It’s 1993, school lunchtime and four future Headteachers were engaged with in-depth consideration of a major IT problem we were all facing… how to complete the 4th mission in Chocks Away … a game for the Archimedes computer, a device beloved of education in the early 1990s and successor to the ground-breaking BBC B machines.
We were Heads of Department, all committed to using more EdTech in our lessons – and frequently argued about how to allocate precious and minimal resources at the school’s IT Steering Group. Our first Ofsted inspection was in 1994 and I’m sure our lunchtimes subsequently became far busier as we prepared the myriads of files for their arrival (that we had six weeks’ notice of!).
These were the days before interactive whiteboards, non-lap-crushing laptops, tablets and classroom projectors. But, as we experimented with tech that even preceded school-based Internet access, we were convinced that education was on the cusp of a revolution – much as Edison had been 100 years before… and just like those horizon-scanning for the potential of AI’s impact are doing now.
Teachers v. Tech
Daisy Christodoulou's Teachers v. Tech (OUP, 2020) is founded on the question ‘how technology can help us achieve our educational goals’ and tries to connect what we now know about human cognition and what is possible with education technology. The title of the book is a misnomer with the question-mark giving a clue that this is not a ‘them .v. us’ battle. ‘How can Technology help…’ is the inspiration for the majority of the book and suggests that perhaps the ‘magic disruptor bullet’ is not a worthwhile pursuit itself, more that we should see technology as a tool. For her, the most successful innovations in education technology today are working within constraints. The best innovations are ‘finding ways for technology to help students learn challenging content in fun and efficient ways and revealing more about human cognition in the process.’'
Daisy advocates that we should take great care lest we base our technology use in education on ‘bad ideas’, and her bête-noirs are not necessarily the same as everyone else’s. But the notion of thinking ‘how can technology help…’ before making the investment - rather than investing and then thinking there must be some way in which it can help – is surely wise advice.
What's next?
As I reflect on the past 30 years, have we seen the advent of EdTech which has truly disrupted and reoriented education? Powerpoint and projectors have supercharged our chalk-and-talk (with used-well interactive whiteboards adding a rocket boost)… but that’s not a revolution. The Internet has put a library on our desk and opens the page(s) for us and laptops/tablets have pumped up our productivity… and 'Kahoot!' is only really a very fancy end-of -lesson test… so where’s the revolution?
Even during our pandemic experience from 2020 – 2022 a lot of our ‘innovation’ was, in truth, just an attempt to recreate the environment – the classroom – that we knew well.
Artificial Intelligence seems to be the next pretender to the disruptor crown. Witness the ‘blurb’ for a recent book on the subject ‘Let’s unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence and embrace its transformative power to take your craft to the next level!’.
Our responsibility as responsible educators is, however, not to be automatic ‘naysayers’ but to engage with new technologies, to explore their potential and, ultimately, to do what is best for our students. It is, after all, often only when we look back that we realise when real change took place.
Steve's Scribblings
Steve is our very own expert in the education sector, working with schools, MATs and various other companies to make the best possible use of ICT in education. Get in touch with us for a friendly chat about how we can help you with your own ICT problems or enquiries.
