With technology use in our daily lives on the rise, the classroom is no exception – as shown in responses to our State of EdTech Report 2021. In the report we asked educational professionals around Australia how they were using technology in the classrooms, and what their opinions were on the changing world of edtech. Here’s just some of what we found…
The use of technology for teaching is here to stay
- 95% of educators responded that technology is a necessary part of everyday life and that this should be reflected in lessons.
Overall, opinions on technology were very positive. 90% of educators suggested that technology helps them to do their job better, and 71% of educators stated that they are constantly striving to innovate by using technology as a tool for education.
“[Technology] can allow us to become more efficient by focusing our efforts on tailoring educational outcomes to our students […] we can focus on actually helping individuals with their learning needs.”
-Head of Department/Faculty, Public Secondary School, Queensland
What is edtech being used for?
2020 was the year of remote learning, which saw an upward shift in the use of certain technologies from 2019. Not surprisingly, video conferencing jumped from 30% to 72%, and cloud-based lesson delivery rose from 37% to 63%.
While the use of edtech for attendance reports stayed consistently high, with 90% of users reporting this in both 2019 and 2020, this year did see increases in reported edtech use for other areas. Technology in:
- Planning rose from 78% to 88%
- Formal assessments rose from 79% to 86%
- Informal assessments rose from 76% to 86%
Despite the focus on distance learning, the use of classroom-based technologies also saw a significant jump. Interactive displays (panels and whiteboards) are now near-universally available, with 99% of respondents identifying their use – which represents a 15% increase from the previous year.
Interestingly, a growing global trend is to leverage classroom technologies to support temporary remote learning requirements. Solutions such as Promethean’s interactive ActivPanel provide access to Screen Share and Screen Recording functionality that enable teachers to support students learning remotely – and those in the classroom – without having to create duplicate resources.
But where was edtech lacking?
As touched on in our blog post on teacher training, only 2% of teachers, 24% of SMT members, and 14% of IT managers felt that teachers received enough training and support for edtech, so there is clearly room for improvement. In fact, 66% of respondents believe that more could be done when it comes to staff training, an increase of 5% from 2019.
However, there is still hope: the number of educators suggesting they lack the competence to implement technology to its full effectiveness dropped by 4% to a low of just 14%.
Looking to the future…
More teachers than ever have access to advanced classroom solutions, and educators’ opinions towards edtech show a real desire to use technology to innovate and improve outcomes for students.
Edtech research and development seems more than ever to be fundamental in how we will shape the future of our classrooms, and we will be looking at the future of edtech trends as part of this State of Tech blog series in the next few weeks.