Hi David,
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Your article really struck a chord with my thoughts on why many EdTech initiatives have stalled over the years. Many companies would come to my Havering colleagues and me seeking schools to help them trial their products. This wasn’t always easy, although we did try our best to find them partners.   My LA felt like a Pacific island surrounded by other islands of EdTech advisers rapidly disappearing under the rising seas of change. So, where could these innovators go to share their ideas, trial their products and get feedback from the schools that they needed? It wasn’t easy. The (London ‘Fronter’ and other such) MLE was an example of a top-down model that was pushed out far too early, before teachers were ready, without a reason to use it – it was rooms of weblinks and resources, hardly used and soon like a collection of digital wallpaper in a Homebase of EdTech. Teachers faces at the mere mention of MLE stays imprinted on my mind – eyebrows raised, and lips curled.   Whereas the pandemic showed the power of bottom-up innovation (look at Mote as an example of this) and implementation when a requirement for *Remote Education/Learning grew from a need to provide an approach for home education, where eventually a government diktat that schools had to abide by was implemented. Yes, the DfE provided platform support via Google and Microsoft, but ultimately it was the teachers who were sharing the effective practice when it mattered. The best we could do for schools was provide a platform with help videos and teachers sharing effective practice in webinars… Â
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Keep-up the positive work. More thinking like this is needed. Thank you for sharing. Like Caroline, I have nothing to add.
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Best regards,
Dave
*There was no compunction to use a digital platform – but many schools did.
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