By Derek Newton
Reposted from Forbes, with permission.
Though we may not be near the end of the pandemic, enough time has passed since it began to be able to measure and evaluate some of where we were and what has changed.
As an example, edtech gaming studio Kuato Studios recently released a survey of parents, educators and gamers this month asking about their technological preparation for and adaptation to teaching and learning over the past year and a half – a thousand parents and 600 teachers in the U.K. and the U.S.
One of the findings that stood out was that a strong majority of about 70% of parents in both countries said they had the necessary technology tools in place before the pandemic – things such as laptops, strong internet connections, tablets. In the United States, just 12% of parents said “no,” they did not have the needed technology; in the U.K., that number was 11%.
It should be obvious that 11% and 12% is too many. And the consequences of not having the tools falls overwhelmingly and disproportionally on the already disadvantaged. Still, if that result is in the ballpark, it feels like a smaller percentage of parents were technologically unprepared than we may have otherwise thought.
What was more surprising was the percentage of teachers who said they lacked the technology tools to manage the pandemic’s realities.
In the U.S., teachers were asked, “Prior to the pandemic did you have the supporting infrastructure for facilitating online classes. i.e. equipment such as laptops/tablets, wifi?” And while 48% said they did, nearly one in three teachers (32%) said only “somewhat” and a surprising one in every five teachers said they did not.
Across the pond in the U.K., a third of teachers said they only “somewhat” had what they needed and just 16% said they didn’t.
And while no one could have seen the pandemic coming, that 20% of American teachers said they did not have the equipment they needed to teach remotely is pretty surprising. Spending billions of dollars every year on education technology, it’s worth wondering aloud – on what exactly?
It’s less notable that there’s still solid agreement among all those surveyed that technology is “critical to their children’s education.” Or that a robust 86% of parents in the U.K. and 93% in the U.S. said they were interested in being more involved in their children’s learning post-pandemic. That’s not a surprise. Parents always say they want to do more, be more involved.
The Kuato survey also asked teachers what their top three “teaching challenges” during the pandemic have been. In the U.K., they said: the ability to meet the individual needs of each child, being overwhelmed by the situation and the protection and safety of children, presumably in online settings. In The States, the three were: being overwhelmed, ability to meet the individual needs of each child and engagement of children – fighting distraction. Interesting that “protection and safety” were not in the top three in the United States.
Mark Horneff, CEO at Kuato Studios, said of the survey, “Over the various lockdowns, parents have been under pressure to not only provide children a device, but also replicate a classroom environment – all while juggling working from home with homeschooling.” Adding, “Despite technology being deemed critical for learning, teachers on both sides of the Atlantic stated that meeting individual needs and engaging children as key challenges over the course of the pandemic.”
Even so, there’s an underlying optimism in the survey’s results.
The strong and clear response among all survey groups that the most anticipated learning technology in the pipeline is virtual reality. Parents and teachers also say that gaming is a force for good by “holding children’s attention, broadening their imagination and helping with vital motor skills and hand-eye coordination,” the company said.
There’s still plenty we need to learn about learning over the past year and a half, especially as we get ready to – maybe – change things again. Some of the challenges remain clear.
“The challenge for schools is to maintain the recent appetite and visibility of education technology, to find ways to embed the digital skills acquired so that over the coming year they are not lost again,” said education technology expert Al Kinsley, CEO of Net Support, who advises schools on both sides of The Atlantic. “As we move forward, we must ultimately ensure that after the influx of new devices and technology in our schools, they are genuinely delivering a measurable impact.”
Impact may be a moving target for awhile yet. But we can measure. And we need to keep doing it. What’s that old cliché about measure twice, cut once? Before we make more changes to our pedagogy or technology or schools themselves, let’s measure over and over again.
