Here is blog two in our series around the DfE report on Implementation of education technology in schools. The first blog, ‘The value of internal alignment for successful EdTech in MATs’ was focused on how the key theme of obtaining internal alignment can support successful EdTech.
Moving onto the second blog in the series.
When I was looking through the recent DfE EdTech report, I was intrigued by the section on piloting and trialling, and thought I’d ask one of our consultants, Steve Warburton, about their experience of this in schools. Steve not only has experience of ICT consultation, but he also has first-hand education experience through being a Headteacher, part of a MAT leadership team and even setting up a University Technical College.
You can watch the full interview or, here’s a tidied-up version of our conversation without the ‘errrs, umms and side-tracks!’
Richard: Steve, one of the elements that stood out to me in the report was the inclusion of a section on Piloting or trialling Edtech
Steve: There were no real surprises about the other stages in the process that the report outlined. I was, however, surprised and pleased to see the section you mentioned. Not because I don’t believe it’s important, but because I think that it often gets missed out in school-based projects.
Richard: Why do think it is a phase that schools can sometimes miss out?
Steve: There are costs and risks involved. First of all, it costs time. Very often schools are under pressure to make rapid improvement. A ‘trial’ phase might lengthen the project timeline. If you believe in the potential of the EdTech to make a difference, you want it as quickly as possible, to make an impact.
Richard: Surely though, if piloting helps schools, colleges and trusts make good, informed decisions about implementing technology, that must be a good thing?
Steve: Definitely…of course if the trial identifies barriers that are insurmountable or costs that are unsustainable… then ‘phew’ and be grateful that you saved yourself and your organisation a lot of time, money and anguish. If the final decision for the project is a ‘go’, having had that phase means you can save time, pain, and money later in the project because you’ve identified potential problems, gaps in functionality or infrastructure limitations (eg. Is the wifi able to support this across a school).
Richard: What about the people aspect?
Steve: Thanks for flagging that. I know we’ve talked about this before – the ‘people’ challenge of technology adoption. A ‘pilot’ does offer the opportunity to ‘fine-tune’ the personnel aspects – the report highlights two in particular: time and support which accord with my experience with edtech implementation projects ever since my involvement in the 1998 Microsoft ‘Anytime, Anywhere’ Learning laptop project!
Richard: Time?
Steve: Ring-fencing time - to ensure staff have sufficient time within their day to explore and pilot new technology, such as allocating specific time each week to plan, prepare, and evaluate new technology, as well as supporting other staff using the technology.
Richard: I think I know the answer… but piloting/trialling ensures a good result in your implementation?
Steve: The report nails that in one paragraph*… the process of a trial in a school was deemed successful – and of itself - but implementation failed on roll-out because they had not thoroughly analysed the pilot in terms of considering management of the devices when scaling up from one class to whole school use. For example, considering how and where the devices would be charged, creating email addresses for every child in the school, simplification of the logging on process and password management for a key stage 1 context, how devices could be linked so that books could be shared across the entire year group, and how learners could be prevented from accessing and downloading material independently without the teacher’s knowledge. So, analysis of the trial and how to scale up is just as important as running a trial.
*“Reflecting on the lessons learned from a pilot - was noted as an important factor for future success, whether that be future pilots, or implementation roll-out. As part of this reflection process, one school felt it was important to acknowledge when things did not work and to have a culture where staff were encouraged to try out technology to see if it works, or not.” DfE report Implementation of education technology in schools
Richard: Do you think the report identifies all the benefits of this process? Can you spell out what the documents says?
Steve: Piloting supported schools and colleges to make informed decisions about implementing new technology. It helped them to identify:
- The effectiveness and impact of the technology
- any potential problems
- gaps in functionality or infrastructure
- challenges or pitfalls with the implementation process ahead of roll-out.
Another benefit not outlined in the report is the chance to see the impact that new EdTech has on other parts of the school ecosystem. I remember rolling out a new Information system across a school and then realising that it was causing students to be late for lessons as they stopped to watch the great content we’d put together!
Richard: Steve, I know you were involved in some high-profile EdTech pilots in the past – can you give us some examples and pick out what you learnt from them?
Steve: As you can probably tell Richard, I’m a massive advocate for piloting EdTech. I therefore have quite a few examples, but let me share two key ones:
- Introducing a new Virtual Learning Environment across a school: staff involved in the pilot were then able to be facilitators for teachers in their own faculty areas as they developed materials that worked on the platform – the pilot group involved staff from across the schools that were merging to form a new Academy, another way of seeding expertise across the organisation.
- Introducing 1:1 Devices: the significant benefit of a pilot here identified the challenge of local storage, charging and sharing of devices and enabled us to develop simple protocols and make the correct infrastructure purchases in a primary school to ensure all devices remained charged and available across the school day.
Conclusion
Piloting is something that we always encourage our clients to do, as you’ve said Steve, we can get some great insight into whether the technology will work how we expect it to. So, it’s great to see that the DfE are also advising piloting as a key step to successful EdTech.
If you are already looking at new EdTech within your MAT or school or even if you aren’t sure what your ICT Strategy is and if you need to consider new EdTech, then get in touch with Steve to find out how we can help.
