TED News Desk, New York: On September 18, the EdTech Evidence Exchange set forth their new enterprise that aims at instigating comprehensive insights from industry figureheads. These insights will help mitigate the challenges and opportunities presented during the effective enhancement and implementation of EdTech.
The collective, recognized as the EdTech Genome Industry Council consists of leaders from companies like Lexia Learning, Clever, and Khan Academy as well as EdTech investors. The collective grew from the EdTech Genome Project that was a collective effort of more than 100 leaders concerned with education research and advocacy. These leaders are committed to working with schools and districts in making educated decisions regarding the implementation of EdTech tools suitable for their contexts.
According to Todd Brekhus, Chief Product Officer at Renaissance Learning, “In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has become a critical lifeline for schools trying to keep the learning going — but its potential is stymied if the tools are not implemented effectively,” He added,
“It takes a coordinated effort like this one to facilitate better communication between teachers, researchers, administrators, and the industry community — and take steps toward realizing the promise of technology to empower educators and students no matter where learning takes place this fall.”
The Industry Council is planning to bring the insights of leaders and investors of from companies of varied capacities to help with an urgent implementation problem in education technology. One of the problems faced is that despite spending almost 13 billion dollars, the administrators end up with thousands of ill-fitting or ineffectively implemented technology tools and products. It makes the expenditure futile, especially in the times when technology is extremely valuable and is used in almost every aspect of life. It is even more critical for schools forming their reaction to the COVID pandemic. As per a recent census, almost 90% of educationists believe that technology will have a bigger role to play in the coming three years.
Says Rose Else-Mitchell, the chair of the Industry Council, who last served as the CLO and Executive Vice President at Houghton Miffin Harcourt and acts as an advisor to various start-ups and a Teaching Fellow at Harvard GSE, “As our pandemic learning context makes all too clear, education technology products fall short of their promises because of the all-too-real challenges of communication and change management among a large, diverse group of stakeholders across a school system,”
The Industry Council will elaborate on the implementation of EdTech in schools and districts to accommodate the use of technology effectively. With more research and regular participation, the council is also planning to develop a platform for the educators to share their experiences of using technology and discuss the most effective practices they adopt for educational purposes.
With regards to this new initiative, Else-Mitchell added, “This is a first-of-its-kind industry initiative to understand the challenges faced by the EdTech community to drive high-quality product implementation wherever technology is used. Our vision is to leverage these findings alongside our school and district partners to facilitate dialogue and transparency around implementation.”
