Expert Panel: EdTech

Technology is rapidly changing the workplace. So how important is it for schools to get children tech-savvy? And how can technology streamline the running of schools and facilitate better teaching? Our panelists discuss

Expert panelists: Ji Li, managing director, Plum Innovations; Leonard Sim, head of key accounts at Kyocera Document Solutions UK; Alan O’Donohoe, specialist leader in education, exa.foundation; Andrew Cowling, business development and channel marketing specialist, PFU EMEA

The Parliamentary Education Committee is investigating how best to prepare young people for future careers brought about by technological change, as part of its inquiry into the fourth industrial revolution. 
    
The Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the emergence of a range of new technologies including artificial intelligence, robotics and the Internet of Things. The changes are likely to have a major impact on both productivity and the labour market, with low and medium skilled jobs most at risk.
    
The inquiry has heard from technology companies and experts on educational technology (EdTech) and its impact in the classroom, as well as issues around social disadvantage and whether or not the current curriculum is suitable.
    
There has been a mixed response, with some evidence showing that schools do not have adequate infrastructure to support IT, or that they are using old, outdated computers. But many schools lack the vital funding they require to get adequately kitted out.
    
BESA’s research found that only 33 per cent of secondary schools and 60 per cent of primary schools consider that they are sufficiently equipped with ICT infrastructure and devices. 
    
So how important is it for schools to get children tech-savvy so they are prepared for the future world of work?
    
“When primary children hit work age, there will be a huge percentage of jobs for that don’t currently exist,” says Andrew Cowling from PFU - a Fujitsu company. “What this means is that the workplace is rapidly changing and what may be popular industries now will change and evolve and in some case be replaced by totally new areas such as AI and stem cell research. 
    
“This makes it even more important that children now are being equipped with the skills they will need for when they reach working age and it is imperative that we understand where things are changing and introduce into the curriculum technology driven teaching methods and making technology an integral part of how children are learning.”

Ji Li from Plum Innovations points out that the digital skills gap is currently a major issue for the future economy. He says “Based on the British Chambers of Commerce’s research, the skills shortages are reaching critical levels. Consulting Firm Accenture has also announced digital skills gap could cost UK £141 billion in GDP growth.”
    
But, echoing Andrew’s earlier point, Ji points out that the job market will look very different in the future and even the tech savvy may have to re-train and upskill for future jobs.

He says: “In 10 years time, year 6 pupils would be in their early twenties. When they look for jobs in a decade, it will certainly be a very different market layout. Many researchers forecast digital solutions and automation will be taking place in most of businesses by then. Workforce re-training and up-skilling will become one of the top challenges for businesses and departments.”
    
Alan O’Donohoe from exa.foundation believes that while it is important for children to get these EdTech skills, we must be mindful of the fact that schools are under huge amounts of pressure. He says: “It’s absolutely important for us to ensure that children have a full complement of digital competencies ensuring they are adequately prepared for the world of work, but we need to be realistic about the enormous pressures schools face. 
    
“As long as the strong accountability culture in schools exists, their performance and effectiveness continues to be judged largely on exam results. This means that no matter how compelling the argument may be for developing next generation employability skills, schools just can’t risk prioritising this over exam results.”
 
Females in STEM

Recent data published by the Department of Education shows school girls in England are substantially less likely than boys to consider taking STEM subjects at A Level than boys.
Whilst the number of girls taking STEM A Levels has increased by 26 per cent since 2010, the research shows 15-year-old boys are more likely than girls to see STEM subjects as being useful when it comes to getting a job and that girls are less likely to consider a STEM subject as their favourite.
    
When asked about which subjects were most likely to lead to a future job, 69 per cent of male pupils ranked a STEM subject first compared to 51 per cent of females.
    
Home Office research shows 60 per cent of the roles on its shortage list are in the STEM sector, while the 2017 Employer Skills Survey found that there is significant demand for skilled and qualified professionals in IT and engineering, as well as a need for complex numerical and statistical skills.
    
So what can schools do to ensure girls are engaged in STEM and digital subjects and are not put off by stereotypes?
    
Alan believes that pupils should be introduced to inspiring female role models that work in STEM careers. He said: “ Invest a little time reading about some inspiring stories and activities of STEMettes, WISE, #GirlsinSTEM, Black Girls Code, Ada Lovelace Day, Women in Tech, and the work of Jess Wade, who took it upon herself to create a Wikipedia article every single day to celebrate all the great women who have contributed to STEM worldwide.”
    
Andrew believes that the curriculum should be addressed: “By making the curriculum more relevant and engaging we should start to see a broader spectrum of students including females to get involved in and interested in areas such as computing, programming and using tech to learn.” 
    
“The generational shift should also help as technology is becoming engrained with how children are consuming and expecting to learn from a very early age,” continues Andrew. “This in turn should have school starters wanting to experience first hand technology driven teaching methods and knowing that certain skills are integral to a successful working life.”
    
Ji Li believes that it is not just up to schools to change stereotypes of a male dominated industry. He says: “To change preconceived views about girls in STEM or computing, it cannot just rely on schools only, but joint efforts from parents, businesses and institutions. It’s a cultural change rather than pedagogical approach. Successful girls working in STEM should be celebrated as much as modern pop stars. Career talks, role modelling and better opportunities offered by employers should all help to break this industry stereotype.”
 
Teacher skills and confidence

For pupils to benefit from EdTech, teachers need to feel confident when teaching it. What support can teachers get to make them proficient in EdTech?
     
Andrew shares the details of a recent scheme Fujitsu has introduced to upskill teachers: “Fujitsu’s CoDE (Certificate of Digital Excellence) has come about from recognising that times are rapidly changing along with student demands and needs.
     
“By realising that teachers need to be equipped with the knowledge and confidence to help their pupils, this scheme allows for the skilling in six key areas such as cyber security, Internet of Things, AI, VR and so on.  
    
“There are free modules on each that teachers can take and receive certification which will enable them to coach young people on technology and the workplace drivers that are impacting our world. Visit digital-excellence.co.uk for more information.”
     
Ji Li shares how teachers can get support to harness various tech solutions: “Solutions designed to support teachers, like assessment tools or Management Information Systems are often targeting teachers and staff as end users in the product development cycle and have more direct product support. Their GUIs are also designed for ease of use for teachers too.

 “For learning tools like online numeracy / literacy platforms, their GUIs are designed for children as end users and a section of admin area for teachers. Therefore there are several levels of support teachers can get from these product throughout product life cycle such as initial setup training, teacher workshop, end user support and trainings for new updates or features. It’s important for schools to check what kind of training and support they could get before employing any new EdTech solution.
     
“Apart from direct support from vendors, teacher meetings or forums are also good opportunities to share great EdTech practises and provide support for each other.
     
“In real life, class teachers are way too busy to even ask for help. So technical support, consultants and software vendors need to work together with schools to provide the best support possible for our teachers in order to maximise the positive impact of EdTech on children’s learning outcomes,” concludes Ji.
 
Know the problem first

Alan believes that schools need to identify what ‘problems’ they are trying to address before finding the technology to correct it. He said: “Where I’ve witnessed the most effective use of technology in education, it has typically been an initiative led in school by staff to solve problems that already exist and at the same time save money, save time, and increase access or improve educational outcomes.
    
“Unfortunately while peddlers of snake oil try to persuade schools of the virtues of untested technological solutions that haven’t yet found a problem to solve, it makes it difficult to find the real nuggets of gold especially when there are all these shiny distractions clambering for our attention.
    
“In my opinion, the decision about which particular EdTech product to use and the subsequent training and support, should only be considered after the problem has been acutely defined and analysed. If it’s not immediately clear to you which particular problem the EdTech solution solves or that it’s a problem your school is trying to fix, then it’s probably not the solution you’re looking for.”
 
A more efficient school

Technology that facilitates a better and more efficient way of working is another area that schools can make use of.
    
The government has announced that that more than 100 rural primary schools across England are set to get gigabit-capable broadband connections as part of the its commitment to improve internet infrastructure in rural areas.
 
The new speeds are enabling whole classes to simultaneously surf the internet on tablets as part of structured lessons, and gives schools easier access to online training and educational learning. Access to cloud services not only means savings as staff go paperless, but it has also enabled the decommissioning of the school’s local servers to reduce hardware, maintenance and IT support costs.
    
On the subject of paper-less processes, Leonard Sim from Kyocera Document Solutions UK shares some research his company has conducted: “Late last year we partnered with iGov to survey organisations in the public sector. Over half (58 per cent) of respondents reported that the majority of their documents are stored digitally and 93 per cent stated that ‘going paperless’ is a priority. Probing this further, 87 per cent admitted to relying on paper-based documents, with 17 per cent stating that this was a heavy reliance. Adopting a digital approach to document management, including the storage, retrieval and updating of student records, can make the running of a school easier and more efficient.”
    
Taking a look back, Alan refers to the time-saving abilities of the old Lyons Electronic Office computer. He said: “It’s worth taking a brief history trip back to the 1950s to look at LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) one of the earliest computers. Commissioned by Lyons Tea Company, it was developed at enormous cost and huge risk specifically to automate many of the clerical and administration tasks that were previously undertaken by 100s of clerical workers. The story of the LEO computer helps us to see that technology offers fantastic potential to reduce workload, human error, cost while improving speed, accuracy and efficiency. 
    
“However, while LEO was able to successfully transform the business and later became a business entity in its own right, the computer was not developed overnight, and neither was it an immediate success. 
    
“Years before the first valve was wired up, representatives from Lyons studied other computers to see what they could learn from the others. If you truly want to use technology to make the running of your school easier and more efficient - save yourself some time and money by visiting other schools who are already reaping the benefits.”

Reducing workload

Leonard gives other examples of how technology can save schools time. He said: “Embracing technology that is designed to help teachers spend more time teaching (such as virtual assistants) or reduce admin time will aid greater efficiencies. Kyocera’s Teaching Assistant app reduces the time it takes to mark tests and gives additional insights to aid the understanding of students’ knowledge in the test subjects.
    
"The CopyScanPublications app from Kyocera is another solution that improves efficiency by removing manual processes around logging the reproduction of copyrighted material. This allows teaching staff to focus and spend more time doing the most important tasks.”
 
Leonard continues: “Content Services simplified is automating processes and workflows to support more efficient operations. Today, education shares the challenges of businesses in many other sectors – capture data from scanned documents, emails and other sources that can be imported and used to automatically and ‘intelligently’ fill out e-forms, launch specific workflows, compose documents and initiate associated processes. The adoption of a complete end-to-end solution is another area efficiency can be found.”
     
Ji Li agrees that running a school is like operating a company in many ways. There are HR procedures, running CRM or MIS system, dealing with enquiries and maintaining a healthy cash flow. Ji says: “Many great products have been designed especially for schools to digitalise and standardise administrative processes. For example, online asset register, digital sign-in and parent communication systems. They could save lots of resources and time compared to traditional paper processes. Maybe one day when chatbot and automated telephone system are ready for schools, it will reduce considerable amount of workload for admin office staff too.
     
“I think this will be similar to how EdTech could help teachers’ lives easier in schools. By looking into how teachers spend most of their time inside and outside of classrooms, you could then search for solutions to simplify those processes, which could help reduce teachers’ workload.”
     
Another way that technology can helps schools become more efficient is through scanning solutions, believes Andrew. He comments: “Fujitsu scanning solutions are one key component that enable processes within schools to become more efficient, saving money and importantly freeing up time to be spent on enriching the learning experience and developing the curriculum, making it relevant and more engaging.
    
“By moving from paper based processes to digital ones, schools can very quickly experience the benefits, such as enhanced collaboration between all parties, compliance, security and the ability to better monitor how a child is progressing by capturing evidence of progress for teachers and parents alike. Digital processes using technology take away the risk associated with manual input errors, disaster recovery concerns, lack of audit trails and extra costs associated with time, storage and paper.”

Panelist biographies

Ji Li, is managing director of Plum Innovations, a London based technical service provider for schools. Plum’s aim is to help reinforce the positive impact of EdTech products on pupils’ learning outcomes and assisting schools to employ technologies in the most effective way. Ji is the vice chair of EdTech group at BESA and a member of board at Naace. Interact with him on twitter here @lijiukcn

Leonard Sim is head of key accounts at Kyocera Document Solutions UK. He has been promoting the use of technology to help the public sector in time and cost for seven years.

Alan O’Donohoe, specialist leader in education at exa.foundation. He has more than 20 years experience teaching and leading technology, computing and ICT in schools in Northern England. He converted to teach computing in 2010, and first introduced computing into his school in Preston, then supported others to do the same through professional development.

Andrew Cowling is business development and channel marketing specialist at PFU EMEA. The company is responsible for the marketing and sales of Fujitsu Scanners. Andrew is a strong advocate of the drivers and opportunity that digital transformation can bring to organisations and the benefits thereof that technology driven processes can offer.