EdTech World Tour in New Zealand

The Franco-German researchers have been assessing global edtech trends and ecosystems which support edtech adoption and innovation, and will present their findings to the EdTechXEurope conference in June.

While the US dominates the edtech sector Svenia and Audrey were curious to find out and report on what is happening in other parts of the world.  Their Edtech World Tour started in France in October 2015 and included the United States, Chile, Australia, Korea, India and South Africa. 

Education New Zealand Business Development Manager, Adele Bryant, hosted Svenia and Audrey’s visit to New Zealand from 7-14 December 2015 between the Chilean and Australian leg of the tour.  During their time here, they visited education institutions, edtech companies and government agencies in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, recording what they saw and heard on their social media platforms.

From an inspiring Point England School in Auckland, to a Wellington edtech community meetup, and on to Dunedin’s ADInstruments and its high quality life sciences educational products, Audrey and Svenia were welcomed and impressed by New Zealand’s approach to using and developing edtech.

Audrey and Svenia made the following observations from their time in New Zealand: “New Zealand has been of great inspiration to us as we feel the country has understood the way Edtech has to be implemented.  No need to roll out devices and new edtech tools if neither the infrastructure nor the teacher training is there. 

“The combination of the government’s efforts – together with Network for Learning – to bring high speed internet connection to all New Zealand schools and the work of MindLab in training New Zealand teachers in new technology has a huge potential to make New Zealand the next model for successful edtech use in schools.”

At each call they asked the same question “What does edtech mean to you?”  The resulting videos have been uploaded to their website, providing insights into the different perspectives of teachers and developers.  View a compilation of the New Zealand videos here and go to the tour’s Twitter feed to see more about the whole tour.

In the New Zealand newsletter they compiled after their visit, Svenia and Audrey noted that “New Zealand’s high quality and innovative education system has proven a perfect ecosystem for Edtech when combined with its entrepreneurial and creative culture”.  You can read about their time in New Zealand visit here.