FEATURE
EDTECH
BRAVE NEW WORLD
An acceleration of the use of education technology (EdTech) is likely to be one of the longer-term impacts of coronavirus in the education sector, helping to connect students and teachers away from the classroom or the traditional face-to-face mode of delivery BY JO FARAGHER efore coronavirus hit, lots of teachers were dipping their toes into EdTech. Then everything closed and they were thrown in the deep end,” says Peter Kilcoyne, co-founder of educational technology consultancy Transform Education, who describes the frenetic weeks that followed school and college closures in late March 2020. While some institutions were already well versed in using technology in their teaching, for others it was a steep learning curve as they got to grips with delivering lessons over video and working out ways to receive and assess assignments remotely. Groups such as the Blended Learning Consortium, to which Kilcoyne is a consultant, pulled together a series of webinars to help college staff get the best out of virtual learning environments (VLEs) or platforms, such as Microsoft 365 and Google Classroom. The Education and Training Foundation’s (ETF’s) own professional development tool, the Enhance Digital
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