This is a recording of the EdTech Innovate session, Rethinking EdTech: Discussing the Future of Digital Technology in Education, which took place at the Schools & Academies Show London on 1st May 2024.
In this session our speakers discuss digital priorities and goals in education, emphasising the need for a relevant and up-to-date digital curriculum, bridging the gap between the video games industry, schools, prioritising digital literacy and AI integration. They highlight the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation in education, including the importance of inclusivity, adaptability, and continuous learning. We also an emphasis on the importance of ethical considerations, cultural resilience, and human intelligence in driving education reform.
The discussion was focused on the following points:
- Exploring the future path of EdTech: Should we be rethinking how we use technology within education?
- What are the key challenges currently facing the sector?
- Developing clear goals of what you want to achieve digitally in your organisation and why
- Digital literacy – What does it mean to be digitally literate now?
Panelists include:
- Neelam Parmar, Chief Digital Officer, E-Act Multi Academy Trust
- Gemma Gwilliam, Head of Digital Learning, Education and Innovation Portsmouth: The Digital City Project
- Kim Blanchard, Group Director of Digital Education and Artificial Intelligence, Activate Learning
- Julie Voce, Head of Educational Technology, City, University of London
- Shahneila Saeed, Head of Education, ukie.org.uk
You can watch the panel discussion down below for free!
Transcript
Shahneila Saeed 00:00
Music. Okay, good morning and welcome back everybody before we start our next session, I've been told that somebody in the audience has a golden envelope under your chair. So you have a little surprise. How nice is that I want to be sitting on one of these chairs. Now, anyone found it? No, oh, well, no, it's a gift. So someone somewhere, there is somewhere around here a golden envelope under a chair which contains a gift for them. Is that right? Yes, a gift. So whenever you get it, I'm actually really curious. I don't know what's in the envelope, but I'd be interested to find out if you're willing to share it, I don't think so. No, it's someone in that region. Oh, there we go. Yay. Oh, congratulations on being the winner of the lucky golden envelope. Um, right, so I'm really excited to be chairing our next panel discussion on rethinking edtech, discussing the future of digital technology and education. I have a sort of wonderful group of panelists here that I'd like to introduce to you all, and I'm going to come over and join them. So first I'd like to introduce Dr Neelam Parmar, Chief Digital Officer for E act multi Academy trust, Gemma Gwilym for head of digital learning education and innovative innovation and strategic lead for digital Portsmouth Education Partnership. I get that right. Brilliant. Kim Blanchard, Director of Digital Education and artificial intelligence, interim activate learning, winner of the 2023 Association for Colleges, beacon award for effective use of digital technology. I've got all of that. Brilliant, excellent and Dr Julie Vose, head of digital education, learning, enhancement and development, city, University of London. You know what? It's the introductions that make me the most nervous. So I'm just like, pat on the back for getting that right. Okay, now I just, this is such a hot topic, and I think I'm really excited part of my day job, I have the wonderful pleasure of working with the video games industry and trying to bridge the gap between what they're doing and what schools are doing in classrooms. And so I get to see firsthand just how rapidly technology is shifting and changing, and the potential seismic impact that has for students and where we're going with the future. And there is so much to unpack. I'm not going to waste any more time rambling myself, but I would like to dive straight into questions, if that's okay with all of you. So my first question, and maybe Neelam, if we could start with you, that would be great. Um, what are the EdTech digital priorities and goals for your organization and why?
Dr Neelam Parmar 03:31
Okay, thank you. Can you? Can you hear me? Um, so, as the Chief Digital Officer at E act academies and trust, we're 29 academies in total. So a lot of what we do is, what I do is having an oversight of the academy, the trust on itself. And so my priorities for the trust really threefold, one to save money, to look at economies of scale. And something that we do, what I've done is developed an edtech dashboard, so we can look at how we can offer transparency, what's what kind of edtech tools are available in all academies, and then how we can share best practices. The other thing that's really important for us, I'll go louder. The other thing that's really important for us is developing a really relevant and up to date digital curriculum. I find that what we're teaching in our schools is slightly out of date and probably a little bit stagnant. So one of my main jobs was to up to reinvent the curriculum and now really run with it. So part of the plan is to now produce digital flagship schools in this area, and then following that, the third one is to create a digital flagship school. But within the Microsoft space, we're in office 365 tenancies. We're all using the same collaborative platform, and yet, every day, there's something new that we just don't know about. So yesterday, I learned a few more new features that our schools need to know about. So part of that plan, again, is to create digital flagship schools so we can have a copy and paste approach moving forward for the rest of the 29 academies.
Shahneila Saeed 04:58
Brilliant. Thank you very much. Yeah, Julie, would you like to accept?
Julie Voce 05:03
So I'm part of City University of London. It's a university with around 20,000 students, and our focus is on business practice in the profession. So some of our key priorities are supporting students to develop those digital skills for when they work in industry. We've got a big, very, big.
Shahneila Saeed 05:20
Sorry. I just, I just, I think we need to speak up, because the show floor is very, very loud. So okay, I think in addition to have the microphones, if we all try and project a little, imagine you're back in the classroom. You're delivering an assembly. We want the kids at the back of the hall to hear you, because the tech in school isn't working. Okay?
Julie Voce 05:38
So, yeah, one of our big focuses is around digital transformation. We had a new strategy, new president a couple of years ago, so it's been working through that. We've had a very long running piece around digital education, but the focus has been around digital accessibility, so making sure that we have inclusive materials for all our staff and students, and a focus on digital literacies, student and staff capabilities. So I think those are our main areas, but we've got a big merger coming up with another university, and the challenge for us is going to be how we consolidate a lot of our learning systems. We both have very different virtual learning environments. We both have different lecture capture solutions, so looking at how we can move forward and find the best solution for both partners as we join
Shahneila Saeed 06:20
brilliant Thank you, Kim?
Kim Blanchard 06:21
Thank you. Am I speaking loud enough? No, okay, I will certainly try. At Activate Learning, I'm responsible for the Digital Education Services team. We're two halves. We have a huge development team which supports the development of digital assets the learner experience through our LMS, and we're verging in developing VR assets to support our curriculum, to provide experiences where students might not otherwise be able to do that, as well as develop AI tools to support their learning, such as an AI maths tutor that's embedded within our LMS. At the other side of that is providing access to digital technologies and emerging technologies. So our libraries, we mark it as a digital destination, they are learning environments that support all of our learners, and so we offer VR experiences, a safe play zone for AI. And part of our initiative at activate learning, as well as to provide our students with those exception experiences with with accessing technologies where they might not otherwise be able to do is to support our staff. So we have a strategic objective to develop the knowledge skills and mindsets of our staff in the digital landscape, and that then will empower our learners to be, to be to be more digitally aware, to develop their curiosity, their resilience, and be able to be to focus on those the digital skills for their future and be more effective in that. Thank you.
Gemma Gwilliam 08:10
I mean, for those that know me, I'm really quiet, so hopefully you won't have any problems there. So for us, I know I've breached this slightly at the last schools and academies show, but Portsmouth is, well, it's the only city doing what we're doing. So we've got 62 schools, 14 different multi Academy trusts, but we're working together for a shared vision. Now this year has been all about the fundamentals and the foundations. So think about those building blocks for connect a classroom, piece the infrastructure, meeting those digital standards. We've got a digital champion each school ready to lead this. But next year for us, as we're coming towards the priority education investment area ending is about sustain. So how can we actually achieve those goals we've put in place? How can we make use of the training and support and the kind of ecosystem we've built within our city, but in also thinking about the future. So what is life after Pia, as we call it? How can we continue to enhance teaching and learning, reduce workload, support, accessibility, inclusion and narrow additional divide for all members of our community, there's a big piece of work we're doing around our adult ed about making sure that no one's left behind, and then also thinking about, what can we do outside of the city? So I know there's a couple of people in this room that I'm already starting to work with, that my leaders are beginning to work with. So we've got that shared vision. Because actually, our children do all live and grow up together, and it doesn't matter where you come from, actually, you all deserve the same education, that opportunity to have a technology.
Shahneila Saeed 09:43
Thank you. I mean, it's great to hear all of you really sort of embracing development and growth and nurturing that sort of making technology inclusive for everybody. But technology sometimes, I know, can feel like it's. Are developing too fast to keep up. And I think sometimes, historically, maybe the education sector has a reputation for not being able to keep up. I mean, can the education sector keep up with the pace of change in technology at the moment, or is it too fast? I mean, do we need to keep up at all? And would you would you like to first.
Gemma Gwilliam 10:21
I think, to know what it's always the buzzwords as well. And I know at the moment, the hot topic is AI. Would you believe it? But some people are still trying to run with AI when they haven't got the foundations in place. So you haven't got the infrastructure, you haven't got your ITT you haven't got the security for devices, for training, for support. So how can you be running off of AI when you haven't got all of this? But it's not new. I mean, it's like when smart boards and Promethean obviously, there are other boards available when they all came out, it's like, oh, let's put one in every single classroom. Do you know how to use it? No. IPads. Okay? IPads now security settings won't update. So I think actually, we need to be aware of what those foundations are to then implement everything in securely and safely.
Shahneila Saeed 11:12
There is something to be said about systems infrastructure, first, the hidden side of the tech that nobody really sees.
Kim Blanchard 11:18
Yeah I agree. I think we're all on a similar journey, to be fair, and everything that we've all said sort of echoes a shared experience, regardless of the sector that we're within. I think we have to critically appraise the technology. We need to be mindful that when we're developing curriculums, they might they, they might not be assessed on that as part of their qualification. So it's, it's that value add, and how much cognitive load do we want to or overload do we want to give our learners? But it's, it's having, it's, it's for us. I think we need to campaign for more funding into our technologies so that we can balance the playing field. We respond to our communities where we know there's a digital divide, where we know that the cost of living is having an impact, and some students don't have access to internet, so to be able to provide and educate is really important, but they might not necessarily get to experience so that's our job, to empower our learners in a more appropriate way to secure their futures safely and ethically.
Shahneila Saeed 12:31
Thank you.
Julie Voce 12:33
I think, like Gemma said, it's definitely about having that core provision of tools that can support quality, inclusive education. But whether we need to keep up, I think we did, we need to keep an eye on what's happening. You know, for us, students are going out into industry, it's really important to know what those employers want, because otherwise we're delivering graduates who don't have the skills and experience that employers need. So, you know, a lot of institutions were like, oh, right, we're going to ban AI. Actually, I think that really showed people's appetite for change at City. We were very much like, we can't ban it. It's there. People are using it. They are going to need these skills. We need to embrace it, but we also need to make sure that our processes are able to adapt. We need to be able to have some innovation and be agile, but not to the detriment of our core services.
Shahneila Saeed 13:20
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Neelam Parmar 13:20
Sorry if I could just end on that. I suppose I think we need to keep up that. That's the final statement I would say. I think we need to keep up because our children are growing in a very fast moving digital landscape, and they're pretty much being unsupervised, and it's us as educators who need to at least become as closely aligned as we can to the generation we're teaching. So while I agree we need to have foundations in place, while I agree that the systems and the processes need to be very firmly established, I'm worried that we may take an inertia, an inertia, sort of attitude, and until we completely, you know, close our gaps, we don't want to move forward. But I think we have no choice. We have to, as educators, keep moving alongside with them, whether we like it or not. It's a bit like a life skill. We encourage our students to learn to swim because we know that's a life skill. Then why are we not thinking like this digitally, it's a life skill. And like it or not, they're in it, and we're trying to swim with them. So my really, my statement around this is we're barely keeping up, but we're here to help you. So we're together collectively. We're keeping on top of it, but we can't stop. I was just going to say it's a case of as well. I mean, you're all here doing the right thing. It's been like parents evening. The parents that you want to see don't turn up. But if we continue to keep showing up best practice and learning from each other, while some schools maybe put them foundations in, you can. Still be spinning those plates that Neelam was mentioning, and we can move forward, but we need to be aware of those, like the skills gap that our children are going to have, if not.
Shahneila Saeed 15:11
Absolutely. I mean, the technology they're using in secondary school at the moment will already be grossly out of date by the time they enter employment, you know. So how do you, how do you, how do you prepare students for that world? And that's something we do seriously need to think about as education. But it's, it's easier to say than, it's easier said than done sometimes, and I know, so I think I'd like to sort of combine the next two questions, if that's okay, I'd like you to think about, you know, we're talking about the need to do this and do that, but there are so many insurmountable challenges that people can voice as to say, well, I'd love to, but, you know, I think, and we could go on and on about challenges, but I'd like you know, could each of you sort of think about maybe one key challenge, or one of the one of the biggest kind of challenges that you think the education sector are facing at the moment with regards to this topic and and then maybe, how might we address that? What might we do about it? I mean, I wonder if we need to rethink our use of technology, but that's a that's a side issue, but yeah, one of the challenges in your opinion, we're facing, and what we might do to address that? Neela, would you like to kick us off?
Dr Neelam Parmar 16:19
One, one of the challenges. Well, we know teacher recruitment is a major challenge, and I think if you really scrutinize that, it's less about teacher recruitment, it's lots more about teacher development. So I think working again as an EAC trust, we have so much specialism across our schools, 29 growing to 14 above. So in my eyes, I would love to develop an online learning platform, a community of learning where we can help our teachers develop in the pathways that they want to grow. And I know that there is a lot of good work that's already taking place out there, but sometimes that work is not transferable into our localized context. So if we could share best practices, but in an asynchronous environment, in an online space where we're giving accreditation and we're very aware of the changes and development that's taking place, and we integrate it into their appraisal systems, within HR, within the growing and the professional development, then I think why wouldn't teachers want to stay with us? We take care of them. We they know we're trying to invest in their future as much as they want to invest in the education of our students. So I think that's probably one of the biggest things. But from that perspective, where does technology come into all of this. It's using the technology to fix an educational problem. So less so about digital literacy, less so about digital strategy, less so about edtech and showcasing. But using the technology we have simply as SharePoint to develop platform, learning platforms that we could really invest into our teachers.
Shahneila Saeed 18:03
Very interesting angle. Julie?
Julie Voce 18:05
I think for me, it all comes down to staff and student digital skills. I think university staff assume students have got all these skills around using technology. They see them on their phones. But actually, when it comes down to it, the students don't know, and we see very varying amounts of skills between students, some of whom who have never used a laptop, they don't understand that they need to use a mouse and a keyboard at university because they're so used to swiping through secondary and primary schools. So I think there is still this disparity. And I wonder if there's something we can do across the sectors to try and join up a bit more to see this as a challenge for all of us, rather than each one working separately. But I think it does come back to that staff perception. Students aren't digital natives, which is a term we absolutely hate, but there are some who staff who still believe this, and they go, Well, they know they were born with the technology, but they're not. And they do need to be taught, and we need to embed that into the curriculum, so you can't just assume students know how to use Excel. They might have heard it, they might have seen it, maybe did a bit of coursework on it secondary school. But actually they don't know the skills. So we do need to be reinforcing this and giving them stuff in the curriculum to do.
Shahneila Saeed 19:11
We have, you're right. I mean, we have gone completely the other way, haven't we? I think sometimes, you know, I remember year seven lessons, lesson one, you're teaching students how to do, you know, use file and folder structures. And now we, you know, now we sort of hear reports. I mean, I'm not in the classroom anymore, but, you know, teachers talk about year sevens coming in and, you know, wondering why, when they touch the monitor, it doesn't respond. It's a little bit mad. But Kim?
Kim Blanchard 19:37
I would say, I would agree, it is about the education, and I think it's about having that response. We work with local government funding streams to implement solutions and respond to the local needs within our within our communities. So the digital divide, so to speak, it's been. Able to future proof those solutions, because we can provide for the period of the funding. And then what happens when the when the funding runs out and that computer needs to be replaced, and and the newer technologies that are emerging into education, such as the headsets, you're forced to go down the route of a one to one device, but then managing that with a, you know, central safeguarding comes at, comes at a premium. So I feel there's, there's two. It's much about the education, not treating digital as an added lecture. So everybody thinks it's something more to do. It should be woven into everything that we do, because that's the life that we live, and that's the employment world that we're preparing our students for. But it's also about understanding that core funding provision and being able to be responsive and develop agile, ambitious curriculums that our students are empowered with.
Gemma Gwilliam 21:05
With all of that, it's kind of about getting each school and for you as individuals to think about what's your why. So why are you doing this? Why are you investing this money in this tech? Why do we need to make changes for curriculum? Well, actually, at the moment, we've got teachers in primary trying to teach a computing curriculum and digital skills, as well as everything else we're being asked to do. We've got a trainee teacher program that still doesn't have until September. Technology is part of it now, actually, if you look at some of your trainee teachers coming, if you are in Portsmouth, we've written a program for them so they walk into a classroom with those skills for the workload, it's about really beginning to understand actually, because those buzzwords for, how do we contain them, how do we make them appropriate for our setting? And I think that's some of the challenges that people, if you don't know where to start, speak to people that do listen to lots of different voices, and think about what your why is.
Shahneila Saeed 22:03
Yeah, I think something several of you have touched upon, we sort of going back to digital skills and competencies. And digital literacy can mean people can define it in different ways, but essentially, it comes down to your competency and you being able to use a digital device, computer, technology, what other?
Kim Blanchard 22:21
But it's not separating the ICT from the digital.
Shahneila Saeed 22:24
No.
Kim Blanchard 22:25
Is that one of the same?
Shahneila Saeed 22:26
Yes? Well... Yes. And the thing is, those types of distinctions, again, there's differing opinions on that. But yeah, I think, you know, in terms of one of those obstacles, you know, thinking about educators, because I think one of the one of the blockers, of course, is your teachers confidence and competence in being able to use technology in the classroom, and you as a head teacher, may be really well invested, but what happens if you've got a group of teachers that are not as invested as you? But I saw the question is, are today's educators equipped to adequately develop digital literacy skills amongst students. Bit of a loaded question, isn't it?
Kim Blanchard 22:28
You know?
Gemma Gwilliam 23:09
So you will have pockets of people, like the people in this room, yeah, probably are, and pockets that aren't going going back to their why get people to start thinking about it's the right tool for the right activity for them in that moment in time. So you might have Neelam down the road using this tool, down the corridor, using this tool, but that's going to work for Neelam in her setting, with what she's delivering. Is that going to work for you? It might. And then you've taken something, you've borrowed it, you've implemented it, you've got the outcome, but actually it doesn't. And it's about not being afraid to say, Do you know what? That didn't work for me, because it's about how you're going to implement and use whatever you've got to improve the outcomes of our children.
Kim Blanchard 23:54
I feel the same. It's about developing a culture of resilience, curiosity, checking the tools that you need for your role, and then for us in FE, where we are delivering vocational qualifications, what tools do our students need to empower them into the workplace and being responsive in that way, and keeping our eye on it for sure, absolutely.
Julie Voce 24:24
I think, as being mentioned, even at higher education, we have people are very enthusiastic about the technology. They want to do as much as they can, and others who are like, I'll put some stuff on the VLE if I have to. And that's the bare minimum. So it is very mixed experiences. I think it comes down to confidence. Like you said, staff don't have enough time to practice. They feel very afraid when they stand up in front of a class of students, in case the technology is going to go wrong. So some of it is having that underlying support for staff in higher education. We do have digital education teams who can work with staff talk about how they can embed digital skills, as I mentioned, we're rolling out things like. Had your attributes, making sure that staff articulate where students can learn these skills, but then staff need those resources behind them to be able to say, Okay, here's a video on Excel that I can point my students to. I don't have to run that session myself. So we have LinkedIn learning available for all our staff and students to use. And I think that's a step forward, but it's encouraging staff to take that time to look at what's available and to embed that in their curriculum.
Dr Neelam Parmar 25:26
So firstly, I think we should give credit to all the teachers out there, because we're already so digitally literate, and I think sometimes we forget about that, but we have learned a lot along the way, since the pandemic and to now and to all the information you have, I think it's impossible to keep up to date with all the technology out there. In fact, there's over hundreds and 1000s of applications and tools, so to expect everyone to know it, I think would be impossible. I'm one of them. I don't know everything, but if you say, figure it out, we'll figure it out. But I think what's really important is to look within your localized context. So if in school a you have X number of tools, 910, 15, that all teachers within that particular school need to know about, then know it. And then that's your that's your space you work within. If there's something else out there that you don't know who cares. You know you'll figure it out when you need to use it. Just because School B uses 30x tools doesn't mean that school a has to follow all the same the same product case. So that's something that we're doing. We using. We have a digital literacy curriculum. It's definitely revamped, but we're localizing it according to each context within each Academy, if school a uses nine products, another one uses 16. Just know what you need to know, and know it really well, because that's what works really well within your ecosystem. But I think what's really important here is Park digital literacy. Let's move to AI literacy. That's actually up and coming in again, I think we need to know about this, we can't really escape from this. But that's not about chatgpt or copilot or Gemini. It's just not it's the literacies. So just like how we started with ICT, skills, communication, collaboration, computing, programming, what is ICT? What is AI literacy? And that's something I'm working on. We'll have it ready by the end of the summer, but it becomes a subsection of digital literacy. Like you said, ICT, digital literacy is one of the same thing, so AI is also one of the same thing. Is it not?
Shahneila Saeed 27:35
Yeah, it certainly, I think, yeah. I think there's certainly an argument to be had to say that it's all intermingled and interwoven. But Kim, I know you do a lot of work in AI.
Kim Blanchard 27:47
We do. To underpin that, though, we have developed a digital competencies and initial assessment. So we've identified six categories of digital capability, and within that, we have levels, they sort of built on a framework of both our staff and students go through that which identifies for my team, where we can develop and support our our staff each get a spiky profile, and our learners get a spiky profile, but that contributes to a class cohort profile, and then Then our teachers can be responsive with with a curriculum addition, but we have layered in AI as part of that. We've, we've, we're developing tools where we have learners that are doing the out of hours, learning that the non traditional nine to five are adult learners as to where there isn't a member of staff necessarily assigned to support during that time we've we've developed AI tools such as an AI maths tutor. It's plugged into our learning management system a question that they can't answer. They click on the AI bot and they're able to the AI bot lists the question and coaches the student to the response to the answer, rather than giving them the answer. If they take too long, then, then that tool will ping the tutor to say, this student is struggling on this thing. And we've developed the same for English and for our GCSE program, and we're about to roll them out across all of our all of our GCSE programs for the face to face as well as the online so so it's about responding to the requirements of our learners and identifying those problems, and where can we use that? But it's really about empowering with education. Don't switch AI off. Encourage the use, but teach the ethics, teach the teach how to be academic and have academic integrity, to deepen the learning of because, you know, Wikipedia was the thing of the day of. Bodies and, no, no, you can't use that. But if it opens, if it removes the blank page, then it can't be a bad thing. And it gets that person going.
Shahneila Saeed 30:09
It gives you a starting point, doesn't it? And it can be a scaffold. I mean, I think, you know, using AI to provide digital tuition for maths and English is such a powerful way of harnessing the power of that technology for the betterment of your students. I think it's an excellent example. Excellent example. But I, you know, with AI, I think it's as much about, you know, it's not going away. And I think that's the thing message, isn't it? With technology, none of this is disappearing tomorrow. You know, it's going to be, there's going to be even greater volumes of it in tomorrow. And so I think it's about teaching students how to ask the right questions, yes, and then knowing what to do with the answers when they receive them. You know, that's where we step in. And I think some of it comes back to that, that segment of whatever tool we're using today, potentially, I think you said it, Neelam, it doesn't really matter what you're using. It really doesn't, because in 10 years time, when they're working, it'll be out of date. You think about the tech that was available 10 years ago. You pick up a 10 year old mobile phone and you show it to a student, they'll think that, you know, yeah, granddad, like, what, you know, go get, let me buy you an upgrade, you know. So it's, it's, you know, it's going to happen. It's there. So it's, how do we prepare students? We're not praying, praying for students for tomorrow, as in, literally tomorrow, but a decade down the line. And for that, you need those longer term cognitive competencies to enable them to be able to feel comfortable, but also to be able to harness whatever really sort of comes down their way, because we don't really control that. And I think I've stepped into the next question without realizing it. I need to sort of get off my thing. But so this is sort of really, sort of about that next question. And then sort of wanted to sort of throw this to yourselves. And again, you know, I think when I think about industry, the world I live in at the moment is sort of 50% industry and 50% education. And when I hear the people in industry, they say, Oh, well, graduates are coming out. They don't have the skills we need. They don't have the skills we need. And they're talking about professional software levels, but they're also talking about those cognitive competence. They don't have the resilience. They can't work in a team. They can't collaborate, they can't face criticism. You know, they don't have the skill sets that we require. So they have their demands on the education sector, both in terms of 21st century learning skills, but in terms of those hard technical skills as well. And in your opinion, I mean, are they being fair when they say they're not prepared? I mean, are we, as we've got all sectors here in front of us, so, I mean, are we able to adequately prepare our students? And you know, if we're not, then how do we resolve that issue? Who'd like to take this question first,
30:36
If I may, because we deliver vocational qualifications, I think it's about the partnership with the employer having, having that, that clear line of communication about demand. It's also not forgetting the fundamental skills. The there are statistics out there that do state that adults today are not able or equipped enough to be able to to do the basics. We can focus on AI. AI is great. It has its place, but we need to. We need to make sure that we don't forget the foundation blocks. It's very much a hearts and minds piece, and it's very much going back to to to basics, but it's teaching word. It's teaching Excel. Excel, isn't it's a new scientific calculator. You know? It's embedding those skills, because, all all 80% of organizations will operate a Microsoft platform, are asked, are our students equipped enough to use the advanced skills that, the tools that to do that at an advanced level? So it's about thinking about that level, having the lines of communication, and we are very much about partnership with with our employers.
Gemma Gwilliam 34:29
Also, it goes back to what we said about the technology for all. So you need a curriculum in place to support a bit like literacy is everyone's responsibility? Well, actually digital skills, it's everyone's responsibility. Some we haven't touched touched on today accessibility and inclusion actually empowering our children and our adults and our children's families, about how technology can be a tool for accessibility and inclusion, even if they don't need it, when they go into a workplace, they'll be able to support someone else that can I know. Way that I would have thrived a lot better in school and probably concentrated more if I'd have the tech. But now that I'm an adult in the workplace that's self taught, and actually we're going to have adults in the wider community, our parents and carers, who don't have those tools. If they haven't got those tools, they can't support their children, the children won't have them going into workplace. It becomes that circle. So I think really building upon actually going back to what's their why, going back to curriculum, going back to making sure that we've got the training in place for current staff, but also future staff, and having that shared responsibility for what you want to achieve.
Kim Blanchard 35:35
And that's it. It's a shared responsibility.
Shahneila Saeed 35:37
Yeah? Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Julie?
Julie Voce 35:40
Yeah I mean, I mean, I was at a session yesterday, and somebody mentioned the IBM skills durability model. And actually, I hadn't come across it before, but it was quite interesting thinking about, what are those perishable skills that they won't be in existence in two and a half years time? What are we teaching students that actually have no value two years into their role, then you've got those sort of semi durable skills so they could be some of the longer term pieces of technology, things like Word, PowerPoint, they've been around for a while. They're likely to remain but then what are those durable skills? And how can you underpin those with technology so things like problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking. But how can we teach that in a way that it's not divorced from the technology, getting students to collaborate online and get used to that environment. So I think, you know, it's developing that mindset being able to say, I know how to work in a digital world. I don't necessarily need to know how to use every technology, but I need to be able to get to grips with new technology as it comes along. And one of my colleagues said, you know, years ago, we all used to go, Yeah, I'll give it ago, she's noticed that actually students nowadays, they go, I don't know where to click. And it's that, that mindset of, we'll give it a go. Let's try it. And that's what we need to instill into some of our students.
Shahneila Saeed 36:51
Yeah, absolutely. I wonder. I want, I begin to wonder how that sort of change, and when that change started to happen, actually, but Neelam?
Dr Neelam Parmar 37:02
So I feel like I'm challenging a lot of things, and I'm really sorry about that, and it's probably because of the book I read on the train. It's all about making challenge and going radical candor. So I just have to put another question out there. I think our industry is also confused, and the reason I say that is because in so many contexts, we are preparing our students with these skills that they need, you know, the 21st century skills. And I agree with Julie, we gotta put them in this environment where they're working with technology and we're nurturing the 21 century skills, but at the same time, while we're producing these high caliber graduates, then the feedback they get is, you're overly qualified, or you can't really fit into this scheme, because you already know what we're going to teach you. So that sort of leaves some of our graduates not knowing what to do next, or having to retrain in a different field so they can get a job. So I think that there's that too has the metrics changed? Initially, it was about the five C's. But now why we do? We have to think about our digital literacy skills. Do we need to think about these AI machine learning, deep thinking skills that we still have to nurture? But most importantly, are we not focusing enough on data, where data is power and so many of our students and us ourselves don't know how to work with data. We don't know how to analyze it. We don't know what the trends mean. We don't know how to authorize the questions. So I think it's a different skill set that we need to we need to look into. We need to investigate a bit further and then work with the industry, like you said, shared practice, and perhaps come up with new metrics so that our students are not being trained to do things that they we think that we think is the right answer, but it's so far off from what they need.
Shahneila Saeed 38:45
Yeah, thank you. And I think just I have to say on that data point, our final session of the day actually is all about how we as educators can use data and to a better advantage in terms of understanding our students and where they're coming from. And AI is something we've touched upon, but there is an additional panel later on, also specifically on AI. So yes, thank you. Thank you panelists. It's almost like a thrown that in there for you to promote that those future sessions for me. But no, there's Seriously though, on a serious note, I think there's some such valuable topics, but I know that we could go on, and I know when we when we sort of met previously, before this call, we can just continue to talk, but we have time before the close of the session. And I was wondering if there was anyone in the audience that wanted to ask a question or two to our panelists. Oh, we have, we have a few. Do we have a roaming mic? So can we start? Yeah, can we start? Thank you.
Audience Q&A Member 1 39:43
A question from me is, how do we collaborate across industry to ensure that humanity is embedded in what we're teaching? Because you can't use. Technology, if you haven't got ethical embedding up all those elements need to be in there, because industry wants technology, because it makes everything easier. But how do we teach ethics?
Shahneila Saeed 40:14
How do we teach ethical so how do we how do we collaborate to be able to integrate ethics within, within what we teaching? Anyone who would like to take that?
Gemma Gwilliam 40:29
I mean the collaboration element. I mean, Portsmouth's a pretty good example of our blow mine trumpet. Of that is the fact that you've got some big, high power mats down there, and yet, we're all working together, because it's that shared vision. But you need someone driving that. So you need someone saying, actually, what do you believe? What do you believe? What do you want? Oh, wait, hang on a moment. That's the same as Joe Bloggs down the road. Okay, so then you've got that buy in, but you've got to have someone be in the glue to stick it together and finding out what everyone does want and where they're at. It's kind of that, not why, but why. Why wouldn't you do that for our children? From an ethical consideration, that bit I'm not quite so sure on. Can anyone add?
Dr Neelam Parmar 41:13
I think that's a really interesting question. And if our industry doesn't know the value of human intelligence. Now we have a problem, so it's down to us to make sure we bring in the ethics. We bring in that human intelligence within our teaching practices, and we tell the industry, if necessary, that this is critical, because you can get the technology, but we will only dumb down our learners if they don't bring in that human component into it, yeah, and they should know by now.
Shahneila Saeed 41:47
Yeah absolutely. Do we have next question?
Audience Q&A Member 2 41:53
It's been absolutely fascinating. Thank you. Just there's a couple of things for me. How do we accelerate the agenda that we've been discussing, how do we really sort of expedite what is now you just talked about a critical I think it's pretty critical, particularly in secondary education, when we're looking at the disaffection and absence and teacher recruitment, how do we compel policy makers to move more quickly into what you know the curriculum is not going to catch up. The CPD for staff is not going to catch up. I don't think we necessarily need the construct or the infrastructure. We need the appetite to move more quickly as a sector. How are we going to mandate that? Because if you're sitting in academies and schools at the moment dealing with some of these behaviors and issues, it's getting to crisis point. So any thoughts on how we as leaders really accelerate this now?
Shahneila Saeed 42:49
How do we accelerate the agenda?
Gemma Gwilliam 42:51
I mean, there are a few meetings happening at the moment where they are talking about things like that, and there are some people in the room who have brought that to key people's attention and said, Actually, things do need to change, but that's a small group of people. It goes back to the same Be the change you wish to see in the world. We all need to be that change that we want to take forward, which doesn't quite, I know it's a bit of a fairy way to answer your question, but I think it's that, it's that element of people are trickling okay, there's groups out there that are trying to make that but that's one small little like pebble down south sea beach. We need a big rock and a river for us all to actually move forward.
Shahneila Saeed 43:31
Anyone else?
Kim Blanchard 43:32
Just, just to respond. I think in Further Education, we have the Association of Colleges, which is a great voice on behalf of the community, and it's our leaders getting together and being a unified voice. I think across, across the whole education community, it's, it's not just colleges, it's, it's everyone, and I think we have a shared responsibility to do that.
Shahneila Saeed 43:56
Thank you. We've got time for another question. Yep?
Audience Q&A Member 3 44:03
Hi can you hear me? Do you know the last the speaker at the end, you mentioned about employers valuing human intelligence. Could you define that? Are you talking about emotional intelligence here? Because we know AI can create do a lot of things that humans can also create. So what did you mean by human intelligence?
Dr Neelam Parmar 44:27
So human intelligence really has to do with making the right decisions. What we program into an AI robot, bot, whatever you want to call it, is an answer that we have given them. And then I think that comes quite clearly in the example of, I can't remember what it's called, but it's a scenario of a car. You're driving in a car you've got two scenarios in front of you, you're going to have to crash. Scenario A is, you kill five children. Scenario B is, yeah, nods, you kill a. Elderly sort of group of people, or there may be a scenario C. Now we don't know scenario C, but that's our human intelligence. Until we get there and we see the variations, we won't be able to determine what the next point of contact is. But in that fixed data set that we put into an AI, that's all they know, A or B or C or D, whatever it may be. So that human intelligence is being able to think out of the box. It's being able to be empathetic, understanding emotion with it, connecting with response, with relationships, having the conversations that have it happen on offline. Anything that happens online is going into our AI tools, regardless. All going right. So anything that happens offline, that's your gold. That's the human intelligence.
Shahneila Saeed 45:48
And I think just to add, actually, it might be of interest, there's many of you may know this already, so apologies if you do, but the World Economic Forum produces regularly the future of jobs report, and in the top five skills listed for that our students are going to need are creativity, collaboration, problem solving, logical reasoning. Those are all human traits that you know will help us continue to master and harness technology.
Kim Blanchard 46:18
And I think that we should never forget that AI might take us 80% of the way, but we all need to be in the room critically thinking, where the in the topics that we're asking information for, where the where the subject matter experts. So we need to harness and promote the ability to critically appraise those responses and and use that 20% to our advantage, because we know why we have asked that question in in the first place. That's the human element, I think.
Shahneila Saeed 46:52
Thank you. And on that note, I'm going to draw this discussion to a close, very reluctantly, I have to say, You guys have been amazing. Thank you. Can we round the floor from the panelists? Brilliant. I think we're all going to be here for a bit, but while we change the stage, our next session will be at five past 11, be hosted by AQA about adaptive on screen testing. So that's in 10 minutes. I'll see you all then. Bye.
