THIS BLOG IS MOVING!!!!

Soon we will be moving this blog onto another domain and onto our own servers so we can enjoy all the other features and benefits of wordpress…. polls, more multimedia, podcasting, etc.

You can get a preview of the work in progress and update your blogrolls and feeds at: http://blog.prometheanplanet.com

Voting a gimmick or a voice?

How can a teacher engage children? 

In a world where technology abounds, is it the equipment or its implementation which will engage pupils in their own learning?

Each child is an individual and every child does matter, but how can a teacher treat every single child individually and continue to meet the needs of the rest of the class as well as meeting the day to day learning objectives? 

A child’s future is being personalised by today’s experiences.  Research has shown that children do benefit from formal feedback, but verbal discussion will have more impact than a written comment. Using Voting or a Learner Response System (LRS) for pupil self-review allows a degree of ownership and commitment to target setting.  If children are to evaluate their own progress they should be involved in the target setting.  A range of techniques should be adopted to promote self assessment.  

Let us consider the combination of iwbs and LRS and recognise their potential impact on Personalised Learning. One of the strongest features of the way in which LRS can be used is to generate discussion opportunities. To gather pupil opinions and establish children’s understanding of right and wrong is paramount to their developing into responsible citizens of the future. The ability of LRS to engage pupils in discussion on a range of topics, can also begin to help meet the needs of a variety of learning styles.  The graphical images and concrete examples necessary in any lesson together with the opportunity to give every learner a voice means that children can begin to own some of their classroom experience in a way which was rarely apparent in the past. 

Effective questionning is key in establishing children’s understanding and offering an opportunity for all of the children to respond and therefore be included in any discussion is vital. When a class of children are asked a question, there will always be those who know the answer and put up their hand, there will also be those who don’t know the answer and put up their hand and then there are those who passively observe or opt out.  Why ask one child when you can have the whole class responding and offering an opinion. Nobody likes getting the answer wrong, but we all know that it is precisely this experience which has the most impact when visiting a concept for the first time or learning a new method of doing something.

Giving the opportunity to check an answer is an ideal way of raising confidence.  To be able to offer immediate feedback will undoubtedly assist the learner in his own understanding, but more importantly raise self esteem for those less confident pupils who may struggle to ask.  If Personalised learning is about offering learners a voice and communicating their feelings about a particular topic then we need to ensure that they feel comfortable doing so.  Using scenarios which allow children to identify with a character is a safe way of inviting opinion and encouraging discussion.  I am always amazed at how apparently relaxed children are when engaging in a debate from behind a mask.  This apparent anonymity eases even the most hesitant forward into the speaking arena.  I think if this aspect of children’s development is addressed early enough it will give them the confidence to cope with what we are increasingly expecting of them within the Personalised Learning Arena.

This is an edited adaptation of an article originally written for a NAACE publication during 2007.

Schools and Creativity

Professor Ken Robinson writes about creativity and learning and his keynote from the TED Conference has started to acquire cult status among the creative community. His story will resonate with many of the musical or artisic ilk – and it is hard to not be touched by his final message about a young dancer.

While some may disagree with his views of schools, special needs and behaviour – it is well worth the 20 mins to see what he has to say:

Interesting use of Activboard, Activslate and Activote in HE Art and Design

Leeds College or Art and Design (where Damian Hirst first threw a dead sheep off the roof in the name of Art!) has taken on Activclassroom technology and found a range of very interesting ways of using it in a HE context.

Already a leader in innovative use of learning technology – the college have their own Private Second Life learning island – they have innovated in their deployment of the Promethean technology and looked at how the technologies can work together. They have even developed a “Virtual Activboard” and response system that has proven immensely popular among the many educational institutions using Second Life as a collaborative Learning Environment.

A key idea has been in making the Activboard part of the student’s “creative toolkit” – providing focus groups and teams with a “shared digital surface” to brainstorm ideas on to storyboard ideas. Critiques and peer review of student work – a key element of the learning process – is greatly enhanced with Activboard’s 96″ Widescreen display and great use is made of the screen recorder and annotation tools to capture feedback from the group and lecturers live and make them available online for on iPods for student review minutes later.

Much of their work is blogged online and  there is a great example of an Activboard being used to control an immersive 3D environment using the pen and students describing the design decisions they made at the DDM Collective blog.

Annabeth Robinson at LCAD highlights the value of “authentic feedback” – She says; “The screen recorder makes for a clear capture of the whole critique – everything from the voices, demonstrations and questions is captured so that students have a far richer report on which to base their responses. A paper critique is open for subsequent interpretation and misinterpretation. Capturing the group discussing the work live, digitally is a massive benefit for learners.”

Google Docs – Live Document Collaboration on your Activboard

This neat video (a lesson idea in itself) highlights how the latest Google docs application offer a way for students in a classroom with net access and an e-mail address can collaboratively create a document on the Activboard.

After the lesson – the students can continue the activity, perhaps collaborating with each other at home (the Google Docs has a secure chat room built in) to construct a presentation for when they next get together as a group.

EDAs and ‘Beaming’ files in class… blending personalised and group learning

I have been having a great few weeks since my last post…

We have immersed ourselves in the ‘mobile learning’ agenda over the Summer break – and armed with two Fujitsu-Siemens EDAs, and a mobile phone with a camera we set out to see what approaches and ideas we could discover that we could apply with the Activboard for when term time came round.

In a previous post we had been discovering ideas for student phones.. but these EDAs really take it to a different level.Some of things we have been doing…

• Setting a series of tasks to do ‘in the field’ – the kids tick ‘em off as they complete them (they loved this and have not tired of it yet!) – and it beats a clipboard and soggy, ripped photocopy sheet anytime in the coolness stakes.
• Interviewing people (audio or video).. default 30 second time limits really focussed the conversation
• Photographing specific things in ‘photo scavenger hunts’,
• Drawing maps and diagrams of ‘real things’!,
• Setting waypoints and points of interest using GPS then estimating and working out distances between places,
• If we were near home or a WiFi hotspot – getting online to use Google maps or to answer questions as they arise… (we now know that Quinine comes from the bark of a tree – courtesy of Wikipedia – as we sat in a restaurant pondering what was it in tonic water that apparently had something to do with preventing malaria and my son says – why not find out now!)

All I would add though – is that the device itself does not magically make them start thinking of things to do with it… It was clear that without guidance and set tasks – kids see little use other than playing ‘Bubble Breaker’… The role of the teacher is most definitely safe! But what was surprising though was how often they were the ones who prompted us when we should use it to solve problems and questions as they arose as we travelled around…. ‘Why not use Google maps’ (when I got lost in the car), ‘why not go online’ – when we were intrigued by a rather bright and colourful caterpillar we found (apparently it was a tussock moth) – The kids were thinking ‘mobile connectivity’ as the norm – I was still having to remind myself!

So back to the Activboard – armed with a memory card full of stuff!

Wow… Bluetooth rocks… if used appropriately!

I have used a Bluetooth slate in the past and was pretty unimpressed with the performance in the classroom - it would suddenly decide to stop working or would have seconds where it would just go really sloooooowwwwww – but clearly the real benefit with Bluetooth is quickly and easily transferring files between devices. Pairing the EDAs to the laptop connected to the activboard was effortless.. and a simple click would see a file beaming its way to the screen.

What really made this so great was sending the incoming files straight to the Promethean Collections folders… When an incoming beam was detected – you are prompted to choose a location – just choose the Documents > Promethean > Activstudio3 > Shared Collections – and everything beamed to the PC can be found in the AS resource library for instant use in flipcharts – neat! The pocket painter app was particularly powerful – kids can create their own drawings, images, concept maps, etc. and simply beam them to the board as images… ready to drag and drop into the lesson.

Of course – with the Activboard working with devices that allows kids to contribute content – a whole new pedagogy is revealed… by beaming work to the board – THEIR work becomes the focus of discussion, group tasks such as making a flipchart magazine become easy – EDAs can get all the image and text work done independently and a few minutes beaming files – and you can organise all the content in a flipchart!

All those Export options in Activstudio suddently come into their own too… save the flipcharts as a powerpoint or PDF and you can view it in alls its glory on the EDA.. Go to Google Maps and focus on an area for a fieldtrip.. annotate a path on it using the activpen in desktop mode and save the combined page as an image – beam it – and on the EDA the kids have a simple map to follow!

The future is not personalised learning, with no class or group work – it has to be a clever blend of these amazing technologies!

Interview with Robert Powell on delivering personalised, formative assessment

  

Your team is trapped! - Your next answer will determine if you are entombed in the sunken ship or make it to the Helicopter!

Robert Powell, a leading authority on assessment in the UK has used a ’developer kit for Activote’ from Promethean to make a new range of software that lets every learner in a class take an active role in an on-screen adventure.  He says…

“The big challenge with assessment is to gather information and data to help both teachers and learners to identify strengths, weaknesses and next steps for progress. There is a lot of evidence that ‘over-testing’ can damage both the curriculum and the level of learning, and we have tried to develop software that motivates and engages children while at the same time providing important information for evaluating progress and identifying needs.”

On the software…

“The feedback we get from teachers and learners has been excellent. Some classes arrive in the room and ask for a test using the software; not a request you normally get from young people!”

Called ‘Quest Mathematics – AfL’ it blends the appeal of computer animation & video games with differentiated assessment and a team based approach. Students can battle their way through the Jungle or an Underwater landscape or brave the Haunted House. They have to answer questions selected from a vast database to get through each stage. Each quest is full of very high quality animated movies and themed music to keep the kids focussed and engaged. Just see the pics!

The teacher can organise their class into an assortment of mixed ability or levelled teams and assign differentiated questions sets to each. With over 18,000 questions covering the complete Maths curriculum and the ability to differentiate by NC Levels – each learner can operate and progress at their own level even when being taught in a whole class situation with an Activboard and Activotes.

For fully ‘personalised learning’ or if the school does not yet have Promethean Activote’s – the software also support network deployment where students can take part in the Quest alone or with a group of friends.

Even though the students enjoy the activity as teams and can be encouraged to debate and solve problems together – each individual’s performance is tracked automatically and is exportable as Excel for further analysis.  

It really is a complete ‘plug and play’ system for fully differentiated and personalised assessment for learning.

 

Find out more about the Robert Powell products on Prometheanworld