I was involved with some of the beta testing for Office 2010 and I really like the new version of PowerPoint. In particular the way that teachers will be able to create nice looking presentations with a relatively low skills threshold.
Ray Fleming has posted a nice little video of some of the new features over on the Microsoft UK Schools Blog (which also has a nice new design). I have embedded it below – worth a watch to see the sorts of things that it can do (particularly the new drawing features and the way that you can now easily embed video from the web).
This is a second of five posts where I will talk about some technologies that may change how we live, work and play. They are personal opinion and I could very well be wrong. I mention them sometimes in conference presentations and workshops and wanted to describe my thinking more in this series of short posts.
The second technology that I think will change how we live, work, play and learn is voice to text software for mobile devices. I first talked about this in my Learning and Teaching Scotland Literacy Co-coordinators keynote presentation in February 2010. Let me explain my thinking.
If we consider the history of human communication it probably evolved something like this:
We learned to communicate verbally
We developed written language
We developed electronic communication (with a keyboard)
We developed smaller more ubiquitous forms of electronic communication with mobile (keyboard input changed)
And now we are in a situation where mobile devices (computers) can be controlled by voice
Of course, technology manufacturers have been working on software that allows you to speak into a computer and then it turns your voice into text for years. I first started using it properly when I had my first Windows tablet PC back in 2005. I wrote a set of school reports by speaking into the software rather than typing them by hand. It took a long time because the software wasn’t particularly robust at the time – but in the end I eventually achieved my goal.
Speech to text software is not new to education it have been used in special educational needs for many years. The problem in the past with a lot of this software is that it is not always particularly reliable and it can also be very expensive. But like any technology it gets cheaper and more reliable over time.
Now, here is the interesting thing. Android powered mobile phones have voice to text recognition software already built in – this was first live demoed with the Nexus One mobile phone handset. Have a look at the video showing voice input for Android in action below:
Also, Android Powered Mobile phones outsold the iPhone OS in the US during the first quarter of 2010. One of the reasons for this is probably because Android phones are cheaper and they compare very well to the iPhone in terms of performance and functionality.
I am quite sure that we will see a wide new range of Android mobile phones available for Christmas 2010 and all of them will have the built in voice input to text recognition.
So what does this mean? Well, I’m not sure. But I know that very soon whether it is an android powered phone, an iPhone or a Windows phone most smart phones will have the capacity to translate the spoken word to text with a high degree of accuracy (in fact they can already do this).
If we accept that most mobile devices will be smart phones in the not to distant future and we also accept that most young people in Europe, North America, Australia, parts of Asia and a lots of other places in the world have mobile phones. Then we must also accept that it won’t be long until young people realize that they only have to speak into their devices to get them to write for them.
What’s my point – well if you’re a teacher and you currently struggle to get the children in your care to write with a pen or a pencil. Then it is going to be even harder post Christmas 2010 when lots more children have devices like I have described above and will be even less motivated to write with a pen or a pencil.
Technology like 'voice input' adds to the debate of why we get children to write with a pen or pencil in the first place. One of the reasons that we do in the United Kingdom, whether we like it or not, is because that is how we test children at the end of high school. They sit down and do written exams – but why else do we teach the process of writing with a pen or pencil and is this still as important as it once was?
What seems clear to me is that never before in the history of communication during the last 100 years has it been even more important than ever to make sure children have a real grasp of the spoken language. This is one of the reasons why I am delighted that our radical new curriculum in Scotland includes the spoken word as a type of ‘text’. Thank goodness it does as it is the only way, that I can think of, to really future proof language.
As with all of the posts in this series, I could be wrong about the above. I don’t know what the answer is and I don't think we can stop or should even want to stop this evolution in technology. But I do think we should, as educators, be thinking about how technology such as voice to text smart phones may impact on teaching and learning (in both a positive and negative way).
I think this will be a significant paradigm shift in the way children engage with text and we are within 12 months of the tipping point for secondary / high school students and maybe 24 – 36 months away from the tipping point for elementary / primary school children. Teachers and leaders in schools need to be ready embrace change and not
be reactive to it or fight it (you will loose). Soon most children will have one of
these devices and we can't stop it. Things are about to move very quickly, are you, your school and your authority ready?
I still can’t understand why more teachers don’t use them in their classroom?
This is a picture of the NASA space shuttle Atlantis in silhouette during a solar transit it was taken from Florida on the Tuesday, May 12, 2009.
I found it on Flickr via a link from BrainPop UK. The image is owed by NASA which means that it is in the public domain. It is licensed under creative commons and this means that you can use the image in education for free as long as you attribute the source and don’t sell the image.
It’s the simple use of ICT in a classroom such as knowing how to find and use an image that can be the most empowering to young people. But, it is also important that teachers no how to source images correctly to make sure that they are not infringing copyright or breaking intellectual property law.
I know that this video has been created by Google to help promote Google Earth - but I really like it. One of the reasons for this is that it makes good use of the 'G' word - 'GEOGRAPHY'.
Not a word you hear a lot on UK television anymore... I wonder what ever happened to the 'Give Geography its Place' Campaign?
This is a series of five posts where I will talk about some technologies that may change how we live, work and play. They are personal opinion and I could very well be wrong. I mention them sometimes in conference presentations and workshops and wanted to describe my thinking is a series of short posts.
The first technology that I think will change how we live, work, play and learn is immersive gaming. I first talked about this in my Games Based Learning Keynote Presentation in March 2010 (#GBL10). Let me explain my thinking.
First of all I want to say that I am a real advocate for games in education. I currently work for the Consolarium which is Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Centre for Games Based learning and innovation in Education. During this projects development since 2006 we have successfully put hundreds of computer games in classrooms around Scotland and seen a real impact on teaching, learning and student motivation. But, in this post I am not talking about the sort of playful games that we promote in schools. I want to talk about graphically violent computer games.
I think that some games that are commercially produced are unsuitable for children. I don’t think I am alone here? The law has given many of these games an age rating in Europe the rating for most of the games that I am talking about is PEGI 18.
“…the level of violence reaches a stage where it becomes a depiction of gross violence and/or includes elements of specific types of violence. Gross violence is the most difficult to define since it can be very subjective in many cases, but in general terms it can be classed as the depictions of violence that would make the viewer feel a sense of revulsion.”
In North America this type of game would have a M (mature) rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board – meaning that you have to be over the age of 17 to play it.
I think that games classifications are a good thing and that they are necessary. However, there are three big complications with age limits on games in relation to young people.
Many parents don’t realize that games have age limits on them.
Children still play the games at other peoples houses and even the most responsible parents have no control over this.
Peer pressure – children dare each other to play these games and they want to because they no it is not allowed.
Some people will argue that young people have always played violet games. I agree. I can remember playing cowboys and Indians and a child and ‘war’ with my cousins. I can also remember playing ‘combat’ for the Atari 2600 – arguably at the time this was a violent video game. You had to blow things up, you were in combat, you were fighting, you got points for killing people (tanks, planes and jets are all driven by people...).
So, what is the difference between my experience of playing early war games on the computer and a young person today playing the equivalent games. Well first lets compare some screen shots.
So, the first thing is the graphics. Call of Duty and other similar games look real. The people look real and when they are killed they sound real, they sound in pain, they sound like they are suffering…
Sound along with graphics are another example of how games have become more sensory over time. The Nintendo Wii revolutionized how feedback was given in game play because the controller can vibrate. This technology has been around for years but Nintendo made it commercially available and at a price point that everyone could afford.
But there are other peripherals that add to the sensory experience. Body armor is one of them. This was first shown at E3 in July 2009 When you wear it you can feel if you are getting shot or stabbed there is also a helmet peripheral that does the same thing. It works be using a compressed air cylinder.
Again, this technology has been around for years. The military use it in training – (it doesn’t make sense to actually shoot people in a training exercise). But like any other profession combat soldiers need feedback.
The big difference is the cost of the technology. Military systems cost thousands of pounds. But like any technology (just look at mobile phones of GPS as an example) they get cheaper and smaller over time.
The above system available for some games consoles and the desktop computer costs under £100. It has reached a price point and I am sure that many children will have these peripherals from Christmas 2010.
The next point is how you control your character. Traditionally you control computer games with a joystick and/or games controller. This interface has got more sophisticated over time. Again the Nintendo Wii has revolutionized games controllers and both Sony and Microsoft are working on their own versions. The most impressive controller by far is Microsoft Project Natal (which I just can’t wait to get my hands on – when it is launched later in the year).
Project Natal is impressive because there is not a controller. It uses sophisticated technology where your whole body is the controller. Have a look at the advertisement for the product below (You Tube Video). You don’t have to watch it all, just the first 40 seconds or so until you see the fight scene.
As you can see from the clip the game becomes more immersive because it removes the need for the controller. One of the reasons that Project Natal will be so appealing for young people and other gamers is that it makes the game more real as it mimics your movements rather than generating movements by the gamer pushing buttons on a device.
So where am I going with this and what is my point? Well let’s look at a game like ManHunt (another game that has a PEGI 18 rating or a ‘Mature’ rating in North America). In this game one of your killing moves is to suffocate others with a plastic bag as you escape from the mental asylum. Look at the clip below to see a short demonstration of this.
Now think about it to predict where the technology is going. We have a highly violent game, probably being played on a large screen, with excellent (perhaps photo realistic graphics), stereo sound, where you can feel if you get pushed, shot or stabbed and there is no joystick. You control your character by your normal body movements and all of this technology will reach a price point and become ubiquitous around Christmas 2010.
So why do I think that games and technology like this will have an impact on how we live, work and play? Well, I think that as these types of games become more immersive children and young people may start to see a blurring of boundaries between what is real and appropriate. I am also absolutely convinced that globally there are thousands of children that currently come into contact with content in computer games that they are not emotionally ready for (that is, after all, why games have an age rating on them).
One thing is clear, regardless if you agree with me or not, we can’t stop the above. We do need to educate and make people aware of the possible impact of such technology on young people. Importantly, we also need to make sure that teachers (in particularly elementary / primary school teachers) talk to young people about their on-line and gaming experiences in the same way that we would speak to them about their experience (good or bad) in the real world.
When I mention Wikipedia at conferences these days everyone has heard of it. They also no that it is an on-line encyclopedia and many of them realize it is the largest encyclopedia in the world.
It is interesting because if I asked the same question 5 years ago not as many people would have heard of Wikipedia. But 5 years ago, most of the people that had heard of Wikipedia would understand that it was an encyclopedia that anyone could edit.
These days most people have heard of Wikipedia (its one of the most popular sites on the web) but lots of people don’t realize that anyone can edit it and also how exactly it works.
I recently spoke at Edinburgh University on the subject of Digital Technology Children and Young People.I promiced I would post the slides and notes - sorry its taken a bit longer than I expected!
The slides that I used during the presentation can be found here:
The world is changing. We still do the same things but technology allows us to do thing in different ways. This is true in work play and education.
The two examples I used to illustrate this were:
i) Alice in Wonderland the book, Alice in wonderland available on the Nintendo DS and Alice in Wonderland for the Apple iPad.
The text is the same in all three versions so it still promotes literacy and reading but the delivery mechanism is different. Some will say the ‘text’ is more engaging on the iPad, some will say there is nothing like flicking through the pages of a paper novel and I would say it doesn’t make any difference at all it’s the same thing and we should allow choose how they want to engage with the ‘text’ if they want to engage with it at all.
ii) Scrabble the board game, scrabble for the Nintendo DS and Seek and Spell for the iPhone.
In all three versions of the above word game the principles are the same. Collect or be given letter to spell words to score points. The task is the same but technology may (or may not add value).
This led into the main theme of the presentation which was change.
99% of 14 year olds use a computer at home, at school or somewhere else (97% of 12 year olds)
I looked at these statistics to try and illustrate and make the following points:
Lots of young people are connected and have access to the Internet. When consulting with young people you should consider using their technology and ask your questions in the on-line spaces that they occupy. You need to know what and where these spaces are first – they constantly change. We need to gather data at a local, regional and national level.
Technology is changing youth culture – whether we agree with it or not the mobile phone and the holiday statistic is a good example of this. If we asked the same question 5 years ago the percentage would be a lot less and ten years ago it would have been practically 0%.
Technology has changed language. The ‘friends’ example is a good illustration of this. Young people do not have the same definition of a ‘friend’ as an adult does. The language that we use when we engage with young people is very important.
The way that children interact with social networking spaces are changing. Most 5 year olds who currently take part in social networking sites will do so through 3D avatar based environments. They will never grow into ‘text driven’ social networking spaces – why would they want too? This is why safe and responsible use in 3D virtual worlds is one of the key messages that we need to be getting across to children (from the age of 3+)
Social gaming is on the rise with nearly 73, 000, 000 people using FarmVille in April 2010. More thought needs to go in to how we use games to engage more with young people. The Learning and Teaching Scotland Consolarum is a good example of this.
3. Changing Markets
Next we spent a bit of time looking at changing markets in particular looking at Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon and how strategically they all continue to move in on each others turf.
The main point of this part of the presentation was to flag up the importance of mobile in emerging markets and how increasingly this will play an important role in the future of socilety.
I also mentioned how young people often use their mobile phone credit as a credit card to buy goods on line. Working with parents and local communities is important to make sure they are aware of such technologies.
4. Changing Technology
During this section of the presentation we looked at the changing technologies available in schools. In particularly we looked at the balance between the cost of technology and the end benefit to the learner (eg: Interactive whiteboards vs flip video camera).
I showed some examples from the recent RM Strategic Forums and some of the equipment that we now find in schools. In particular, we discussed the important if ICT infastructure to allow students to connect wireless devices to the Internet (phones, iPods, PSPs, netbooks etc…)
Finally, we discussed how technology like voice to text recognition and immersive gaming might have an impact how young people live, learn and play. More on this in a seperate post.
5. Key Skills
This section of the presentation focused on key skills that are required by young people in the 21st Century.
The skills I covered were:
i) Being digitally literate and the ability for young people to be able to evaluate electronic sources.
ii) Privacy and how it doesn’t really exist – I linked this to the importance of digital footprints.
iii) Intellectual property and how it is the oil of the 21st century.
6. Barriers
In the final section of the presentation I talked about barriers to the use of technology and young people.
The barriers I mentioned were:
i) Barrier: Children will misuse technology
Solution: accept that children have always misused technology the key now is (as always) to teach responsible use.
ii) Barrier: Professional development
Solution: Many ICT tools now have a low skills threshold we just need to help practitioners find them. We also need to move to a model of drip feed CPD.
iii) Barrier: Time
Solution: Accept that engaging pedagogy create class time because the classroom teacher is less likely to tied up with low level discipline.
iv) Barrier: It will never happen
Solution: accept that the technology revolution is already happening and has always been happening.
v) Barrier: The digital divide
Solution: Accept that the grass always looks greener and that also the real digital divide is global not local.
7. Feedback
If you were at the presentation please feel free to leave your feedback below or contact me by email (details top right)
I’ve been talking a lot about Augmented Reality lately and I find this video from BMW research particularly interesting.
What the video below (You Tube clip) and then have a read of my comments below the clip:
I find the video interesting because if indicates to me that potentially in the not to distant future we may need less skilled people to carry out the same jobs that currently need highly skilled and trained professionals for. This has of course not different to the past and has been in fact a recurring theme throughout history.
The video demonstrates that the car is plugged into the computer. The computer tells the person what is wrong with the car. Then the person puts on a pair of Augmented Reality (AR) glasses and is taken through the steps of how to fix the problem. The steps include safety information and opportunities to practice before the person changes the parts and fits the new ones. Finally the car is plugged back into the computer and the person is told if it has been fixed or not.
AR and other technology turns what potentially used to be a complex task into something that most people could do. Notice I used the word 'person' rather than 'mechanic' thoughout my description of the video.
In the last two weeks have have been speaking quite a lot about literacy and how we can use technology to help deliver the experiences and outcomes of a Curriculum for Excellence. As part of this process I had an opportunity to speak to staff at Currie Community High School in Edinburgh and also Larbert High School in Falkirk.
Both of these talks were based on previous presentations on the same topic that took place at Portobello High School in January 2010 and Drumond Community High School back in October 2009. The content has been up-dated to reflect new and emerging practice since I was last asked to speak on this topic.
The slides that I used from the presentation are embedded below:
It is important to remember that literacy (along with numeracy, health and wellbeing) are the responsibility for all within A Curriculum for Excellence. The ten point action plan realized by the Scottish Government on the 30th March 2010 proposes that literacy and numeracy units are built into English and maths qualifications to simplify the system for formally recognizing these skills. But that these skills will still be developed across the curriculum.
Further clarification and a definition is given in the Literacy and English Principles and Practice Cover Paper (2009).
"All practitioners in each sector, in each department and in all settings have a responsibility to develop, reinforce and extend the skills which are set out in the literacy experiences and outcomes.
Literacy is the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language which society values and finds useful"
(Literacy and English Principles and Practice 2009)
In order to allow these things to happen literacy has had to be re-defined for the 21st Century. The forms of language which society has valued and finds useful has changed through time.
Reflective and difficult questions for practitioners:
Do 13 year old girls find Shakespeare useful?
Do 11 year old boys find the works of Robert Burns useful?
Do we value the work of Shakespeare and Robert Burns in our schools? – of course we do they are part of our heritage.
Is sending a text message useful?
Do we value the ability to send a text message?
What makes a good text message?
How do you pronounce a text message?
Are comic useful?
Should we value the use of comics in class?
Are comics valuable for the Scottish economy?
Is a comic without the words still literacy?
Responsibility for all:
"The literacy experiences and outcomes apply across the curriculum, in all aspects of learning and all subject areas"
(Literacy and English Principles and Practice 2009)
Many practitioners will argue that they already promote literacy in their subject area. There should be no need to argue this point as the Professional Standard for Teacher Registration in Scotland States that all teachers 'should effectively promote attainment in literacy and numeracy for pupils to work in their subject area'. However, for teachers that don't think literacy should be their shared responsibility under a Curriculum for Excellence should also understand that they may not have understood their professional responsibility as teacher up until this point.
Secondary practitioners should also still valuethe importance of subject specific literacy's (eg: the ability to read music, understand a circuit diagram, read a sewing pattern etc...)
Definition of text:
"A text is the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated".
(Literacy and English Principles and Practice 2009)
The definition of text refers to a wide variety of media that we use to communicate – it does not just mean books. Importantly listening and talking are included as forms of essential literacy.
Examples of text include:
novels, short stories, plays, poems
reference texts
the spoken word
charts, maps, graphs and timetables
advertisements and promotional leaflets
comics, newspapers and magazines
CVs, letters and emails
films, games and TV programmes
labels, signs and posters
recipes, manuals and instructions
reports and reviews
text messages, blogs and social networking sites
web pages, catalogues and directories
When considering the above texts it may be useful to consider the distribution of skills that are required to survive in a 21st Century world.
Reflective and difficult questions for practitioners:
Which of the above examples of text should all children come into contact with?
Are any of the examples more important than others?
How does financial and consumer literacy relate to the above list?
It should also be noted that the definition of 'text' includes the spoken word - this is important as it is the only way that we can 'future proof' language. It is even more important when we consider that new mobile phones and mobile phone apps recently released on to the market can translate voice to text with a huge amount of accuracy.
Reflective and difficult questions for practitioners:
How long will it be until hand writing is no longer important?
In 12 months time when most 11 year olds have a mobile phone in their pocket that can translate voice to text with 95% accuracy how will teacher encourage them to write? Is this important?
Understanding our students
As well as understanding what we mean by literacy it is also important to understand how young people and children have may be changing.
For schools I think that we need to ask ourselves three important questions:
Do we know what skills the children in our care have?
Do we know what access our students have to technology at home?
Can we use a combination of the above to stretch, push and engage young people?
Without the above information how can we ever set appropriate and challenging assessment and home learning activities?
Engaging our students
I believe that in order for learning to take place we need to have good pedagogy and also interest or engagement from our students. I think that there is a difference between interest and engagement.
A teacher who is teaching a child who has a natural interest in a subject or who see’s the point of it (eg: it will help them get a job) is likely to find it easier to help that child learn compared to student who has no interest or does not see the point.
Unfortunately not all topics are interesting and not all children see the point of all talks. That’s where tasks need to be engaging in order to create powerful learning environments.
Most children find technology engaging and that is one of the reasons it is so valuable in the classroom.
All registered Scottish teachers should be able to use technology in innovative ways
‘Registered teachers skillfully adopt and deploy a wide variety of innovative resources, including ICT and, where appropriate, the outdoor environment’
(GTCS Standard for Full Registration)
Possible ways to use technology to engage our students
Offer choice of output (written, typed, poster, presentation, video, podcast etc…) the input (thinking, planning, note-taking, drafting, re-drafting, collaboration etc…) remains the same and the most important bit.
Provide real audience for students work (Wikipedia, blogs with comments, school radio podcast, school TV station on YouTube etc…)
Real-time news, events and global happenings are empowering for students (look at @ukwarcabinet and Classpress.net as examples of this)
All teachers now have a responsibility for digital literacy. Most importantly:
‘To help me develop an informed view, I am exploring the techniques used to influence my opinion. I can recognize persuasion and assess the reliability of information and credibility and value of my resources.’
4. Make sure that students have up-to-date research skills and understand things like Google Alerts.
Final thoughts
Books are not going away. They are a form of text but the nature of text is changing (see above).
We need new models of CPD to engage with a Curriculum for Excellence. If your interested in this have a look at my Drip Feed Vs Sheep Dip CPD post here. A great example of Drip Feed CPD is the EduTalk365 Project - 5 minutes of quality input a day, every day for a year.
The future of professional development is on-line, have a look at:
I would welcome any feedback or comments on the above. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions (details top right) or leave a comment below.
Ken Robinsons 2010 TED talk is now available on the TED Website. As always Sir Ken uses great humor to deliver a very serious point and some important key messages. I have embedded the movie below that is definitely worth 17 minutes of your time and probably 34 minutes (as you will want to watch it twice!).
The messages that I took from the talk were:
“We are currently suffering a crisis in human resources”
“Many children endure rather than enjoy education”
“Human resources are like natural resources – you have to dig deep”
“Every education system in the world is under reform, but reform is not good enough. Reform suggests fixing and actually many education systems need to be completely revolutionizes”
“The time for them [young people] is everywhere”
“Human communities require diversity in order to survive”
“A 3 year old is not half a 6 year old”
“The fast food model of education system will destroy our schools in t he same way it has destroyed our bodies”
“Education must be customized”
“If you do something you love an hour feels like 5 minutes. But, if you do something you hate 5 minutes feels like an hour”
“Human flourishing is organic not a mechanical process”
“Technology, the Internet and Media education combined with good teaching can and should revolutionize education”
The presentation finishes with a lovely quote from W. B Yates:
“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
His point being that every day children spread their dream under our feet [in our classes, under our care] and we must tread softly to nurture these dreams.
Recent Comments