In the article 4 Lessons Learned from Higher Ed Tech Failures in 2014 Tanya Roscorla suggests that to prevent failure of Ed Tech projects administrators must:
- Become smarter about running experiments, which usually include technology
- Figure out how to scale innovations that are working
- Watch smaller schools to see how they approach technology because they have more freedom to innovate
- Recognize that universities are in a turbulent period of time and identify the cost of being wrong about education technology
While these are salient points and should be factors to consider Roscorla has missed the fundamental issue that needs to be addressed if your organization is to be successful in deploying Ed Tech effectively. Ed Tech should be used to enhance the learning environment rather be used as a magic bullet to change the way that students, faculty, staff and administrators work in the educational environment.
All too often in Higher Ed technology is deployed and everyone has to adopt to the technology rather then find the appropriate technology that can be adopted to the learning environment. The starting point for all technology related projects in Higher Ed should be the learning. This means that we look to the needs of the learner and faculty first, then the staff and administration.
Unfortunately, most administrators in Higher Ed do not have enough knowledge and experience with Ed Tech so decisions regarding the selection and support of the technology are most often off loaded to IT departments. Even though IT departments are focused on serving the user their priority is to help the user to deal with the technology that the IT department has chosen to deploy. If the priority is the technology then it makes perfect sense to pay attention to technology testing, scalability, technology deployments at other institutions, and costs.
However, if the priority is the learner then issues like flexibility, usability, mobility and adaptability are paramount because the technology needs to adapt to the learning environment and support the learning. IT should play a support role in selecting the technology but the primary selection should fall upon an advisory group comprised of faculty, students and other learning support staff who understand the importance of putting the needs of the learner first.
The fundamental question needs to be asked–who does Ed Tech serve? The learner or administration and IT. Until we start focusing on the learning we will continue to see significant Ed Tech project failures.
