The Sixth seminar in the What Matters in Education? panel discussion series considered the role technology should play in the classroom.
More or less technology in the classroom - the value and purposes of technology use in schools
Introduction
The debate over the role of digital technology in schools alternates between a concern for the harms it may cause and attention to its potential to transform education. Speakers considered a range of possible applications and whether they would enhance or diminish equity and inclusivity in education.
Key questions for debate
- What are the pros and cons of using technology in education?
- Does EdTech save teachers' time or add to their workload?
- How can we address equity and inclusion in education, through the provision of resources and the ways in which they are used?
- What role should EdTech companies play in ensuring data privacy?
Opening topics | Speakers |
---|---|
EdTech – a solution looking for a problem? | Wayne Holmes |
The landscape of AI and Tech use in schools and colleges | Annie Maciver, Department for Education |
Educational Technology in Schools: who is it really for? | Nadya French, The National Association for Education Technology (NAACE) |
Automating authority, redistributing rights. The effects of technology on people in the classroom. | Jen Persson, Defend Digital Me |
Panel discussion chairs: Dr Becky Taylor, Head of Impact and Engagement at IOE and Professor Gemma Moss, Director of the ESRC Education Research Programme. |
What we heard - using technology well in education
- From a research perspective
- There is continuing uncertainty about the impacts of EdTech in education.
- Despite a long history of research, its precise benefits (and harms) are still in doubt.
- There is little agreement about what effective use looks like, and therefore how to measure it.
- Claims that EdTech saves teachers' time are often unfounded; tasks are often displaced rather than reduced.
- There is too little emphasis on supporting teachers to become genuinely, digitally and critically, AI literate.
- The DfE Technology in Schools Survey
- Most schools have a digital strategy, 2 in 10 do not (mostly primaries).
- To support schools, the DfE has set out digital and tech standards, spanning connectivity through to cyber security.
- Connectivity remains an issue for many schools. Only 54% of primaries report full fibre broadband compared with 93% of secondaries.
- Schools most frequently use technology for homework or collaborative learning. Interactive whiteboards and laptops are the most commonly used devices.
- Teacher perspectives
- Technology in the classroom can help students take ownership of their learning, make subjects more accessible and teaching more interactive.
- It can also help teachers track students’ progress more easily.
- But unequal access to devices and the internet at home can widen the digital divide.
- Parents can find VLEs difficult to navigate, inhibiting parental engagement with their children’s studies.
- Data, privacy and security issues
- Too little is known about how schools use the digital data they collect from pupils and teachers and what protections there are to prevent it reaching commercial companies for their own use.
- These data security and privacy issues will only escalate with wider use of AI.
Questions the audience raised
How can we broaden and improve the evidence base around EdTech so that it takes into account the varied perspectives and needs of teachers, students, parents and carers?
How can educators keep up with the pace of innovation while developing the appropriate skills and knowledge to use technology well?
Do the national curriculum and inspection framework have enough references to technology to support innovative digital practices in and critical media/AI literacy?
What copyright protections are there for teachers who produce and share content on EdTech platforms?
Looking to the future
- A role for policy
- Ensure clearly articulated educational values and purposes guide the use of EdTech.
- Put in place robust protocols for schools to follow to make sure that technologies. allowed in classrooms do no harm and are grounded in sound educational principles.
- Fund exploratory research, based on the Dutch Nolai model, that brings educators together with technologists and researchers to address common concerns.
- Remember that connectivity across the country is still patchy and that, without investment, some communities and schools will remain digitally poor.
- What practitioneers can do
- Don’t believe the hype - if technology only mimics what already happens it will not transform teaching or learning.
- Engage in critical reflection on when EdTech adds to workload or reduplicates existing activity for very little benefit.
- Slow down the pace of innovation in schools by putting pedagogy first, not what the tech can do.
- Keep in mind that not all students have equal access to broadband connection or a suitable device. Alternative access matters.
- How research can help
- The benefits of assistive EdTech (such as screen readers, voice recognition, text to speech, or eye tracking) for students with disabilities.
- Whether EdTech in schools is exacerbating the digital divide, and if so, how that can be remedied.
- The use of data dashboards in schools. What is the strength of the evidence that supports their use? Is the data fit for the purposes it is supposed to fulfil? What safeguards are in place to protect those whose data are collected?
- Classroom-based studies that can investigate how EdTech is used in different educational settings and its capacity to support collaborative learning.
- The forms of partnerships between educators, researchers and EdTech creators needed to tackle key questions that can best be solved by working together.
- How to equip students (and their teachers) with the critical skills needed to participate safely and well in an increasingly complex digital world.
In brief
Technology plays an increasingly important part in how schools work. But we need more robust evidence of any benefits it brings, for whom, and whether and under what circumstances, those benefits are equally shared.
A learner-centred framework based on a shared understanding of educational values and purposes, might usefully signpost how to practitioners, pupils and parents can acquire the critical digital literacy skills they need to be active digital citizens.
References
Holmes, Wayne, EdTech. A solution looking for a problem?
Department for Education, Technology in schools survey report: 2022 to 2023