The True EdTech — Schools
In my discussion with school management and school owners, I have found it easy to fragment their universe of concerns into multiple facets. With the struggle they face placing technology in this representation, I keep nudging them to treat technology as a horizontal and not a separate vertical. I have decided to illustrate it and share with a wider audience.
OPERATIONS:
The first vertical captures all the operational concerns of running a school. This includes payroll, audits, land related, vendor management, etc. The tech related to this would include ERP and accounting software like Tally.
COMPLIANCE:
The second vertical relates to all the compliance related processes and procedures that a school has to adhere to. This includes those issued by the academic board as well as any residential school compliance and regulations, etc. Very few tech offerings operate exclusively in this space. I believe TeachMint has a module for this but I recall it being very basic (in terms of the workflows I would expect). Given that in India a lot of this is still paper based, one can understand the lack of options.
ORGANISATION:
The third vertical relates to the school hierarchy, roles and responsibilities, professional development, people management, performance management, goal setting etc. This is the academic counterpart for a robust and meaningful HRMS. One could use tech available for standard organisations but you would usually need customisations. NeoED from what I recall had a module for this which was good.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE:
This is the vertical that people generally think of when they talk about a school. Here is where the curriculum, annual planning, attendance, content curation, content management, lesson planning, assessment design, assessment administration, assessment evaluation, feedback, progress reporting and much more. The tech here needs to be designed bottoms up — from teacher and student want up into processes and workflows. A lot of software is built for this but sadly the focus is often merely on a wrapper thrown on an LMS. Tech in this space includes Google Classroom, Canvas (Instructure), Blackboard and Moodle. Some of these are very mature offerings. A young org that has its heart in the right place and is building bottoms up is Litmus Learn with a flavour which is suitable for Indian schools.
OUTREACH:
This is the vertical focused on community connections, marketing, advertisements, social media, membership in influential and relevant associations etc. Apart from standard social presence management software and website content management systems (CMS) like Wordpress, very little else is employed by schools. Communication with parents is realised using software like ClassDojo or Remind.
The ring around it all pertains to Systems Changes and deals with the school initiatives and commitment to increasing its maturity along the various facets and nuances that we shan’t go into here.
This is why I feel that the true edTech out there is a school because a school is the only organisation which focuses on getting its Ed right before focusing on its Tech. Your standard edTech organisation could sell its wares to a mining company if they are willing to pay and keep the renewals flowing in. A school has no such option making it deeply invested in student learning outcomes. As I had written about 2 years ago in Teacher Plus magazine, every school must have a technology division to build tech solutions to problems. This is not an inordinate ask. When a school needs artwork, they approach their art department. When a school needs musical pieces, they approach their music department to put something together. Why would it be unimaginable for a principal to wish for some tech solution that would take a CBSE circular, identify the department that need to complete the piece of work, automatically contact the HoD and inform her/him of the task along with deadline, reminds everyone 2 days before the deadline? If only they had a tech partner/department! What schools need is exactly that (not a mere IT dept. whose job often ends with installing antivirus on each machine) which will help them complete the picture of a self-sufficient school. As much as you would find it ridiculous if a school said — “Oh! For arts, we will send the students to that school 2 miles down the road!” it should be ridiculous if they said that for tech they purchase one-off software or are largely clueless.
The schools that will make a mark for themselves will be those who quickly realise that they have to evolve from educational institutions to edTech institutions. Because technology is no longer optional for a serious school.
