A review of an insightful guidebook for using evidence informed EdTech effectively across your teaching practice.
Reviewed by Kat Cauchi
The EdTech Playbook by Mark Anderson & Olly Lewis, edited by Liz Bury, covers a broad range of uses of technology in education from assessment and feedback, to managing learning and supporting language teaching. Because of the wide range of areas of application of technology, I think this book would be especially useful for trainee or early career teachers to help them to build good technology foundations in their teaching practice across the curriculum. However, that isn’t to say that this book isn’t beneficial for those later into their teaching journey – far from it. For those staff, this can be a handy tool for to evaluate:
- how you are using technology in your school – what is working well and what could be improved
- what challenges you are facing that technology could support with
- what is working well that could be further enhanced with the use of technology
- how you can ensure that your technology is fit for purpose and accessible for all.
From a leadership perspective, the chapters on using technology to manage learning, effective digital transformation and working with vendors could be particularly useful.
How the book works
Chapter structure
After a foreword and introduction, the book is broken down into twenty chapters which are followed by a conclusion, glossary and references. Even just reading the chapter list, you will see that many bases are covered. The structure is clever, as the first chapter is on ‘Why EdTech hasn’t worked historically’ (which I will talk about more later), then this is followed by several chapters that focus on cross-curricular or cross-functional uses of EdTech, such as instructional delivery methods, accessibility for all and cognitive science with technology. This builds a foundation of general good practice with EdTech and covers topics that are more broadly relevant in education, i.e. whether you’re a primary teacher, headteacher or science lead, these will all feed into some areas of what you do.
The book then proceeds into subject-specific focused chapters covering English, maths, science, humanities and languages. It also addresses topics on managing learning, online safety and even working with vendors and personal learning networks. Having these more specific use cases is helpful and demonstrates that while there are many tools and ways of using technology that apply across the board, some subjects or areas require specific tools and processes for optimal use.
The structure is logical if you want to work in order. However, because of the clear chapter breakdowns, it would be easy for someone to pick up the text and choose a key focus. This makes the book more re-readable as you know next time you are looking to enhance your use of technology in a specific area, you can pick the text back up and find some guidance.
Chapter elements
Each chapter starts with the context, then addresses common issues/problems and how EdTech can solve them, as well as ways technology can work alongside the analogue to enhance rather than replace current practices. Chapters end with a list of ‘top tips’ from Anderson and Lewis, which are a great little takeaway for wrapping up the topic. Most of the chapters have case studies from educational professionals and sometimes include tables and infographics to help clarify and illustrate key points from the text.
Personally, my favourite chapter of the book is ‘Chapter 7: Accessibility for all’ because it goes beyond talking about the basic tools often associated with accessibility and talks about accessibility by design, models for accessibility and enhanced learning for all. It really emphasises the importance of accessibility in everything educators do, reflecting on its benefits for all learners.
Book highlights
Talking about what hasn’t worked
Things that don’t work or haven’t gone to plan aren’t featured all that often in these kinds of education guidebooks, but I think they’re an overlooked gem in really helping you understand best practice and why it matters. Anderson and Lewis understand that we can learn just as much, if not more, from what hasn’t worked than what has.
This comprehension is clear with the first chapter of the book, ‘Why EdTech hasn’t worked historically,’ where the authors unpick how and why tech implementations go wrong. It is helpful that Anderson and Lewis provide a specific example. They talk about a school district that provided iPads to all grade 4-12 students but without the crucial elements needed to ensure successful implementation of technology. The impact was costly – in time, money and quality of teaching and learning.
This example gives purpose to the section before following on to talk about managing technology transformation with consideration. You understand clearly why, for example, using the change management diagram cited in the book (from Professor T. Knoster, Ed.D) would be helpful for breaking down the key elements of successful implementation and what goes wrong when one element is missing.
Case studies
There’s a phrase, ‘You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?’ The case studies here are walking the walk. It’s all well and good to talk the talk about how you should try this tool or that method – but where’s the proof? By having these concrete examples of people using tech tools and explaining what they did and what happened, you can appreciate that, in reality, in your school (and maybe in your classroom) this could be worth trying, depending on your context. I also really liked how informative the case studies are, for example, Erika Sandström’s case study on green screening not only describes different projects in detail but includes a QR code linking to resources such as templates to help you create your own similar projects.
The whys
It would be easy to see the title of this book ‘The EdTech Playbook’ and think it’s just a showcase of specific tools to use and how to use them, but it’s a lot deeper than that. The real emphasis is on the whys – why something is worth using, why it is evidence-backed, why it can enhance practice, etc. Also, why you shouldn’t use something just because you can and why you can’t just replace the analogue with the digital. It’s clear that Anderson and Lewis believe a balanced blend is much more beneficial and that sometimes technology doesn’t have a place – and in other cases, it very much does.
Summary
If you are looking to build your foundational knowledge in effective EdTech practice or to further develop your use of technology in education, this book is for you. Whether you are coming at this book with a specific use case in mind or to brush up on your general knowledge, there is something for all roles in school.
