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What is the Point of Technology in Education?

The use of technology in education goes back several decades, and the 'edtech' market is estimated to be worth some $250 billion by next year, 2020, which is quite a colossal sum. For all of this investment we should surely imagine that there is some kind of impact to show for the money that's been spent but, interestingly, there does not seem to be any significant correlation between the countries or schools which have invested most heavily in technology and educational outcomes.

However, there's no particular evidence that technology leads to better outcomes - either on a school by school basis or on a country by country. As Table 1 shows, the countries which are investing most in edtech don't appear to be top of the PISA rankings. It also remains the case that just 3% of educational data is digitised (estimates vary between 2-5%), a far cry from other sectors. Still, despite the spend on edtech, students across the world spend the majority of their time completing tasks on paper with tech a peripheral add-on. All of this begs the fundamental question: what is the point of technology in education?

There has often been a tendency to buy tech that looks great - interactive whiteboards, tablets, games, video platforms and the like. However, whether the technology spend has had an impact on student outcomes is perhaps more questionable. It would be relatively hard to argue that every pound or dollar spent on an interactive whiteboard has produced the greatest possible average grade increase per pupil. The Education Endowment Foundation's research suggests that technology can have an impact when it is used well, but it is embarrassingly outperformed by comparatively cheap strategies such as providing effective feedback or training students to have better metacognitive skills. The advent of new technologies such as blockchain and AI are creating an industry of new edtech companies offering products that (supposedly) include them, often with a hefty price tag and little pedagogical reasoning or evidence as to why. What is AI supposed to do if less than 5% of educational data is digitised? AI depends entirely on learning from massive datasets, that simply do not exist in education. Is blockchain really the answer to a problem teachers actually have, or is it just a fashionable technology looking for a role in education?

Perhaps, rather than buying the technology just because it is there, we should be starting from the challenges teachers face and developing technology that addresses their needs, based on best-practice and evidence. That's certainly the approach I've been involved with which, as a former teacher and tutor myself, has seemed to be completely intuitive. This seems to have the most potential to actually have a positive impact on student outcomes.

There are some obvious areas to focus on:

  • Robust internet connections for schools. Almost all new software is cloud-based to make set-up and upgrades cheaper and easier, so connectivity is essential.
  • Learning platforms that include quality, curriculum-aligned content. This can supplement (or, in some cases, replace) printed resources, cannot be defaced or lost and which can save money in the long run.
  • Formative and summative assessment software. Ideally this will include question banks with a broad range of questions - including questions requiring written answers or mathematical notation and not just multiple choice or 'fill in the blanks'. Of course, this should be curriculum aligned too.
  • Providing students with feedback remotely after each question and self-assessment or peer-assessment opportunities. Feedback and metacognition are the highest-impact interventions in the EEF's Teaching and Learning toolkit and can help learners to get into the habit of reviewing and thinking about their own work.
  • Opportunities for teachers to review student work remotely and, preferably, to automate the collection of data. It will probably always be important for teachers to mark or at least review student work so they understand how well their students are doing but surely, in this day and age, the data on student progress should be collected automatically.
  • Incorporating robust educational theory into edtech platforms to make teachers' lives easier. Technology can be used to encourage evidence-led practices such as spaced learning, elaboration and more advanced ideas such as cognitive load theory.

Some highly effective elearning platforms are now being developed in the UK, usually by or in collaboration with teachers themselves. For example, I am helping to build the Get My Grades family of education platforms, being deployed in education systems around the world. They provide curriculum aligned resources that are internationally comparable and real-time data that has been automatically collected as students work and teachers mark. A variety of specialist curriculum products are also being developed, in the realms of phonics, SEND provision, EAL, computing and STEM. If school leaders are careful, they can find that some new products have substantial value.

As education systems around the world, especially in developing countries, look to invest heavily in edtech over the coming years, it is crucial that the technology industry gets this right. There is an enormous cost to schools that waste precious budget on shiny gadgets or flashing lights that don't have much impact on educational outcomes. For international schools, they will likely face increasing competition in some countries from state systems which are rapidly modernising. International schools will likely lead the way in demonstrating best practice in the deployment of technology, as is so often the case in other areas. COBIS members are typically some of the best schools across the world and they have a great opportunity to showcase the best of British education technology to help them stay ahead of the game for at least the coming decade or more, providing an increasingly consistent and high-quality education for their students.

What is Get My Grades?

Get My Grades will be exhibiting at the 38th COBIS Annual Conference - Vision 2030: The Future of International Education (11-13 May 2019).

Get My Grades is an innovative online learning platform that enables students to learn, revise and assess themselves. It automatically collects data on how students get on in each part of their course, so that parents, teachers and students can track their progress in real time. It provides more meaningful data to everyone whilst reducing teacher workload.

The Get My Grades platform is simple and easy to use – it is based on good teaching practice and the latest research. It even includes clearly signposted extra content that goes beyond the bare minimum of the course to encourage curiosity and help students make informed decisions about which subjects they might want to study in future.

www.getmygrades.co.uk