| | DECEMBER - 20218As the education sector crashed into a Covid world where teaching and learning very suddenly could no longer be delivered on a face-to-face basis, a huge cultural shift in the sector was called for. And for a sector which is used to working on problems that are ever-changing, this was just another challenge to add to the list. We know that students in many schools and colleges are not as IT-savvy as either staff or indeed students themselves might like to think they are; the notion of `digital natives' would appear to be a myth. Students might be great on TikTok or Snapchat, but navigating their way round a large virtual learning environment with multiple demands on them is a different matter entirely. And many schools, colleges and universities have not had the IT infrastructures to deal with a rapid move to online or blended teaching, particularly in disadvantaged areas. I am often told of families with more than one child where all the children are trying to do their homework on a parent's smartphone with limited and unreliable WiFi. In these circumstances, however good the sessions that teachers and lecturers have planned, they are simply not accessible at a very basic level. So access to appropriate hardware is a key consideration when we are thinking about educational technology.The shift to online teaching and learning has also been a cognitive and practical challenge for teaching staff. In any educational institution, there are some staff who are more au fait with educational technology, and some who are less so. And there are some staff who have a strong belief in the values of educational technology and of the possibilities that it can bring, and others who are much less comfortable with these ideas. One way of thinking about this is like this: The good, the bad and the not so ugly after all: educational technology and collaboration in a pandemicBy Janet Lord, Head of Education, Faculty of Education,The Manchester Metropolitan UniversityThe people in the top right quadrant are the `Cheerleaders' for educational technology. Nonetheless in many institutions they were caught `on the hop,' as were the institutions themselves. Huge investments in hardware, support, training and infrastructure were needed in a very short space of time when educational institutions moved online ­ in the UK this was at the end of March 2019. The cheerleaders could cheer all IN MY OPINION
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