Time for an Edtech Reboot?

Or the start of the edtech journey?

Is there a disconnect between the widespread use of edtech platforms in education and their effective implementation? The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue, as well as widening the digital divide and sparking debates about authenticity and plagiarism.

As an experienced teacher, I started to realise in the mid-2000s that learners were developing skills that were neither recognised nor celebrated by their teachers. I initially fought against students using Google to find answers instead of traditional methods, but eventually realised that these old methods had no place in the modern world. This led to a crisis of confidence for many teachers as they questioned their role in the changing landscape.

By the start of the 2010s, I realised that a quiet revolution had taken place with the unspoken rules of teaching and learning being rejected and dismantled by learners. Edtech providers were in the middle, improvising, innovating, building brand equity, and engaging in dialogue with educators, institutions, and politicians. My book aims to provide insight into how educators can use technology to enhance learning and adopt a critical view of edtech platforms as socio-technical assemblages. Despite the increasing amount of money being invested in edtech, there is a lack of investment in supporting and training staff to effectively use these technologies. Education is playing catch-up with the needs of employers and there is a tension between technology being seen as separate from traditional learning and literacies.

I introduce the concept of the "chasm" in education, where technology and learning can sometimes be separated. This book addresses the disconnect between education and technology, focusing on the extent to which children acquire the necessary skills and mindset to succeed in the post-industrial digital economy, how teacher trainees can develop confidence in edtech, and how to avoid de-skilling traditional literacies. The book covers a range of edtech platforms and includes original research, contributing to the ongoing debate about the role of edtech in the 2020s.

Education is a sector in which technology and learning can sometimes be separated, as if the technologies themselves create the learning. I address this disconnect between education and technology in this book. The context of this book spans Secondary/High School to postgraduate student teachers. I focus on the extent to which children start to acquire the skills and mindset necessary to thrive in the post-industrial digital economy and how student teachers can build confidence around edtech to use it in a meaningful way to enhance learning. Additionally, I address the concern of student teachers avoiding de-skilling their students’ traditional literacies.

The book covers a variety of edtech platforms, from online assessments and quizzes to social media platforms and social curation tools. Each chapter will address these overarching themes through a specific theoretical model and original research. This contributes to the ongoing debate about the use of edtech in the 2020s. This book is a significant development from a previous work in which I examined the role of the teacher educator amid a technology landscape that changes rapidly. In the book, I use the extended metaphor of a chasm to frame the discussion.