Ed-Tech Troubles with Asa Wright

Mark Simpkins (00:03.149)
Hello and welcome to this episode of FE Gold, your source for real talk, real solutions in the world of further education. And I’m your host, Mark Simpkins, here to bring insights that will take your provision to the next level. And today I’m delighted to welcome an ex colleague of mine, Asa Wright, who is co -founder of EOS. Welcome Asa, how are you today?

Asa (00:28.752)
Hey Mark, I’m good thanks.

Mark Simpkins (00:30.797)
Good, thank you for joining me today, buddy. Today we’re gonna discuss basically how to entangle tech troubles within further education. In all the clients that I work with, this is a very contentious topic.

Lots of clients in different positions in terms of their tech and what we’re gonna do today is try and pick some of those out and give the listeners something to take away and hopefully help them out basically. So, but before we go into that, firstly, tell us all a little bit about you and EOS basically.

Asa (01:06.768)
Well, thanks Mark. So, yeah, my background, as you know, we work together for a reasonable period of time and my career pretty much kicked off in FE. So I’m not going to say how long ago because that’ll show my age. But I think it’s one of those industries from certainly from my point of view, which does keep you coming back for more a little bit. And certainly,

Mark Simpkins (01:22.733)
Hahaha

Asa (01:35.76)
my journey through it from frontline delivery through quality teams, ops teams, and now I’m with EOS and a founded EOS, which is in EdTech. So it’s kind of, I’ve seen all of those parts, the full circle, things do evolve and then some things generally stay the same. So, EOS is very much focused around trying to bring much more of a…

a learner focus and detail to the tech side of things. Whereas, in FE, my experience is that the tech side is very focused on the provider angle, which absolutely it should be. But from the learner’s aspect, we always felt like there was maybe a little bit of a gap there which needed to be filled. And certainly, my experience working on the employer side of apprenticeships was exactly that, that the learners would be like,

I just need something that I can use. It’s straightforward, it’s simple. It doesn’t make it difficult for me to engage and access things. So obviously, that’s where we’re heavily focused. But I think from all angles, I think everybody can appreciate that the simpler, the better.

Mark Simpkins (02:54.189)
Yeah, I get that and you’re right. So just, I mean, EOS has been around for how long now?

Asa (02:59.696)
So we started in 2020. Some would say that’s a very challenging time to start a business and I would totally agree with that. But actually we focused very heavily on virtual learning environments when we first began because obviously COVID, everyone will have that experience that COVID pretty much just changed FE in about a week because everybody had to move automatically to online only delivery because there was no other option.

And some were ready for that transition and some definitely weren’t ready for that transition. And we obviously had focused very heavily on that being one, a focus of the market at that stage. And then two, that was where our expertise lay. Myself and my business partner were in corporate learning and development before we started EOS. So we were very focused on e -learning development, blended learning.

moving that in the corporate environment. And so we felt like that was a reasonable fit for the FE sector. And did the FE sector come kicking and screaming at that stage? Yeah, probably. But actually, they needed something very quickly, very immediate. And we were kind of there to pick it up a little bit.

Mark Simpkins (04:14.861)
Yeah. So I mean, that was quite timely because obviously I feel I go back a little bit further. I mean, I’ve been, you know, we’ve said we’ve been in the industry for a long time and stuff that, and, you know, from a, from a tech perspective, I remember when I was more actively working with it, there was that period where we transitioned from frameworks to standards, which for me was kind of, you know, was, was a bit make or break for, companies like yourselves that are out there that have e -portfolio systems, VLEs and things like that, because that kind of transition from

frameworks, the standards was all that was, like I say, that transition was very difficult for businesses like yourself. I mean, you know, just talk to me about your experience with that because that may have led to your kind of decision as you went to 2020 in terms of trying to solve that problem, right, because that was a really difficult time.

Asa (05:04.08)
It was very challenging. And obviously at that stage, so the 2016 workaround, I’d moved out of FE into the employer side. So I was really on the corporate side of running apprenticeship programs alongside FE partners. And we found, and we had very open dialogues with the FE partners we worked with, but the challenges were that all of the systems within the market were built for frameworks. Very, very good in that respect. And…

And obviously the shift of standards put learners in the driving seat, put employers in the driving seat, and they were very focused on capability. So whilst it was really good from the employer perspective, because it was an understanding of this aligns with learning and development. This is all about what people can do. You put them on the program, you train them to do what they can do in the job, and then ultimately there’s a qualification on the end of it. I don’t think FE…

directly had ever done that across every program. I think some programs are focused on that, but a lot of programs were focused on what would be technical compliance or qualifications. And actually, the training aspect of it wasn’t always the primary focus. And therefore, the frameworks aspect of the systems was very much focused on achieving the qualification. And the standards then being independently assessed means that actually,

as what we’ve seen over time, the focus is very much on the quality of the training that people receive and the impact that it has on themselves, their ability to do the job and also their career in general. And that was a huge change, a huge change for everybody. And I think that from what I saw during that period of time, the four years or so, was that the tech wasn’t really catching up very quickly.

I think there were a lot of different reasons for that, but the tech wasn’t catching up. And that would have made it extremely difficult for providers at that time. We were working with a number of partners in FE at that point, and they were all finding it really challenging. And they were finding it challenging from a number of angles, but they were finding it challenging mainly from the angle of the type of data they could get and what the data was telling them.

Mark Simpkins (07:24.429)
Yeah.

Asa (07:26.32)
And we were constantly asking as employers for the, you know, can you just tell us, you know, where people are at, what we need to do, what support we need to provide to make these programs even more efficient. We couldn’t get the data quick enough and in a coherent way. And I always felt having come from the sector that that wasn’t because the providers were trying to do a bad job. It’s just that they couldn’t quickly get that data together in one coherent spot.

and a lot of the time that would be because tech just wasn’t supporting that unfortunately.

Mark Simpkins (07:59.405)
Yeah, apologies. I think I may have lost you for about three or four seconds, I think, when you first started ASA, but we got the majority of that. I didn’t want to break your flow there, mate. So apologies to the listeners if you didn’t catch that. That then leads us nicely, I guess, to that. I say leads us nicely, but we had then the pandemic and then everything that happened there.

Asa (08:06.256)
Thank you.

Mark Simpkins (08:18.285)
Like you say, so you’d be kind of running for about four years or so. I go into lots of clients, so I understand some of their common kind of IT frustrations that they have right now, but tell me about what you’re experiencing when you’re going out and meeting clients.

Asa (08:34.128)
A number of things, but one thing that comes through is their concern, I think, with any new system, any transition. And we can obviously talk about that in a little more depth, but they are all concerned, no matter what. Even if they’re excited and they’re looking for certain solutions, they are concerned about the transition from where they are now to where they want to be.

Having said that, they are definitely all concerned about centralizing things and trying to break down some of the silos or some of the barriers that they have to bringing all of their really important information and data into one spot. And using multiple solutions, which let’s face it, they all have different solutions at different levels. Some providers we speak to just have no solutions in place at all. And actually,

They’re kind of a blank canvas. It’s a good conversation to have, but they’re not necessarily aware of all of the things that they will need or need to scale. And then you have some providers who are extremely aware of that, but they have three or four, maybe five solutions in place to meet all of that need. And the challenge is that none of those systems generally will talk to each other because there’s a lot involved in that. There’s a lot of development involved in that. There’s a lot of conversations that need to have.

Some providers are willing to have that kind of conversation in tech space. Some are definitely not willing to have that. And that can cause a lot of frustrations too, that you’ve got all of these great tools, but actually they can’t talk to each other if they can’t actually bring the data together. It does make them less useful really at the back end, even if the user interface, even if the experience of the users is very, very good, the senior leaders, the ones that are actually driving a lot of the…

results of the change within these organizations just cannot get what they need.

Mark Simpkins (10:35.853)
Yeah, I think that’s key. It’s an interesting point because, you know, as providers, what we say is an interesting kind of viewpoint. What’s most important to providers? Is it that it works for the provider and you can build it and it’s a solution and it does all the things that you need it to do and you know, you need it to be able to align with compliance and funding rules and all of those kind of things. Or is it…

I need to make sure that it’s right for the learner, that it’s interactive, it’s engaging, and it’s simple to use, and then you can navigate around it easily. Or is it the employer that they can access it and they fully understand it? Obviously, you’d like to say it’s a mixture of all three, right? But do you find out there that actually providers veer towards one or the other?

Asa (11:32.784)
I think, yes, you’d love to say it was a mixture of all three. But what I found along that time is that it really depends on the provider and what the objectives are. So we’re all in a regulated environment. We’re all in FE, not necessarily masters of your own destiny in terms of the funding side. So…

Mark Simpkins (11:33.725)
Hahaha.

Asa (11:59.056)
there does have to be a very heavy focus on that and a very heavy focus around the compliance and the need for fitting in with education inspection frameworks because, you know, ultimately those regulators are sat there and they have your whole livelihood in their hands. So you have to make sure that you’re in that space. Having said that, you’ve kind of got the SFA and an off -stair, even though they work in tandem with each other, their objectives are very different in terms of…

Mark Simpkins (12:13.581)
Mm -hmm.

Asa (12:27.472)
the learner and employer experience and engagement on the, on the, Ofsted side, and then very much around the belt and braces compliance on the SFA side. And so it just depends on who’s prodding you in what direction I find that, you know, if we’d speak to providers who’ve, let’s say just had, you know, a monitoring inspection or a full inspection and they’ll have had some very key feedback around that, then their objectives are very much focused around learner and employer and how can we engage them or how can we get them.

into that conversation. On the flip side, if you speak to a provider that’s just had an ESFA audit, their focus is then very much on, you know, dot the I’s cross the T’s, what have we missed within, or what have we given feedback on this audit, and how can we then tighten that up for future ones so we don’t necessarily have this challenge. Most of the providers, in fact, I would say 95 % of the providers we’re speaking to are all looking to grow and establish themselves and obviously develop the business. So,

That will be the primary focus for all of them, but it depends on who’s prodding them in the right direction necessarily as to where their focus needs to be.

Mark Simpkins (13:34.381)
Yeah, and the timing of it is an interesting again conversation as well. I mean, you brought it up really nicely, but you know, I have clients who maybe are thinking they are on hostage radar and they want to or they have intent to change and to perhaps combine and move to a new, but they say, well, if we do this now and we start the implementation off,

and then Ofsted come knocking, they will then come in and say, I can see that you’ve made that positive change, but there’s not enough time to be able to see what the impact is.

And so they think that it’s a hindrance to them to be able to make that change, even though they think it may be right for the business, the timeliness of it is not going to be right because I said, I’m going to be able to see the impact. And for me, what I would say and what I do say to those people is that you got to from a business decision, if that is right for you, regardless of whether or said they’re going to come or not. Do it because it’s the right thing to do. And from a leadership and management perspective, you are displaying that you are

considered all the options and you know it’s right for the learner, it’s right for the business, that’s the reason why we are going to take that decision to go on and do it.

Asa (14:55.664)
Yeah, and I totally, I’d echo that because, you know, ultimately the decision for the, for the business and the learners, you know, that you serve is exactly the right decision that should be made regardless of what the externals are. You know, it’s, it’s your job to make sure that you fit within those parameters of who’s regulating you, but ultimately how you deliver training. Well, that’s your point of difference. So you should make those business decisions based on what’s right, rather than necessarily what somebody else thinks.

Mark Simpkins (15:06.989)
Yeah.

Mark Simpkins (15:20.557)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Asa (15:25.2)
Yes, they’re there to advise and support you and everything else, but I’d agree with that completely, Mark.

Mark Simpkins (15:29.165)
Yeah, so I guess, you know, if your business was to, you know, they’re looking to evaluate…

their systems, perhaps they’ve got one that’s already all encompassed in, perhaps they’ve got, you know, a separate CRM and a separate VLE and so on and so forth. You know, I know that they’re going to be thinking in their head, this is a huge project. This is something that’s going to take a lot of time to research, a lot of time to make a decision. Maybe we need a working group for X, Y and Z. And then once we’ve made a decision, there’s the process of implementation. And maybe, you know, that’s enough to put leaders off and to say, do you know,

what we’re just going to stay put with where we are. What would you say to those people? I mean, you must know what it’s like to implement your system into a new client with different processes. Realistically, how long does that take and how easy or difficult actually is it in practice?

Asa (16:28.496)
We see some variation. Generally the implementation phase is anywhere between 10 to 12 weeks. And what we see during that time is that the exposure that everybody has to project planning is wildly different. And that’s the key to it, that it either is something that you’re very good at,

Mark Simpkins (16:49.741)
Mm -hmm.

Asa (16:57.968)
and engage with early and know exactly how that’s going to function. Or you’re kind of leaning on your tech partners, really, who you’ve decided to go with, to be doing that and to be telling you exactly what to do. Now, obviously, there are lots of different solutions out there, but that’s really what I would suggest is that the biggest thing is making sure that you have a very, very clear project plan and roadmap that engages people.

so that every single person within that knows what they’re doing and what’s involved. Because things will easily kind of slip by as well. And that’s what you’ll find, and certainly my experience prior to starting a tech organization is the amount that needs to go into that just needs to be known upfront. It’s not necessarily that there won’t be work involved, because absolutely there will be. It’s more about understanding exactly what I need to be doing.

and what the timeframes are so that I can make sure that we resource it effectively. I think a lot of providers, when they know that, they can start to make decisions and obviously, you know, business decisions, resourcing decisions based around that project plan. If they don’t necessarily have eyes for that, it does make it very challenging because, you know, once a day goes by to maybe a week, you’ve lost the time. You’re no longer, your timeframe is then increased because all of the work that needs to be done is still needs to be done.

And as soon as you’re down against a pretty hard deadline, it does make it quite challenging. So we always find that that’s the key thing, first of all, is to say, right, look, you know, this is how this is going to go. And then everybody has that full understanding before we start. And sometimes that is one of the biggest headaches and concerns that providers have is that am I going to be responsible for doing that or is there going to be a little bit of support for me to do it as well?

Mark Simpkins (18:50.125)
Hahaha.

Yeah, yeah. Great. So I just, just to start to wind this up, say, because I’m just I’m just conscious of time. And, you know,

With your crystal ball, obviously, from an edtech perspective, what innovations do you think are coming? Where can providers perhaps have this all nailed down and they’re really happy with their systems that they have right now? What’s coming in the edtech world that they can be excited about that’s going to help and improve the quality of their delivery and experience?

Asa (19:29.904)
Well, I certainly see a development and transformation around virtual learning environments. I know that since since 2021, probably, ofstead’s focus around blended learning and always accessible learning for learners, regardless of the situation is or was a consideration and a focus at that stage around covid. But now that that’s gone, it’s pretty much what we’re hearing all the time. And what we’re seeing all the time from ofstead is, you know, if you

If you have that in place, if you have your resources in place, people can access them whenever, then that’s going to be a really key consideration. So I think you’re going to see more virtual learning, probably likely to see in certain industries there’ll be and is already augmented reality, virtual reality stuff in terms of the learning. And in terms of systems, the interconnectivity, so the integration of central systems. I know the ESFAs focus on

Mark Simpkins (20:15.181)
Yeah.

Asa (20:29.072)
trying to centralise all of the data aspect of it is a heavy focus for them. How they’re getting on with that is different depending on the projects. But what you’ll see, I think, from EdTech certainly is a point to try and centralise all of that so that no matter where data is then coming into or required of a provider, that they can just access it from one central location. And again, that will be pretty key for anybody trying to…

Trying to navigate that to not have to go to three government systems plus another five internal systems to get what they need So that’s certainly what I’m seeing in terms of the trends I don’t think there’s going to be you know a huge needle in terms of new tech, but those two sides of it. I certainly say

Mark Simpkins (21:14.125)
Yeah, the whole virtual reality thing, you know, I’ve seen at conferences and I love the idea of it. What I guess I’m more interested in is the impact that it has because I’m sure that, and I know that my son and daughter who are 16 and 18 respectively, I think they’d love the idea of, you know, having that virtual reality, putting the headset on and being placed into a workplace, a virtual workplace where they can learn. But I mean, I’d like to really see…

you know, the impact because I haven’t worked with providers that have that included and have that as an option and whether there is a positive impact to that or not. I’m just, you know, for me, I like the idea of it, but I’m not sure yet.

Asa (21:57.296)
I’ve certainly seen it in the technical world. So the augmented reality side of things in the technical world is already everywhere and already being used. So, you know, in vehicle mechanics, in engineering, in petrochemicals, you’ll see a lot of this technology exists because, you know, physically working on, you know, engines, for example, is…

Obviously a requirement of that role but being able to understand the component parts of being able to put one back together Reconstruct it without having to reconstruct it will Ultimately is one saving hours and hours and hours and also can be repeated You know You can go over it over and over again and an AR tool that then sits over the top of that They’re using quite successfully in so they say right well look this will give you the next step by steps as you do it And then you can just follow the process

And that process by ultimately by rote is hugely important for technical sides. It would be interesting to see what will then happen with what I would call more of the administrator or clerical sides where that’s more about people. And, you know, a lot of that tech will then have to follow, you know, and also they’ll be using AI to do a lot of the conversational side of things. So I do see that that’s over the next three, four years will be way more of a thing that then comes through.

Mark Simpkins (23:06.989)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Simpkins (23:22.509)
Yeah, I wonder whether it will have an impact on, you know, gradings and distinction rates and, you know, core data and, you know, also, I can see how it would work really nicely for assessment, you know, perhaps as part of an end point assessment.

Don’t know, just interested. So I ask all my guests, Acer, at the end of the session, whether there are any kind of golden nuggets, any tips. And I know we’ve talked about a few as part of this session, and that anyway. I think, is there anything that perhaps we haven’t gone over that you think, you know what, if you’re a provider and you’re looking to make a change or looking to improve your systems, is there anything from your world that you could say, these are the kind of things I’m looking for?

I’ll be thinking about.

Asa (24:15.248)
Three things probably across that and obviously within systems. So the first thing would be virtual learning provision and specifically, you know, e -learning. If you don’t have e -learning provision, definitely consider that one, it’s something to look at and two, have a think about how that works with your delivery method and where you would slot it in.

The second is workflow. So the journey that somebody will go on to apply for a position or for a course with you all the way through to the very end point of when they’re completing that. And a lot of the time that’s not necessarily considered on paper, but having to think about the flows of information that need to go there. Because those kind of things really then help you understand, right, well, where do we…

where would that information go in a static place and then we’d have to take it out. And most of the frustrations that we hear are all about, I have data over here but I have to then go look at it and it’s old and whatever. So having to think about the flow of information means you know who’s involved, you know what’s involved, you can have a look at opportunities to automate some of those things, some of the tools out there that you can use to automate certain processes to make it way more efficient, I think for most, most.

providers being more efficient is definitely a good thing. So that would be what I’d recommend is having a look at the whole flow of that and seeing how you can interconnect and automate it. And then the final thing is just making sure that the user experience is always focused. So having to think about each user and saying, right, well, one, what do they do? But also what do I want them to do? How can we make this way more focused on them in each context? And sometimes,

The focus is very much on, well, we have this tool, and therefore, this is how we use it and get on with it. But actually, having to think about if you’re considering changing, well, what are you changing? Who are you changing it for? And what would you want them to do if you could do anything? Because then it will lead you to make certain decisions about things that are more focused on the users that will actually benefit from it rather than just going, it looks really shiny and nice. Maybe it will just get that.

Mark Simpkins (26:40.205)
Great, thank you so much. We lost you for a couple of seconds there. Maybe one of the things we need to work on is connectivity. But again, we got the most of it, Asa, so that’s great. So Asa, if people wanted to get hold of you at EOS, how would they do that?

Asa (27:01.52)
Again, if you want to check out anything that we’re doing, EOSLearn .com is our website. You can have a look at the details of what we do and the parts that we do. You can contact me via email, Acer at EOSLearn .com. And again, I think we’re available on LinkedIn as well. So, you know, if you reach out on LinkedIn, the like beauty is we’ll be able to respond and you’ll be able to check out and see what we’re doing.

Mark Simpkins (27:29.133)
That’s great, mate. Thank you so much for your time today. And that’s the end of today’s episode on Effie Gold. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you picked up some tips and inspiration. As always, if you’ve enjoyed it, please tell your connections, tell your friends, tell your colleagues, because that will help the show grow.

If you’re looking for any personalized quality solutions, you know that you can contact me at www .symkinsfequalityconsulting .co .uk or of course you can DM me via LinkedIn. So thank you very much again Asa for joining me today on today’s episode. And that’s been Fe Gold with your host, me, Mark Simpkins. See you again soon.

Asa (28:15.28)
Pleasure.