Breaking free of classroom tech

This spring, students at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, learned the school had pushed back their final exam dates. The reason: Hackers had taken hostage the online learning management system Canvas.

But in professor Ted Cockle’s classroom, the test went on as planned.

Students participated in an oral exam, defending their written thesis. The simple format didn’t rely on Canvas to host class materials, gradebooks, student assignment submissions, or teacher-student communication, allowing Cockle to continue with the plan and letting students leave for summer break as scheduled.

Cockle, lecturer and director of leadership studies at Baylor, says he doesn’t shy away from technology. But he does still use his whiteboard. “It helps me stay at a manageable pace for students when I take the time to write down the material, rather than quickly flipping through slides,” he said.

Cockle offers a 95% or better participation grade if students keep a voluntary tech-free agreement in the classroom, a policy he says students have appreciated. “They are some of the most engaged students I’ve had, taking notes with pen and paper, eyes up, considering the material,” Cockle said.

After pandemic-era policies sent university and K-12 students home for remote learning in 2020, schools largely turned to educational technology. But despite massive growth in ed tech use, many parents, educators, researchers, and even students have grown concerned about the technology’s effectiveness and potential developmental harms. Now, some are opting out of device use at school altogether, and some K-12 districts have taken steps to reduce tech dependency.

In 2021, during COVID-19 remote learning, Congress approved funding for K-12 schools that enabled districts to purchase laptops and Wi-Fi hotspots. According to a 2021 EdWeek Research Center survey, 84%-90% of teachers said their districts provided devices for every student, known as a 1-1 approach. In 2023, the Associated Press reported that districts spent millions of dollars on new learning software applications.

That shift to devices “wasn’t some research-based process,” said David Griffith, the national research director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “It was like an emergency measure.”

When students returned to school, the devices came with them—and stayed with them. Schools kept using the technology to deliver subject material and communications. But a 2025 New York Times survey reported that schools were deeply invested in technology-based learning, with roughly half of teachers saying the school materials required students to complete their work online.

“Once you’ve spent millions of dollars on something, it seems like you should use it,” Griffith said.

But some parents and educators quickly raised concerns. In 2023, the National Library of Medicine found that how much time a student spent using digital devices each day was negatively correlated with reading comprehension. Psychology Today referenced a 2023 study showing that students reading physical pages demonstrated reading comprehension six to eight times better than if they read screen-based text.

In Norway, neuroscientists measured brain activity during handwriting and typing. The 2024 study found that “when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typing.” Their findings indicate that handwriting activates connectivity patterns crucial for memory formation. The study urged schools to incorporate handwriting from an early age to establish the neuronal connectivity patterns optimal for learning.

Griffith is suspicious of device-based learning apps. “It’s dangerous to rely on games,” he warned. “I’m not sure the core skill is being acquired.”

Matthew Posey, a parent of Lower Merion school district students in Pennsylvania, spent 20 years leading IT operations and software development teams. “The consumption of a user interface is not the same as computer literacy,” he said.

Posey, who is a member of a parent group called Pencils Over Pixels, believes students should learn curriculum by using analog tools like pencils, paper, and face-to-face interaction instead of gamified apps. He argued that even when districts attempt to provide oversight, “poor implementation of content filtering” is a persistent and well-documented issue. “Students are often exposed to distractions and inappropriate content,” he said.

Last November, The New York Times reported that 70% of teachers said school-issued devices actively distract students. Children browse YouTube and social media and play games during class time.

In Fairfax County, Va., parents created the group Parents for Intentional Technology and petitioned the school board to return to computer carts or labs, designating a limited time and space for devices. One seventh grader begged board members at a May meeting to remove computers from her classroom because kids were playing games, distracting her during tests, and using devices instead of reading during class.

The Fairfax County school board established an Educational Technology Review Committee in April. The committee aims to “advise on criteria and processes for evaluating, piloting, scaling, and sunsetting educational technology tools.”

Griffith said educators considering device usage should ask themselves if the assignment actually requires technology. “If there’s no compelling reason, it shouldn’t be done on the screen,” he said.

But he acknowledged the answer isn’t as simple as parents opting kids out. “What we really need to do is build a system that gives parents confidence. When children are no longer spending all day online, or accessing YouTube illicitly during school hours, I think fewer parents will want to opt out,” Griffith said.

In April, the Los Angeles Unified School District board voted to restrict student device usage in schools, pivoting back to pen and paper. This came after the parent-created group, Schools Beyond Screens, pushed officials to eliminate the 1-1 device policy for third through eighth graders and return to a computer cart or lab model.

In McLennan County, Texas, Midway Independent School District maintains a 1-1 policy but offers parents an opt-in, rather than opt-out, device agreement. Dawn Wible, a mother of Midway students, founded the organization Talk More, Tech Less, a digital wellness and safety organization. She said Midway has safety measures on devices that notify parents of questionable usage or usage at unapproved times.

“Books and human interaction with teachers are the most valuable things a kid can have,” Wible said.

Though parents have the primary responsibility to keep children safe online, Wible said, this burden isn’t theirs alone.

She co-chairs the Online Harms Prevention work group with the nonprofit Fairplay, which says its goal is “helping children thrive in an increasingly commercialized, screen-obsessed culture.” Wible said Texas legislators are currently considering policy changes to address tech in schools.

Jason Thacker, a senior fellow and director of the Research Institute at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said the purpose of a true education is the holistic transformation of the person growing in wisdom and virtue, not simply downloading information.

“[A] Christian vision of education is primarily focused on what type of person we are becoming,” Thacker said. While technology makes things easier, or more convenient, character is molded through challenges and lessons learned from failure. With less technology, Thacker suggested, children can be formed in the “virtue of slowing down to think deeply about the perennial questions of human life.”

According to Griffith, change isn’t just possible—it’s coming. “Parents are angry, and a little scared, but they are an incredibly powerful political force,” he said. “Stuff happens when parents make decisions about their kids.”