“Most teachers had very little experience of teaching remotely”
Education provides children with the foundation of skills and knowledge they will rely on for the rest of their lives. We have seen since March 2020 that as the world evolves and adapts to changes, so must our education systems.
Education has had to evolve over the last year or so, with educators, from all over the world, adapting to new ways of remote teaching and learning, with new terms such as ‘hybrid’ and ‘blended’ teaching now being referred to.
Responses from a survey conducted by Anglia Ruskin University suggested that teachers had received little or no training on how to teach remotely. Therefore, most teachers went into this new way of teaching blind, or with little experience of teaching remotely. Senior leadership teams were quickly having to get to grips with new technologies and a top-down approach followed. Teachers drew upon social media networks for ideas on what to do and there was lots of positive, collaborative working amongst the teaching profession. Not forgetting the remote learning guidance which was and still is published regularly by DfE to update school leaders on their remote learning obligations. The way we have delivered teaching and learning has changed tenfold and we will not, arguably, ever return to the way things were.
More broadly, there has without doubt been an increase in digital technology in education. Private enterprise has been using these technologies for ages and schools have had to catch up. This pandemic has just pushed things on at a faster rate in schools. In some cases, research shows that the use of digital technology in schools has not, in fact, had the positive impact on teaching and learning that policy makers had hoped. Across the globe there is a patchwork of the use of technology in classrooms. Before the pandemic, both Finland and Sweden were generally regarded as having an openness towards technology in education.
Technology is growing at such a fast pace, and we should not underestimate its positive impact in the classroom. Jobs of the future will include IT, some of which have not been formed yet. We need to equip our children with the skills for the future as they will most certainly need IT skills and knowledge. Whether we have a pandemic or not, IT is here to stay and we must revolutionise its usage in the classroom.
Some helpful IT networks:
Computing at School (CAS) Computing at School
Teach Computing Teach Computing
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