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After learning about how filtering software works, I feel more certain in my answer to question 1. On one hand, it’s reassuring that filters help create a safer online environment and protect student privacy! On the other hand, knowing that filters can sometimes block useful educational websites makes me think schools should allow a way for students or teachers to request access when sites are unfairly restricted. If my peers disagreed maybe say, some felt filters were too restrictive while others thought they were essential; I would point to the evidence that filters help limit exposure to harmful content but also argue for flexible policies that support both safety and learning because there have been many times where a teacher has attached a link to a website and it is blocked by the school software and or Wi-Fi and we have to wait to go home to access it.

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Filtering software is designed to block categories of websites these categories include things such as those with adult content, violence, hate speech, ect. Many filters also block social media or entertainment sites to cut down on distractions. Typically, these programs work by checking web addresses against a blacklist, scanning for keywords, or using AI to identify harmful content. The information is monitored by school IT staff, and updates are often automatic to make sure new harmful sites get blocked.

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7 Best Web & Content Filtering Platforms for Schools

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Read about the best web filtering software for schools. Understand your options analyzed on features, price, integrations, and more.

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Most public schools use filters to block unsafe or inappropriate sites, and I do think this makes sense under most circumstances. Filters can of course protect students from harmful content such as explicit material, and sites that spread malware. They also help by blocking certain gaming sites or distracting sites to make sure students remain focused. However, filters can sometimes be too strict and block educational resources students could use for research. Because of this, I support filters as long as schools review them regularly and adjust so they don’t block important academic material as time goes on.

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Web filters

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Student: “We should do more school assemblies about kindness.”

Teacher: “Assemblies could help spread the message. What if we also had student leaders running campaigns or peer mentors so the message comes from you guys instead of just teachers?”

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If only victims are discussed, the teacher might ask, “What about bystanders? If you saw someone getting picked on in the cafeteria, what could you do in that moment?”

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Student: “Fights on TikTok get way more views than anti-bullying stuff.”

Teacher: “True, but let’s connect it back; how does that influence bullying here at school?”

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Student: “The school needs to suspend bullies.”

Teacher: “So you’re saying suspensions might stop bullying. But do you think suspensions actually change behavior, or do they just make the problem show up somewhere else?”

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The topic I have chosen is bullying in a school

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If a student says, “This poem is sad,” the I could respond with, “Yes, you noticed the sadness. What words or images in the poem make you feel that way? Can we connect that emotion to a bigger theme in the collection?” This builds on the student’s first comment to deepen literary analysis by asking them to dive deeper into the text and prove what they're saying.

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If students only focus on the main character, I could ask, “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the protagonist. What about the minor characters; how do they add to the theme of freedom or confinement?” This highlights overlooked perspectives within a story and allows students to think more outside what is being directly said in a text.

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If the discussion drifts into comparing the book to a movie version, the teacher might say, “That’s interesting, but let’s bring it back to the text itself. How does the author’s language show us the character feels trapped?” This keeps the focus on literary interpretation.

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If a student says, “I think the character feels trapped because of their family,” I may respond with, “So you’re saying the character’s sense of being trapped comes from family expectations. Could that also connect to the theme of tradition versus independence?” This restates the idea and opens the door for deeper analysis within the text that can also build on the idea first shared.

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Strategies for Facilitating Protective Discussion

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Merrill's Principle Classroom Example Using Hamlet

1. Solve real-world problems After reading Hamlet, students explore the theme of indecision and compare it to modern decision-making in leadership or personal life. They write an essay analyzing how this theme applies today.

3. Demonstrate new knowledge The teacher models a literary analysis of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy using annotation and close reading, showing how to identify literary devices and tone.

4. Apply new knowledge Students rewrite a soliloquy in modern English and perform it, using tone and body language to express emotion and character motivation.

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I remember a time in AP English my junior year of high school when we were reading Othello in class, for context the story focuses on a black man aka Othello who is a high political figure in a otherwise white ruled world. Our teacher had us pause one day after we were further into the story and began writing characteristics on the board that matched that of Othello. She then asked us "who am I writing about?" of course we responded saying it was Othello, our teacher then revealed they were all related to Obama. We then had a project where we had to compare and contrast Othello with other political figures, and the same for characters within the story Principle 5: Learning is promoted when new knowledge is integrated into the learners’ world

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Merrill's First Principles of Instruction

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Honestly since this is a more 'college level' program, I feel the critical thinking comes from as a student each of my professors uses canvas differently so I have to learn the navigation of each section differently. As varying sections mean varying things for my professors.

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Recently I haven't been able to observe any classrooms, as my observation hours don't begin until the spring, and I have also found most of my classes here at Seton Hall don't use very many different forms of technology. However the one consistent across all of them is Canvas, which when used correctly is extremely beneficial for me as a student.

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Supporting Critical Thinking w Tech

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As mentioned in question three I believe my findings from these articles and their credibility will carry into how I manage my classroom with technology. Especially in the article '16 ways...Educational Outcomes' the article is filled with the opinions and findings of a 'technology expert' board whom upon further research are made up of a mix of parents, educators, and professional researchers. To me articles like the ones chosen provide helpful insight on how not to abuse or underuse tech in a classroom but rather point a new teacher like myself in the right area for the use of tech and programs.

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personally my reasoning for choosing each article lies in the credibility of each one being opinion based from past or current educators and parents who have all done research on classroom management and technology; rather then a data analyst or scientist observing from the outside. In my opinion when it comes to things involving classroom management, and parenting the opinions and findings of educators and parents are far more valuable then that of scientists or researchers.

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All of the articles I have chosen are Opinion Articles. Each article is one that lists ways to use tech in a classroom, and intergrade it in a beneficial way for students to succeed. With most of these articles discussing ways for teachers from teachers.

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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

"Technology is a game-changer for education - it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching," said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. "But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren't great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently."

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students' use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities - for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. "I'm heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers' lives better - not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do," he said. "I hope to see more on that front."

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. "AI is not going away," said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. "We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology."

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

"This is an area that's really going to explode over the next couple of years," said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. "Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live."

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. "If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers."

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students' attention.

"Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful," said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. "If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn't mean I'm going to be motivated to do math anywhere else."

Gamification sometimes tries to make "chocolate-covered broccoli," Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students' activities in the classroom and online. "We're now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes," said Schwartz - data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data - now owned by tech companies - is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students' interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that's being collected, said Schwartz - and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is "requiring people to check their assumptions about education," said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. "But it's also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It's an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching - this is the path I hope to see."

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How technology is reinventing K-12 education

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Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

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16 Ways Teachers Parents and Communities can Leverage Tech to Improve Educational Outcomes 

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16 Ways Teachers Parents and Communities can Leverage Tech to Improve Educational Outcomes 

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Council Post: 16 Ways Teachers, Parents And Communities Can Leverage Tech To Improve Educational Outcomes

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Technology can provide valuable tools to help students learn using the platforms and methods they already use and best understand—tools that can genuinely capture their interest.

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Leveraging Technology in Teaching: Transforming the Learning Experience — the Learning Counsel

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Editor’s note: This is part two of a two-part series. In this article, we continue to explore strategies that enable all students to comfortably share their ideas, while recognizin…

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Exploring Published Research