Making the great promise of edtech a reality

 Our fam­i­ly had a good tran­si­tion to online learn­ing when schools closed in March. My 15-year-old moved seam­less­ly to online learn­ing via Microsoft Teams with a school-issued iPad and a full timetable. My 11-year-old, hav­ing dodged the SATs, moved to Google Class­room and spent an hour a day on school­work with his Dad’s old work lap­top and sev­er­al hours hon­ing his Fort­nite com­put­er game skills. None of it was ide­al, but it was straight­for­ward and man­age­able.

How­ev­er, our expe­ri­ence was far from com­mon­place. Inequal­i­ty of access to online learn­ing pro­vi­sion is wide­spread. The Depart­ment for Edu­ca­tion esti­mates that 25 per cent of chil­dren have not engaged in any learn­ing dur­ing the lock­down and the Nation­al Union of Stu­dents say one in five stu­dents do not have access to online learn­ing.

I have been told of teach­ers spend­ing their own mon­ey to buy don­gles for stu­dents to enable con­nec­tiv­i­ty, schools plead­ing for dona­tions of old com­put­ers from the local com­mu­ni­ty, fam­i­lies shar­ing access to one device and heads deliv­er­ing paper study packs and food parcels by bicy­cle.

How did we get caught short? It’s 2020. We’ve had lead­ing dig­i­tal and tech experts at the cen­tre of gov­ern­ment for years. But the first edtech strat­e­gy was only announced in April 2019 and the £10-mil­lion fund is a drop in the ocean if we are to build a future-fit edu­ca­tion sys­tem. Why has it tak­en so long to realise what an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty tech­nol­o­gy offers for stu­dents and teach­ers?

We must close the digital access gap

When the Bett Show start­ed in 1985, it was an event for pio­neers stock­ing the com­put­er room. Some 36 years lat­er, Bett is the glob­al meet­ing place for the edu­ca­tion ecosys­tem from min­is­ter to teacher to hard­ware com­pa­ny and app inno­va­tor. And yet, it has tak­en a pan­dem­ic and school clo­sures for Bett to mobilise their com­mu­ni­ty dig­i­tal­ly, cre­at­ing an online hub of best prac­tice and resources as edtech becomes an absolute neces­si­ty.

Bett’s Glob­al Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil has set out a man­i­festo for the future of edu­ca­tion. They believe uni­ver­sal inter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty and access to tech­nol­o­gy are the back­bone to ensur­ing every child’s right to edu­ca­tion.

I agree with them. The UK needs world-class dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture and basic access to the inter­net should be free for every­one. We will nev­er close the gap or breach the dig­i­tal divide until we have a lev­el play­ing field.

Why schools need a long-term digital plan

We must also revis­it how we are teach­ing and what knowl­edge and skills we want learn­ers to acquire.

One of the great promis­es of edtech, and indeed all tech, has been that it would make life eas­i­er. That may well be true for the school office where man­age­ment infor­ma­tion sys­tems and par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion apps have pos­i­tive­ly shift­ed the dynam­ic, but it is a much more com­plex chal­lenge for teach­ing and learn­ing.

Rare is the school with a well-thought-through dig­i­tal strat­e­gy where tech, infra­struc­ture and teach­ers work in per­fect sym­bio­sis and stu­dents have a per­son­alised learn­ing jour­ney. Through heed­ing the lessons of lock­down, the time is now for all schools to imple­ment a long-term, strate­gic dig­i­tal plan to pro­vide the edu­ca­tion our young peo­ple need and deserve.

As for knowl­edge and skills, it’s time to rethink what we teach in school. When we all have Google in our pock­ets, rote learn­ing becomes obso­lete. We must teach crit­i­cal think­ing, ana­lyt­i­cal skills and cre­ativ­i­ty so chil­dren can thrive in this com­plex, evolv­ing world. We owe this not just to our stu­dents, but to the esti­mat­ed 7 per cent unem­ployed who want to reskill and con­tribute as we build our post-COVID and post-Brex­it econ­o­my. Let’s teach back bet­ter.