Exploring the Potential of Technology in Education
Welcome to my New Blog!
A space to share, debate and comment on how technology can benefit schools. My name is James Hoyle and I am an Assistant Headteacher at Skipton Girls’ High School in the United Kingdom. We’ve had a 1:1 laptop programme in place for 10 years. We are currently part of the Government funded EdTech Demonstrator Programme supporting schools to enhance and develop their EdTech strategies. This has been a fascinating project to be involved in and I hope through this blog to showcase some of the work being done across the schools I’ve been working with. Hopefully this will help inspire your own thought processes on how technology can enhance the work going on in your own school.
This is often one of the biggest challenges for leaders when it comes to developing an effective EdTech strategy. There are so many ways you could make use of technology where do you start? As is normally the case my advice would be to keep things simple. Technology is not going to be a silver bullet that will magically solve all the areas for development in your school but it can play an important role in enhancing what you are doing to improve teaching and learning.
Of course this is just one aspect of the role technology can play in a school. There are huge opportunities for it to enhance the quality of parent/school communication, save admin time, improve collaboration between stakeholders, transform CPD processes and encourage students to learn throughout their lives.
The best way to start is to analyse the challenges you face, investigate how technology might help you to address those challenges, evaluate whether the chosen solution has a chance to work in your context and what will need to be done to give it a high chance of success and then identify the review mechanisms needed so that you can tell it is helping you to achieve the objectives that were set.
The EdTech Demonstrator Programme is designed to support schools working their way through this journey. All the schools in the programme are experienced users of technology and can advise on creative and effective ways of maximising the benefits technology can bring.
If you would like to know more about the EdTech Demonstrator Programme please contact me via hoylej@sghs.org.uk. Alternatively more information and resources can be found via the EdTech Demo Website EDTECH Demonstrator Programme (ucst.uk)
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Technology in Education 