Learn21's Weekly EdTech Update

November 5, 2026

What I Heard When I Turned Down the Volume

By Stacy Hawthorne, Ed.D.

Last night, I went to the movies with my son to see Wildwood. We settled into our seats, and almost immediately, I noticed how loud the theater was. Not just loud in the way we've come to expect from movie theaters. It was painfully loud.

I found myself reaching into my bag for my AirPods. I put them in, turned on noise cancellation, and left the music off. I wasn't trying to escape the movie. I just needed to make the experience more comfortable. It worked beautifully. I could still hear the dialogue, follow the story, and enjoy the movie with my son. The overwhelming volume was gone, but everything that mattered was still there.

And yes, I recognize the irony of using technology to make a technology-driven experience more enjoyable.

This morning, while reading yet another article about parents' perceptions of screen time in schools, I found myself thinking about those AirPods.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could turn down the volume on our national conversation about educational technology? Not to silence anyone or ignore legitimate concerns, but to hear what people are actually saying. I think we're hearing a lot of noise and sometimes missing the conversation.

Three Perspectives, One Complicated Conversation

Over the past couple of days, I've encountered three different perspectives on children and technology.

First, I read an October 9 New York Times guest essay by child psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Slater, titled I'm a Child Psychiatrist. Screens Are Not the Problem.

Dr. Slater argues that our focus on screen time risks distracting us from deeper challenges facing children, particularly inadequate access to mental health services. Drawing on research examining children's technology use and mental health, he distinguishes between the amount of time spent on screens and patterns of compulsive or addictive use.

His point isn't that technology is harmless. It's that counting hours doesn't necessarily tell us which children are struggling, why they're struggling, or what support they need.

Then, this morning, I read an Education Week article by Alyson Klein examining how educators perceive parents' attitudes toward technology in schools.

According to the survey of 596 educators, 57% of urban educators said parents in their communities believe the amount of technology used in schools is about right. That number fell to 40% among suburban educators and 38% among educators in rural areas and towns. The headline suggests that resistance to educational technology is strongest in suburban and rural communities.

That's an interesting finding, but there's an important distinction worth examining. The survey asked educators what they believe parents think. It didn't ask the parents themselves.

Meanwhile, the National Parents Union's May 2026 survey asked parents directly and found that 74% believed their child's school used computers and tablets about the right amount. Only 17% thought schools used them too much. Interestingly, 75% of those same parents supported establishing daily screen-time limits, while just 1% wanted no screen time for learning at all.

So, which perspective is right? Or is that even the right question?

We're Not Necessarily Hearing Contradictions

Here's what strikes me about these findings: they aren't necessarily contradictory.

A parent can believe their child's school uses technology about the right amount and still want reasonable limits. They can appreciate a digital learning experience and question whether another one is worth the time it consumes. They can be concerned about social media, compulsive technology use, or excessive reliance on digital worksheets while enthusiastically supporting opportunities for students to code, create, collaborate, and solve authentic problems. That's not inconsistency. That's discernment.

In fact, one of the most interesting observations in the Education Week article comes from a suburban Chicago teacher who describes parents questioning time spent on adaptive learning platforms while enthusiastically supporting digital projects where students program robots and create objects using 3D printers.

Think about that for a moment. The same parents. The same school. The same general category of technology. Very different reactions. What changed? The purpose.

When parents can see students creating something meaningful, their perceptions of the technology may change. When technology appears to be little more than a digital substitute for a worksheet, they may reasonably question its value.

Of course, even that distinction deserves scrutiny. Not every creative project produces meaningful learning, and not every adaptive learning experience is without value. This reminds us that the conversation is far more sophisticated than a simple debate about how many minutes students spend looking at screens.

The Danger of Listening Only to the Loudest Voices

Something else caught my attention in the Education Week article.

Lila Byock, a Los Angeles parent and founder of Schools Beyond Screens, raised the possibility that the parents whose concerns receive the most attention aren't necessarily representative of all families. She pointed to the disproportionate influence of affluent parents in shaping public conversations. That's worth considering, particularly when educational leaders are trying to understand what their communities want.

We should absolutely listen to parents who are concerned about technology. Their experiences and questions matter. But we also have a responsibility to seek out the perspectives of families who aren't attending every school board meeting, writing opinion pieces, or participating in organized advocacy.

What does the parent whose child finally has reliable access to advanced coursework think? What about the family whose student uses assistive technology to communicate or participate more fully in the classroom? Or the parent who has watched their child become deeply engaged in learning because a teacher found a creative way to use technology?

This is a reminder that demographic differences deserve investigation, not assumptions. A rural community's relationship with educational technology may be shaped by different opportunities, challenges, and experiences than those of an urban or suburban community.

Good leadership requires us to understand those differences rather than turn them into competing headlines.

Turning Down the Volume Is Not the Same as Tuning People Out

I want to be careful with my movie theater analogy because there's an important difference between filtering out distractions and ignoring information we don't want to hear. Research that challenges our assumptions isn't noise. Neither are parents who disagree with us or students who tell us that technology is making their school day harder. Those perspectives are signals that deserve our attention.

The noise comes when we reduce complex findings to simplistic headlines, treat isolated experiences as universal truths, or allow the conversation to become a contest between people who supposedly love technology and people who supposedly hate it. Neither camp adequately represents the thoughtful educators and families I've encountered across the country.

Most people want children to be safe, healthy, engaged, and prepared for the future. They want learning experiences that are meaningful and developmentally appropriate. They want technology to serve children rather than the other way around.

Those are goals we can build on. Perhaps we'd make more progress if we spent less time arguing about which side is winning and more time identifying where we already agree.

A Challenge for Educational Leaders

Here's something I'd encourage every educational leader to try.

Before your next conversation about screen-time limits, device policies, or educational technology purchases, invite a few people who don't usually participate in those discussions. Include parents, teachers, and students with different experiences and perspectives.

Then ask them two questions:

1. Tell me about a time technology made learning possible, more meaningful, or more accessible.
2. Tell me about a time technology got in the way of learning or well-being.

Listen to both answers with equal curiosity. Resist the urge to defend an existing practice or immediately propose a solution.

You might discover an instructional experience worth expanding. You might identify a digital practice that needs to disappear. You might learn that a concern you assumed was about screen time was actually about instructional quality, communication, student well-being, or access. You might also find that the people you expected to disagree with have more common ground than anyone realized.

Last night, my AirPods didn't eliminate the sound in the theater. They helped me experience it differently. I could still hear the story without being overwhelmed by the volume. That's what I'd like us to accomplish in our conversations about educational technology.

Not fewer voices. Not less research. Not an escape from uncomfortable questions. Just enough space to hear the nuance, understand what matters, and make better decisions for students.

When we turn down the rhetoric, we might finally hear the learning.

Media Literacy Minute

Students Call for AI Literacy, Purposeful Tech Use in Schools

Students are learning about AI largely on their own: in a national survey of more than 95,000 K-12 students, parents, and educators, 46 percent of high schoolers said they learned about AI through independent experimentation, compared with 30 percent in class. This GovTech report shows students want schools to teach how AI generates answers and why it can be wrong, a useful nudge for parents and educators to build that conversation into everyday learning.

Memes, Hot Takes, and Comment Threads: How Young People Really Get Their News

Researchers who followed 13 Australian social media users aged 18 to 30 found that every participant, even those who avoid the news, saw far more “cultural commentary” (memes, hot takes, call outs, and comment threads made by non-journalists) than professional reporting, and many found it more accessible and credible. This HKS Misinformation Review study argues that teaching students to evaluate professional news is no longer enough; they also need to notice when informal content is shaping their views and question how it is framed and why it feels credible simply because it is repeated and endorsed by peers. The sample is small, but the takeaway is a strong prompt for educators and parents to talk with teens about the memes and comment threads they actually scroll.

We’re Drowning in Sketchy Information. Media Literacy Can Keep You From Going Under

Local reporters in Indianapolis are increasingly debunking misleading viral content, including deceptively edited school board videos shared with parents. This WFYI piece shares practical verification tips families can use right away, like comparing several trusted outlets instead of top search results or AI answers, and running a reverse image search to find where a photo first appeared.

Both Can Be True: Screen Time Isn't a Spectrum

By Danni Tymitz

My teenage daughter and I were talking recently about something she was wrestling with. She knew something to be true and could make a solid case for it. Her feelings were telling her something different, and she was struggling to reconcile the two.

We talked about how often thinking and feeling get treated as opposites, as if being more analytical makes you less emotional, or the reverse. That has never matched my experience. They work more like parallel lines, each set independently, and plenty of thoughtful people run high on both.

That conversation stayed with me, because I think we make the same mistake when we talk about screen time.

The Problem With a Single Line

We tend to place people on one spectrum, with "pro-technology" at one end and "anti-screen" at the other. The trouble is that a spectrum forces a trade. Move toward one end, and you have to move away from the other.

So the parent who raises a safety concern gets filed as anti-tech. The coach who champions a coding platform gets filed as pro-screen. Neither label is accurate, and both make the next conversation harder.

People don't hold one position on screen time. They hold many, running side by side.

The Lines We're Actually Carrying

When someone in your district shares a view about technology, they're usually speaking from several parallel lines, each set at its own level:

• Age and developmental stage: what's right for a kindergartner versus a high school junior
• Type of use: instruction, creation, entertainment, communication, social media
• Safety and data privacy: what students encounter and what's collected about them
• Health and well-being: sleep, attention, movement, mood
• Access and equity: who has devices and connectivity beyond the school day
• Accessibility: assistive tools, translation, accommodations
• Future readiness: the skills students will need next

A parent can be turned all the way up on safety and data privacy and all the way up on accessibility, because assistive technology changed their child's school experience. Two board members can share the same setting on health and well-being and sit far apart on age. A single label hides all of it.

Every Line Has a Knowing Side and a Feeling Side

This is where my daughter's question comes back. On any one of these lines, a person carries both what they know and what they feel.

A parent might read the district's data privacy agreement, understand that it's strong, and still feel uneasy about how much of their child's day lives on a platform. That isn't a failure of reasoning. It's two true things at once.

For leaders, this changes the goal. It isn't to win the argument or talk anyone's feelings down to zero. It's to bring clear, credible information to the knowing side and to listen honestly to the feeling side.

Sometimes good information shifts a line. Sometimes it doesn't, and that feeling may be pointing to something worth your attention.

Putting Parallel Lines to Work

A few ways to use this lens in your next technology conversation:

• Ask which line a concern lives on. "I'm worried about screens" might really mean safety, sleep, or the kind of work students are doing. Naming the line keeps everyone focused.
• Build guidance line by line. A clear privacy practice, age-band expectations, and a stance on social media are easier to explain, and adjust, than one blanket screen-time position.
• Show your work. Share what the evidence says, where it's still developing, and what your district is doing in response.
• Map your own lines first. Before you lead the discussion, notice where your own settings sit and why.

When we stop asking people to pick a side, we can start understanding what they're actually carrying. Both can be true. Usually, several things are.

Big Ideas:History Left Its Fingerprints

History isn’t over, it’s just in peer review. 

The Terra-Cotta Army Had a Few Surprise Recruits

For decades, everyone assumed China’s famous clay soldiers were made entirely by adult men. Nobody really knew why. Researchers analyzed 79 fingerprints from 36 warriors and estimated that only 45 percent of the prints were likely made by adult men, another 32.7 percent by adult women, and the remaining 22.3 percent by children under 15. The fine print matters: the proportions of fingerprints don’t necessarily reflect the proportions of people who made them, and inexperienced workers may have left more fingerprints than skilled artisans. Still, it lines up with the paper trail: inscriptions on Qin-era lacquerware include phrases meaning “adult woman,” “young woman,” and “young boy.” Somewhere in Xi’an, a 13-year-old apprentice is finally getting the recognition they deserve. Still no overtime pay, though. 

Rome’s Party Trick Was Nanotechnology

The 4th-century Lycurgus Cup transforms from jade green to blood red in different lighting, which made it the ultimate dinner-party flex for about 1,600 years. The Romans are believed to have created the effect by embedding tiny nanoparticles of silver and gold in the glass, and a University of Sheffield team has now worked out a repeatable recipe. The kicker: the color was so touchy that one expert thinks it would have been very difficult for the Romans to control, and that with the Lycurgus glass they simply hit the jackpot. The original recipe was apparently “put it somewhere in the furnace and hope.” Honestly, relatable.

Astronomers Think They Found the Night Behind The Starry Night

Art historians have long dated Van Gogh’s masterpiece to June 1889. A South Korean team used astronomy software to recreate every night sky during June and July 1889 and found that on July 22, the moon was a crescent sitting above Venus, the Hyades star cluster would have fit within the frame, and the night was clear enough to see the stars. Not everyone’s buying it. The Van Gogh Museum points out that around July 22, Van Gogh suffered a severe crisis that prevented him from painting for several weeks. One outside physicist calls it “an intriguing hypothesis rather than a settled answer,” but agrees the painting wasn’t pure fantasy. Nothing settles an argument like software, except when it doesn’t.

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