Learners are key to solving inequality in education
02 April 2008
A new handbook from Futurelab shows how learners can play a key role in the design of educational technology, and so help tackle growing inequalities in education. Funded by CfBT Education Trust and launched today by Baroness Estelle Morris, 'Designing Educational Technologies for Social Justice' explores the role that digital technologies can play in reducing inequality in education and offers guidance on designing educational resources that benefit disadvantaged learners.
A key message from the handbook to developers, teachers and other education practitioners such as community groups is that, in order to design educational technology and projects to reduce inequality, you have to involve those using it throughout the design process. A tokenistic gesture – user testing an idea once development is under way or complete – will not suffice. Designers are also urged to avoid simply reusing technologies and projects that have worked in the past - what works in one place and with one group of people may not work well in a new environment.
Futurelab’s handbook goes on to support the argument that technology does not provide a quick fix for social or educational problems. Making the internet available to everybody, for example, does not mean that they will use it or, more importantly, that they will use it effectively. Just installing the technology will not reduce inequality in education - people need confidence and a reason to use technology in ways that bring genuine benefit to them. The handbook contains a number of example educational projects where technology has been used to do just that, and where learners have played a key role in their design.
These case studies include the Digital Dialogues six-month programme of new media projects run by The Hayward Gallery in London which involved community groups making their own films with digital cameras and
These projects demonstrate that well-designed educational projects and technologies can also make learning in a variety of different ways possible and, in doing so, help to engage people who have not achieved their full potential with more traditional methods of learning. Lyndsay Grant, Learning Researcher at Futurelab, explains: "Projects using new digital technologies are able to widen access to learning, open up new ways of learning and provide opportunities for expression, communication, collaboration and the acquisition of employable skills."
Baroness Estelle Morris comments: "I very much welcome this handbook which is based on carefully researched practice. There is always a risk that we will miss the chance that technology offers us to achieve greater social justice and educational opportunities. This handbook will play an important role in supporting all who work in education to make the best use of the available opportunities."
The 'Designing Educational Technologies for Social Justice' handbook can be downloaded free of charge from www.futurelab.org.uk/handbooks and from www.cfbt.com/evidenceforeducation.