Good tech, good teaching

For over a decade Britain has been acknowledged as the world leader in educational use of technologies. Year-on-year the BETT Show sees increasing numbers of overseas visitors, all eager to learn about the latest trends in UK classrooms. But are the latest technologies really providing an improvement in learning outcomes or have they just become weapons of mass distraction in the classroom?

In today’s connected knowledge economies, education is signalled as the currency by which nations will maintain their economic competitiveness. Global assessments programmes such as the PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS provide the benchmarks governments care about. Yet IBM’s global CEO study ranked collaboration as the number one trait that CEOs seek in new employees as part of their efforts to embrace in a more connected culture, suggesting a need to gear our students’ learning habits and environments to the future workplace as well as equipping them with knowledge.