Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Senka Stankovic, Head of User Services at the Jean-Léon Allie Library, Saint-Paul University.
As an early-career librarian halfway through a year-long parental leave contract at Saint Paul University, I’ve noticed that digital tools are fundamental to how we ideate and deliver educational workshops. Born-digital, recently a student, and new to the workforce, I’ve come to believe that many digital tools that are meant to improve learning instead strip away the friction that the acquisition of knowledge requires.
In this post, I explore three common classroom technologies: the slide deck, the laptop, and the gadgets[1]. I present how these so-called “tools” often get in our way, and I offer opportunities for reintroducing friction to the classroom in the classroom in the form of minor inconveniences. This friction can lead to higher engagement from, and connection with, our learners.
I believe librarians are in a unique position to pioneer a more hopeful use of technology in the classroom and beyond.
The slide deck
The slide deck is ubiquitous in academia and in white-collar work. In the classroom, slide decks turn teaching into a presentation where we strive for perfection. This is in part because slide decks, meant for presentations, allow educators to over-prepare their courses. If you’re presenting something you know well, then your slide deck is there to make sure you don’t veer off course. But off course is where you get to show students your own fallibility, which helps build meaningful connections through vulnerability. It also gives your students a framework for managing the friction that things like research inevitably create. In other words, your slide deck prevents you from modeling educational resilience by giving you something to hide behind.
Adding friction to the slide deck includes taking the time to ask whether a slide deck is the right method of sharing the information at hand. I find that very often, it isn’t. At my university, I’m responsible for delivering one-on-one Academic Integrity Workshops to students who have committed plagiarism. I was unsatisfied with the presentation-style workshop I had inherited, as I felt myself lecturing at students who were either on the verge of tears or completely oblivious as to their wrongdoings. In neither scenario were they primed for learning. I adopted a new approach that includes a self-assessment on their behalf and a print workbook where they can take notes. I still use a monitor where needed, such as demonstrating tools they can use for research instead of ChatGPT. My new approach has so far been fruitful. I’ve not had any tears since adopting it.
When you remove the slide deck from the equation, you make room for more creative methods. I saw this in April, when I attended a session at the British Columbia Library Association Conference titled “Throwing Out the PowerPoint: An Experiential Learning Approach.” Adair Harper, Chloe Riley, and Julia Lane replaced their library orientation slide deck with a zine and an accompanying exercise to help students learn to navigate library resources. Their new approach seems more communal in nature, and I’m curious to see what can happen when we start questioning why things are done the way they are.
The laptop
The laptop and the expectation that students all have one are detrimental to everyone’s learning. Besides the obvious financial inequity factor, laptops are also hugely distracting. As a student, I was frequently sidelined by the person in front of me watching Euphoria or tweaking their resume. I’m sure that my compulsive opening and scrolling of Pinterest every time I open a browser also distracted many folks sitting behind me.
Recently, I read about Dylan Kane, a middle-school math teacher and early adopter of Chromebooks in classrooms who has decided to jump ship. In removing laptops from his classroom for a month, Kane learned that “screens […] made it possible for a student to look busy for an entire class period” without him realizing they were stuck on a problem. In other words, learning is hard, scrolling on Pinterest is easy. Think of your own life. How often do you come head-to-head with something you find difficult and pull out your phone to avoid it? If we can’t muster the self-control needed to not use screens as pacifiers, how can we expect students not to do so when faced with the friction of learning?
Expecting all students to be fluent in laptops is also a barrier to those with less technological experience. Catherine Carroll, a mature student at Saint Paul’s University, describes her return to academia as a huge learning curve by way of technology. “It gets in the way of learning the actual material,” she says.
Adding friction to the laptop might look like encouraging writing by hand and taking the time to show students how to search the stacks. While these skills may not be frequently applied, I believe it would be beneficial. Born-digital students would be given an alternative, more tactile, framework for engaging with information. This may increase their attention to how information is created, accessed, and shared in the digital realm by giving them a point of comparison. On the other hand, mature students would be given permission to engage with knowledge in a way that works better for them.
The gadgets
Learning gadgets that advertise increased engagement reduce tactility and thereby advocate for the disembodiment of learning. Many of these tools are nothing more than a digitization of existing classroom activities. Miro is literally a virtual blackboard. With Quizlet, you can create digital flashcards, rendering the educational process of handwriting them obsolete. Kahoot replaces good, old-fashioned pen-to-paper trivia. They take away moments where students might otherwise be forced to write or move around in their learning environments.
Additionally, all these tools are privately owned by for-profit companies. This doesn’t sit well with me, as using them requires students to give out personal information in the form of email addresses or browsing data.
The friction of distributing papers to participate in an activity or having students physically get up to add ideas to a blackboard reintroduces a dynamism to learning that can pull us all out of the digital funk created by many learning technologies.
On the advantages of digital educational tools
The tools I mention have advantages. Laptops and slide decks both offer accessibility features, and removal of these technologies may lead to access friction – not the kind we’re going for – for learners with disabilities. The gadgets might encourage engagement, provide immediate feedback to learners, and provide educators with additional insights into their students’ knowledge.
The complete abandonment of digital technologies isn’t attractive to most of us, nor would it promote equitable access to information. Nonetheless, I believe that treating digital tools as a gold standard in education can be detrimental and limits our ability as educators to think creatively about the knowledge we share. By reflecting on ways to add helpful friction, while maintaining a balance for those that require assistive technology or prefer digital learning tools, we can create more positive learning environments.
A way forward
Adding friction to slide decks, laptops, and gadgets is a strong starting point to rebuild meaningful classrooms that center knowledge acquisition. It’s also a sign of hope that the world I want to live in is possible, one where learning is communal, present, and embodied. Librarians are in a unique position to advocate for the friction that learning requires, even when that means experiencing the friction of learning themselves.
In an interview, Kurt Vonnegut describes purchasing envelopes one at a time so that he has more opportunities to exist in the world. His wife believes it to be an inconvenience. He concludes, “And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.” For me, the image of librarianship that elicits joy is one with room to dance. Or fumble, or add friction, or whatever you so choose to call it.
[1] I use gadgets to loosely refer to novelty items aimed at digitally increasing student engagement. Some examples include Miro, a virtual blackboard; Quizlet, for digital flashcards; Kahoot, for quizzes and trivia; and Mentimeter, for polling. These attempts to reintroduce tactility in the classroom are simulacral.