This was the title of a conference organised by the Westminster Forum, who kindly gave me a complimentary place. It was interesting. I’m not sure anything new came out of it, or anything that hadn’t been thought of before, but it was good to hear teachers and schools being praised for how quickly they had responded to the challenges of the pandemic in terms of online teaching. It’s especially good because the transcripts of these conferences are sent to Members of Parliament. Let’s hope they read it.

Lord Willetts made the point that at first people use digital technology to do things they already do, and only later try to be innovative. This is a well-known phenomenon, and has been found to be the case in research. See, for example, the paper A Five-Stage Model of Computer Technology Integration Into Teacher Education Curriculum, from Illinois State University.

Apparently, only 18% of schools say that they rely on the Department for Education for advice and guidance on what to use and for procurement. I’m surprised it’s that high.

The conference contained some good stuff and some frankly very odd stuff. For example, someone said they were pleased that schools were moving away from the sage on the stage model of teaching to a more collaborative approach. I found this surprising because as far as I know schools have been moving in this direction for a long time, and also because research suggests that the sage on the stage approach works very well. According to research by John Hattie, as cited in The Turning Point, didactic teaching has been found to be the 6th most effective approach, with the jigsaw method coming in at #1, problem-solving teaching at #3, and co-operative and collaborative learning nearly at the bottom of the list.

The importance of training teachers to use the edtech properly and effectively was emphasised. This echoed the results of a report by Nesta nearly a decade ago in which they found that ed tech wasn’t being used by schools as effectively as it might because of a lack of training.

Ty Goddard pointed out that there’s very little mention of “digital” in initial teacher training. Hardly surprising: there’s virtually no mention of it in the National Curriculum. That was published in 2014, by the way, not 1914 as you might suppose.

He went on to say “we need to bring Whitehall together with steely resolve to sort out some of those major infrastructure issues, some of those major investment issues, digital poverty; we need superfast broadband across the country, and we need proper training and interest from Ofsted; good teacher training that covers digital and national professional qualifications that help teachers understand what they can and perhaps ought to be doing in terms of edtech.”

I say two cheers for this. Why only two? Because I’m very wary about the involvement of central government at the best of times. Not so long ago I asked the question: Do we really want incompetent central administrations getting directly involved in schools’ ed tech?

(As for the Department for Education, I really don’t think it’s fit for purpose. (Bang goes my knighthood.) To be fair, I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d been responsible for education during a pandemic. I like to think, though, that I would have:

Prioritised the importance of education technology over the past ten years. Even if one doesn’t agree with government involvement in spending plans, teacher training and the National Curriculum could have reflected the fact that we live in the 21st century;
Learnt lessons from a pandemic exercise that apparently was run in 2016;
Convened an advisory group comprised of headteachers and teachers who have had to provide education during a crisis like a fire;
Not spoken about “delivering” education which (a) goes against the government’s own language guidelines and (b) suggests that you think that providing education is just like delivering a letter or a pizza.

In fairness, the DfE has funded a laptop scheme to help the most disadvantaged children, and provided funding for certain lesson resources. Neither of these has been unequivocally successful, but at least they tried.

I’d be interested to hear your views, and what you think of what your government did if you don’t live in England. Just reply to this email if you wish.)

Rose Luckin said that many companies made changes to their products and services to try and add functionality, for example, to support home learning. And educators, leaders and parents were all engaged in trying new technologies, 74% of educational leaders 81% of teachers and 68% of parents reported using or recommending new technologies that they've never used before. So this is a good outcome of the pandemic I think.

She also made the point that there is a huge correlation between enjoying remote education and being confident about it. I’d have been surprised if this wasn’t the case.

Kerry-Jane Packman, of ParentKind, advocated virtual parents’ evenings. I’m in favour of this if it’s managed properly. I know a few schools have tried it, and the parents seemed to like it. I think talking to parents on Zoom for hours on end could prove very tiring, especially if it happens at the end of a long teaching day. At least in ordinary parents’ evenings a pupil comes round every so often with a cup of tea and some biscuits.

A good thing to do would be to have a timing mechanism so that consultations don’t go on for too long. (In my first year of teaching I only managed to bring one consultation to an end after 20 minutes when another teacher came along to point out the line of people waiting to see me.)

I’ve noticed that the policy of online parents’ evenings is also favoured by some people who think the school day should be longer. I don’t think that’s a sensible idea, for reasons I expressed in a recent article.

One idea that came up was a central bank of so-called ‘best practice’ lessons. But as Rose Luckin pointed out, what is ‘best’ practice depends on context. She said she would like a situation where you can get the highest quality interactive materials from all possible suppliers. “And it's a bit like Freeview, you know, anybody who meets the standards can come and play.”

Disclosure: I was given a free ticket to attend this conference.

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