Three major game changers in School Tech

Having been asked my opinion on the top three game changers at the moment, I consulted respected bloggers around the web for this short list.

1) New hardware and skills usage: iPad/iPods, tablets, game consoles, e-readers. Using apps to access learning rather than web sites/software. Leads to independent learning, peer work, self paced ‘personalised’. Good example is contrast of Rosetta Stone CD or web site (£200) with multitude of apps for language learning (vary between free, 59p and £1.99). Immediate and intuitive (fun? Intrinsically games-based?) vs structured courseware. None hierarchial interfaces can lead to younger (or conversely much older) development of digital literacy skills. This video widely shown (CBS TV/You Tube) of a baby with a magazine:

Gesture-based computing is developing through the track pads of laptops, tablet devices/phones, touch screen and more recently through voice recognition (already in use – MS Kinect and Siri). Keyboards may not be needed as devices can be controlled by human gestures and voices.

2) Allied to this is BYOD – Bring your own device. This is starting to happen with big industry and in schools I have seen formally in use with sixth form and (against school rules) with everyone else! This used to be known as mobile learning (the iPAQ or hybrid phone) but has changed so much due to smart phones and iPods. In my classes for eg no need to book a formal PC setting to do research, just allow them use of their own phones. Issues in this include economics, haves/have nots and theft (main reason younger kids banned from using by Academy). Also access is not by school-controlled network and is via 3G so no blocking, e-safety etc. Older students sign contract and can have access to free open wi-fi.

3) Web 2.0 tools and Internet – Web 2.0 Projects booklet by Terry Freedman. This a game changer due to our dependence on Internet tools now that many are free. Issues recently have been caused by global companies acquiring some of these Internet start-ups and swallowing them whole. Facebook has been particularly responsive to this but more recently Picnik image editor was bought by Google and will disappear. Twitter acquired Posterous this month and is yet to release details of what it intends to do with the tool.

This aspect would include using Social media to communicate with parents and other stakeholders.

•Blogging/Publishing by learners

•Game Based Learning – directly via consoles

•Collaboration/Social Learning – online collaborative tools across continents, Skype-linked and even shared publishing (Zoho, Google docs).

Using tech devices for data collection is becoming a possibility:

Web 3.0 and Learning analytics: Loosely joins a variety of data gathering tools and analytical technology to study pupil engagement, practice, performance and progress. Teachers and school would tailor educational opportunities to each individual student’s level of need and be able to adapt in ‘real-time’. Using ‘smart’ devices pupils learning, attendance and achievement would be monitored by computer programs that would automatically change to suit the ‘level’ of the child’s ability and practice. Even be able to monitor health, tiredness, diet etc.

(Julian S. Wood/@ideas_factory)

You may wonder why I have included the Lolz cat image – this shows a cat using an iPad app specifically designed for feline users! Game changer?

Strange Education

Image credit: katiew on Flickr

Strange that just when you think you may be at the cutting edge of educational technology, someone comes along and offers a polar opposite view that may just be more representative of common opinion. I am writing of course about the White Paper unveiled recently entitled “The Importance of Teaching” and the DfE pogroms of 2010. It seems that technology isn’t as important as one thought; Becta the advisory quango is to be disbanded and with it all the advice and guidance offered as well as quality initiatives for schools. Also, teachers needn’t be so keen on keeping up with new tech; they won’t get quite so much due to the cancellation of Building Schools for the Future in many (northern) parts of the country and the slashing of new build ICT budgets (which were only 10% in the first place). Indeed, the training/CPD for teachers is disappearing due to Local Authority advisors enforced retirement, the demise of many City Learning Centres and even the free video resources (13,000 at the last count) of Teacher’s TV due to disappear soon. according to the Education Secretary, schools will have far more choice in the budget spending with decisions left to Head teachers. Well , how many IT coordinators meeting have you attended where you had to justify email never mind mobile learning devices or video equipment? The language of the white paper is similar to kenneth Baker’s from 1987, widely seen as an attack on the power of Local Authorities. Currently, Heads and governing bodies run schools; under the Academies bill it is more likely that central government is to be the one getting in the way.

‘We will slim down a curriculum which has become over-loaded, over-prescriptive and over-bureaucratic by stripping out unnecessary clutter and simply specifying the core knowledge in strategic subjects which every child should know at each key stage. That will give great teachers more freedom to innovate and inspire.’ – Michael Gove

Obviously the pseudo-subjects taught in schools in the last ten years in order to raise standards, motivate and engage young people are cluttered with unnecessary non-core knowledge (?) and that the strategic subjects (?) will provide everything a child should know. The increased uptake of vocational courses (BTECs, OCR Nationals as well as NVQs) is set to be reversed as schools become measured on how well their pupils do in core subjects,  said to include a foreign language once more. Head teachers are warning this might lead to more disaffection among less-academic students as the reason for discontinuation of compulsory MFL was absenteeism. It is here that a tension exists between Gove’s desire to make schools’ decision making freer and his need to tell schools what to teach. Perhaps this is the zeitgeist of the moment; led by people not involved in education?

Glogster – graphic blog posters

Presenting Glogster, a great web 2.0 style tool that is free to use, intuitive and highly creative.  What is it? Basically a multimedia poster maker that allows the addition of images, text, shapes and colour with audio and video. How to use? Have an idea for your poster (sketch it out if you need to) but then collect multimedia, links to web sites and even sounds and You Tube video addresses. The interface is simple and lets you add what you need and then resize and drag around the workspace as you see fit. Once happy with your design, you publish and get a link or embed code for broadcasting via a blog or web site. Having recently taught a unit of GCSE Graphics based around Photoshop, I look at this and see the potential for a full on WEb 2.0 approach. Yes it allows online comment and feedback and some aspects of the social networking web. I would suggest some improvements though – what about comment moderation (Blogger has had this for years) and even the option to disassociate from social networks? These minor changes would make Glogster highly usable in UK schools.

Bebo and Facebook in school

Watch a TV programme on social network sites and education via this link. The rise of online social networking has brought a new dimension to social interaction. In this programme, we look at the technology behind sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, exploring the issues that they raise for teachers.

This is the first generation that has the technical means to offer a running commentary on every aspect of their lives. This fact has sparked a debate on whether this technology, an ever increasing part of children’s lives, is a force for good, or an opportunity for cyber-bullying to proliferate.

If negative aspects can be dealt with, these technological advances could potentially alter the dynamics of future schooling; transforming the traditional lecture model into increasing group interaction and dialogue, into learning that’s “caught rather than taught”.

Experts and users explain how social networking is affecting the way this generation relates to each other in and out of cyberspace, and how the technology can be harnessed to benefit learning.