Why Pens & Pencils Aren't Going Anywhere

For at least the past decade, people have theorized that the shift from writing with a pen or pencil in a classroom to writing on a tablet is just around the corner. Every year, it seems that this change should be closer and closer. New technology has made translation from tablet scribbles into text simple and fast, and tablets are getting cheaper and faster. So why does it seem like we aren’t any closer to this goal than we were a decade ago?

The most important issue to address is cost. Now, immediately after reading this sentence, you’re probably thinking, “What does he mean, ‘cost’? If I tallied up all the pens, pencils, paper, notebooks, and binders I’ve bought during the course of my education, a tablet would end up being much cheaper! I only need one of those!” And you’re right. But the important thing to examine is that you’ve been buying these supplies over the course of several years. A tablet, on the other hand, is an expensive one-time purchase. Lower income communities are barely able to afford those school supplies, it’s entirely unfeasible to expect them to be able to fish out a few hundred dollars when living paycheck to paycheck. And this is assuming that you only need one tablet for your entire educational career. Now imagine all the times that you’ve dropped your own phone, tablet, or laptop. Even most middle class families wouldn’t be able to keep up with a clumsy child breaking their tablet every few months. Furthermore, with the rate at which tablet technology advances, it’s likely that you will need to upgrade your tablet at some point. And schools certainly can’t afford to provide the children with these tablets, as most K-12 schools already barely make do. And if you think you can convince parents to support tax hikes to fund a program like this, not only purchasing tablets but also training, good luck.

Another important set back deals not with the students and their families, but with the teachers. While most kids these days grow up around technology, and know their way around it, the teachers weren’t raised in the same culture. It’s fundamentally impossible for a school to function around tablet use when the teachers themselves don’t know how to use one. Sure, the school could provide training for each teacher, but as mentioned earlier, the schools simply don’t have the budget to do this. And even if the teachers were tech-savvy enough to know their way around a tablet, as they doubtlessly will become as time goes on, they, along with the students, will still be unfamiliar with whatever software the school adopts for the collection of student data. With an untrained instructor, this will make organization of assignment and exams a very time consuming process. And each new school will likely adopt different software, making training the students every few years a significant effort.

While tablets could undoubtedly enhance the classroom experience, these important factors cause significant hurdles to cross before a tablet in the hands of every student is a reality. The potential benefits of a tablet system simply cannot outweigh the monumental effort and cost required to do away with the paper system. Don’t expect to be throwing out your #2 anytime soon.