BlueSky (Atkey Solutions Ltd)

The coming ed tech

Ed tech can help schools to keep teacher-pupil interaction at the heart of learning but challenges in AI lie ahead.

In my mind, the biggest immediate challenge is preserving the essence of the very best in teaching while using ed tech tools to reduce workload and increase efficiencies in tracking and monitoring and also in supporting learning.

So I hope deep consideration will be given to the impact of education technology on supporting teacher effectiveness and how it can help to avoid staff burn-out and declining morale. We need to be sure that we don't just throw technology into the classroom in the hope that some of it sticks.

We must also ensure that, in adopting technology progressively, we don't throw the baby out with the bath water! In other words, that we continue to respect and value the immense contribution that teacher-pupil interaction brings to enhancing learning and student progress. Let’s keep what's good, really distil it and replicate it, and then bring in tools to replace the things that can be automated.

Challenges

In 2019, I think the debate around AI will hot up along with the debate around the use of unproven ed tech in the classrooms. In both cases, there’s a risk of using the profession and the students as guinea pigs as we try to establish ‘what works’ but this could have a significant negative impact.

Proper debate needs to be had around the integrity of the algorithms used in AI in the classrooms and the use of the data from ‘minors’ to track and plot their future trajectory.

And real care needs to be taken in the use of AI in a predictive context, especially when algorithms are unproven and when sample sets used to refine machine learning can be limited by those populations that are engaging with it.

So while I think this is an amazing time and so exciting as we move deeper into the ed tech world, it brings into focus the question of what really differentiates the role of the teacher and their unique contribution to learning and how that sets the profession apart from AI.

We need to consider this carefully before racing forward.

Conference stands (if known)

BETT Stand E43

ASCL Annual Conference Stand 1

Website

www.blueskyeducation.co.uk

Denise Inwood, Managing Director of BlueSky. Denise has been nominated in the leadership and management category of the 2019 Bett Awards.  @blueskymatters