A technology research essay to explore why some professor prefer not to use technology in classroom!

1. What are the reasons behind
professors’ uses of no technology?
IT545 By Hong Yang
Last year, we conduct a survey among SUNY Potsdam students regarding the
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TECHNOLOGY USE BY PROFESSORS. This study was
conducted in Fall 2013 semester, last 4 weeks and collected 238 responses. One
important thing I want to investigate is to analyze the survey data to find out the
reasons of some professors’ no orlimited usage of technology in classrooms.
According to a survey conduct by digedu.com this year, nowadays most professors
not only use technology by themselves but also allow student to use technology in
classroom.
Also, most professors think that technologies benefit classroom. Most of them report
that technology has positive effects on students’ engagement, students’ participation
and teaching experience.

2. However, there is news from top media saying that some leading professors start to
ban technology usage in classroom. For example, one article on the Washington Post
report “why a leading professor of new media just banned technology use in class?”
The first reason he said is that “multi-tasking is bad for the quality of cognitive
work, and is especially punishing of the kind of cognitive work we ask of college
students. “ The second reason is that students are such types of people who are
always “trying to pay attention but having to compete with various influences, the
largest of which is their own propensity towards involuntary and emotional
reaction.” The third reason is: “screens generate distraction in a manner akin to
second-hand smoke. A paper with the blunt title Laptop Multitasking Hinders
Classroom Learning for Both Users and Nearby Peers says it all.”
When looking at the phenomena of professorsusing no or limited technology in
classroom, we noticed that the reasons are twofold. First, some professors may
restrict students using technology in classroom. In universities, this mostly due to
technology too easily serves as a distraction. However, nowadays, professors who
ban the laptop, tablets or phone are still the rare case, most professors allow
students to bring their own devices to classroom according to a last year survey
made by Ithaca.edu.

3. Also, some professors refuse to use technology in their classrooms. From the survey,
we find out the most common reason that prevents professor to use technology.
This is shown in Figure 4.
Figure4. In general, what do you think arethe reasons behind the professor’s useof no
technology? (n=222).
In this survey, we asked the participants what they think are the reasons of using no
technology in classrooms. Survey result shows that the top reasons are “Professors
are unable to use technology” (50%), “Professors has strict preferences about the
technology they use” (48%), and “Lessons are not compatible with the use of
technology” (41%). In the “Other” response, a number of participants feel like
professors think technology can be a distraction. Likewise, a participant said “I
believe that there are certain aspects that professors don’t understand how certain
technology could enrich their course.”
In order to further investigate why professors are unable to use technology, I read
some similar surveys conducted by other institutions. One survey conducted by
digedu.com shows that the top three fundamental problems that teachers cite when

4. asked what barriers prevent them from using technology more often are as the
followings:
Some other reasons that professors are unable to use technology are as following :
Based on these survey results, we can reach a conclusion that some of the biggest
issues that prevent professors from using technology are lack of training, lack of
technical support and lack of time. Other fundamental reasons include lack of
hardware support at school, bandwidth issues at school, and students’ lacking of
access to home Internet. If schools want to encourage professors to use as much
technology as they can, they should address those fundamental issues first and
provide necessary technical training and support.

5. Appendix: Survey questions:
A: What are students’ opinions on the reasons behind professors’ uses ofno
technology?
1. Professor are unable to use technology
2. Professor has strict preferences about the technology they use
3. Lessons are not compatible with the use of technology
4. Hardware or Software malfunctions when used
5. Teaching space is inadequate for the use of technology
6. There is not enough time for professors to use technology
7. Technology specifically linked to the lessons is unavailable
8. More students than technology
9. Others (please write it down)
B: Students’ opinions about appropriate uses of electronic devices in the classroom:
1. Taking notes
2. Looking up information relevant to lecture
3. Recording lecture
4. Calculations
5. Taking pictures
6. Sending communications to others
7. Checking communications from others
8. Using social media
9. Others
Reference:
1. Survey report: Faculty Survey on Instructional Technology Final Report by
ITHACA COLLEGE 2013
http://www.ithaca.edu/its/services/iss/docs/facsurvey/2013FacSurveyFin
al.pdf
2. Survey report: Technology Use in the Classroom:Benefits & Barriers
http://digedu.com/files/benefits-barriers.pdf
3. Why a leading professor of new media just banned technology use in class:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/25/why-a-
leading-professor-of-new-media-just-banned-technology-use-in-class/
4. Tech Though: How teachers feel about technology:
http://www.teachthought.com/technology/how-teachers-feel-about-
technology-in-the-classroom/