Welcome to the first day at a new school. Little Johnny wasn’t feeling well this morning, so his mom used the school app to request an absent day. This will appear in his attendance statistics at year end. In order to keep in the loop with what is going on in the classroom, Johnny received his access codes and passwords for Teams, the class Padlet, Google Classroom and ManageBac, via e-mail to his mom.
Johnny and his mom looked at each other, wondering what to do, which to access first and foremost, how to do so. New school equals new technology!
Throughout the school year, Johnny became familiar with all the systems the school uses to communicate with students, share assignments, and how each teacher uses them. But next year, these systems may change. And because each teacher uses them for different things, it will be back to square one for Johnny and his mom.
This scenario is all too familiar for parents and students these days as schools try to navigate the technology available to them. It’s a lot of trial and error and difficult for the kids and parents, not to mention the teachers.
The problem, says Phillipa Wraithmell, founder of Dubai-based EdTech company EdRuption, is that there is too much choice and schools aren’t building technology into their fundamental strategies.
This is where EdRuption comes in.
“EdTech and understanding how we need to manage this is never part of this strategy. The growth of the sector has really surpassed the schools’ level of integration. We now have so much happening, so much legacy technology, which costs the earth and does nothing for us,” Wraithmell tells KUST Review.
EdRuption Founder, Philippa Wraithmell
EdRuption is all about making sure that schools are making the right choices when selecting technology, using it in the right way, leveraging tools and skills and perhaps most importantly ensuring safety for the students. The digital strategy should be a core element of the overall school strategy, Wraithmell says, and EdRuption works with schools to ensure these digital strategies are sustainable.
The process goes a little like this.
In August, EdRuption meets with partner schools. The planning includes the school vision and values, a review of data storage, cloud, cyber security and core applications, a device plan, roll out and budgeting followed by an onboarding strategy.
Full governance is also agreed upon, which includes digital learning policies, responsible usage, pedagogy and infrastructure requirements plus training strategies for safeguarding — including parent-support workshops. Finally, the project planning focuses on aligning the strategy with curriculum and plans for professional development.
The project is rolled out and scheduled with a process that details a different monthly focus, monthly school visits, training and workshops, and actions points that span the scale of the school year and include a full review at the end of the year to adapt or adjust as needed. The entire digital strategy spans five years.
Wraithmell, who has dyslexia, says the planning’s accessibility and inclusivity are close to her heart.
“I couldn’t live without the tools on my device to support my everyday work. I wouldn’t have been able to write my book without the help from digital tools, which is probably why I feel so strongly about it,” she says.
Wraithmell works with trainers to make sure the training for schools is bespoke specifically for inclusion and to ensure that the digital ecosystem supports specific needs and makes learning personalized for everyone. She believes there is a simple way to empower everyone with learning.
IMAGE: PixabayMoving forward, “We do hope to partner shortly with a company who has a learning management system where we are able to share content and have a subscription model for teachers and parents globally. It will be in multiple languages and support a range of services for digital understanding,” Wraithmell says.
She is also designing a Digital Bridge program that will work with parents to close the gap between them and their digital-native children. “Parent involvement is easy, that’s where digital bridge comes in. We also do workshops and are soon partnering with another company to do short productions in schools to raise awareness to students and parents some of the dangers online,” she adds.
Wraithmell says making sure her team can support everyone is at the core of EdRuption and has partnered with Microsoft.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, the company has plans for an online learning platform for best-practice sharing and courses for both parents and students. EdTech has 20 more schools on track to digital compliance, safe and effective across Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and the Digital Bridge project has monthly workshops on the schedule.
“All of our projects are based around knowledge-sharing,” Wraithmell tells KUST Review.
There is a plethora of educational technology in the market, and the list continues to grow from learning-management systems to apps and games.
