strategy spotlights. Appendix A includes additional Digital Use examples.

This resource is part of a Problem of Practice series that guides educators on how they can work to increase digital access, use, and design in their classrooms–critical levers identified in the 2024 National Educational Technology Plan. Check out the other parts of the series:

• Digital Access

• Digital Design