The Secretary of State has today announced a range of initiatives to support education settings in using EdTech safely and effectively to support teaching and learning. The Chartered College of Teaching will play a leading role in two of the important projects announced.

EdTech Evidence Board

Schools, colleges, early years providers and more have long used educational technology in a variety of ways in their work, but can still find it challenging to know which products will be the most effective for their students and themselves. An EdTech Evidence Board has the potential to help both schools and colleges and EdTech companies to better understand and improve the impact of technology on student learning and teachers’ workload. The Department for Education are funding a project to explore the potential of such an approach.

The College’s strong focus on evidence will inform the Board’s approach to evaluating the effectiveness and impact of EdTech projects. We’ll start by developing rigorous, evidence-based criteria that we can use to assess the EdTech that’s available, and we’ll be working with school and college leaders, EdTech providers and others to understand your questions, concerns and hopes for EdTech and the barriers you face in choosing and using effective technology to support teaching and learning.

If you’d like to be involved, in the first instance please complete our Edtech Evidence Board survey, which includes the opportunity for you to be kept up to date and hear about ways to participate.

AI training for educators

We are excited to be working with Chiltern Learning Trust for a second project funded by the Department for Education. To support a clear ask from teachers and leaders, we are developing online resources and guidance materials to help teachers and leaders use AI safely in their setting, with resources to be published in Spring 2025. Again, we’ll be working closely with the sector to understand your needs to ensure we provide materials that are beneficial and based on robust research evidence. Our special AI-focused edition of Impact is part of this project, and will be published later in spring.

We would love to hear your views and experiences of AI training in our Generative AI in Education Training Needs survey.

The impact of edtech

The potential of EdTech, including AI, to improve student learning and teachers’ working lives is huge. That potential can only be realised if schools and colleges are empowered to choose and implement the technology that best meets their needs and the aspirations of the students they teach.