On Tuesday 15th June the Education Policy Institute hosted a webinar on digital learning for school improvement: ‘Embedding digital learning beyond Covid-19’.
A summary paper bringing together insights from panellists from this event, other digital learning events this year, and recent EPI research, can be found below.
The series of government measures to combat the spread of Covid-19 at the end of March 2020 closed schools across England to all children, except for vulnerable children and the children of key workers. Overnight, the school system was faced with the challenge to improve their digital learning offer by necessity. Schools with existing digital strategies were able to adapt more easily and those without, accelerated their development.
It is clear that the digital strategies formulated or currently in development are not stopgaps – and that technology can be used effectively to improve education provision if pedagogy is at the heart of its use. The digital infrastructure that COVID has necessitated can also support schools and learners beyond the pandemic in other circumstances, for example pupils who are unable to come to school for physical or mental health reasons, or in times of extreme weather such as snow or flooding which have caused school closures pre-COVID.
This event brought together school leaders and policymakers to examine how edtech and digital learning can be used most effectively to support schools in the long-term as part of school improvement.
This discussion covered whether it can be used to reduce some of the admin and assessment burden associated with teaching and allow for more flexible CPD – and whether it can be used to support pupils through adaptive learning and by providing them with digital skills to help them succeed in the workplace. The session reflected on how we can ensure that no child is left behind with digital access and how we can take a multi-agency approach to supporting digital inclusion.
