Moving from a magpie mindset
Vic Goddard is Principal of Passmores Academy, Harlow and author of ‘The Best Job in the World’. You may also recognise him from the Channel 4 series Educating Essex. In this guest post for the Tassomai blog, Vic tells us what he looks for when choosing EdTech, how this has changed over the years and why he’s keen to put Tassomai’s new English Literature course to the test.
I have been a school leader during the explosion of technology in education (EdTech). I have seen the rise of so many bits of kit and software platforms that were going to save us hours of marking, assessing and planning. I remember the days of going to BETT and seeing the quiz handsets, projectors, VLEs, VR, augmented reality etc. I know I have spent money with the best intentions but also because of the allure of buying a shiny new toy too!
Before I carry on I must mention the enormous elephant in the room when we talk EdTech and this is that we overestimate just how much our young people are digital natives and how much access they have to the right hardware out of school. We all know that having a mobile phone seems to be a rite of passage for starting secondary school and our young people are very adept at doing the stuff that is important to them on their devices. However, the reality of how many of our young people have a laptop or tablet that they can use whenever they need to work is far from where our political leaders think it is. The reality that we must face is that when we decide to spend public money on something that only some of our students can access we are CHOOSING to exclude them.
Delivering impact from our edtech budget
Despite numerous failures over the years there have also been considerable successes and I have become much better at not being a magpie and chasing the latest toy. The reason for my improving strike rate has been a change in mindset. Instead of looking for things to replace the teacher, in one form or another, I have focussed on those things that will enhance the best practice of our teachers. The shift in content at GCSE level that means our young people have to recall more facts has meant a significant shift in pedagogy for some and this is where we have focussed our EdTech spending; to support staff by providing the retrieval practice that is so vital for our students.
A big issue for our young people is how they structure and stick to their revision. We have repeatedly spoken to parents and our students over the last few years as the shift to a much greater understanding of learning has replaced the quick fixes and golden bullets that we looked for too often in the past. The new dangers have been to constantly shift from one piece of software to another as the next one promises to be quicker, more efficient, have more impact etc. When we reflect on how much we have maximised the benefits of any EdTech purchases we should be honest and say that we possibly got bored before we maximised impact.
An evolving EdTech partnership
Considering the dwindling finances and staff workload we have focussed on creating partnerships with companies that evolve with the needs of the students and, just as importantly, the teachers. That is why we are delighted to work with Tassomai as they have done just that. The core subjects of English, maths and science are a focus for all of us of course and Tassomai has been a really positive aspect of our EdTech engagement.
However, up until this year, English has been one of those subjects that looked like there was no technological support that we could give that was ever going to convince us to invest. Thankfully, the expansion of Tassomai to support retrieval practice in English Literature has filled a void that the intermittent nature of attendance currently is only going to exacerbate.
Our young people need efficient and focussed ways of remembering key information and it needs to deliver whilst being accessible to all of them. The good news is that we feel the ongoing work at Tassomai will continue to provide solutions that tick these boxes.
@VicGoddard on Twitter