An effective EdTech Strategy is at the heart of ensuring EdTech will be used effectively within a school. However it can be a challenge to adopt a strategy which achieves impact. What factors need to be considered in formulating your plans?
Starting Points
EdTech per se is not going to solve or improve the quality of teaching and learning just by making a large investment in hardware. Your starting point needs to be just like any other school improvement measure; identification of an issue where evidence tells you change would be beneficial.
Once you’ve identified a priority area to enhance one question that should be asked in the modern era is “Would a technological solution help to address this issue”? The answer to this may not be immediately apparent and further research and conversations are likely to be needed. Your EdTech Demonstrator can be very useful here in finding or suggesting possible solutions. However it will require careful consideration as to whether the solution will work in your context. What works in one school doesn’t always work in another.
That’s not to say that this is necessarily just down to context. The same plan implemented less effectively may also be found to have less impact so it is really important to consider all of the factors that will lead to success. I’ve created a handy guide to many of the things you may need to take into account when implementing a strategy with an EdTech element. You can read more via this link: https://sway.office.com/YkOjpA9FNUpssoFS?ref=Link
Another element to consider at this stage is how you will measure whether your chosen strategy is having the impact that you desired. To know this you need to think carefully about the information you will need to make an assessment be this numeric data, student/teacher/parental views or some other form of measurement.
Having thought carefully about your strategy and having communicated, resourced and prepared your it you should finally be ready to launch! Only the biggest optimist would expect this to go without a hitch. Unforeseen events will occur so be ready for it. You will need to adapt your plans to make sure they stay on track. This is quite normal.
With the right preparation your strategy will hopefully bring the impact you desired. The challenge is to ensure this improvement is sustained over the longer term so think carefully about what will be needed to achieve this.
Technology in Education 