National Survey on Technology: What Do Principals Believe?

From Technology Counts 2018: National Survey: What Do Principals Believe? "What do modern principals think about some of the most vexing tech issues? Are students spending too much time in front of computer screens? Is personalized learning worth expanding? And what about students' social-media use? To better understand where the ed-tech pressure points are for principals, the Education Week Research Center conducted a nationally representative survey of 500 principals, assistant principals, and other school leaders. 

From that survey -  "What Principals Really Think About Tech," By Benjamin Herold April 17, 2018

As digital devices and social-media platforms become an ever-larger part of children's lives, the nation's school principals find themselves in an uncomfortable—if familiar—bind.

On one hand, principals say they're worried about technology's potentially harmful effects: A full 95 percent believe their students are using screens too much at home, and 83 percent say they're at least "moderately concerned" about how students use social media outside of school, according to a new national survey of school-based leaders conducted by the Education Week Research Center.

At the same time, however, principals are welcoming technology and technology-driven trends into their own buildings. More than half described personalized learning as either a "transformational way to improve public education" or a "promising idea." The relatively new idea of offering computer science education to every student is already on most principals' radar screens.

Questions: As educators of adults, are these reports of any interest to us? Clearly, unless I am mistaken, we don't face similar issues in most of our environments. Do we? Would it be interesting and useful to have the opinions of principals discussed and argued in our reading and writing classes? Leecy

Leecy Wise, Moderator
Reading and Writing CoP
leecywise@gmail.com