Project: Educational Technology in Schools

The number of digital tools for teaching and learning is tremendous. We have arrived at a time in history where the overall access to educational technology (EdTech) is good, but even so, schools neither applies EdTech, nor data-driven educational practices in a pedagogically proficient way.

So, what could be missing? Obviously, it's not technology. Our answer to that question is that sustainable and profound changes require carefully planned process work in close collaboration between teachers and researchers. Teachers must want to change, but at the same time also receive professional and research-related competence development, as well as continuous support from their school, in order to bring forward cultural changes.

The emphasis in this project focuses on teachers' work in connection to the Swedish Government’s National Strategy for Digital Transformation in Schools (2017; page in Swedish), and what actually happens in the classroom when implementing educational technology. This also forms the basis for planning, implementation, and evaluation of the changed teaching practices. This is the core of our project.

Educational technology in schools is an interdisciplinary, long-term and applied research and development project with a three-part focus: technical, pedagogical and organizational. With its base in implementation science and the Active Implementation Frameworks, the project aims to change teachers' educational practices and improve students' school results. This will be done through data-driven analysis and support, systematic competence development and close collaboration with teachers, school leaders and EdTech companies.

The project progresses at different phases, and different municipalities/schools start and complete the work at different points of time. Within the project, we establish a number of school teams composed of experienced teachers and IT pedagogues. They will, together with the researchers, work towards the fidelity (compliance) of the project and will provide teachers with knowledge and support.

When the project is finished, the participating teachers are comfortable using educational technology, digital teaching materials, and data-driven teaching practices. The latter means that they are able to interpret digital data analyses, and use them as support for decisions, overview and follow-up regarding changes in student results.

Furthermore, school management and administration are fully supporting the changed teaching practices, and students are accustomed to this way of working. The school teams, responsible for the project progression at the participating schools, will continue their work, both for the sake of present teachers, but also for the training of new staff.

We work in a long-term, sustainable mode in order to achieve professional development and the implementation of data-driven teaching in the subject fields of mathematics, Swedish and Swedish as a second language.