‘Lessons have been learned.’ Are there any words more depressing (and depressingly predictable) than these after a project failure? When we hear this phrase, particularly after government failures, we start to think ‘How did this happen? Surely we should know how to do this by now.’
Last July, I was invited to give a talk at the English Australia EdTech SIG Symposium on why IT projects fail so often. I believe that the same problems that bedevil large-scale government projects often undermine the work that we do as educational technologists — or simply as teachers running a tech-based initiative.
- failure to conceptualise the project in the first place;
- failure to provide proper guidance to the stakeholders;
- failure to invest in training; and, above all,
- a lack of sincerity and honesty about what the project actually involves in terms of hard work.
It’s not all doom and gloom though: the talk focused on how we can overcome these issues and use technology to create a better approach to educational delivery. The talk also finished by looking at a project in a secondary school which is an absolute textbook exemplar of conception and execution.
It’s so important to get EdTech right, for institutions, teachers and students. Please feel free to watch the full presentation below and share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.