Workshop Report: Generating New Insights at the 2024 EdTech Austria Summit
The EdTech Austria Summit, an annual event that brings together educators, EdTech organizations, founders, developers, public administration representatives, and researchers, was held on May 7 in Salzburg. Bringing the perspectives and knowledge of the EmpowerED project to Austria, the European EdTech Alliance was invited this year to curate the official networking area, inviting participants to collectively identify challenges and solutions related to quality assurance in EdTech.
Throughout the day, the EEA team engaged participants with a diversity of formats: two guided networking sessions for Summit attendees to engage with the topics of trust and evidence and a listening session with two EdTech companies that were awarded the quality certification, OeAD LernApps Gütesiegel, during the Summit. The EEA team also conducted a session with local students, aged 10 and 11, to gather their perspectives on the digital learning tools they use. This addition to the workshops added a new and unique dimension to our research findings, providing an opportunity to hear directly from the end-users.
While different in their approach, each format was designed to facilitate different entry points to knowledge exchange, invite participants to share best practices, and define their needs and possible solutions for quality assurance best practices. Led by our Research Lead, Antonia Clary and co-facilitated by Julia Pichler (HEIV), Ursula Neulinger and Alea Pichler (Common Sense), important research contributions were discovered throughout the course of the day.
“When searching for a needle in a haystack, it’s important to be able to trust someone.”
Together stakeholders identified several challenges in the EdTech sector that were already mentioned in previous workshops, including defining quality assurance, funding and time constraints, data protection concerns, and navigating the abundance of existing frameworks.
“That’s how we’ve always been doing it”
In addition to the challenges, the participants ideated potential solutions and prerequisites for building trust and creating evidence in the EdTech sector. These included the following key findings:
Cooperation: Stakeholders highlighted the importance of multi-party involvement in ensuring quality assurance in educational technology, emphasizing the need for cooperative efforts.
Cultural Considerations: The influence of cultural background was acknowledged as a key factor in identifying challenges and formulating solutions for trust-building and evidence creation in educational technology.
Transparency and Ethics: Concerns were voiced about the profit-driven motives of some private sector EdTech organizations, underlining the necessity for transparency and ethical conduct.
Data Collection Practices: Participants stressed the need to define "good practice" in data collection and address the knowledge gap among stakeholders regarding effective data collection methods.
Unified Standards: The lack of clear—yet adaptable standards—for EdTech tools was a shared concern among different stakeholder groups.
Independent evaluation processes: A need for independent evaluation processes and transparent certification procedures was voiced by participants to foster trust and credibility in educational technology.
Do these challenges and needs resonate with you? Tell us about your experience with building trust and creating evidence and help us contextualise our findings. Register your interest to partner with the EdTech Strategy Lab and/or take part in our short survey.
