Editors’ letter
Tragedy and the triumph Dear Colleague, Welcome to this first edition of the Edtech UK Community Magazine. The Edtech UK magazine seeks to celebrate, inspire and be ambitious about the role digital learning can play across education. Edtech supports effective teaching and learners to consolidate knowledge, practice their learning and explore new worlds. Edtech; Ignored for too long Edtech as a tool for school and college improvement had been ignored by policy-makers for too long. Covid taught us all so much about what is important across our communities and public services. Schools stayed open, teachers used new tools for teaching adopted by many overnight. We had never seen such spend, investment or adoption of education technology across our education estate. We need to reflect whether all this investment was timely, understood and 4
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Edtech UK
an investment for the long or short term? The House of Lords and the Public Accounts Committee ask hard questions of policy development, focus and co-ordination of England’s DfE. All governments needed to move at speed, with sensitivity and a clarity of focus and communication. Leaders and teachers deserved praise not snarky commentators, directed to divide rather than celebrate the profession. During the education lockdowns we also moved a system on-line, when needed, but faced barriers in terms of an out- dated web infrastructure, lack of devices, inconsistent broadband and capabilities. We all learned that you cannot ignore digital infrastructure, digital poverty and the role technology plays in supporting education professionals and learners and will continue in the future. We are learning that assisitive technology can benefit eveybody.
www.edtechuk.org
Education did the best, with what it had available. That in itself was an everyday triumph. There are different approaches to digital learning across the United Kingdom. It is time for England to celebrate what it does well; but also learn about national collaboration, open access education resources platforms and digital pedagogy from the work of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. And we all need to push for more support for a world-class education system in the UK. Our education nations will grow and thrive if we all understand the need for the inclusion of digital learning in initial teacher training, national professional qualifications and the urgent need for inspectorates to have deep reserves of expertise that can support educators with their own professional digital journeys. Too often, edtech has been conflated with real worry over social media use and the wider changing nature of childhoods. We need to prioritise safety and security - and need up to date systems. The
