K-12 TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES AND CHALLENGES WITH USING TECHNOLOGY FOR EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
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Published
Apr 2, 2021
Main Article Content
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, more teachers than ever before turned to technology
to support continuity of learning for students at a distance. This study explores K-12 teachers’ (N=334)
experiences and challenges with using technology for emergency remote teaching. Ninety percent of the
participants were located in the United States, with the remaining respondents located internationally.
Findings indicate that while educators increased their use of digital tools, these technologies seemed
to support traditional classroom communication, information delivery, and management practices.
Participants identified several challenges, including accessing, evaluating, learning to use, designing
instruction with, and supporting student and family use of technology. These concerns, combined with the
rapid pace at which technology had to be employed at a time of great uncertainty, left educators feeling
woefully ill-prepared for effective remote teaching. This paper considers why technology may not have
lived up to its potential in a time of immense need.
Article Details
Section
Articles - Special Issue
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References
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Cox, D., & Prestridge, S. (2020). Understanding fully online teaching in vocational education. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 15(1). doi: 10.1186/s41039-020-00138-4
Dillman, D. A., Smyth, J. D., & Christian, L. M. (2014). Internet, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: The tailored design method (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ, US: Wiley.
Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119-161). New York, NY, US: Macmillan.
Ertmer, P. A. (1999). Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 47–61. doi: 10.1007/bf02299597
Evans, J. (2019). Digital learning: Peril or promise for our K-12 students. Irvine, CA: Project Tomorrow Speak Up Research Initiative.
Graham, C. R., Borup, J., Pulham, E., & Larsen, R. (2019). K–12 blended teaching readiness: Model and instrument development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 51(3), 239-258.
Greenhow, C., & Chapman, A. (2020). Social distancing meet social media: Digital tools for connecting students, teachers, and citizens in an emergency. Information and Learning Sciences, 121(5/6), 341–352. doi: 10.1108/ils-04-2020-0134
Hartshorne, R., Baumgartner, E., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., Mouza, C., & Ferdig, R. E. (2020). Special issue editorial: Preservice and inservice professional development during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28(2), 137-147.
Hendrickson, L. A., Croymans, S., & Cronin, S. (2017). Extension builds on tradition of meeting community needs by using technology in disaster recovery. Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences, 109(3), 45–49. doi: 10.14307/jfcs109.3.45
Hern, A. (2020, September 21). Twitter apologises for 'racist' image-cropping algorithm. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/21/twitter-apologises-for-racist-image-cropping-algorithm
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Ito, M., Arum, R., Conley, D., Gutiérrez, K., Kirshner, B., Livingstone, S., Michalchik, V., Penuel, W., Peppler, K., Pinkard, N., Rhodes, J., Tekinbas, K., Schor, J., Sefton-Green, J., & Watkins, C. (2020). The connected learning research network: Reflections on a decade of engaged scholarship. Irvine, CA: Connected Learning Alliance.
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Kimmons, R. (2020). Current trends (and missing links) in educational technology research and practice. TechTrends, 64, 803–809. doi: 10.1007/s11528-020-00549-6
Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., & Mason, L. E. (2020). Editorial: Technology won’t save us – a call for technoskepticism in social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 20(1), 108–120.
LearnPlatform, Inc. (2020). EdTech insights - 2020 edTech top 40 special COVID-19 edition. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/32EiJr6
Mathewson, T. G. (2020, October 31). New data: Even within the same district some wealthy schools get millions more than poor ones. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved from https://hechingerreport.org/new-data-even-within-the-same-district-some-wealthy-schools-get-millions-more-than-poor-ones/
Moore, S., & Hill, P. (2020, April 28). Planning for resilience, not resistance. PhilOnEdTech. Retrieved from https://philonedtech.com/planning-for-resilience-not-resistance/
Moore, R., Vitale, D., & Stawinoga, N. (2018). The digital divide and educational equity: A look at students with very limited access to electronic devices at home. Insights in Education and Work. Act Center for Equity in Learning. Retrieved from https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/R1698-digital-divide-2018-08.pdf
Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: Technology, solutionism, and the urge to fix problems that don't exist. New York, NY, US: Public Affairs.
National Academy for the Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How people learn: Learners, contexts, and cultures. Washington, D.C., US: The National Academies Press.
Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1-13. doi: 10.1177/1609406917733847
Poth, R. D. (2020, July 18). EdTech report: Key findings in response to remote learning. Getting Smart. Retrieved from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2020/07/edtech-report-key-findings-in-response-to-remote-learning/
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. doi: 10.1108/10748120110424816
Rafalow, M. (2020, September 2). Race and class can color teachers' digital expectations for their students – with white students getting more encouragement. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/race-and-class-can-color-teachers-digital-expectations-for-their-students-with-white-students-getting-more-encouragement-144169
Ramadan, R. (2017). Unravelling Facebook: A pedagogical tool during the Syrian crisis. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 32(3), 196–213. doi: 10.1080/02680513.2017.1345303
Ribeiro, M. H., Ottoni, R., West, R., Almeida, V. A. F., & Meira, W. (2020). Auditing radicalization pathways on YouTube. Proceedings from the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Barcelona, Spain: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/3351095.3372879
Rush, S. C., Partridge, A., & Wheeler, J. (2016). Implementing emergency online schools on the fly as a means of responding to school closures after disaster strikes. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 45(2), 188–201. doi: 10.1177/0047239516649740
Selwyn, N. (2010). Looking beyond learning: Notes towards the critical study of educational technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1), 65–73.
Tawfik, A. A., Reeves, T. D., & Stich, A. (2016). Intended and unintend- ed consequences of educational technology on social inequality. TechTrends, 60, 598–605.
Teräs, M., Suoranta, J., Teräs, H., & Curcher, M. (2020). Post-Covid-19 education and education technology ‘solutionism’: A seller’s market. Postdigital Science and Education, 2, 863–878.
THE Journal. (2020, June 24). Updated: Free resources for schools during COVID-19 outbreak. Retrieved from https://thejournal.com/Articles/2020/03/13/Free-Resources-Ed-Tech-Companies-Step-Up-During-Coronavirus-Outbreak.aspx?Page=3
The White House - President Barack Obama Archives. (2013, June). ConnectED initiative. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/education/k-12/connected
Trust, T. (2020). The 3 biggest remote teaching concerns we need to solve now. EdSurge. Retrieved from http://edsurge.com/news/2020-04-02-the-3-biggest-remote-teaching-concerns-we-need-to-solve-now
Trust, T. & Whalen, J. (2020). Should Teachers be Trained in Emergency Remote Teaching? Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28(2), 189-199.
Twining, P., Heller, R. S., Nussbaum, M., & Tsai, C.-C. (2017). Some guidance on conducting and reporting qualitative studies. Computers & Education, 106, A1-A9. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.002
UNESCO (2020, April 28). 1.37 billion students now home as COVID-19 school closures expand, ministers scale up multimedia approaches to ensure learning continuity. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/news/137-billion-students-now-home-covid-19-school-closures-expand-ministers-scale-multimedia
U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology [OET]. (2017). Reimagining the role of technology in education: 2017 national education technology plan update. Retrieved from https://tech.ed.gov/files/2017/01/NETP17.pdf
Vega, V., & Robb, M. B. (2019). The common sense census: Inside the 21st-century classroom. San Francisco, CA, US: Common Sense Media.
Veletsianos, G., & Houlden, S. (2020). Radical flexibility and relationality as responses to education in times of crisis. Postdigital Science and Education, 2(3), 849–862. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00196-3
Watters, A. (2019). The stories we were told about education technology (2019). Hack Education. Retrieved from http://hackeducation.com/ 2019/12/23/top-ed-tech-stories
Webb, M., & Cox, M. (2004). A review of pedagogy related to information and communications technology. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 13(3), 235–286. doi: 10.1080/14759390400200183
Bozkurt, A., & Sharma, R. C. (2020). Emergency remote teaching in a time of global crisis due to CoronaVirus pandemic. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), i-vi. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3778083
Carpenter, J.P., Trust, T., & Green, T.D. (2020). Transformative instruction or old wine in new skins? Exploring how and why educators use HyperDocs. Computers & Education, 157 (November 2020). doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103979
Cox, D., & Prestridge, S. (2020). Understanding fully online teaching in vocational education. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 15(1). doi: 10.1186/s41039-020-00138-4
Dillman, D. A., Smyth, J. D., & Christian, L. M. (2014). Internet, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: The tailored design method (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ, US: Wiley.
Erickson, F. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 119-161). New York, NY, US: Macmillan.
Ertmer, P. A. (1999). Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 47–61. doi: 10.1007/bf02299597
Evans, J. (2019). Digital learning: Peril or promise for our K-12 students. Irvine, CA: Project Tomorrow Speak Up Research Initiative.
Graham, C. R., Borup, J., Pulham, E., & Larsen, R. (2019). K–12 blended teaching readiness: Model and instrument development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 51(3), 239-258.
Greenhow, C., & Chapman, A. (2020). Social distancing meet social media: Digital tools for connecting students, teachers, and citizens in an emergency. Information and Learning Sciences, 121(5/6), 341–352. doi: 10.1108/ils-04-2020-0134
Hartshorne, R., Baumgartner, E., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., Mouza, C., & Ferdig, R. E. (2020). Special issue editorial: Preservice and inservice professional development during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28(2), 137-147.
Hendrickson, L. A., Croymans, S., & Cronin, S. (2017). Extension builds on tradition of meeting community needs by using technology in disaster recovery. Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences, 109(3), 45–49. doi: 10.14307/jfcs109.3.45
Hern, A. (2020, September 21). Twitter apologises for 'racist' image-cropping algorithm. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/21/twitter-apologises-for-racist-image-cropping-algorithm
Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020, March 27). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. EduCAUSE Review. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning
Ibáñez, M. B., & Delgado-Kloos, C. (2018). Augmented reality for STEM learning: a systematic review. Computers & Education, 123, 109-123.
Ito, M., Arum, R., Conley, D., Gutiérrez, K., Kirshner, B., Livingstone, S., Michalchik, V., Penuel, W., Peppler, K., Pinkard, N., Rhodes, J., Tekinbas, K., Schor, J., Sefton-Green, J., & Watkins, C. (2020). The connected learning research network: Reflections on a decade of engaged scholarship. Irvine, CA: Connected Learning Alliance.
Kavanagh, S., Luxton-Reilly, A., Wuensche, B., & Plimmer, B. (2017). A systematic review of virtual reality in education. Themes in Science and Technology Education, 10(2), 85-119.
Kimmons, R. (2020). Current trends (and missing links) in educational technology research and practice. TechTrends, 64, 803–809. doi: 10.1007/s11528-020-00549-6
Krutka, D. G., Heath, M. K., & Mason, L. E. (2020). Editorial: Technology won’t save us – a call for technoskepticism in social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 20(1), 108–120.
LearnPlatform, Inc. (2020). EdTech insights - 2020 edTech top 40 special COVID-19 edition. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/32EiJr6
Mathewson, T. G. (2020, October 31). New data: Even within the same district some wealthy schools get millions more than poor ones. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved from https://hechingerreport.org/new-data-even-within-the-same-district-some-wealthy-schools-get-millions-more-than-poor-ones/
Moore, S., & Hill, P. (2020, April 28). Planning for resilience, not resistance. PhilOnEdTech. Retrieved from https://philonedtech.com/planning-for-resilience-not-resistance/
Moore, R., Vitale, D., & Stawinoga, N. (2018). The digital divide and educational equity: A look at students with very limited access to electronic devices at home. Insights in Education and Work. Act Center for Equity in Learning. Retrieved from https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/R1698-digital-divide-2018-08.pdf
Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: Technology, solutionism, and the urge to fix problems that don't exist. New York, NY, US: Public Affairs.
National Academy for the Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How people learn: Learners, contexts, and cultures. Washington, D.C., US: The National Academies Press.
Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1-13. doi: 10.1177/1609406917733847
Poth, R. D. (2020, July 18). EdTech report: Key findings in response to remote learning. Getting Smart. Retrieved from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2020/07/edtech-report-key-findings-in-response-to-remote-learning/
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6. doi: 10.1108/10748120110424816
Rafalow, M. (2020, September 2). Race and class can color teachers' digital expectations for their students – with white students getting more encouragement. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/race-and-class-can-color-teachers-digital-expectations-for-their-students-with-white-students-getting-more-encouragement-144169
Ramadan, R. (2017). Unravelling Facebook: A pedagogical tool during the Syrian crisis. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 32(3), 196–213. doi: 10.1080/02680513.2017.1345303
Ribeiro, M. H., Ottoni, R., West, R., Almeida, V. A. F., & Meira, W. (2020). Auditing radicalization pathways on YouTube. Proceedings from the 2020 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Barcelona, Spain: Association for Computing Machinery. doi: 10.1145/3351095.3372879
Rush, S. C., Partridge, A., & Wheeler, J. (2016). Implementing emergency online schools on the fly as a means of responding to school closures after disaster strikes. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 45(2), 188–201. doi: 10.1177/0047239516649740
Selwyn, N. (2010). Looking beyond learning: Notes towards the critical study of educational technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1), 65–73.
Tawfik, A. A., Reeves, T. D., & Stich, A. (2016). Intended and unintend- ed consequences of educational technology on social inequality. TechTrends, 60, 598–605.
Teräs, M., Suoranta, J., Teräs, H., & Curcher, M. (2020). Post-Covid-19 education and education technology ‘solutionism’: A seller’s market. Postdigital Science and Education, 2, 863–878.
THE Journal. (2020, June 24). Updated: Free resources for schools during COVID-19 outbreak. Retrieved from https://thejournal.com/Articles/2020/03/13/Free-Resources-Ed-Tech-Companies-Step-Up-During-Coronavirus-Outbreak.aspx?Page=3
The White House - President Barack Obama Archives. (2013, June). ConnectED initiative. Retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/education/k-12/connected
Trust, T. (2020). The 3 biggest remote teaching concerns we need to solve now. EdSurge. Retrieved from http://edsurge.com/news/2020-04-02-the-3-biggest-remote-teaching-concerns-we-need-to-solve-now
Trust, T. & Whalen, J. (2020). Should Teachers be Trained in Emergency Remote Teaching? Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28(2), 189-199.
Twining, P., Heller, R. S., Nussbaum, M., & Tsai, C.-C. (2017). Some guidance on conducting and reporting qualitative studies. Computers & Education, 106, A1-A9. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.002
UNESCO (2020, April 28). 1.37 billion students now home as COVID-19 school closures expand, ministers scale up multimedia approaches to ensure learning continuity. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/news/137-billion-students-now-home-covid-19-school-closures-expand-ministers-scale-multimedia
U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology [OET]. (2017). Reimagining the role of technology in education: 2017 national education technology plan update. Retrieved from https://tech.ed.gov/files/2017/01/NETP17.pdf
Vega, V., & Robb, M. B. (2019). The common sense census: Inside the 21st-century classroom. San Francisco, CA, US: Common Sense Media.
Veletsianos, G., & Houlden, S. (2020). Radical flexibility and relationality as responses to education in times of crisis. Postdigital Science and Education, 2(3), 849–862. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00196-3
Watters, A. (2019). The stories we were told about education technology (2019). Hack Education. Retrieved from http://hackeducation.com/ 2019/12/23/top-ed-tech-stories
Webb, M., & Cox, M. (2004). A review of pedagogy related to information and communications technology. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 13(3), 235–286. doi: 10.1080/14759390400200183