When it comes to technological solutions to real-world challenges, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. There could be tens of ways of solving a particular issue and given that the tech scene is constantly and rapidly evolving, this could become a problem for educational institutions that are planning on incorporating technological solutions.

Technology alone will not revolutionize education, but it can definitely help, provided you have realistic expectations for what technology can and can’t do in schools. In this article, we’re going to address common myths about technology use in education.

Myth 1: Cool is engaging
Many educational institutions budget an inordinate amount of money on the latest flashy and cool gadgets because they feel that the more “cool” their setup is, the more engaging students will find it, and the more teachers will use it. Most of these gadgets require extensive training for successful implementation without which they are just glorified room decorators.

Myth 2: Learning with technology isn’t learning
There’s the school of thought that says that if your education curriculum only involves students staring at screens all day that they will lose out on the immersion of a traditional, real-world lesson. That, however, is a problem with teaching, not a technology problem. Technology is used to complement traditional methods of teaching, not replace them. It creates an opportunity for students to move outside the classroom and experience things they’d not have experienced otherwise.

Myth 3: Technology use equals student success
Some schools and teachers believe that once they equip their classrooms and buildings with the latest and best technology, that their students will automatically improve in their studies. That is a very false belief. You don’t just hand off all aspects of teaching to the computer software. Like we said in Myth 2 above, technology complements traditional forms of teaching, not replaces them.

Myth 4: It’s okay as long as it works.
This is not particular to educational institutions alone, but to a lot of users of technology products. As long as it works and does what is needed, many users of technology don’t care about any other thing. One such thing is privacy. As an educational institution using technology products to manage the day-to-day running of your school, you are handing off a lot of data to the software. How is your data processed? How is it stored? Are nefarious things being done to and with your data, like selling to advertisers?

Many schools are now scrutinizing some of the tools they use in the classroom due to the concerns of parents over how much of their children’s data is being made available to companies and what these companies are doing with the data. In addition, many technology companies get really excited about a tool they have built, only to find that it does not match the needs of teachers in the classroom or that it solves a problem no one actually has.


When introducing any new technology into the classroom, it is imperative that teachers and educational institutions don’t fall for the myth that something shiny and new will be good for students’ education, or that as long as it works they are okay. You must study the underlying costs (financial and otherwise), and figure out the responsibilities of the school, teacher, and families when introducing a technology tool into the classroom.

If you have any thoughts or additional myths about technology use in the classroom, please share in the comments below.

Source: Exercise Book, the BlueBic blog.

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