Glynn Willett and Wade Willett founded MobyMax based on the belief that students can learn twice as fast. Bloom and other researchers have noted this potential for over 60 years, but today, with MobyMax’s differentiated learning system, the dream is a reality.

MobyMax has never been about simply improving the status quo. Rather, the company aims to catalyze “a new reality, in which every child in every school in every country learns twice as fast as if they had the best teacher in the world sitting beside them.”

That vision has fueled a quest to develop a “global, research-powered curriculum that enables every child everywhere to learn twice as fast.”

It’s why the company developed a uniquely comprehensive K-8 curriculum for 27 subjects, complete with a full suite of integrated and automated classroom tools and assessments package that save teachers precious hours. MobyMax’s ingenious approach not only finds and fixes learning gaps in all K-8 subjects; it does so while offering an affordable price, making it accessible for any school.

The most impressive upshot of MobyMax: students are learning twice as fast, gaining more than one full grade level after just 20 hours of work. In August 2018, a large-scale independent research study of 4,000 students concluded that students using MobyMax Math showed 53% more improvement than students in the control group who did not use MobyMax.

For these reasons and more, Glynn Willett was named an edtech “Visionary” as part of The EdTech Leadership Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more. 

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The market has spoken—now what do the teachers say? 

GUEST COLUMN | by Al Kingsley

ATANU TANMOY

The headline of our recent survey was easy to understand – a nearly unanimous view that technology makes teaching and learning better. A striking 93% of teachers and other education leaders who use technology in their jobs agreed with the sentiment.

‘…technology makes teaching and learning better. A striking 93% of teachers and other education leaders who use technology in their jobs agreed with the sentiment.’

That’s not surprising. But, as is often the case, context is paramount.

The Line is Gone

That educators see the benefits of technology so overwhelmingly may catch the attention of some people. However, the reality is that the line between technology and learning environments is gone. Not smudged, evaporated. The question is no longer whether we should have technology in teaching and learning but how much, when, and what we want it to do.

Even if, for whatever reason, you don’t put much faith in survey results, on the education technology question, the market has spoken. The ubiquitous adoption and use of classroom support and instruction technology cannot all be due to good salesmanship. Obviously, at least some education technology is providing some clear benefit in at least some places. The 92% tells us it’s considerably more than some.   

That’s the given. But, based on our survey released in March, the context and specificity of where we find education and technology are important and potentially insightful.

What a Majority of Educators Want

One of those insights is that even though educators recognize the benefits of technology, a majority (54%) told us that what they wanted most was more time for, and investment in, training to use education technologies. In contrast, 28% of the respondents in our survey said their top want was more funding for more technology. That’s a nearly 2:1 ratio.

As someone who’s been on both sides of the education technology market – as a school leader and company leader – the results tell me that sometimes we all try to introduce technology where there’s no actual impact or benefit from it. And that, even though we know it works, more is not always better, at least not right away.

Technology Alone Isn’t a Lever

When this happens, or when it looks as though it may happen, we shouldn’t be afraid to say that technology alone isn’t a lever that’s going to add value – by “we”, I mean all of us, no matter what side of the table we’re on. Educators, company representatives, administrators, families, and students should not be shy about asking impact-related questions and, where the answers are unclear or absent, pause. What educators are telling us they want, time, is not the enemy of good.

Going a bit deeper, these answers around our education resources and tools also show what seems obvious but is so easy to overlook – you can have technology in the classroom, but if you don’t have the skills or the understanding of how to use it effectively, then it can become a lump of clay. To me, for example, clay is clay, while a sculptor may see a universe of possibility and power. Sculpture is transformative. 

But even worse than letting powerful and expensive education technology gather dust and dry out for lack of time and training, without competency or mastery of technology tools, they can become a distraction rather than a benefit.

We’ve all struggled to get software or hardware to work, spending more time and frustration than it would have taken to ace the intended task the old, traditional way. It’s annoying and a waste of time, to be sure. But in a school setting, it may not be just the teacher’s time that’s being ineffectively sunk into trying to make the tech work.

The Teachers Are Right

The teachers are right. More time and training would help.

If we believe the things we say – that we want teaching to be more efficient, that we want teachers to be rock stars, that we want learning to be more personal and engaging, that managing a school should be much easier than it is – we owe them, and ourselves, that time.

After all, technology isn’t a kind of magic potion in which all that’s required is to add water and stir. It takes more than that.

Many of our education technologies are awesome, as our teachers know. If we want them to work like we imagine, time and training ought to be part of every technology package. For many technology providers and platforms, they already are. That’s the right path. In case we forget from time to time, teachers are right to remind us. 

—

Al Kingsley is the CEO of NetSupport. He is an author, chair of Multi Academy Trust cluster of schools in the UK, Apprenticeship Ambassador, and chair of his regional Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Board. A 30-year veteran in the sector he has written books on edtech, school governance, and school growth. Connect with Al on LinkedIn. 

The post Poof! The Line Between Tech and Learning is Gone  appeared first on EdTech Digest.

The Teacher’s Toolkit is a platform meticulously crafted to empower teachers in their lesson planning endeavors. This comprehensive tool offers educators an all-in-one solution, designed to address the significant time and effort they invest in crafting effective lesson plans.

The Toolkit simplifies the entire lesson planning process by centralizing essential elements in one place. It boasts a vast repository of multimedia resources, accessible links, assessment tools, an integrated class schedule, and supplementary teaching materials. Teachers can seamlessly migrate their planning processes to the app and tailor pre-existing lesson plan suggestions to suit their unique classroom requirements.

The platform was born out of a deep-seated concern for the hours teachers dedicate to planning lessons, often uncompensated. Our mission is to alleviate this burden and empower educators with time-saving resources.
The Teacher’s Toolkit is categorized as an ’exploratory’ innovation, consistently exploring new resources, technologies, and methods to enhance the educational planning process.

Setting itself apart from competitors, this platform offers a holistic approach, from class scheduling to content delivery, streamlining teachers’ workflows and improving resource accessibility. The result is increased planning efficiency without compromising instructional quality, positioning itself as the go-to platform to address all educational planning facets.

More than 300 teachers actively use the Toolkit monthly, showcasing strong engagement and positive feedback. Users report improved resource accessibility and reduced preparation time without sacrificing instruction quality.

This transformative platform simplifies lesson planning, empowers educators with innovative tools, and contributes to enhanced learning outcomes globally. For these reasons and more, Teacher’s Toolkit from Edify Education is a Cool Tool Award (Winner) for “Best Lesson Planning Solution” as part of The EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more.

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