The study was conducted in two secondary schools in Catalonia and involved a sample of 536 students. “We observed how the tension between innovation and control touches every aspect of school life. Some schools choose to ban mobile phones; others, to create screen-free areas; some are committed to full digitalisation; while others decide to scale back technology to the point where it becomes almost unrecognisable,” indicate the authors of the article published in The Conversation.

In their article, the UIC Barcelona lecturers examine how digital initiatives in educational settings often end up turning into control measures that hinder the meaningful use of devices such as tablets and mobile phones in the classroom. Projects that begin with the promise of innovating teaching – such as providing one device per student – sometimes lead to excessive restrictions, including blocking cameras, disabling applications and limiting internet access. 

In their analysis, the experts from UIC Barcelona explain that many schools oscillate between two opposing trends: an initial techno-optimism that embraces digitalisation without clear pedagogical planning, and a techno-scepticism that results in bans or restrictive limitations.

Transformative tools

The authors advise schools to regulate the use of digital tools and propose helping teachers design activities in which technology brings genuine value. “Mutilating a tablet – blocking basic functions – makes it nothing but an expensive book, while banning mobile phones eliminates any educational possibility,” note Romero and Vidal. "In contrast, using technology purposefully means integrating it into activities that bring value: for example, using a camera to document an experiment or a mobile phone to collect and analyse data on a field trip,” they explain.

According to Romero and Vidal, the key lies in developing teaching and leadership skills that enable schools to establish usage policies focused on competency development: computational thinking, data comprehension and analysis, digital literacy and programming skills.

With a commitment to addressing these issues, UIC Barcelona hosted the international ISCAR Congress in November 2025, an academic gathering of over sixty professionals that provided a forum for reflection on current educational challenges, including the use of technology in the classroom and teacher training in artificial intelligence.