OllieBray.com

Digital Technology Children and Young People - Edinburgh University [presentation]

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:

Digital Technology Children and Young People

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

Some of the points that I covered were:

1. The world is constantly evolving

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.


2. Changing Young People

  We looked at the Platform 4 Research from Chanel 4 which suggested that in the group of 12 – 24 year olds surveyed:

• They personally own 8 devices (including MP3 player, PC, TV, DVD player, mobile phone, stereo, games console, and digital camera)
• They frequently conduct over 5 activities whilst watching TV
• 25% of them agree that “I’d rather stay at home than go on a holiday with no internet or phone access”
• A quarter of young people interviewed text or IM (instant message) friends they are physically with at the time
• They have on average 123 friends on their social network spaces
• And the first thing the majority of them do when they get home is turn on their PC

We also looked at some Ofcom research which suggests that:

•  84% of children ages between 5 – 15 live in a household with intent access.
• 35% of 11 – 16 year olds have internet access in their bedroom (75% have a games console in their bedroom)
• 66% of 12-15 year olds have a social networking site (19% of 8 – 11 year olds)
• 49% of 12 – 15 year olds use gaming sites at least once a week, 47% of 8 – 11 year olds and 30% of 5-7 year olds

and, finally, some Becta research that states that:

• 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)


 

[#RMForums2010] RM Strategic Forums: a vision of future of learning (7 of 10) - What products were missing?

I loved the future learning spaces exhibition at the 2010 RM Strategic Forums. But I did feel that there were a few things that were missing – perhaps I am just being picky but I would have included.

 

1) GPS

Although a number of wonderful outdoor instruments were showcased in the future learning zone. It was a shame that were not more examples of how technology can be used outdoors. It would be nice to see some good examples of GPS, geocashing, educahing, QR or AR Code / Microsoft Tag or even and outdoor wireless solution?

(photo - @jdeyneberg)

 

2) Games Consoles

Lots of computers, touch screens, laptops, iPod Touches, netbooks and desk tops but no games consoles? A huge opportunity missed here? Where was the Nntendo Wii with children swimming around inside endless ocean? Or the Play Station 3 with children creating sophisticated levels for Little Big Planet or the xBox with children carrying out complex problem solving tasks with Microsoft KODU?

 

3) School Based Mobile Phone Apps

Although we had some good education iPhone / iPod Touch Apps what about the one that could be created for a specific school? Pulling in the schools twitter feed, its school radio podcast channel and RSS feed of the latest school news?

Porchester Junior School have got one if you have not seen it?

 

4) Microsoft MultiPoint  and Multipoint Server Products

Also no sign of MultiPoint from Microsoft to allow children to connect a number of USB mice to one computer and its sister product Multipoint Server that turns one computer into 3 or 4.

Some people might think that the reason not to showcase products like this would mean that schools would spend less on hardware. In reality of course, schools  can only spend the money they have – if you sell them good products, at a competitive price point, that add value to the learning experience or make a school more efficient they will still always the money they have.

5) iPad

I know its only just come out….but come on! 

A missed opportunity here and a definite crowd pleaser! 

Perhaps this could have been linked to the future of library spaces, ebooks etc...

iPhone Apps for Education - comprehensive list

I’ve written before about the potential of the iPhone and other mobile devices in schools and learning. With the amount of Apps in the Apple Apps Store growing quickly by the days – it is sometimes difficult to catch up with which Apps are useful for education.

I recently came across this comprehensive list of useful educational iPhone and iPod Touch APPs on the ICT@C online blog.

I’ve embedded the document below:
ICTAC MEMO iPhone Apps for Education

A Romance Flowchart: When Is It Inappropriate to Use Your iPhone?

This made me laugh tonight – thanks to @innovativeteach for pointing it out to me.

The diagram below originally appeared over on Gizmodo.

Curriculum for Excellence, Science, Change and New Technologies (SSERC Conference 2009)

Yesterday I did the Keynote presentation at the Annual SSERC Conference and AGM.

With support from Learning and Teaching Scotland SSERC have done a good job of developing resources and a new interactive website to support the development of the emerging 3-18 Curriculum in Scotland for Science.

It was a real pleasure to be able to speak to the assembled audience. Although I have to admit as non-science specialist I was a little worried about how I might be recived. My brief was to talk about on-line tools and their role in science education.

If you were at the presentation I would welcome your feedback either by leaving a comment below or by sending me an email (contact details top right).

I promised that I would post the slides from the talk, so here they are:

Curriculum for Excellence, Science, Change and New Technologies (SSERC Conference 2009)

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

Here are also my thoughts, notes and links that I referred to during my presentation:


1. Technology always wins

Everyone questions changes to technology adoption – but wide scale technology adoption nearly always wins. The question is more around the speed of adoption and how this relates to the speed of engagement with learners.

2. Its now easy to generate ‘rich’ content – but you need to think about using it in creative ways

It is now easier than ever for teachers to create on-line content that can be used as tools to enhance learning.

Wordle is an example of a generator that provides an interesting way for teachers to work with students to analyze and look at text. Sinclair Mackenzie who writes the excellent blog 'Never Mind the Optics' has recently used a combination of Wordle and blockposters.com to create some key word revision sheets for his classes. He has written about his experience of doing this here.

3. Change

No one likes change. But thing are changing…

The key message (hopefully) from my presentation was that we need to understand how children are changing, technology is changing and how the curriculum is changing before we understand how we should change or pedagogy to support all three of these things.


4. Changing children and young people

I think that children are changing. One of the reasons for this is that I think that now children and young people have increased access to knowledge. This knowledge is normally found via the Internet.

In the past parents, teachers and responsible adults used to the gatekeepers of knowledge. In short we would normally decide when a young person was old enough to know about sex and drugs and rock & roll. This was one of the reasons why we had a curriculum that tried to link essential knowledge with age-and-stage.

In the majority of cases knowledge was often only introduced when it was believed by the professional that a young person was emotionally ready to receive it. There were of course, as with anything, exceptions to this rule.

The Internet and increased use of mobile technology has changed all of this. Now children have access to unlimited knowledge. Unfortunately sometimes children come into contact with knowledge that is unreliable and also content they are emotionally unprepared for. I’m convinced that there is a link between this and behavior in schools – but I have no evidence to back this up.

A recent survey commissioned by Channel 4 looked at the online behaviors of young people between the ages of 12 – 24. In uncovered some interesting statistics that included:

• They personally own 8 devices (including MP3 player, PC, TV, DVD player, mobile phone, stereo, games console, and digital camera)
• They frequently conduct over 5 activities whilst watching TV
• 25% of them agree that “I’d rather stay at home than go on a holiday with no internet or phone access”
• A quarter of young people interviewed text or IM (instant message) friends they are physically with at the time
• They have on average 123 friends on their social network spaces
• And the first thing the majority of them do when they get home is turn on their computer

The questions is what does this mean for schools?

I think that Schools should:

i) Collect their own data. You should know how many children in your school have devices, have internet access at home, have the ability to play an mp3 file etc…

ii) Teachers should have an understanding of the websites that their classes use for school work and for non-school work. They haven’t got to use the sites just have an understanding of what they can do. This knowledge will also contribute to the relationship building between the teacher and the class.

iii) Collect data on student ICT skills. Schools and teachers should know what ICT skills young people have. This is particularly important at the transition between primary and secondary stages. Again data needs to be collected on animation skills, digital video skills, web skills search skills etc…

iv) Make sure that all school staff are adequately trained in Internet Safety and Responsible Use. I find it worrying that young children have so many ‘friends’ on social networking spaces. Schools need to re-define what we mean by that word ‘friend’.

Unless schools do this how will we ever stretch children and set appropriate assessment tasks.


5. Changing Technology

Technology is changing faster than we ever imagined it to. In reality schools will never be able to stay up-to-date and keep up with technological change. But we need to try.

Microsoft recently wrote a report called ‘Europe Logs On’. Where it predicts 5 technological changes that will occur by 2012. In reality these changes are already occurring but there is just not wide scale adoption yet. Schools need to change and adapt resources in parallel to technological change if we want to try to keep up.


Change One: The Three Screens

The distinction between your computer, television and telephone will become more blurred. You will be able to do core functions of all devices on any of the devices. I big step forward in this paradigm was the recent development of TV catch up for the iPhone. I still can’t quite believe I can watch the news on my iphone over my normal phone network.

What should education do in response: Any education content that is developed need to be optimized for use on mobile.

Commercial publishers – please take note.

Change Two: The rise of connected entertainment

You will be able to interact with your media. The BBC red button was just the first step in this direction. BBC iPlayer that allows you to re-watch television programmes that you have missed is another important development.

What should education do in response: We need connected education.

The Climate Mystery by Cogin, Microsoft and the Discovery Channel is the most advance form of connected education that I have seen to date. An education soap opera with a social networking backend to allow real time global collaboration between users. This combined with well thought out mini games to allow a non-threatening but competitive environment for children to learn.

 

Change Three: The whole web will become social.

The web will become more personalized and as much about people as about information. Other people will be used increasing more to filter the information from the web.

What should education do in response: Teachers need to learn the value of the social web

I don’t know very much about science or what resources are good for science teachers. But I have a whole personal learning network that know more about science teaching than I do.

When I was asked to speak at the SSERC Conference I asked on Twitter for some people to recommend resources to me. I was able to make the assumption that because they were coming from people that I trusted that they would be of value in the classroom.

One of the links came from Nick Hood (PT Physics at Glenwood High School in Fife) Nick sent me a link to his delicious links. Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows you to save websites that you find as a list on to another website. Anyone can see your list and it will also tell you if other delicious users have also saved the same link. It’s a powerful way to share peer-reviewed resources amongst teachers. I’ve been using delicious for years and find it incredibly valuable. More info on delicious here.

Here are some of the links I was recommended by my professional learning network before yesterdays conference. I would have never of found them without using the Internet socially:

• Nick Hoods Delicious Links – links to hundreds of other great resources

• BrainPop UK – Great little animations that explain things in a simple way for children. Some BrainPop movies are always free (others you pay for)

• 60 second science podcast – from Scientific America

• Interactive Science Simulations – from the university of Colorado

•  Visible Body – a 3D immersive anatomony and physiology model (30 day free trial)

• 10 Science Apps for the iPod / iPod Touch – Many of these Apps are free

• Science Songs – Different songs about Science topics

• Topic Box Science – Links to other recommended science websites

• 3D mouth – everything you need to know about teeth in 3D form

There were lots more…

Change Four - The 3D Internet

Increasingly you will be able to interact with information and people on the internet in a 3D way.

Many young children (eg: 5 – 8 year olds) are already interacting with the 3D internet. They occupy sites like Club Penguin and Lego Universe. I think it’s unlikely that these children will ever grow into social networking sites like Bebo – that are mainly text based. 3D immersive environments are incredibly engaging for children is if they are used in the right way

What should education do in response: Embrace and prepare for the 3D internet and make sure that staff are trained on the responsibilities of using it and the safety messages that they need to give to young people.

In the Consolarium we are already working a number of 3D Internet projects. CANVAS is currently our flagship project but we have other ideas and projects in development.

WonderVille 3D is a good Canadian example that combines a 3D simulation and static content. You have to navigate around a world to find information and the answers to problems.

There are other good examples of science education in the 3D world that are already available in Scilands in  Second Life. The challenge for us is to now make these environments safe for young people.



Change 5 – The rise of the Smartphone

Internet enabled mobile phones with robust web-browsers will be the norm by 2012. The iPhone and Google’s Android Platform and good examples of current models. I recently read somewhere that my iPhone has more computing power in it that the first Apollo Space mission.

What should education do in response: We need to rapidly consider how we integrate technology like mobile phones into the classroom.

Mobile phones are no longer phones any more. They are mini computers that you can make phone calls on. They can be used to take pictures, record video, record audio, surf the web, download lesson content and there are a variety of powerful Apps that also have strong education value.

Schools teaching Advanced Higher should think about how they can make more use of iTunesU (The ‘U’ is for University). Many university departments (such as Oxford) now give the content of their lectures away for free over iTunesU. School need to make more use of these high quality and free resources.

In my opinion in terms of Science and the use of mobile technology Saltash.net Community School in Cornwall have got a good approach to the use of mobile technology for learning.



6. Changing Curriculum

The Science curriculum is changing. I get a little fed up when we talk about A Curriculum for Excellence and people tell me that they are doing it already. If we are doing it already, why have we wasted all this time and money developing a new curriculum? For me Curriculum for Excellence is about thinking differently and then doing things differently.

It would be unprofessional of me to comment on the content of a science curriculum as I have no expertise in this area. But I do worry that across the Scottish teaching profession that teachers are still thinking in subject boxes. In my opinion schools need to start working in clusters and thinking about how a young person progresses through the 3-18 curriculum. Then we need to think about Curriculum architecture and only then should we start thinking about content. Which takes us back to thinking about 3-18 in a planning clycle.


7. Changing Pedagogy

I think that for good learning to take place there needs to be a combination of good pedagogy and either interest or engagement. I think there is a difference between interest and engagement. If a child is interested in something then combined with the right support from the classroom teacher learning is likely to flourish.

Unfortunately, children are sometime required to learn things that they don’t find interesting and that is when we have to teach things in an engaging way.

Technology is engaging and teachers should think about capitalizing on this as they develop learning activities.

All registered Scottish teachers should already be able to using 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)

Some possible ways to use technology to engage our students

 i) Use their tools (eg: social networking spaces)


ii) Offer choice of output (written, typed, poster, presentation, video, podcast etc…) the input (planning, drafting, re-drafting, collaboration etc…) remains the same and the most important bit.


iii) Provide a real audience for students work (Wikipedia, blogs with comments, school radio podcast, science television station on YouTube etc…)


iv) Be creative with on-line technology tools. The ones I specifically mentioned were:

Comic Life / Comic Brush (www.comicbrush.com) - I showed an example of a cartoon where a girl is having a conversation with red blood cells.

Pixton (www.pixton.com) - I showed an example of a comic that has been made about Newtons Laws.

WorldWide Telescope (www.worldwidetelescope.org)

A powerful tool to explore the universe and to teach about space.

 

As well as providing a great way to learn facts about the universe. Science teachers should also think about how this could be used in different way. For example wouldn’t Worldwide telescope be a great stimulus for creative writing. Where children imagine want it was like to explore planets and far off lands?


Google Earth (www.earth.google.com)

The days and night feature of Google Earth combined with other layers such as the Earthquake layer have obvious links to science education. Its also worth exploring Google Sky, Google Moon and Google Mars.

GPS and other data can be collected from data loggers can easily be imported into Google Earth to provide a special dimension to any real data collected.

Computer Games

Computer Games again combined with good pedagogy can provide a great contextual hub for learning to teach science. Good games for science education include:

• Endless Ocean – where you can explore the ocean as a diver. There are obvious links to marine biology but also to buoyancy, sea water, pressure, Oxygen, physiology etc…

• Spore – This is a game about evolution and you evolve from a micro-organism to intergalactic planet habitation. Obvious links to biology, diversification, evolution and adaptation.

• World of Goo – a crazy game for the Wii where you have to build things out of…goo. Good for introducing concepts such as texture and viscosity. Also the principles of different forces on structures and you have to build complicated bridges (out of goo) to move between levels.

8. Changing Professional Development

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.

The future of professional development is on-line, have a look at:

• CPD Find
• Curriculum for Excellence
• Consolarium: Games Based and Innovation in Education
• LTScotland on iTunesU (the ‘U’ is for University)

Also consider reading about the daily practice of other Scottish Science Teachers such as:

• Nick Hood - Mr Hood.net
• Sinclair MacKenzie - Never mind the Optics
• Jaye Richards - Mimanifesto

Feedback

I would welcome any feedback or comments on the above. Please feel free to get in touch (details top right) or leave a comment below.

Mobile Phones in Schools: Friend or foe? (Times Educational Supplement Magazine Article, November 2009)

I’m quoted in an article by Meabh Ritchie in this weeks Times Educational Supplement Magazine. I think it’s a good piece by Meabh that is mostly positive about mobile phone use in schools. It has been written in response to Chris Keates from the NASUMT who recently suggested that Mobile Phones should be categorized as 'offensive weapons' in schools.

I just want to make a couple of points on the article to put my quotes that are contained within it in a little more context:

Firstly, I still find it a little strange that Mr Keates would like to see mobile phones re-classified as potentially offensive weapons and to be honest I've never been exactly sure what he ment by this exact classification.

In my experience a potentially offensive weapon would be something like chemicals in science or a chisel in design and technology. But we don’t ban these things from schools - instead we teach and work with our children to use these tools safely and responsibly.  For me this is the key.

Of course a union or local education authority could suggest that children just don’t bring their phones to school? But I suspect that many parents would not be very happy about this for perceived safety and security reasons.  So instead we end up giving children mixed messages. Students are allowed to bring their phones to school, because they are important, but they are not aloud to use them.

It’s like saying, ‘don’t press that big red button’ – of course they will use them, they are children!

A better way for schools to manage something like mobile phone use in class might be to develop robust policy at a local level? This policy should put the decision of whether children should or shouldn’t be allowed to use mobile phones in class directly into the hands of the individual classroom teacher. I think it would be better to trust the profession with this decision rather than suggesting a blanket ban?

I can 100% understand why some teachers wouldn’t want to use mobile phones with children. But that’s up to them.  I am also NOT SAYING that if you choose not to use a mobile device then you have classroom management issues. What I AM SAYING is we shouldn’t stop the teachers who want to make creative use of this technology to craft innovative and engaging learning experiences in schools.

Every year we hear some horror stories of children misusing mobile phones in class. To my knowledge these stories normally come from classrooms where these devices are banned. Why don’t we start from a basis of trust, emphasize responsible, safe use and apply common sense to deal with any issues?

Anyway, have a read of the article below or in the TES Magazine. Let me know what you think and feel free to leave any comments below or over on the Times Educational Supplement Website. As always I am open to  criticism and feedback.

____________________________

Friend or foe?

Feature | Published in TES Magazine on 27 November, 2009 | By: Meabh Ritchie

One teaching union has branded mobile phones potential offensive weapons. But there’s a growing realisation that, despite their nuisance value, they also represent a huge untapped learning resource - and a cheap one at that

As the best-of lists of cool gadgets for the past decade start to fill Sunday newspaper magazines, all-singing, all-dancing, camera-boasting mobile phones will be up there with the iPod and Google as some of the Noughties’ best technological advances. But when it comes to the classroom, the devices are deemed far from desirable.

When Notre Dame High School in Sheffield announced that it was considering using mobile phones and MP3 players in lessons last month, the news was met with shock and indignation from the tabloid press. Notre Dame’s assistant headteacher, Paul Haigh, described mobiles as “a huge untapped resource”, enabling pupils to get involved in technology without the school buying more hardware.

But the move was blasted by the NASUWT, which called for a ban on mobiles. Chris Keates, its general secretary, branded them a “potentially offensive weapon” and blaming them for a range of offences against teachers, from staged incidents where pupils record teachers’ reactions and then post the video on YouTube, to manipulating photos taken in class and posting them online.

Ms Keates is aware her position has been seen as anti-progress, but argues that protecting teachers’ privacy doesn’t equate with shunning new technological methods.

“I don’t subscribe to the view that teachers aren’t knowledgeable about technology,” says Ms Keates. “This idea that because a teacher says, ‘I don’t find mobile phones useful in my lesson,’ they’re a technology Luddite, is insulting to the profession. Often the suggestion comes from people who’ve lost touch with the day-to-day realities of the classroom.”

Despite the outcry, increasing numbers of teachers are using their initiative to incorporate mobiles into parts of lessons. Even aside from web capabilities on smart phones, the humblest mobile phone will feature a camera, a voice recorder and text messaging, which can be used across the curriculum. Teachers with experience of using mobile phones in a learning context argue that the debate should shift away from why they should be used to how.

For Ollie Bray, the national adviser for learning and technology futures at Learning and Teaching Scotland and the deputy head at Musselburgh Grammar School, classroom management is key, and the same would apply with any new piece of equipment.

“The teacher and students should establish a set of rules for the use of phones in class,” he says. “If someone decides to break these rules or makes a mistake, then this might result in the loss of privilege or some other sanction.”

Using a mobile phone doesn’t necessarily require the most up-to-date technological knowledge. However, most of the successful, educational examples of mobile phone use in the classroom have been at schools and colleges with a solid grounding and support for ICT, suggesting that it is teachers who are confident in their own understanding and knowledge of technology and its use who are happy to try them out in a learning context.

“Some teachers need to be more confident in asking pupils for help and asking them how they are already using this technology out of school to help them learn,” says Mr Bray. “Do some teachers have a problem with pupils using mobile phones, or do they have a problem with classroom management? And how are senior leadership teams tackling this through monitoring supervision?”

Mr Bray, who also happens to be an NASUWT member, acknowledges the risk to teachers, but believes that banning phones won’t minimise this risk. Health and safety is already assessed when looking at many aspects of school life, especially outdoor activities, and the same should apply to mobile phone use.

“School trips go ahead because the risk is acceptable, some go ahead after extra control measures have been put in place and some are not allowed to run because the activity is too risky. How much is the use of mobile phones in school ‘actual risk’ or ‘perceived risk’?” he says. “How many schools have thought about risk-assessing the use of technology in the same way that they would a school trip?”

At Sheffield College, pupils (between 14 and 19) and parents have to sign a contract agreeing to appropriate behaviour before they’re allowed to use mobile phones in school. David Pickersgill, the manager of the college’s digital centre of vocational excellence, says that giving pupils that responsibility has a positive effect on their behaviour. Of course, there is still a risk that the contract will be broken, but this is something teachers have to take on board. “That doesn’t mean that they should be banned for everyone,” he says.

Sheffield College is one of 115 colleges and 29 schools working under the MoLeNET programme, part of the Learning and Skills Network’s mobile learning initiative. In total, it has provided 21,000 learners (mostly post-14) with mobile phones and other handheld technologies, and is expanding.

Sheffield College received a grant of £300,000 to be invested in mobile equipment, including 200 smart phones, and the devices have revolutionised learning even more than anticipated. Hair and beauty students are able to look up hairstyles online when they’re in the salon, take photos of their work and then post them online to receive feedback. Animal and husbandry students can take quick notes on their phone while doing fieldwork, or if they want further information about something technical they don’t understand, they can look it up online.

For a vocational, ICT specialist college, using mobile phones is seen as a pragmatic, common-sense approach. “Whether they can or can’t be trusted (to use phones), when they get into the real world, they’ll need it,” says Mr Pickersgill. Ideally, he would like pupils to be able to access the internet all over the school “just like we would if we want to work in Starbucks or even McDonald’s”, in order to give them a sense of the real, working world.

The government technology agency, Becta, seems to agree. It recommends a “gradual adoption” of mobiles until their use is “as natural as any other technology” employed in lessons. According to a report the agency published at the start of this year, secondary schools only have on average a laptop for every 61.4 pupils and a desktop computer for every 4.3 pupils. As phones become an essential piece of kit for young people, and as the technological capabilities of phones expand, why wouldn’t schools take advantage of free resources?

At King James’s School in Knaresborough, Paul Walters, the school’s ICT development manager, decided to capitalise on the resources that pupils were carrying around with them everyday. “The last poll I did, 98 per cent of our pupils had a mobile phone anyway, so it seemed to me ridiculous to try and ban them,” he says. “It’s a piece of technology that kids live by - they’re never without it - so it feels artificial to prevent them from having it. It’s just a part of their life.”

In Mr Walters’s opinion, the last thing schools want is for the “rabble- rousers” to be in command of the technology. “At our school, it’s not a case that every kid is walking around with a phone doing what they like with it. For a lot of the time, they’ll be switched off and put away.”

Three years ago, mobile phones had been banned and they were causing disruption. Now that they are permitted, the phones hold less of an attraction to the pupils, and it has proved easier to regulate. “A better argument would be about appropriate use, asking, ‘Why are you doing that with your phone?’ rather than ‘Why do you have your phone?’ I think it depends on your own school circumstances, though. You’ve got to look at your relationship with the kids.”

Teachers have used mobile phones as an aid to take photos of English texts or the whiteboard for future review; timing experiments; downloading and listening to foreign-language podcasts; and recording someone reading a poem for revision. A research report into the MoLeNET programme also noted that a further advantage of mobile phone use in schools is increased communication between teachers and pupils regardless of location, or if pupils can’t attend school for whatever reason.

Yet developing a school culture that encourages pupils to communicate with teachers via mobile phones also has its risks: communicating one-on-one, out of school hours, means that the boundary between teachers and pupils becomes blurred.

When details surrounding the affair between Christopher Reen of Headlands School and one of his pupils became public in September, it emerged that he had sent hundreds of text messages to the schoolgirl, who was not yet 16. In the same month, Helen Goddard, a music teacher, was charged with having a relationship with a pupil during which she had communicated with her regularly via text message. Back in February, James Davies, a Welsh TA, was sentenced to 12 months in prison after sending suggestive text messages and engaging in sexual activity with two schoolgirls.

There is genuine concern that wireless communication can quickly become informal and breach formal rules of interaction between pupils and teachers. But there are ways for this to be avoided while still using mobile phones for learning. The NASUWT, NUT and Becta all advise a whole- school approach to safeguarding teachers’ privacy. For a start, schools should have a system that prevents teachers giving out personal email addresses and mobile phone numbers.

With effective ICT support in schools, these risks can be minimised. At King James’s School, pupils text and Bluetooth the school’s wireless system, so there is no direct pupil-teacher communication. Some schools provide standard phones for teachers’ professional use, so pupils know that any teacher could access it, and individual teachers are unlikely to use it from home.

Bringing mobile phones into the school environment does present a risk, but it is one that has to be tackled and managed, rather than brushed under the carpet. They are here to stay and will only become a more prevalent part of our lives. “Schools are no longer just a building, and learning no longer just takes place between 9am and 3.30pm,” concludes Mr Bray.

Finding comfortable ground between the mobile phone being an essential classroom tool and an offensive weapon, however, may still take some time

Using mobiles for learning

• Identify and support champions - volunteer teachers who are prepared to take some risks.
• Initiate discussions about using mobile phones for learning (perhaps using pupil voice work) and survey ownership, device capability and the ways mobile phones are already being used in the school.
• Involve those who have responsibility for curriculum, student management and technical support to plan how they will be used.
• Provide hands-on, small-scale opportunities for teachers to try out appropriate uses for mobile phones.
• Encourage teachers to design activities that make the learning purpose clear and to anticipate management issues at the classroom level (such as rules and etiquette).
• Inform parents of the learning purposes for mobile phones and involve them in establishing appropriate ownership, management and ethical arrangements.
• Anticipate and address technical issues ranging from battery-charging to network access, security and data protection.
• Develop new school policies that shift the focus of attention away from the device to the uses, security and behavioural issues that are the real concern.

Source: Becta (http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk).

Using Mobile Technology on Fieldwork and Expeditions: RGS-Explore09

On Saturday I was invited along to speak at Explore 2009 at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London. When I lived on the South of England I used to hang out in the RGS a lot. I’ve spent hours going through old expedition reports and looking through their map room. However, since moving to Scotland its not been as accessible to me and its been a few years since I was there in a geographical / expedition capacity.

The Explore Conference is an expedition & fieldwork planning weekend. I went to my first one (or an earlier version of it) over ten years ago and it was a real privilege to be asked to contribute to the expedition strand by Shane Winser and Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop. Escape from the City has already written a good overview of the conference.

My input to the main conference was on ‘Using Mobile Technology on Fieldwork and Expeditions’. In particular though I was asked to steer away from the use of satellite phones as that was being covered in a separate presentation by Simon Thompson.

I had lots of good feedback from the talk and the slides that I used are embedded below (although they have lost some formatting in the transfer to slideshare):

Using mobile technology for fieldwork and expeditions

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

The main points I covered were:  

• Sometimes it may be appropriate not to have a satalite phone – It depends on your expedition location.

• Communication back from the field to up-date a blog, record audio, up-load photos etc can be done through a smartphone (such as an iPhone). Advantages of this type of technology is that it is light and easily chargeable with a solar charger.

• Like any mobile service from overseas smartphones can be expensive, particularly for data.  It’s worth checking coverage beforehand, looking at international calling cards or taking out a seperate data plan for when you are away.

• In 2004 we used a normal Nokia mobile phone to send SMS messages back from Denali which were then typed up in the UK and up-loaded to our expedition blog. It was cheap, but it worked until we ran out of battery power! (solar panels were not that great in those days!).

• This summer during the Great Divide Expedition I managed to use WiFi hot spots to up-date my Twitter status and keep people informed of my progress. Agin you can search for these in advance online.

• The added value of a smartphone (such as an iPhone) are the Apps. They can add value to your expedition communication strategy and well a providing an electronic field notebook.

Specifically I mentioned the following Apps that I think can add value:

• iPhone notebook (built in)
• Google Maps and Satellite View (built in)
• Ordnance Survey Maps (I use OSBrowserR2)
• Built in GPS for Google Earth Exports (I use GPS recorder)
• Evernote – The ultimate electronic fieldwork notebook!

Demo of evernote below:

Other Apps I mentioned:

• Mobile blogging Apps – Including Typepad, Blogger and Wordpress
• Other fieldwork apps that night be appropriate for children (clinometer, compass etc…)
• AudioBoo – Great because people can subscribe to your Boos through iTunes

Finally:

• How to take an iPhone screen shot (instructions here)

• The importance of linking social spaces to improve audience and publicize your venture. For example you can use a smartphone to up-date your expedition blog, which will automatically send out an up-date on Twitter which will automatically up-date you expedition facebook page.

• The trick is putting your content where people are – rather than relying on people coming to you.

• Mark Beaumont (Currently on a BBC supported expedition to Cycle the Americas has made excellent use of Social Media on his trip)

• You can also use aggregation sites such as ‘twazzup’ to bring together expedition ‘hash tags’ from different team members to make a real-time expedition handout.

If you were at the presenation – I would be more than happy to answer any questions and as always welcome your feedback. There was a lt to cover in a very short space of time.

Learn Geography for the Nintendo DS

Dreamcatcher Interactive has recently announced ‘Learn Geography’ an educational title for the Nintendo DS. According to the press release it aimed at students between 3rd and 4th Grade in the USA – it doesn’t look like there is a UK version of the game yet?

The game includes the following features:

• Jigsaws - piece together parts of a world map and learn to identify the countries within each continent. There are a number of jigsaw puzzles available for each region.

• Lessons – to help you learn about world geography.

• Timed quizzes and mini games – to test your geographical knowledge.

• Training Mode - to help you practice identifying country names and locations on a world map.

Apparently you work through the lessons as a little green vampire. I think I’ll need to see it before I really pass comment!

(Thanks to the future making serious games blog for the heads up)

Ubiquitous Mobile Computing at the Abilene University

I went to an interesting  talk on Thursday afternoon at the Department of Informatics and the University of Edinburgh. The talk was on the introduction of the iPhone / iPod Touch at the Abilene Christian University in Texas, USA.

Every student that goes in to the University gets given either an iPhone or an iPod Touch. This is bought for them from the University. The difference is that if you opt for an iPhone the individual student has to enter into an 18 month contract with the mobile phone operator (in the US this is AT&T). There have been nearly 2000 devices distributed to students of which 68% are iPhone and 32% are iPod Touches.

The university then provides resources for its students via  an interactive website that it optimized for the iPhone /iPod Touch. Lecturers and university professors also suggest and develop Apps that the students might want to download to help them with their learning. The results were quite staggering in terms of how much the students believed that the devices improved their learning and gave them confidence in class.


One of the big questions from the audience was on cost and how ever did the Abilene University afford such an initiative. It seems that the university made three very clever but significant cost savings in order to fund the initiative.

1. Cut back on open access computer suites

One of the things that the University did was cut back on the open access computer facilities that were available to students. Particularly the facilities that were available in dorm rooms (halls of residence).

After research they found that these facilities were not being used as much as they were in the past because 98% of students going to the university brought with them their own laptop. They also found that the biggest usage of the open access areas in the student accommodation was between 11pm – 3am when students were playing first person shooter games with each other!

By cutting back on and not refreshing these underused facilities they saved thousands.

2. Cut back on traditional telephone

Another significant saving was with telephone bills. As most university professors and a large proportion of students were now using the iPhone and as calls from one iPhone to another (in the States anyway) are free they effectively created a free telephone service across the campus. They also saved by not refreshing the telephone infrastructure within the University. Why would they bother – everyone has a mobile and there is a Skype App.

3. Photocopying

If everything available electronically as pdfs or as podcasts, savings on photocopying were significant.

iPhone Vs iPod Touch

One really interesting part of the study was how it seemed that the iPhone was the more successful device with the students.

This was possibility down to a number of reasons:

• Anytime, any place connectivity (and learning)

• Students felt more ownership over their phones (even though they were given them, they were still paying for them on the contract)

• Phones were nearly always brought to class and charged up where as the iPod touch was left at home more or not brought fully charged (students seemed to embrace the social connectivity of the phones more – eg: they needed their phones to stay connected to each other)

• Although it wasn’t mentioned I’m guessing that the phone also has a camera which can be used as powerful tool for learning.

Is the project iPhone / iPod Specific?

One other question from the audience was about platform and if the project completely relied on the iPhone / iPod touch. Although there were a number of university lectures (and students) who were developing Apps specifically for the Apple platform. The main resources produced by the university were all web based but optimized for the iPhone. This meant regardless of the device students could access the material in different ways.

It also means that if a more appropriate device comes along the University can easily migrate their content.

Overall a very interesting study that I would like to replicate in a school. You can find out more about what the university have done over on their website.

Did You Know 4 0 : The Media Landscape

The original ‘Shift Happens‘ presentation by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Jeff Brenman was turned into a video and uploaded to YouTube in June 2007. The video was then remixed, becoming a YouTube and Slideshare hit called ‘Did You Know?‘ its now attracted over 6.5m views on YouTube.

'Did You Know 4.0?' is the latest version that has been created by The Economist and Xplane for their Media Convergence Forum (The Moment of Truth: Consumers, Technology and Commerce) which will be held on  20th - 21st October 2009 in New York. You tube video below.

Although I have seen the original lots of times - I still like looking at these videos.