Sorry Parents, We've Left You in Digital No Man's Land

We need to talk about something that's being completely overlooked in all this edtech or pedtech excitement. While we're banging on about digital transformation in schools, we've forgotten about the most important partners in education - the parents & carers. We're expecting them to support learning in a digital world that might as well be Mars to many of them.

It's happening in homes across the world right now. A kid bounces through the door, buzzing about their coding project, AR presentation, or AI-generated story, and Mum or Dad just smile and nod, completely lost but trying not to show it. We've created two entirely different educational planets - one for the native digitals (check out our conversation with Nicolas Cole about why we don't like the term digital natives)  and one for everyone else - the learned digitals. And then we scratch our heads wondering why parental engagement is dropping off a cliff?

Research consistently shows that parental involvement is one of the strongest predictors of student success. But how can parents be meaningfully involved when they don't understand the tools, platforms, or pedagogies their children are experiencing?

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