One-to-one technology models - such as the Scottish government’s pledge to provide every pupil with a device - have been criticised by a Unesco expert for focusing on “digital inputs” rather than learning outcomes.
According to Dr Anna Cristina D’Addio, a senior policy analyst at Unesco, the mass distribution of laptops and tablets to pupils has become increasingly popular around the world, but this had happened “before focusing on the learning and the preparedness of teachers”.
Dr D’Addio was speaking at the launch of Unesco’s Global Education Monitoring Report on technology in education in Scotland, which took place at the University of Edinburgh this week.
In its 2021 manifesto, the SNP committed to providing “every child in Scotland with a device to get online”. And although the delivery of the pledge has varied depending on the local authority, many councils have invested in providing pupils with their own device.
In the Scottish Borders, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Falkirk, pupils are given their own iPads from as early as P4.
Dr D’Addio said that before deploying education technology it was important to ask the question “what are the educational issues we are trying to solve?”, and then to look at how technology can help.
But she said there was often not enough evidence on the impact of technology in education, and in too many cases the starting point was the desire to use a specific “input” - be that a device or a particular application - instead of focusing on what was to be achieved.
Edtech: Should every pupil get a tablet or laptop?
Good impartial evidence about impact was “still very rare” because technology evolves quickly and products change on average every three years, she said, ut also because it is often the companies making the products that carry out evaluations of performance.
Dr D’Addio also highlighted that the upfront price tag of the products was likely to be just 25 per cent of the final cost because of maintenance, training and security costs, including protection from cyberattacks.
The Global Education Monitoring Report says: “One-to-one technology models have long been used to provide each student with one laptop or tablet. Such approaches are costlier than most interventions and their effectiveness has been questioned.”
It adds that the quality of teacher training is “critical”. One-to-one technology programmes, it says, were at one time established in 30 per cent of countries, but currently only 15 per cent of countries pursue such programmes.
Dr D’Addio stressed that technology does not need to be advanced to be effective. In China high-quality lessons recorded by experienced teachers and then broadcast to students in rural areas had improved outcomes by 32 per cent and reduced urban-rural learning gaps by 38 per cent.
She also said that countries like Brazil and Mexico had demonstrated the power of radio and television programmes to improve outcomes through the “telesecundaria” distance-education programme.
Unesco’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report - Technology in education: A tool on whose terms? - was published in July. It hit the headlines over its call for a ban on smartphones in class. It says technology should only be used in school “when it supports learning outcomes” and that “mere proximity to a mobile device was found to distract students and to have a negative impact on learning”.
It also says, however, that just one in four countries had banned smartphone use in school.
