OllieBray.com

Engage for Education - Technologies for Learning

I recently was asked to write a short piece for the Engage for Education website to help launch the Scottish Government Technologies for Learning Strategy. The piece I submitted was a little bit long and had to be cut down significantly.

I’ve posted the full length piece below for interest:

Technologies for Learning

I’m in that really fortunate position that I get an opportunity to speak and work with a lot of teachers. Mostly people think I speak about the use of technology in education. But really, I like to speak about learning.

I’m simplifying things here but I think for good learning to take place first of all we need good pedagogy (and we have some great teachers here in Scotland) and then secondly we need to combine this with interesting or engaging learning activities.

I make an obvious distinction between these two words. Not all children will be interested in all activities and there are some things that we require children to know (skills in literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing are the obviously ones) but young people don’t always see the point. This is where, as educators, we have to make the learning activities engaging.

In my experience most children find technology engaging. There is something about its cultural relevance for young people combined with the fact that it is embedded into just about every aspect of modern day life.

Our challenge is to use technology in a creative way to develop the very best blended learning opportunities for children and young people.

Broadly speaking I think there are five ways we can do this:

1. Young people spend an awful lot of time on the Internet using a variety of web tools. The challenge for educators is to understand why some of these tools are so appealing and how similar tools can be used in the classroom. Many of these tools involve young people creating and up-loading digital content and communicating with others. Educational alternatives such as Glow Blogs now gives the opportunity for all classrooms to have a global or internal voice on their own little piece of the Internet.

2. Children are captivated by Real Time information its one of the reasons that web and video conferencing is so successful in the classroom. There is something about a video conference that demands respect from young people. Maybe its because they know it can’t be stopped and re-winded like a DVD?  Website like classpress.net also allow teachers to bring real time news into their subject specialism. Similarly, the National Archives comparative real-time reenactment of the second world war on Twitter provides equal appeal and massive learning opportunities for young people.

3. Children like praise and they like people looking at their work. The World Wide Wall Display (the Internet) can provide real and authentic audience for young people achievements. Just look at the Mid Calder Primary School Website – its no wonder they won the Scottish Education Award for use of Technology earlier this year. The website gives a real feel for what is going on in the school, a real platform for students work and the amount of comments from parents demonstrates this is an effective way to open the school to the wider community. If you’re looking for a secondary example check out Preston Lodge High School, in East Lothian. They have over 1500 subscribers to the site by email!

4. The process is a lot more important than the final presentation of a piece of work. Writing is a pretty good example of this. The planning, drafting, collaboration, re-drafting and peer assessment is exactly the same for a hand written essay as it is for one that is typed up, or one that becomes an audio podcast, or a digital video, or a good on-line newspaper article, or a professional poster. The learning process remains the same but technology allows us to change the output and for some children it’s the choice of output that provides that engagement and motivation to improve the writing.

5. As I’ve already said most children find technology engaging and some of our most creative teachers are using the hook of technology to create wonderful learning environments. Computer games are the obvious example of this where in classrooms games are used as a contextual hub and stimulus  for learning to spring board other areas of the curriculum. Scotland’s Consolarium continues to remain a world leader in Games Based Learning in the classroom.

The Scottish Government has recently started to consider the development of a Technologies for Learning Strategy. If we get it right it could be a great opportunity for future of Scottish Schools. Join the conversation at www.technologiesforlearningstrategy.org.uk and I’ll see you there.

 

Ollie Bray

National Adviser for Emerging Technologies in Learning

Learning and Teaching Scotland

 

Technologies for Learning Literature Review [#TforL]

This piece is cross-posted on the Scottish Government Technologies for Learning Strategy Website.

 

Deciding on the themes for the literature review on technologies in learning is difficult. As many themes overlap.

Here are my initial thoughts. Feel free to rip them to pieces! – In fact, I will be offended if you don’t.

1) Why is technology in education important?

This piece will draw on literature that will describe the importance of technology in education. Including the increasing role of technology in how we work, learn and socialize. It will include past and predicted trends of how technology has changed or may change our society.

This will be a high-level overview piece that will refer to other areas of the literature review related to this project.

Geographical scale: Scotland, UK and Global.

2) How has technology has been used to improve learning and teaching?

This piece will draw on literature that will provide evidence of how technology has been used to improve learning and teaching. In particular the support of assessment is for learning strategies, improving learners motivation, promoting inclusion, increasing learners attainment, share learning achievements and providing on-line opportunities for learners.

Geographical scale: Scotland, UK and Global.

3) How has technology can be used to deliver professional development?

This piece will draw on literature that will provide evidence of how technology can be and has been used to deliver professional development.

Geographical scale: Scotland, UK and Global.

4) How can technology be used to release efficiencies?

This piece will draw on literature that demonstrates how the use of technology can release efficiencies. These efficiencies may include environmental efficiencies but also how technology can contribute to improvements in school productivity.

Geographical scale: Scotland, UK and Global.

5) What are the differences and similarities within Scotland’s technological learning landscape?

This piece will draw on literature mainly from local education authorities and describe the differences and similarities in infrastructure, network access, network speed, managed services, access to resources, ICT policies, ICT Support, ICT CPD and future ICT development plans.

Geographical scale: Scotland

6) What have we learnt from existing technology initiatives?

This piece will draw on literature that describes successful technology initiatives and developments. This will include both large and small scale projects that have develop infrastructure, introduced hardware solutions and provided professional development to teachers.

Geographical scale: Scotland, UK and Global.

7) How is digital content distributed and procured and how do learners interact with this content?

This piece will draw on literature that describes the different ways that countries procure and provide digital content to their learners. This will include user generated content, commercial content and content produced by the public sector.

Geographical scale: Scotland, UK and Global.


What do you think? What have I missed? What can you suggest?

 

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Scottish Government Technologies for Learning Strategy [#TforL]

I was recently asked if I would take on the role of a Senior Policy Adviser for the Scottish Government as they work to develop a Technologies for Learning Strategy.

My initial reaction was…. ‘that sounds like a job that will be full of burocracy, make me spend more time at a desk and even less time out in schools than I do at the moment + its an awfully long title to fit on a business card'

However, after reflection and a fair bit of thinking I decided I would give it a go. One thing that I have learnt over the past few years is that some times a good thing to feel out of your depth.

I hope to bring an interesting skill set to the mix and I am completely committed to representing the practical views of classroom teachers and school leaders while making the process as open and transparent as possible.

So, just to clarify some things…

I am employed by East Lothian Council, seconded to Learning and Teaching Scotland and now spend a few days of weeks working with the Scottish Government on the Technologies for Learning Strategy.

It is an interesting and important time for Scottish Education but I feel it is a mixed time as well.

Recently, I have had days when I have never felt so exited about the education and the great things that I see going on in Scottish Schools. But I have also have days where I see or hear things that make me worry deeply about the future – particularly when these things involve the low expectation of children.

In the short term, I believe that the Technologies for Learning Strategy is one thing that we have to get right. If we do it has the potential to unlock learning, up-skill teachers through professional development, improve digital entitlement for our children, develop infrastructure and release efficiencies.

We are basically starting with a blank bit of paper, working with extremely tight deadlines with practically no budget.

There are only three things that are definite. The first is that I am going to need all of the help that I can get from the wider education community to act as critical friends and also to make this 'our' strategy. The second is that it is going to be a pretty exciting, fast and fun journey. The third is that in the spirit of 'openness' I'll let you know how many complaints I get about the way I opened this particular blog post.

Join the discussion on the Scottish Government Technologies for Learning Blog.


Microsoft Kinect in Education (first thoughts)

Unless you have been asleep for the last few weeks you will have heard that the latest development to the Microsoft xBox platform has been released. Its called Microsoft Kinect (code named Project Natal until fairly recently).

Kinect is a webcam-style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console (in fact it contains three cameras!). It enables users to control and interact with their Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller.

Instead your entire body is scanned and digitized in real time by the camera in the Kinect sensor, and whatever movements you make, your on-screen character can mimic. You can also control your xBox by speaking to it or holding up objects that the sensor recognizes. It is surprisingly accurate and actually quite magical.

I was lucky enough to pick up a Kinect on launch day and after a quick go in the shop I was convinced that I just had to have one. We have also now received our delivery for the Consolarium and we hope to have a few of these devices out in schools soon.

I love some of the little features that are built into game play. For example I like it that you can collect accessories for your xBox Live avatar (I have a sweat band and a baseball cap already!) and that the Kinect camera takes pictures of you at different times.

 

Games for Kinect are a little bit limited at the moment but the ones suitable for education include:

Kinect Adventures (comes with Kinect)

Kinect Adventures uses full body motion to allow you to play a variety of minigames, all of which feature jump-in / jump-out multiplayer play.

Each mini-game lasts about three minutes and titles include 20,000 Leaks, River Rush, Rally Ball, Reflex Ridge and Space Pop. 

 

 

Kinectimals

In Kinectimals you can interact with virtual wild cat cubs after you adopt one in fur town. Once you have adopted your cub you can do a variety of things with it including teaching it tricks, guiding the animal around an obstacle course, feeding and caring for your animal.

I really can’t wait to explore this game more and I’m also interested in how it utilizes Microsoft Tag as an additional game play feature.  

 

Kinect Dance Central

Dance Central comes from the creators of Guitar Hero (so it was always going to be a hit with the Consolarium Team) and considering our recent efforts on Just Dance for the Wii we have all be practicing hard!

In Dance Central gameplay involves performing set dance moves which are tracked by Kinect and represented on the screen by one of eight game characters. The game features over 650 different dance moves spanning over 90 dance routines. I love the fact that it tracks your feet and hands and not just your legs (dance mats) and hands (wii).

 

Kinect Sports

Kinect Sports allows multiple players to engage in six different motion-controlled sports. The sports included are Bowling, Boxing, Track and field (Includes Hurdles, Sprint, Javelin, Discus Throw and Long Jump), Table Tennis, Football (Soccer) and Beach Volleyball.

As well as competing against a partner you can also play the game in ‘Sports Party’ mode and this allows you to rally a whole room (or class!) full of players into teams.

 

I’ve now had an opportunity to spend a little bit of time with all of these titles now and they are great fun with loads of potential. I also think that one of the interesting things that the Kinect will do is change the location of the xBox in the home by bringing it from the bedroom into the family room. In the same way that you find Nintendo Wii’s in many people’s living rooms. One of the reasons for this is space - you do need a lot of space to use Kinect. But the other reason is that lots of the games are really playful and will encourage inter-generation gaming and good honest family fun! Really can’t wait to get this into a few classrooms. 

This post is cross-posted on the Consolarium Blog - feel free to leave comments over there.

30 places you want to work (Will SEQIA be one of them?)

Good Business website recently published a list of 30 places that they would want to work. To develop their list they came up with ten categories that each company was judged on. Obviously not all companies do well in every category but it still remains an interesting list.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Learning and Teaching Scotland and HMIE are being brought together to form the new Scottish Education Quality and Improvement Agency (SEQIA). I wonder if SEQIA will make it into the top 2011 places to work and I hope that some of the criteria suggested below make it into its founding principles.

The list of ten criteria are:

• It exists at the intersection of creativity and impact. The solutions it finds to real problems are original, inspiring and transformative.

• It cares as much about people and the planet as it does about profit (or in the case of non-profits efficiency). But profit (or efficiency) is really important. Its actual mission – not just the way it operates – and its products or services make the world a better place.

• It values transparency. Openness and accountability are core values.

• People talk about it. And as often as not, it’s a part of that conversation about itself.

• It loves its employees. From legendary perks to fair treatment to fiercely bred loyalty to total mission buy-in, it has made itself a place people are happy to go to every day.

• People love it, viscerally. Emotional reactions to its products and services are not uncommon. Evangelism come naturally. You respect your friends for working there. And maybe your even a little jealous.

• It plays well with others. Collaboration and sharing are common practices.

• It uses smart technology smartly. Everyone can use social media and Google docs; these guys do it meaningfully to drive their business.

• It’s appropriately located. It’s in a city that makes sense for the kind of business it does (especially as that relates to reducing travel needs), and builds a strong relationship with community.

• Design is important. From its logo to its website, it understands that one of the most powerful tools at its disposal is a refined aesthetic sense.