The Flipped Classroom Infographic

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Innovation Forum Science Park Newcastle

I will update this post after the vent.

Attending New technologies for schools: impact, best practice and the potential for teaching, learning and assessment, Monday, 9 September 2013

Monday 9th of September Venue Banqueting Hall, Glaziers Hall, 9 Montague Close Westminster London

The following items were discussed during the forum and the forum was chaired by former Ofsted chief inspector and now non-executive chairman of Frog trade Lord Sutherland of Houndwood. And Lord Lucas of Crudwell who is the chair and member of the the all party Parliamentary Group for Education.

• Technology in England schools - Tom Goldman - Deputy Director of Standards Division, Department for Education and Stephen Rogers - STEM Policy, Department for Education.
• Effective use of digital learning - Chris Williams - founder of Mr.Andrews Online and he also a teacher. Kirsty Tonks, Director of E-Learning, Shirelands Collegiate Academy West Midlands.
• New Technologies: The potential for teaching and learning. Rachel Jones Education Strategy Advisor Steljis (SMART Technology) Niel McLean Head of Centre, Futurelab Research,NFER James Penny, Solutions Director, European Electronique Lisa Featherstone, Advisor JISC TechDis
• Teacher Training and Development: meeting the challenge of technology, David Weston Chief Executive and Founder, Teacher Development Trust, Bob Harrison Education Advisor, Toshiba Information Systems. Miles Berry Subject Leader, Computing Education, University of Roehampton. Richard Smith, Education Director Igloo.
• Digital Assessment: new possibilities. Dr Abi James, Chair, New Technologies Committee, British Dyslexia Association. Justin Baron, Managing Director SAM Learning. Dr Sue Timmis, Senior Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning, University of Bristol. Martin Rilpley, Founder, Word Class Arena. Stephen Fahey Learning Technology Director, Pearson UK.

The discussion around technology and the use of technology in schools left me some what disappointed, unexcited and dismayed that with expert panel of people what I was hearing was something I have heard for the past 10-15 years and were still talking about the same things but just rewording the phrases so they sound new and catchy. Questions from the floor to really drill down on Central Government Policy, what the panel thought about the future use of technology, training and development and assessment were fluffed. The Panel misjudged the audience in front of them and thought of us as a group of teachers. 

The two technologies on display were SMART interactive whiteboards and Learning Platforms which have been around for years and have been used to some success by schools. But these technologies are out of date, one to one technology learning anywhere any time doesn't require either of these technologies. Instead what teachers want are tools to enhance teaching using technology, creativity, productivity, simple tools. 

I don't want to sound too harsh, but I was expecting to hear some great things because it was about new technologies, the impact and best practice. If I had to rate this Forum then I would give 2.5 out of 5. 

Here are some key points I took from the Forum:

• Department for Education has funded 9 schools to be part of a Teaching Schools Network to share best practice in the use of Technology.
• Next technologies highlighted to have an impact in education in the next 1-5 years include; Cloud Computing, Mobile Learning, Learning Analytics, Open Content, 3D Printing and Virtual Remote Labs.
• There is a bottom up approach in schools, colleges who are leading the change, not central Government.
• Peer to Peer, disseminate good practice on the use of Technologies linked to Pedagogy that add value.
• MOOC's Online Tutution, Virtual Schooling. How transferable are these from HE to large comprehensive schools.
• Flipped learning - deliver knowledge first, pre learning, then tailor the teaching.
• 40,000 new teachers per year, 450,000 teachers in the UK. Independent schools, Free Schools and Academies don't have to employ qualified teachers.
• Digital Assessment in SEN - Technology in Exams to assist students with learning difficulties.  Students in Scotland have Digital Exams.
• E-Assessment - personalised assessment environments. 
• Students are collecting assessment data from different assessment tools and this generates many assessment reports but what we need is a self assessment adaptive assessment tool - Adaptive Technology.
• Teaching has changed over the last 20 years but Assessment hasn't.   
• Little attention to formative or summative assessment, there is a digital divide and a habit of replicating traditional methods.
• There is a need and the potential to develop Realtime Assessment -dialogue feedback between teacher, student. Involve teachers in designing assessment and an increased integration with learning. Need to bring the following people together and develop assessment tools - Educators, Researchers, Exam Boards and Technology Providers.
• An example of assessment adopting technology is the adoption of calculators in Maths exams.
• In America Law exams are done digitally online, Computer Based Assessment, exams are taken on students own device. 
• The Medical industry is a great example of interrogating data, using data to personalise feedback to patients. Patients can use data to make predictions.
• In Bloom https://www.inbloom.org/ is a great example of this.
• http://www.knewton.com/ is another example of using data to enrich learning. 

• http://www.meshguides.org/ Another useful link educational research, technology, evidence and pockets of best practice.

Teacher Training 

The panel discussed Teacher training and discussed the following points;

•  How are teaching professionals of all ages and backgrounds adapting to the changes to teaching methods and classroom dynamics prompted by technology?
• What are the challenges around ensuring that teachers can both use existing technology and adapt to future innovations, and what more can be done to support the training and professional development of teachers of all technological abilities?
• What role can external organisations play in training and developing teachers technology skills?
• Will the new Computing programme of study (Key stage 3 and Key stage 4) lead to schools employing specialist staff (Free schools, Independent schools and Academies can employ people who have no teaching qualification but are specialists in that area) and how might their expertise help the school more widely?
• What challenges, if any, does the absence of central Government guidance on technology pose for teachers and pupils who move schools, and how might this be addressed?

Other points from the discussion, and things that came to whilst listening to the discussion are;

• The vast amount of research done in education to support teachers but teachers don’t have the time to find the right piece of research and look through it, or apply it in the class.
• Face to face training and expo type training events involving students, whereby teachers learn something in the morning and then try it out in the afternoon with students.
•  Teaching School Network – 9 schools who are innovative, having funding to try ideas and share/disseminate best practice.
• School to School training.
• Training for teachers in the SEN (Special Education Needs) area.
• Flipped CPD – deliver webinars whereby before teachers attend a webinar/CPD event they do some research, answer some questions or gain prior knowledge to really benefit from the CPD.  They then go away and put the CPD in action in the classroom for example and evaluate the outcomes/benefits from the CPD.
• CPD for Headteachers, for Senior managers responsible for school development/improvement.
•   Training teachers on Digital Assessment/Formative Assessment methods to deploy in the classroom.

Useful links

http://www.teacherdevelopmenttrust.org/

http://edn.bris.ac.uk/130

Collaborative learning enhances engagement and attainment

Working with Socrative, Nearpod and Education Apps Mobile Platform will allow OCR centres use OCR resources in a variety of ways in the classroom. Resources like Lesson Elements, Revision Material and other learning activities will come to life in the classroom on student mobile devices. These resources will become interactive, engaging and collaborative.

iPads in Education

Pearltrees is a great way to collect, organise your favourites and share them.

http://www.pearltrees.com/

Here is a Pearltree I created which contains resources on iPads in Education.
http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-u=1_1089378&N-p=71310186&N-s=1_7434959&N-fa=7434959&N-f=1_7434959

mPortfolios:supporting reflection using mobile devices

I attended a JISC research event on mobile portfolios, this is a move away from e-portfolios which have had a some success when used for the purpose they should be used for to support learning, engage the student and give ownership of learning to students. 

Useful resources:
Slideshare presentation http://www.slideshare.net/eportfolios/m-portfolios-poster

An approach to mobile portfolios

1. No need to create a new lesson or project, use original lesson planning material.
2. Portfolio development process (in stages describe the development process)
3. Collection, storage strategies of different file formats. 
4. Reflection/Storytelling  through blogging. 
5. Setting goals.
6. Formative and Summative Assessment and Evaluation. 
7. Managing media ( focusing on PicasaWeb, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr) 
8. Use of Mobile Apps 
9. Sharing (showcase some examples of student blogs or portfolios that have been developed using mobile devices during the course and provide feedback)

MOOC best practice

Second event I attended this week reviewed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) which has transformed the way students learn online.

Here is a summary of what was discussed and shared:

With the introduction of any disruptive technology, there will be limitations and pitfalls so it is important to understand how best use the technology. So how can teachers, course designers new to MOOC navigate designing a course and teaching a MOOC?

1. You will always find ways to improve your material, you can always revise your teaching/lecture recordings later— balance the desire to perfect the material with the need to juggle all the other commitments. Another perspective is that you need feedback from MOOC students before you can perfect it. Instead of obsessing about trying to get it right the first time, focus on sustainability: Once you’ve invested the enormous amount of work required to do a quality MOOC, what resources will you need to re-offer the MOOC between refreshes of the material?  some people attending managed to re offer their MOOC three times, with additions and refreshing the material. 

2.  Unfortunately, a small proportion of MOOC students take advantage of anonymity to engage in antisocial or antagonistic behavior on the forums, towards either their fellow students or the course staff. Managing feedback and being able to shut down destructive threads, but if the behavior persists, see if the students expelled from the course.

3. The cross-cultural, cross-time-zone reach of MOOCs obliterates the rhythm that many students and teachers  are used to, and you may find it too time-consuming to keep up with the forums. The challenge is exacerbated by the fact that most MOOCs don’t have formal office hours or other means for students to get direct help, so the forums are even more critical to the student experience.

4. With hundreds of students, course technology has to work perfectly. We extended the sophisticated autograders for our programming assignments is critical to success. “Dry running" new  new assignments  to fix both logic bugs and problems with the grading rubrics for new homeworks/extended learning. 

Summary
Set expectations for the students
Focus on the content
Use slide decks 
When creating content, figure out a workflow and stick to it
Keep videos short
Continuity: Avoid mentions of dates, times and content order
Interact on the forums a lot, and personally
Ideas for interaction
Think carefully about grading, especially peer review