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Over my years as a secondary school teacher, I鈥檝e attended professional development opportunities that introduced me to new classroom technology that piqued my interest. I enjoyed playing and interacting with the new technology, and I assumed that my students would too. I鈥檇 go home and redo my lesson plan for the next day so that I could incorporate the new technology.

The next day, my anticipation couldn鈥檛 be contained as my students walked into the classroom because I was excited to see them engage with the classroom technology that would guide their learning. On a number of occasions, the result was unanticipated disengagement. At times, they would outright refuse to participate in the activity.

Finding the Right Tech for Your Class Is a Process

Engagement is crucial. I want my students to participate in class discussions, ask questions, comment on their peers鈥� ideas, take notes, read out loud, post in online classroom discussion threads, and probe deeply into what they鈥檙e reading. These are all visible indicators of student engagement, and research supports the idea that .

I鈥檝e seen digital technology capture my students鈥� attention; it seemed natural that it would be a valuable educational tool. However, I鈥檝e also seen students disengage from technology. Therefore, I sought to understand how I could leverage it to support their learning. When I was standing in front of my disengaged students and needing to spontaneously come up with a new lesson plan, I learned the hard way that I can鈥檛 assume that digital technology inherently engages students. 

By intertwining with my experiences as a classroom teacher before and after the pandemic, I鈥檝e found that technology engages students when it allows for students to do what I call the 3Cs: construct, collaborate, create.

Construct 

鈥淚 like being able to come up with different types of ideas鈥� things we didn鈥檛 discuss in class.鈥� 

When technology is used as a tool to transmit information to students to read and memorize, students will disengage by opting out of the task. Instead, we can use technology to allow students to construct their own ideas in order to create personal meaning. Technology is effective when used as a tool for knowledge construction, not knowledge consumption.

In the classroom, this looks like having students read two news articles on the same topic and then letting them decide which article was more persuasive. This allows students to access recent texts through technology, but it also allows them to sort through their own thoughts to decide which article was more effective. Students are able to use technology to construct their own ideas. 

Some tech tools that work to help students construct knowledge include , , and databases like and .

Collaborate

鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to quietly sit at a computer and work by myself. I can do that at home. I want to be able to work with other people.鈥�

When technology is used as a tool to foster collaboration with others within and beyond the classroom, it will engage students. As educators, we need to position technology to facilitate activities that foster social interaction.

Sometimes, we imagine classroom technology to be isolating鈥攕tudents quietly sitting at their desks working on a computer. Instead, we can use it as a tool for communication. For example, I鈥檝e had groups of students gather around a single device to watch a short video. Yes, they could all watch it at their own desk on their own device, but positioning technology this way allows students to pause the video, talk to their peers, and rewind and rewatch as necessary. 

This huddled viewing makes the activity interactive and collaborative. Students continue to process their own ideas and engage with their peers to help refine them further. 

Some tech tools that allow students to collaborate include and ,, , and .

Create

鈥淚 know that I could create without the technology, but the technology means that I can create something better, something I couldn鈥檛 create without the technology.鈥�

Technology leads to student engagement when it鈥檚 a tool that allows students聽to design, build, and perform tasks that would otherwise be difficult for them to do without access to the technological tools. Students feel accomplished when they create a product that鈥檚 different from everyone else鈥檚. If we can design an evaluation task that allows them to choose how they鈥檒l design their final product and provide them with the technological tools to do so, the technology will engage them.

For example, I鈥檝e had students redesign the cover of a book they鈥檝e read in their secondary English classroom so that the book can be marketed to preschoolers. This enables them to consider colors, shapes, and images that would appeal to preschoolers and subsequently design, build, and create something that鈥檚 new and doesn鈥檛 exist.

Some tech tools that allow students to construct include , , , , , and .

Uniting the 3Cs 

Despite the amount of learning that happened through and with technology during the pandemic, I鈥檝e noticed that students still find it engaging. However, I鈥檝e found that rather than tasks that allow for one of the 3Cs, tasks that unite all of the 3Cs聽foster greater engagement that can be sustained over several classes. The 3Cs allow students to inquire, connect, and design鈥攖hree facets of education that emergency remote pandemic learning eroded.聽To rebuild these important skills, I implemented .

This activity gave students voice and choice, and the result was that they created work that they were proud to submit for evaluation. Some products included a radio ad, a TikTok video, an Instagram post, a city bus advertising wrap, an infomercial, a television commercial, a rap with a music video, and a magazine ad. What my students created was beyond what I could have suggested because they had creative skills and media knowledge that I hadn鈥檛 been aware of until this project.

I learned that when we design an activity that unites the 3Cs, it鈥檚 a gateway to invite student engagement.