Literature

Five research papers (Clark-Wilson & Hoyles, 2019; Firat, 2021; McDonald, 2021, Parish, 2019; & Passey 2014) indicated that educational technology in the UK has not been as successful historically in the UK as it has been in the US particularly. According to the papers, Classroom technology integration in the UK can be traced back to the beginning of the 1990s when the EdTech revolution began the world over. 1990 was the time that the classroom began to be filled with technologies that most teachers who joined teaching less than 10 years ago may not have witnessed but which those of us who have lived our fair years of teaching now consider being old-fashioned.  

In the 2000s, the UK saw significant progress in technology integration. 

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Several government policies have been implemented to get UK EdTech up to par with other developed nations. Yet these policies had not been effectively implemented in the pre-COVID times. The national mathematics curriculum introduced in 2012, for instance,  provided only  a brief pedagogical guidance with regard to the use of technology. 

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References

Clark-Wilson, A., & Hoyles, C. (2019). A research-informed web-based professional development toolkit to support technology-enhanced mathematics teaching at scale. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 102(3), 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-018-9836-1 

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Firat, K. (2021). Preparing pre-service primary teachers to teach with technology: A case of England. Elementary Education Online, 20(1), 777–788. https://doi.org/10.17051/ilkonline.2021.01.71 

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McDonald, C. (2021). The UK’s struggle with digital schooling. Computer Weekly, 4–9. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umgc.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=148236109&site=eds-live&scope=site 

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Parish, A. (2019). Digital technology and secondary mathematics in England: Have we really moved on from Cockcroft’s vision in 1982? In F. Curtis (Ed.), Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics (pp. 1–6). Retrieved from https://bsrlm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BSRLM-CP-39-2-11.pdf

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Passey, D. (2014). Early uses of computers in schools in the United Kingdom: Shaping factors and influencing directions. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 424, 131–149. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55119-2_9 

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