AtC Trust at BETT 2023

Hello, I’m Zaitoon Bukhari and I’m the Digital Education Lead for AtC Trust.
I’ve worked as the Digital Education Lead for about two years, but my experience of working with digital tools in education started way before that.
The Google Workspace for Education journey began back in 2016. Quite quickly the use of Google Workspace tools became the ‘go to’ tools in the classroom. I started my journey to become a Level 1 Google Certified Educator so that I had a good understanding of the fundamentals tools that I would be using in the classroom. Soon after, I completed the Level 2 Google Certified Educator, this gave me a good insight into the more advanced tools which could be used within Leadership. I enjoyed how seamless and collaborative these tools were, so I then applied to become a Google Certified Trainer. This allowed me to have an insight to new updates, new tools that were about to be released but more importantly it gave me access to these new tools so that I could become familiar with them before running training sessions for our staff.
As the school settled with the use of Google Workspace tools, I decided to apply for the Google Innovator Academy. I had a project in mind which would help facilitate our CPD offer across the school. I pitched my idea to Google for Education and was accepted onto the London 2019 cohort. I alongside 35 other candidates from across the World, worked tirelessly through 3 days of intensive training and product designing to come away with the foundations of a concept that I could then develop. It took a further 8 months to develop my CPD Dashboard, which is now being used across a number of schools.
My focus began to change from designing and developing solutions to thinking about the use of technology in the classroom and the pedagogy that sits behind it. At this point, I was invited by Google For Education to take part in a Google Coaching programme with 23 other candidates from across the UK. This gave me a real deep understanding of the use of technology in the classroom and how to coach teachers and students so they are able to utilise the tools effectively and efficiently.
This now leads me to where I am today. I work with schools across my Trust to help implement the best digital learning practices. My EdTech journey has also opened up opportunities for me to work part-time for one of Google’s Professional Development Partners as their UK and Ireland Training Lead.

Bett is the global community for education technology. Their mission is to spark ideas, create connections and accelerate trade, driving impact and improving outcomes for teachers and learners.
This year Bett was hosted at the Excel Centre, London on the 29th - 31st March. There were over 30,000 attendees with 123+ countries represented and over 600 innovative EdTech companies exhibiting.
Bett was attended by numerous CEOs, Headteacehers, SLT members, Digital Leads, Teachers, Students and Parents. It really is a space that caters for all.

As part of my job of being a Google PD Partner, we were approached by Google For Education to design and facilitate a Google for Education Experience. We were briefed with all the new tools that Google for Education was about to launch alongside their new Future of Education report. This report gives you a thought-provoking insight into how the future is shaping up to look radically different from today. The educational experts discuss how and why they’re rethinking the role of education. There are 3 key trends within this report which are:
1. Rising demand for global problem solvers
2. Change in the skill sets required for work
3. Shift to a lifelong learning mindset
These trends were identified through research as the key drivers to drive a shift in the way we currently think about education.
Taking into consideration these trends and the new tools Google for Education were developing, my team worked hard for months to come up with an innovative, thought provoking yet fun way for all of our delegates to experience the use of these tools as well as understand the key message around the Future of Education report. Our 3 areas were Adaptive Learning, Accessibility and Safer Learning.

The Google for Education - Future of Education Report resonated with the work that our Director of Education Vicky Whiting was doing across the Trust. Vicky’s vast knowledge and understanding on the work of OECD, UNESCO and PISA put us in a position where we could provide examples of how as a Trust we have reimaged our Curriculums so that they shared a new purpose of education which were organised around principles of cooperation and collaboration. Or Digital Strategy enables our educators to take the curriculum and provide students with a more personalised learning environment and a secure way to connect with others. The use of Chromebooks across the Trust - help our students to deepen collaborative problems.