I’M NOTICING A SIGNIFICANT DISCONNECT in our current version of 21st-century learning, call it an irony if you wish. It’s troubling, and I’m only able to guess at the reasons why.

This disconnect came into sharp focus for me a few weeks ago while I was engaged in a class discussion with a room full of teachers from various schools in the area, all gathered together to earn a master’s degree in educational technology through Touro University where I teach a graduate-level course called Emerging Trends in Educational Technology.

The students were giving individual presentations on the innovations taking place at their schools and elsewhere. We spent six weeks and three long class sessions exploring how today’s schools have changed, how classrooms have changed, and how teachers’ roles have changed in the 21st century.

We talked on and on about new techniques, new labs, special equipment, packaged programs for reading, writing, math, and science. We expounded on the virtues of marvelous websites and electrifying resources and watched demonstrations of how they all worked.

Toward the end of this unit, while chatting around the room, a thought came to me. “Well, we’ve talked quite a bit about how schools have changed, how classrooms have changed, how teachers’ roles have changed. Now I want to ask if you think the students have changed?” Everyone in the room immediately nodded yes without hesitation.

“Hm,” said I. “Was it a change for the better or worse?” I’m sorry to report that the whole class went thumbs down and said “worse” without much hesitation.

“Really?” I asked feigning surprise. “We’ve been bragging ourselves up for six weeks, and now this? I thought technology improved things. How so?”

I got a variety of responses, all variations on a theme. Kids are more disconnected. Their performance and motivation is in decline. They don’t pay attention. They don’t follow directions. They don’t seem to care as much about the lessons, the learning, or even the grades. There is disregard for precision. Finished homework is becoming a rarity. The evening turned into a genuine gripe therapy session.

Disclaimer: We did no research on current student trends statewide or nationally; for all we know, student performance and motivation is through the roof; this was the sentiment of one group, one night, and could be an aberration.

“Why is student performance waning?” I pondered. “Why the downward spiral? Is the fault with education? Would things be even worse if we were not making all these wonderful changes? Who are the usual suspects?”

One theory was that sensory overload was numbing children to new learning. They have too many channels, too many sites and apps, too many distractions, and it’s too easy to “click off” the instant boredom sets in.

Earlier we were touting the ubiquitous access to information as a positive; now we see it as flawed. “I’m bored.” Click. “I’m bored.” Click.

“Is that it?” I asked. “Is technology the culprit? It’s the reason we are here; it’s the root of all these innovations; and now we identify it as the culprit?”

Perhaps technology in education is a far more significant topic than we give it credit for. Inviting technology into a room full of children means more than a teacher assigning PowerPoint or Google Docs. We are releasing the Kraken. Requiring, requesting that every child have a computer, a laptop, a tablet, a phone, is putting in their hands a gateway to everywhere. Technology in its current configuration is a primary source of both learning and entertainment stirred together in a way that is difficult to separate.

Technology as a mind-sucking influence impacts us all in every way. It needs to be addressed by every educator, not merely a handful of specialists.

Other culprits discussed were diet and the economy. Crappy food lacking in micronutrients and unbalanced daily diets lead to a decline in mental acuity. Kids who don’t eat right, don’t think straight. Kids live in a world where it takes three factory apples to make an organic apple, where glyphosate is in our drinking water, and we wonder why they put their socks on backward.

A weakened economy means both parents must work longer and harder, leaving less time for supervisory parenting, home-style cooking, and homework checking.

Thus ended our evening session. I’ve been muddling over it since then. I agree that crappy food and busy parents can set a kid up for a fall, but my pedagogic concern is the influence of technology.

When we got our first taste, technology was all fun and games — animated cartoons, colorful presentations, an accounting spreadsheet or two. Technology was something a teacher added for fun, to jazz up an old lesson plan. Later they felt a responsibility to use technology because of its growing prevalence.

It is my position that we stopped short. We have failed to fully fathom the significance of what technology has done to the learner. The age of the traditional classroom where the teacher is the source of knowledge and resource is over. Now it’s the browser. We are no longer the epicenter of learning. The Internet in all its gory glory is the king of the hill.

We must accept this naturally occurring usurpation and train our students to harness this massive conduit to anywhere. Children need to learn to navigate as well as co-exist with the vastness. Currently they seem overwhelmed by the access, hypnotized, unable to harness or control its use.

We cannot continue to teach facts to a zoned-out audience with facts at their fingertips. We must assume our new role as navigation instructors. The classroom is no longer the center of learning. The center is now the circumference.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.