Technology Questions to Ask Students
Questions for teachers, tutors, and librarians who want to find out what students can actually do with technology rather than what they say they can. They move from everyday habits to troubleshooting, source checking, AI use, and online conduct.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What app do you use most, and what do you actually use it for?
Why ask it
An easy opener that gets past the name of the app to the purpose. Students who use one tool for six different jobs, such as running a whole social life through one chat thread, are worth noting when you plan group work.
Where do you go when you need to learn how to do something on a computer?
Why ask it
Video, a friend, a sibling, a search, or an AI assistant each produce different gaps. Students who rely entirely on a person will stall the moment that person is unavailable.
What is the first thing you do when a program will not do what you want?
Why ask it
Listen for a sequence rather than a feeling. Reading the error message, undoing the last change, or restarting are learned moves, and a student who only reports "it broke" has not been taught them yet.
Tell me about a time technology let you down at a bad moment.
Why ask it
Invites a story rather than a self-assessment, so quieter students often say more. The detail shows whether they had any recovery plan or simply lost the work.
How do you keep track of your files and your schoolwork?
Why ask it
Ask them to describe where a specific piece of work from last term is now. "It is in downloads somewhere" is common and tells you a naming and folder habit needs teaching before the next project.
If your laptop or phone stopped working tomorrow, what would you lose?
Why ask it
More concrete than asking whether they back things up. Photos and coursework are the usual answers, and the size of the loss is what makes the lesson land.
How do you decide whether something you read online is true?
Why ask it
Look for a check they perform rather than a feeling about the source. Naming a second source, checking a date, or looking at who publishes the site are the moves worth reinforcing.
How can you tell an advert from an ordinary search result or post?
Why ask it
Sponsored posts and paid results are designed to blend in, and this is a skill many adults lack too. Answers reveal whether a student has ever been shown where the labels appear.
What do you keep private online, and how did you decide where the line is?
Why ask it
The second half matters. A rule inherited from a parent, a school assembly, or a bad experience produces different reasoning, and the last of these deserves a careful follow-up in private.
What would you do if someone you did not know messaged you?
Why ask it
Ask it calmly and as a general question, not as an accusation. If a student describes something that has already happened, stop the interview and follow your setting's safeguarding process.
How do you use AI tools for schoolwork, and where do you stop?
Why ask it
Most students will already be using them, so a question that assumes otherwise gets a false answer. Asking where they stop signals that some use is legitimate and produces a more honest description.
How would you know if an AI answer was wrong?
Why ask it
Tests whether they treat the output as a draft or an authority. A student who cannot name any way to check has been handed a tool without the accompanying scepticism.
Have you ever written code, or changed something inside a program or game?
Why ask it
Widen it past formal lessons to include mods, spreadsheet formulas, and macros. Plenty of students have done real programming without calling it that, and will undersell it if asked about coding alone.
What have you made with technology that you were pleased with?
Why ask it
Shifts the frame from consuming to producing, and often surfaces editing, music, or design skills that never appear in class. Ask to see it if they are willing.
How do you and your friends work on something together online?
Why ask it
Reveals whether they have a shared-editing habit or pass files back and forth. Students who email versions to each other will find group coursework much harder than it needs to be.
What do you do when your phone is pulling at you and you need to finish something?
Why ask it
Look for a specific tactic: another room, a timer, notifications off, someone taking the phone. "I just concentrate" usually means the strategy has not been found yet.
How do you handle it when a conversation online turns nasty?
Why ask it
Leaving, blocking, screenshotting, and telling someone are all different levels of response. Answers tell you whether they see an adult as an option, which is the part worth working on.
What do adults get wrong about how you use technology?
Why ask it
Gives students licence to correct you, and the answers tend to be specific and fair. It also builds enough trust that later questions about safety get honest replies.
What technology do you think you will need for the work you want to do?
Why ask it
Reveals how they connect current skills to a future, and how accurate that picture is. Vague answers are a chance to name the ordinary tools most jobs actually require.
If you could change one thing about the technology you use at school, what would it be?
Why ask it
A closing question that often produces the most useful information of the session: blocked sites, slow machines, logins that fail. Repeated complaints from several students are worth passing on.
Finding out what students can actually do
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask
Ask for the last time, not the usual
"How do you check sources" invites the answer they think you want. "What did you do the last time you were not sure about something you found" produces a recallable event and a much more accurate picture.
Follow the answer with show me
Confidence and competence separate quickly at a keyboard. A student who describes file management well but cannot find last term's work in under a minute has told you what to teach next.
Do not assume fluency by age
Comfort with a phone does not transfer to keyboard shortcuts, file systems, spreadsheets, or formatting. Ask about these specifically rather than treating technology as one skill.
Ask one to one where you can
In a group, students calibrate their answers to their friends and nobody admits to not knowing something. A two-minute conversation at a desk gets further than a class discussion.
Handling what you hear
Keep AI use discussable
If using these tools carries an automatic penalty, students will describe what is permitted rather than what they do. Set out what is allowed for which task, then the conversation about checking output becomes possible.
Have a route ready for disclosures
Questions about messages, privacy, and online conflict sometimes surface contact from strangers, bullying, or images shared without consent. Know your setting's safeguarding process before you ask, and follow it rather than handling it yourself.
Log the practical obstacles separately
Blocked sites, shared logins, and machines that take ten minutes to start are not student skill gaps. Collect them and take them to whoever runs the systems, since students rarely report them upward.
Common mistakes
Treating device access as equal
Some students share one laptop with a family, work on a phone, or have limited data. Questions about home setups should be asked privately, and coursework should not assume a quiet desk and a printer.
Grading the answers
If this feels like assessment, students will perform competence. Say plainly that you are working out what to teach next, and that not knowing something is the useful answer.
Stopping at attitudes
Knowing that a student values online safety is not the same as knowing they can spot a phishing message. Pair every question about values with one about a concrete action.