Digital learning culture: why we must protect the skills gained in lockdown | Comment - Education Technology

Although schools are still picking up the pieces from the last year, there has undoubtedly been a huge learning curve in online learning, according to Ian Kay, Head of Digital Learning, Edge Grove School.

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There have been many learning curves for schools during the last year of on/off remote learning, but probably the most notable is having to get to grips with online conferencing technologies. In some cases, these facilities were not readily available to schools and they had to make a quick choice on whether or not to use them or not.

We now appreciate the importance of implementing a solid online learning platform in schools; many of us already had digital learning platforms, which were used for resources and submitting work, but these did not have the conferencing facilities that we have found so invaluable. We have learned that having one platform, which can provide a ‘classroom’ solution to work collaboratively, linked with a facility for live teaching, is in fact the best option; these were also incredibly useful when lessons had to be taught in ‘hybrid’ form, with some pupils being in class and others learning from home...

Collaboration is key to preserving the online learning skill set

So how do we retain the skill set that so many children and staff have developed over recent months? How do we stop that from fading away?  There’s no fast answer, but schools need to review their teaching and learning policies with a view to incorporating digital learning as part of the overall strategy. There are many aspects of school life which are still inherently paper-based even though they needn’t be; we should be making sure that collaborative working using shared documents continues because in the future, this will become a safer and essential way to store and access information.

Technology in education will also allow pupils to develop their own bank of resources and reference materials, supporting learning and helping them to take greater responsibility for that learning. In-person lessons are still vital but schools can and should still make use of screen sharing to showcase work in class – these are features that are worth preserving because we stand to gain from bringing another dimension into the classroom. Live marking of work from teachers during a lesson can also help pupils in that moment, who might have otherwise been missed during a lesson.

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Source: Education Technology