Now that the pandemic is almost all behind us, our schools, colleges, and universities are all back to normal — albeit a new one of heightened risk awareness —, it is due time to look back and bear witness to how seminal the pandemic-induced shift to remote learning is. It was not until the pandemic dealt a detrimental blow to the world that the very same apps and websites used daily basis have shown to have a wide range of educational applications. And then there is a vast variety of Education Technology or EdTech products for specific subjects and particular purposes available for people to avail from. This sheds light on as much that technology in education is so vital an aspect of all future education, as that all ages benefit from it in learning for a better life — or could so were EdTech along with Digital Literacy to be viewed by the government of every country truly not as a luxury, but as a requisite.
The forced shift has laid all bare — all the good, the bad, the ugly in digital policy development. Brought to light have been the long-standing digital divide as well as the subsequent pressing need to support underprivileged students with no internet access at home and disadvantaged schools with inadequate infrastructures and staff professional development. Such a divide has been proven to reach well beyond whether or not ones have digital devices and internet access; It amounts to socio-economic disparities and those in opportunity. For evidence, one can look no further than the fact that schools with embedded digital capacity, competency, and access have been proven to have fared better than those without throughout the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns, while those with efficient digital deployment and experience — minimized learning losses. Some students are falling far, far behind in school, and it is not teachers who are at fault; Rather, it is the ambivalence on EdTech and Digital Literacy, which is deeply rooted in the fact that the knowledge of the benefits of EdTech in learning and teaching, as a key to a door to an abundance of opportunities, is not so pervasive in the public consciousness.
Due to the lack of mutual understanding on the matter, the organization of EdTech and Digital Literacy across the government of each country has been observed to be so fragmented and disjointed, to the point that it appears that their key educational and economic priorities might get lost in their government all too readily. Their short-term solutions, though commendable, sometimes fall short of challenging entrenched inequalities, for not all crises can be foreseen, yet capacities and competencies cannot be ignored, both in the present and in the future. In addition, it has been accepted that there is a time lag between policy and practice on the ground, and this is a formative challenge for all governments — to catch up to bring what is already in place up to speed. In doing so, they must shoulder as much share of responsibility as schools in crafting responses to the rapidly-changing circumstances.
Therefore, to acknowledge and address the uneven nature of digital infrastructure, capacity, competency, and access for the benefits of students and schools, as well as to bring about clarity about Digital Literacy and emphasis on EdTech as a national investment priority, a system-wide, cross-departmental, sustained EdTech policy development strategy that is more agile and flexible must be urgently devised and pursued. It has been established that the capability of education systems to accommodate learning and teaching is dependent upon investment, experience, and confidence in the use of EdTech.
Such scale and ambition for the use of EdTech merits a new EdTech Vision for 2025, with key components and milestones for infrastructure rebuild, device access, and support for digital capacity, competency, curriculum, and recognition of the benefits of EdTech for teaching and learning. And in the vision, governments play a significant role: Leadership that convenes, inspires, and brings fragmented policy developments across government to concentrate on national digital challenges.
Hence, given little to no emphasis on the benefits EdTech as an effective digital literacy framework and support may have for teaching and learning, a prerequisite to encouraging the adoption and application of EdTech as well as nationwide approaches to Digital Literacy, is none other than the creation of an organization for EdTech and Digital Literacy — a manifest antithesis to the ambivalence on EdTech and Digital Literacy — to address the issue. This is done so to harness the potential of EdTech: bringing a focus across government to properly promote Digital Literacy through EdTech-enabled learning and teaching across the countries and thereby bringing about local change and, in turn, coherent national change. By doing so, countries will have a greater chance of being able to leverage next-generation technologies and skills effectively and competitively post-COVID.
Credit:
http://www.ednfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Edtech-Vision-2025_FINAL_Compressed..pdf
