E-burn the Christmas calories!

Christmas holidays traditionally are a time for delicious family dinners and nice presents, … and for putting on extra pounds by eating your weight in pies, turkey and chocolates. When you already started thinking of going to the fitness again in 2012 you can, just like me, test the ‘Fit for the future?’ e-learning tool as a preparation for the real physical workout after Christmas holidays … or for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Kineo, leader in innovative e-learning design, created together with the League Football Education and Sportiv8 an e-learning programme that incorporates the development of functional skills in a real sport context, namely the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012. Recently this project won a bronze award in the E-learning Age Awards 2011 for Excellence in the production of learning content - Not for Profit Sector.

The power of sport

The learners using the e-tool enter in the story (see ‘Get in the zone’ on the picture below) as a member of a team of young athletes, qualified to go to the Olympics in London. During the training period, the members are sharing a flat where they discuss their training schemes, where they try to help each other in taking decisions concerning their nutrition, fitness training levels, personal problems, … The scenarios are all based around the real 2012 Olympics and use contributions from promising and top athletes to make the game more authentic and engaging for the learners (see the part ‘Hear from the best’ in the e-tool).

The interesting thing of the kineo-creation is the re-usability of the core material for other e-learning resources on functional skills. Kineo is thinking of providing real sport contexts (such as the rugby world cup and the 2018 football world cup), scenarios and problems to all future models in order to attract a wide range of learners. Though, the founders of the tool especially want to attract apprentices, learners of technical and vocational programmes and all 14 to 19 year olds that have difficulties to stay motivated in class. Although I think that an e-learning programme can’t completely replace the traditional learning (with books), the tool certainly offers a nice learning support for pupils (with or without learning difficulties).

An authentic and cross curricular approach

The content offers the learners realistic scenarios and problems that:

- specify tasks that are relevant to the context;

- require application of knowledge, skills and understanding for a purpose;

- require problem solving;

- assess process skills and the outcome of their application in different contexts.

The users are confronted with all kind of (un)familiar situations, such as writing an e-mail to your trainer, writing a report, measuring your BMI, … The advantage of such a tool is that the authenticity and cross curricular character reach a higher value than possible in a normal class environment. Throughout the ‘game’ learners improve their functional skills and learn more in English (reading, grammar, formal and informal speech), Mathematics and Personal Social Development. You are only sent to the more theoretical part of the programme (the ‘learn it’-tool in the ‘kit bag’) when you made too much mistakes during the exercise. In the learning tool theory concerning good listening, efficient reading, decimals, … is explained in a very animated and clear way. Though, even when it is the purpose to learn in a functional context the theoretical part probably is too superficial for effective learning.

Have a look at the sample, to see what it looks like!

Offline support

E-learning has definite benefits over traditional classroom training, but it’s not the e-learning tool on itself that makes the learning experience effective and valuable. Therefore, the theoretical part or the real content of the tested tool is, as I mentioned before, too superficial. And even with this challenging sport context unmotivated students may fall behind. This doesn’t mean that you don’t learn anything from the e-learning tool. It certainly takes you through an adventure and the fact of being able to explore, try things out, succeed or fail makes a good training. But I see more benefit in an efficient combination of challenging e-learning tools and offline support and expansion, such as tutor (or teacher) guidance, supporting (offline) activities, reflection on the objectives and the results, … Exactly the combination of both makes the learning experience more valuable and profound and leads to increased retention and lifelong knowledge. So I’m glad that kineo provided a teachers guideline with quite some interesting offline activities, ways of assessment, etc. During the supported activities learners will have to create an Olympic Legacy website with information concerning the Olympic Games and the details of a self chosen Opening Ceremony Event. The following challenge is to create an Olympic Opening Event, to think about the financial considerations of such events, to develop promoting materials and to set up a detailed programme considering the organisational challenges of such an event.

Learning and Technology Exhibition

The e-learning programme ‘Fit for the Future?’ and the supporting activities put a lot of objectives together and chose an actual and interesting setting for it. Though, I think it’s very important that a tutor or teacher guides the learners, not in working with the programme, but in reflecting on the objectives and the results and in offering supporting offline activities to make the learning experience really valuable.

If you want to know more about the tools kineo is designing, have a look on their website. The company offers some free learning tools and presents the projects they realised with big companies such as BP, BBC, McDonald’s, … And when you are planning a visit to London in the end of January, maybe you can pass by the Learning and Technology Exhibition, where kineo will be present amongst other professionals in the e-learning sector.

But let’s go first to … the real fitness!

Gooru is a new free platform for 21st century teachers and students

Gooru is a free platform for students and teachers to access standards-based online resources in organized “playlists” for learning. Created by a Google employee, it’s run by a nonprofit group called Ednovo.

On their website http://www.goorulearning.org they write that their mission is to "make high quality education accessible and free to the world's one billion students within three years. Ednovo breaks down the barriers of access to education with a free web application, Gooru, that leverages technology, amplifies the effect of stellar teaching, and inspires students to learn. Gooru provides teachers with the ability to "search and teach" and students with the ability to "search and study" to find curriculum-appropriate web resources for any lesson. Teachers and students then share their lessons and notes with each other to enable learning in a truly social way.

The unlimited amount of web resources today has taken learning to a new level. However, students still struggle in school as society faces an educational crisis. We've developed Gooru, a platform for students and teachers to easily access online resources in organized playlists for learning. Instead of sorting through individual websites or poor content, our Classplans and Classbooks contain standards-aligned multimedia. In our world, a student can search a topic and learn everything he wants to know with just one click. Gooru provides the world-class education that everyone is entitled to for free."

In order to register at the site first you should request invitation. Within a week they promise to send it on your e-mail.

The site itself is colorful and interesting. I am sure that children will study with pleasure with the help of this free platform.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/12/22/new-online-learning-platform-gooru-aims-to-make-learning-sociall/

Implementation of the ‘Computers for Pupils Programme’ in a Birmingham Secondary School

In the article from “Journal of Information Technology Education” Jonathan Morris charts and evaluates the implementation of the Computers for Pupils (CfP) programme and its extension, the Universal Home Access programme, in a Birmingham secondary school.

The author states that ICT has become increasingly important for learning, pupils of low social status risk being put at a significant disadvantage when compared to those of higher social status. (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency [BECTA], 2003). This inequality, which has become known as the Digital Divide, is defined by Livingstone & Helper (2007, p.672) as divisions “within and across societies according to those that have access to digital technologies (including the internet) and those that do not.”

It is mentioned that attempts to bridge the Digital Divide have seen vast investment in Information Communication Technology in schools. In the United Kingdom, the Computers for Pupils initiative has invested £60 million of funds to help some of the most disadvantaged secondary school pupils by putting a computer in their home.

This case study employs a complementary mixed-method approach—the questionnaire method with a year 9 cohort of pupils and interviews with their ICT teachers.

Findings from this research, which are divided into four themes:

laptop use and support

provision of connectivity

decisions on software and hardware

technical support and repair

These themes found several issues with the implementation of the programme. As a consequence, several recommendations for improvement are offered.

Results

ICT teachers were not informed of the pupils on the CfP programme and many pupils are primarily using the laptops for leisure rather than for education purposes. The lack of involvement of the ICT teachers may explain why there is no laptop support in ICT lessons and why the use of laptops has not been educationally based.

Recommendations

The nature of school support for laptops offered by the CfP programme should include dedicated funding. Specifically, in terms of school staff involvement; it should be made clear to the school leadership team how the programme should be facilitated.

Results

The funding of connectivity has not reached its intended target and has either not been used or has been reallocated elsewhere.

Recommendations

The funding of connectivity should be real- located – for instance to facilitate school and staff involvement in the laptop deployment in a school.

Results

A small number of pupils’ laptops do not contain all the software as specified by RM; the ICT teachers are aware of compatibility issues between school and laptop systems. Many of the ICT teachers felt that there had been little thought put into the choices of software for the laptops.

Recommendations

Choice of software should be decided upon a school-by-school basis or a uniform Virtual Learning Environment setup to facilitate laptop use (specifically in terms of file transfer) both in and outside school.

Results

Over half of pupils noted that a CD/DVD drive would most help them to complete their school- work or homework. The lack of CD/DVD drive contradicts the Home-School agreement which asks pupils to backup work (for instance on a CD).

Recommendation

Deployment of new models of laptops in schools should include a CD/DVD drive for the purpose of data backup, as outlined in the CfP.

Results

Not including accidental damage, almost two thirds of CfP pupils indicated that they experienced problems with the hardware or software on their laptop. In terms of correcting problems, ICT teachers reported that many would bring their laptops to the school’s ICT technicians to be repaired, when this was not considered to fall within their responsibility. A reason for this may lie with the CfP Home-School Agreement that indicates that laptops may need to be returned to school and/or RM for repair.

Recommendations

Home-School Agreement should be modified to indicate where responsibility of the laptops lies, specifically in terms of repair. Due to the distribution of laptops being through schools, funding could be supplied to the school’s technicians in return for responsibility for laptop repair.

Results

Laptop support does not last for the duration of the child in school and laptop software often suffers from becoming obsolete.

Recommendations

Laptop support should last for the duration of the child in school. Some funding might be achieved for this by reinitiating laptop provision through a more focused approach instead of across year group

References

Jonathan Padraig Morris (2011).Digital Bridge or Digital Divide? A Case Study Review of the Implementation of the ‘Computers for Pupils Programme’ in a Birmingham Secondary School. Journal of Information Technology Education

Towards openness in 2012

Mexico’s largest University, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), announced in November it will make virtually all its publications, databases, and course materials freely available on the internet over the next few years. This is only one of the many developments in open educational resources of fall 2011. Further UNESCO launched a new OER platform with significant UNESCO publications open for use. And the most remarkable developments probably are the formation of the MITx and the Open Educational University (OERu), that attempt to combine open access to learning materials to institutional accreditation. The idea of sharing gains ground in education. This is a least what I could notice during my follow-up of the educational news and my research for our group work that dealt with the openness of a learning platform (see earlier on this blog).

The philosophy of sharing in education, mostly discussed in terms of Open Educational Resources (OER), allow institutions to use and adapt materials that have been created by other academic staff. The idea of sharing and reusing educational materials is spread for more than 10 years now (OER are celebrating their 10^th anniversary in 2012) by an increasing amount of institutions worldwide. But despite all the good intentions and the great potential of OER, the implementation of the philosophy of OER misses adoption on a large scale (in all countries and in all educational institutions). So, when OER are the future, why are educational institutions moving so slowly in the direction of openness and how can they be encouraged?

Learning is changing, but what about education?

On her blog Catherine Cronin, lecturer and elearning facilitator at the National University of Ireland, is reflecting on the innovation in learning she and her colleagues noticed this year. She concludes: “Boundaries between informal and formal education are blurring. Open, participatory and social media are not just enabling new forms of communication, they are transforming learning.” And indeed, social media play a major role in the innovation in learning, in that sense that they are increasing the transfer of information and open as such opportunities to create and share OER. The increased access to OER promotes the individual and online learning. So, OER are part of the innovation in learning.

The innovative way of learning and the potential of OER have created unique opportunities and challenges for education. According to Catherine educators have to “refer students to excellent, relevant, online open educational resources.” Therefore educators must learn how to “create and share material in new ways, learn to use different tools, and stay abreast of online learning developments.” But the challenge of educational institutions includes also the investment in systematic development of course materials, the time for finding appropriate OER, adapting existing OER, negotiating the copyright licenses, openness to a more learner-centered way of teaching or openness to the use of different materials … And an efficient use of OER also requires critical and technological skills of both teachers and students.

So, while learning seems to change almost ‘naturally’ on the waves of our changing environment and the increasing possibilities of ICT, the adaptation of education requires a lot more investments and seems to discourage educational institutions in their adoption of OER. A response on Catherines blog makes clear that teachers often have difficulties to find and integrate OER: “I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by the exponential growth in tools and apps and other resources”. Another problem in dealing with the innovation of learning and the use of OER is probably the fact that there is no culture of sharing knowledge in education. Based on my own experiences, I notice very often that teachers are not willing to share learning materials they created themselves, in some cases because it took them so much time to create the materials and they don’t want another take advantage of it, or because they are afraid of being judged by others. Further the adaptation to innovative learning faces the difficulty of educators being so attached to their course book, that the use of OER or another approach of the content (a more learner-based) don’t even appear in their mind. Javiera Atenas even goes further and notices “a deep cultural issue in avoiding sharing resources.” He claims there is a” fear of being plagiarised and [a] fear to look as someone that is plagiarising somebody else”, when respectively sharing own resources and using someone else's resources.

Guidelines for higher education

The use of OER in education is more than putting some learning materials on the internet. Taking effective advantage of it requires more investments and changes (in attitudes) in education. To help educational institutions with these challenges UNESCO and COL recently published a set of Guidelines for Open Educational Resources in Higher Education, that give stakeholders in separate sections (government, higher educational institutions, academic staff, student bodies, quality assurance/accreditation bodies) suggestions for efficiently integrating and using OER. With these guidelines UNESCO and COL want to encourage decision makers in governments and institutions to invest in OER. The guidelines are written in a very clear way, explain the advantages of OER (for example “Experiences show that, when institutions make good quality courses and materials publicly available online, they can attract new students, expand their institutional reputation and advance their public service role”) and show for example how government support for openness in education can happen at the policy and guidelines level without any additional funding. Openness clearly brings forth social and economic benefits. So why wouldn’t a government or educational institution implement open policies? It should be nice to see these policies adopted all over the world, and applied in all educational institutions. But, the adoption of the open movement and especially of an efficient use of OER will not just rely on a document of UNESCO and COL. Promotion of the endless possibilities of OER will be needed and therefore I hope that the 10^th anniversary world conference, organized by the UNESCO OER Programme, will be a first step into the direction of a real breakthrough of OER.

Towards openness in 2012?

The culture of open knowledge is growing, the attitude towards sharing is improving significantly, but there is a need to encourage and support governments, educational institutions, … to embrace this culture of openness where intellectual property is important and to consider the opportunities the innovation in learning is offering. The UNESCO-COL-guidelines for the use of OER in higher education and especially a promotion of OER can help to unfold openness on a larger scale and in an efficient way in 2012.

Computer with 19 Euro from the University of Cambridge 

In 2012 the Raspberry will come in the technology market. Raspberry is a computer that costs on19 Euro! This computer development is funded from the Computer Lab of Cambridge University. 

This computer will be available in a board form and will be released this year in two models:

•          Raspberry Pi A model with 128 MB RAM without Ethernet port
•          Raspberry Pi B model with 256 MB RAM with Ethernet port

This cheap computer is a major challenge in the IT market. Millions of students will benefit from the low cost computer, especially in countries which suffered from economic crisis.

The computer of 19 Euros includes:

     ARM11 processor at 700 MHz
     Memory 128 MB SD RAM
     Analysis 1080p, H264 playback
     Outputs Composite and HDMI
     USB 3.0 port
     Cards SD / MMC / SDIO
     I / O port for general use
     OS Linux Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu

sources:  http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Technology in education of kinds with special needs

Kidmedia is a creative team of people who are working in primary education in Greece. Their main goal is to create games and activities (software) mostly for younger children and children with special needs. Navigate through their website to find videos, information about us and our software, and much more.

I would like to mention that many of the applications are free to download from the visitors and there are available also in Greek and in English language. Additionally, the website http://www.kidmedia.eu/ is sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Education. 

source:  http://www.kidmedia.eu/, http://www.kidmedia.gr/

The Evolution of Classroom Technology

Jeff Dunn in his article tells us that over the past few years classroom technology has come a long way. Everything started from the horn-book (1650) and now we are in the era of Apple iPad.

Thomas Edison said in 1925 that"books soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye". And Jeff is pretty sure this is exactly what people are saying these days about iPad.

It is nice to see the evolution of classroom technology. Now it is difficult to imagine that students were deprived of so many things in the past. Nowadays we have all kinds of technologies but do our children really need these new devices for studying? For sure some of them are very useful. To this category I attribute interactive whiteboard, hand-held graphing calculator, XO laptop.

Article and pictures you can find here

http://edudemic.com/2011/04/classroom-technology/