Demystifying tech is a key focus of International Festival of Learning East in Bury St Edmunds

Demystifying technology to support the teaching of pupils in the digital age is one of the key aims of an impending education festival in Bury St Edmunds.

The second International Festival of Learning East on June 28 will focus on ‘human skills in a technological world’ with six tech challenge areas.

They are teaching practices, leadership in an Ai world, training for teachers, lifelong learning, managing workload and assessment processes.

On Tuesday, a fringe event, hosted by former King Edward VI School headteacher Geoff Barton, offered a taster of what the festival has to offer with a discussion about leadership in a technological world.

Festival director Rob Walden said: “What we’ve got is a generation of children coming through who are using collaborative technology. For example, they’re going on Xbox/Playstation and they’re going on to connect with friends and to collaborate with other people around the world.

“It’s changing the way their brains are working, they’re accessing short chunks of information, concentration spans are a little bit lower but children are accessing multiple streams of information at one time.

“The question is how do teachers reflect on how they can deal with that in the classroom and get in touch with the kind of technology that could be used to help support teaching and learning that those children are engaged with and excited about.”

Mr Walden, former assistant headteacher at King Edward VI, added that it was also about ‘helping to super charge what schools do with productivity, managing workload, reducing stress and improving wellbeing through better use of existing technologies and new technologies’.

The festival at West Suffolk College will feature about 130 workshops and speakers.

For tickets, visit www.ifleast.org