‘We are a part of this digital world and we are worth investing in.’

To begin with, the panic felt by the latest lost clothing escapade still haunts me now. With the help of Wanlang and Jop, we were able to track down the taxi driver and at 9pm we drove down a pitched black ‘road’ and received our goods from the window of the taxi. To the untrained eye it would have looked like the trafficking of illegal contraband - having said that, the mens briefs we purchased should really be considered as such.

Back into school…The children unboxed the tablets and placed them on the splintered bench table. This was the first time the children had used the technology and it was fairly evident. One girl had hers facing the wrong way - presumably she hadn’t noticed it had a screen. Others fumbled their way around the device, pressing each and every button to make it switch on and the vast majority had no idea of their purpose. It is maybe the first time I have fully understood the concept of ‘Digital Poverty’.

During the covid lockdowns the school I work in had significant challenges. Simply put, the majority of children didn’t have access to a device at home. It was during these times that I joined the Digital Poverty Alliance who offer a great deal of support and resources. The link between poverty and the ability or likelihood to access the online world is clear - the poorer you are, the less chance you have of accessing tech or online technologies. This fact transcends continents and is perhaps even more explicitly noticeable here in the Meghalaya region.

Digital inequality arises from a few different scenarios: low literacy levels, low household income, geographical limitations, a lack of physical devices and a lack of ambition to use or learn how to use technology. The latter point is certainly not the case here. We are focusing on four schools but have had requests from multiple other principals requesting we visit and start the project with them too. The appetite to include tech within schools here is great. We are not talking artificial intelligence, 4D rooms, assistive technologies or robot teachers. On the top of most principals lists is ‘a projector’. One school wanted more though, “We would like a smart classroom. You know, a smart board? Is it? This would help our teachers save time in the lesson, help them be very prepared and our children would enjoy it.”

I found the smart board request and the rationale really interesting. 

Rewind back to August 1st 2022 (Our final meeting with Tony Cann, two days before our departure).

“When I came up with the idea of the smart board at Promethean, it was with the idea it would help save teachers time. But, I don’t think it really worked. LBQ though, it’s a killer idea!”

Here we have a principal desperate for a piece of technology, quoting the very reason for its invention yet the founder of the technology ultimately doesn’t believe it had the impact he wanted it to. I know many teachers who would say they could not teach without one. ‘How would we display online material? How would our lessons be interactive? How would I prepare materials in advance which I wanted to go on and model?’

All very good points and I find myself thinking this more and more: ‘I do not know the answer’. Did smart boards become the problem? Slide after slide meticulously planned taking hours of ‘me time’. Children fixed on the white rectangular pre-prepared lesson ‘giver’. Substituting real-life images of ‘things’ with 2d images. 

One thing is for certain though: LBQ wraps up the gift of time every single time you use it. I am genuinely not on commission here but these are my reasons for my selling tag. The question sets are really very good. The progression of the questions throughout the sets are perfect. Then there is the matter of marking: there is none. You get to spend your time with the children in your classroom doing what you do best. No undergraduate has gone into teaching with the dream of spending three hours after school marking books with a deep underlying fear of being forgotten and being locked in after 6pm. Once you train your children up, the feedback LBQ provides is also a game changer (this is perhaps one of its most useful features but also one of the trickiest to implement). We then move onto the hours upon hours you save sending files to the printer, waiting at the printer, collecting the printouts and cutting them, only for them to be stuck in with the sort of laxness only someone who really dislikes you could give. Finally, the ‘who I would like you to work with’ conversation is extinct. Let’s use the historic and live data instead - again saving you time.

So, yes, LBQ is a ‘killer idea.’ 

It is also beginning to address the digital inequality here in Meghalaya. The children are having weekly exposure to using a digital device. Predominately on LBQ yes but with that brings keyboard work, manipulation of text, access of the internet and most of all it changes mindsets: ‘We are a part of this digital world and we are worth investing in.’

I would argue with Tony that the smart board has had a great impact on teacher workload (in a positive way). It has been the gateway to a many other technologies that have since entered the classroom and has changed the way we can operate the classroom too. We just have to be careful not to walk into those traps which all EdTech has the potential to do. 

Talking of traps, we went into the jungle this weekend . . .