During observations, with a consideration to technology used in classrooms, there were some applications that seemed to be a positive and effective addition to lessons and other situations that seemed to be an overuse or reliance on technology.

Beginning with the positive observations, throughout the observations, I have noticed a few different primary teachers using touchscreen TVs for interactive calendars and other thins tracked in the “morning meetings,” such as the weather. In one of these classrooms, the teacher was the one who touched the screen for adding the date to the calendar or noting the current weather. In a different classroom, the teacher had the students take turns for each step of the routine. I can see the positives of both situations. In the first class, the teacher remained in control of the technology and it prevented any students from touching the wrong things on the calendar and mitigated any potential for over excitement or jealousy among the students. However, the teacher that involved the students in the calendar routine seemed to desensitize her students to the touch screen and avoided any student conflict by having enough interactions within the routine that every student was involved each day. To ensure everyone had a turn, she had a bowl with a clothes pin with the name of each student. When she called upon a student, she clipped their name to the edge of the bowl so she knew they had had their turn. The hands-on aspect of the calendar also provided the opportunity for students to learn how to use the technology. I understand that the uniqueness of each classroom would also dictate whether or not students could handle directly interacting with the TV, but overall, the hands-on situation appeared to bring more positive benefits.

In another classroom that I observed, there seemed to be a reliance on technology that limited social interactions between students. The touchscreen TV wasn’t used for the daily calendar routine like it was in the other two, but the TV was used for almost everything else during the period that I was in the room. When the students first came into the room, they quietly played with Play-Doh and they were only allowed to talk with their neighbour for the last few minutes. Shortly after that, the screen was used for practicing phonics. The letters were simply shown on the screen while the teacher worked on the sounds with the students. Next, a YouTube video was used for a days of the week song and a phonics-based alphabet song. After that, the teacher played a YouTube video to get the kids moving and give them a chance to move. Finally, they had their snack while a video of an animated storybook was playing. I was in the class for just over an hour and for most of that time, the students were all focused on the TV. They had minimal interactions with their teacher or other students. With the rise in screentime for kids in the average home, schools should be a place where screens are used with intention rather than for anything that they can be used for.