Dave Kenworthy, Director of Digital Services at CoSector explores Damian Hinds EdTech revolution and discusses how virtual reality could be the key driver
As a nation, we’re always looking for various ways of bettering our lives with the latest technology and automating time-consuming activities within the workplace. Although it can be difficult for individuals to embrace these changes within a company. A common problem occurs during the reconstruction of traditional systems, where employees must be trained in how to use a new one. However, the responsibility should be with the technology companies in ensuring that these problems are addressed during the installation of new solutions.
Recently, Education Secretary Damian Hinds called on the tech industry[1] to inspire an ‘education revolution’ challenging them to provide a solution to the current burden on teachers, and create a more efficient administration process.
He mentioned how exciting new technologies would change the learning experience, claiming that he’d “been fortunate enough to see technology being used in revolutionary ways. Students are able to explore the rainforest, steer virtual ships or program robots from their classroom.” Whilst unquestionably fascinating, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) could be a long way off being adopted on a widespread scale by the sector, and it remains to be seen if these will have long-term value or if they are perhaps a novelty in the current climate.
What we should be paying closer attention to is the latter part of his comments, that were skipped over – the key areas where tech could provide innovative solutions to alleviate burden, i.e. providing better teaching practices, assessment processes, training and development.
However, here is where Hinds is completely spot on. We need to be looking at each of these and the part they play in the learner’s journey as a whole. We urgently need to improve the automation around these less interesting but crucial administration processes in order to free up resources, enabling a better standard of teaching and an enhanced learner’s journey.
So what would this look like? It will be as simple as teachers being able to access records across a secure shared site, a system that can recognise and flag irregularities such as a student whose attendance has dropped, assessment processes that are more secure and easier to audit and the creation of online teacher training programmes that will allow them to qualify remotely, so they don’t have to spend two days away on a course.
But as vast as an educational institute can be, it’s unlikely that they will have the infrastructure or full IT team in place to support this amount of change in such a short space of time. To achieve this, educational organisations need to ensure they are working with the right managed IT suppliers to guarantee a validating strategy. Not only supplying the software or equipment needed, but also supporting post-roll-out to ensure a smooth transition process and that users are fully trained. Furthermore, establishments need to be partnered with suppliers who will enable and manage this process long-term ensuring that the infrastructure capability is there when the latest new technology is ready to be implemented, advising on upgrades down the line to future-proof the investment.
Encouragingly, Hinds noted that homegrown startups were in much the same position as the industry heavyweights, such as Apple and Google. Acknowledging that they might actually have something more important to bring to the EdTech table, perhaps a deeper understanding of the problems faced by educational facilities. So, it seems, it may be the Silicon Valley giants that will be the main providers of the exciting VR and AI tech that will peak the interest of students, but in terms of setting up the background mechanics to tackle the more pressing issues first, it’s down to the industry experts who are close to the institutions and understand their practices to make this happen.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-technology-to-spearhead-classroom-revolution
Dave Kenworthy
Director of Digital Services at CoSector
University of London
