Tech&LearningUK November 2016 Digital

www.techandlearning.uk November 2016

LET PLAYTIME BEGIN USING GAMIFICATION TO ENTHRAL LEARNERS SEE PAGE 12

GENDER PARITY IS WISE’S GOAL

TOOLS FOR MANAGEMENT

THE RISE OF THE E-TEXTBOOK

CAMPAIGN CEO HELEN WOLLASTON FOCUSES ON STEM P10

USING TECH TO SUPPORT ADMIN TASKS AND MORE P16

ELECTRONIC BOOKS REVOLUTIONISE UNI STUDENTS’ LIVES P20

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WELCOME

Making education entertaining Editor: Heather McLean heather@mclean-media.com Executive Editor: Paddy Baker pbaker@nbmedia.com Executive Editor: Joanne Ruddock jruddock@nbmedia.com Head of Design: Jat Garcha jgarcha@nbmedia.com Designer: Tom Carpenter tcarpenter@nbmedia.com Sales Manager: Gurpreet Purewal gpurewal@nbmedia.com US Sales - Executive Vice President: Adam Goldstein agoldstein@nbmedia.com Production Executive: Warren Kelly wkelly@nbmedia.com Digital Director: Diane Oliver doliver@nbmedia.com Content Director: James McKeown Contributors: Ian McMurray, Kenny Nicholl, Richard Doughty, Rupert Mills, Monica Heck, Ashok Vaswani

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With the winter holidays fast approaching, fun and games are going to be on the mind of many students. From hurtling down hills on sledges in the snow to wintry evenings playing with siblings, the coming weeks will bring dark evenings and, no doubt, lots of enjoyment.

Yet having fun is not only for time spent away from school, college and university.

Many places of education are taking the principles of games, combining them with technology, and creating gamified learning. This involves taking the motivational aspect of playing a game, that is, trying to achieve a rewarding goal, and applying it to learning: so rather than fire a cross bird at a pig in a castle simply to blow up the castle, answer a question correctly to fire the cross bird on the correct trajectory in Editor: Heather McLean heather@mclean-media.com order to destroy said pig. Read all about it, and how you can use it to motivate your students, on page 12.

Augmented reality (AR) is commonly associated with games, such as the popular Pokémon Go mobile app. Yet it can be used to augment learning as well, as Leeds College of Music’s production and e-learning teams have shown. The college has developed an AR app that superimposes information onto mixing desks and patchbays to support students learning to use these complicated pieces of equipment. Students can now learn and support themselves outside of teaching hours, with the app enhancing content and providing cutting-edge engagement; well worth a read on page 28.

Meanwhile, Plymouth University and Middlesex University have taken the traditional textbook and switched to the e-textbook. Both establishments are saving students hundreds of pounds each term, making the playing field more even for those with less cash to spend, while making themselves more competitive and marketable in the eyes of potential students. In addition, e-books are opening up opportunities for the quality of content, which can be enhanced with interactivity and communication tools for students to work together. What’s not to like? See page 20 for more.

Our big interview this month is with Helen Wollaston, CEO at WISE, a campaign to bring more women and girls into STEM-related careers. While things are improving, there is still a long way to go. As Helen says: “It will take a concerted effort across education, business, media and social media to free us from gender stereotypes associated with the world of work.” Turn to page 10 to read our interview with her.

On that note, enjoy this issue of Tech&LearningUK. We work hard to make sure this magazine is relevant and packed with everything you need to inspire and aid you in your quest to improve and refine education. Until January! @techlearningUK

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Ian McMurray has over 30 years’ experience in marketing, communications and media relations with hightechnology companies in the IT and audiovisual markets. His experience and knowledge now contribute towards his career as a freelance writer, working across various titles.

Richard Doughty is a freelance journalist and copywriter. He worked on The Guardian as the paper’s special supplements editor for many years, specialising in education, and during that time launched and edited a regular IT in education supplement covering schools, FE and HE sectors.

Monica Heck is a bilingual freelance journalist and copywriter based in Dublin, Ireland and working internationally. She has been ‘in tech’ for nearly 15 years, first in marketing before training as a journalist. Monica writes about broadcast, proAV and IT in print and online.

Kenny Nicholl has spent his working life helping educational institutions and corporate organisations adopt new technologies and develop beneficial partnerships.

Since 2014 he has served as director of Canvas EMEA, bringing Canvas’s innovative new brand of virtual learning environment to the UK and across Europe.

Rupert Mills is MD at Krome Technologies.

He has over 25 years of IT experience and success in identifying, evaluating and documenting complex computing requirements for systems integration, with a focus on strengthening business achievement through strategic technology planning. Rupert has vast technical experience across multiple platforms and disciplines.

Ashok Vaswani is the CEO at Barclays UK, covering personal banking, wealth, entrepreneurs and business banking, plus Barclaycard UK. He is passionate about helping people embrace the new opportunities of the digital revolution with confidence and champions the bank’s initiatives to achieve this.

November 2016

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CONTENTS

20

6

Opinion

Canvas’s Kenny Nicholl on graduate employability problems Krome Technologies’ Rupert Mills on tech trends and budgets Barclays UK’s Ashok Vaswani considers the UK’s digital deficit

10 Interview WISE Campaign’s Helen Wollaston on why we need more girls and women in STEM

28 Leeds College of Music

12 Gamification A hot topic in educational circles – what does it involve?

Bringing AR creativity into the recording studio

16 School Management

30 University College of Estate Management

From the central MIS, to the VLE and LMS, what is best?

20 Using E-Textbooks Meet the universities making the most of a paperless world

Taking 75 modules 100% online in just 15 months

31 University of Portsmouth Removing the friction from peer review and evaluation

26 Show Preview Looking ahead to game changers at Bett 2017

22 Showcase Voting systems to boost levels of student engagement

32 Product Focus Coding for the future with Apple’s Swift Playgrounds Controlling connectivity with Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector 2.0

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TOGETHER DIGITAL – PRINT – EVENTS GAMING – MUSIC – AV – PRO AUDIO – CONSUMER ELECTRONICS VIDEO & BROADCAST – EDUCATION

www.newbaymedia.com LONDON – NEW YORK

OPINION

KENNY NICHOLL In today’s unpredictable environment it is no surprise that students are concerned about their job prospects, and are turning to universities for support

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ast year saw the biggest ever intake of graduate recruits and record levels of investment into training and development, leading many to conclude that job prospects for graduates are bright.

However, this optimistic sentiment is matched by a starker message; the reminder of a volatile market. Some reports showed cuts in graduate jobs for the first time in four years, following economic concerns around the Brexit vote. And while many focus on the positive message that 2015 saw graduate applications increasing by nearly a fifth, we should also take note that only 3% of those applicants were ultimately employed by their company of choice.

New students are becoming more savvy when it comes to choosing universities that provide them the best career prospects, and those already in education are turning to their institution to ensure that employability is a top priority. Our own research showed that more than half of the UK’s student population sees a good track record of graduate employment as the most important factor when choosing a university, and most report that the ability of an institution to prepare them for the workplace is crucial.

This pressure from students, combined with government edicts like the looming Teaching Excellence Framework, which puts renewed focus on employability, is forcing institutions

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to fundamentally re-examine the teaching they provide.

Whether it’s changing curricula to allow for lengthier work placements, or updating course materials to ensure relevancy, there are many, varied ways in which universities can adapt to focus on employability. The common factor, though, is that the use

‘New students are becoming more savvy at choosing universities that provide them the best career prospects’ of technology will be the driving force behind this change, enabling flexible and measurable learning, powering industry-wide collaboration, and ultimately improving job prospects for the next generation of students.

In addition to industry collaboration, universities are also beginning to recognise that they must move away from the static ‘chalk and talk’ style of teaching, in favour of a more flexible, tech-enabled environment. Focusing on the application of knowledge – rather than rote learning – helps students develop the problem solving skills they’ll need in employment. And giving students the tools to collaborate with

peers in an open, online environment provides them with the teamwork and communication skills demanded by employers.

Many experts assert that, as well as helping students succeed in their course, universities and colleges have a crucial role in priming young people for a lifelong learning journey. Yet research has shown that the majority of students feel that knowledge from university becomes outdated quickly, and ask that higher education curricula place more emphasis on learning that will endure the test of time.

Part of ensuring that students will continue to learn throughout their lives is to teach them skills that are useful in employment; as we move into a digital workplace, these skills are likely to be tech-based. By integrating key workplace tech skills, such as online collaboration, into their courses, universities can equip students with a skill set relevant beyond the lecture theatre.

Through the clever use of education technology, universities have the ability

to enhance their courses with careerfocused features, and help to bring employers together with students.

Not only will this have the benefit of providing students with the university experience they demand, it will also allow employers and businesses to impart advice on how to make it in the tough jobs market.

With increasingly innovative education technology, there are more ways than ever to empower students with the skills they need to succeed.

Businesses will also benefit, getting adaptable, bright and well-prepared individuals, able to enter the workforce and hit the ground running.

UK businesses need a strong graduate workforce more than ever.

And, if universities can use technology to bring career skills to their courses and collaboration to the lecture theatre, students will be more than ready to pick up that mantle.

Kenny Nicholl is director of higher education at Canvas. www.canvasvle.co.uk

OPINION

RUPERT MILLS How can schools on a budget invest their money sensibly when it comes to staying up to date with the latest in technology?

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t is no longer an option for schools to invest in technology; it is a necessity.

However, as is the case with the public sector as a whole, budgets are tight and it has become more important than ever for schools to be selective with the technology they invest in.

A 2015 BESA research report predicted that by 2017 pupils would use technology for 58% of learning time, up from 50% in 2014. With that in mind, in an ideal world you could expect schools to be flooded with the latest tech trends. It is easy for schools to get caught up in this, specifically the most exciting developments in areas such as virtual reality (VR).

The benefits of technology in education are endless; it allows teachers to cater to a diversity of learning styles, create more engaging classrooms and help students to become more independent.

It’s an ever-expanding sector and schools need to be on board, but how can you justify spending a year’s budget on new VR systems when there are still not enough computers to go around? You can’t, and particularly with public sector money, it becomes immoral.

That said, digital innovation is vital, and changes the way that we learn.

Trending VR devices can help teachers create a more impactful and immersive learning environment for students, and recent pricing reductions in VR devices such as the Samsung Gear VR or Google’s Cardboard (and in the future,

www.techandlearning.uk

Microsoft’s HoloLens) are making them a more practical option for schools.

There are plenty of schemes and options available to reduce costs and free up budget for more innovative and exciting tech, but it’s important to get the balance right. Now that the cost of mobile devices is reducing with affordable devices such as Chromebooks, it is more acceptable to encourage students to provide their own devices and adopt BYOD schemes. In addition to this, vendors such as Microsoft offer a vast amount of special purchasing arrangements for schools, which can be utilised to maximise the volume of technology purchased.

‘How can you justify spending a year’s budget on new virtual reality systems when there are still not enough computers to go around?’

A key point when trying to invest wisely is to implement solutions that are tailored to your school’s individual needs. Don’t choose a vendor because other schools have, but make surethat new technology is compatible with the school’s established technologies. Select products that offer optimal performance as well as being budget-friendly.

A well thought-out IT strategy is crucial, and schools must make sure they’re adopting a forward-looking approach to guarantee that new technology purchases offer real value for money and make learning as productive as possible. Ensure new solutions are scalable and have room for expansion, or costs could simply spiral in the long term.

Another factor to consider is the importance of making the right connections. Selecting the right integration partner – and there are many to choose from – is key to a successful outcome ; what is imperative is that you select a partner with a proven track record within education. They should offer experience in solving similar problems to the ones you are experiencing and make wise decisions that best suit your requirements and budget.

Finally, choose a partner that is agile, that will modify its approach and adapt to the school’s changes in circumstance to ensure it delivers the required solution.

Many projects deliver challenges along

the way but the secret is to work with a partner that can help you overcome these challenges without extensive delays or a sudden inflated cost.

There are many schools that invest wisely, but there are also a number that risk their budget on the latest trends. It’s easy to see why: schools are increasingly competing for students and sometimes believe that investing in the newest, flashiest technology is the way to succeed. In reality, investing in technology wisely on a budget, and keeping up to date with the latest technology trends are two separate issues – it’s crucial that schools strike the right balance.

First and foremost, schools must prioritise deploying technology that the staff and students need.

It is crucial that they actually use technology that supports their teaching and learning requirements as seamlessly as possible.

Rupert Mills is managing director at Krome Technologies. www.krome.co.uk November 2016

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OPINION

ASHOK VASWANI Without technology playing a key role in education, does the UK curriculum risk being made obsolete in today’s digital world?

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oth teachers and parents are regularly tasked with an all-too familiar battle to get kids to put down their smartphones and engage with the curriculum. But could smartphones and gadgets be the solution to preparing our children for the skills and workplaces of the future?

Today’s children are digital natives; with the average household owning 7.4 internet devices [YouGov 2015], they have grown up watching their favourite shows online rather than on television, and speaking to their friends on social media rather than in the playground.

But without a concerted effort to teach and develop digital skills in primary and secondary education, we risk creating a generation of ‘digital consumers’ rather than ‘digital creators’.

‘Digital confidence is a continuum; it doesn’t stop after a single training course or certificate’ The Barclays Digital Development Index – a study of current levels of digital skills and confidence – reveals some inconsistencies when it comes to engagement with digital; while

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the UK tops the list of nations for digital technologies in schools, we drop to fourth place for digital skills teaching in compulsory education, trailing behind Estonia, South Korea and Sweden.

Many UK schools are well equipped with digital technology, boasting desktops, tablets, gadgets and software to teach ICT and coding; and our digital skills curriculum also comes out well, with the UK placing in second overall in the study. However, it appears the lack of teachers qualified to teach digital skills is where the UK is falling behind. Our research shows a significant shortfall in computing teachers with a relevant degree, which may be in part why so few UK pupils go on to pursue computing and IT subjects.

Exam results are a stark indicator of students’ confidence and ability in subjects. Following this year’s GCSE results, it was encouraging to see the rise in students opting to take computing as a subject; entry numbers for this subject increased by a staggering 76.4%. This is a trend that seems to be continuing into students' A-level choices, with computing being the A-level with the biggest increase in entries since 2011.

However, despite clear enthusiasm among pupils to develop their digital skills, at GCSE level students results in ICT and computing continue to fall; the A*/A pass rate for this subject fell

by 0.1% in 2016 and has decreased the most out of any subject over the past six years. This is a clear indication that while our children are interested and willing to take up computing, they are not being supported enough to succeed or reach their skills potential in this space. And the UK lags at the bottom of the list for the number of computing students in tertiary education, contributing to the digital skills crisis and subsequent lack of qualified teachers in this space.

The focus going forward must be on fostering students’ interest in the tech sector, which is already strong, but ensuring their performance reflects their enthusiasm. We must help teachers to teach digital skills and develop the confidence necessary to match the already stellar investment in digital technologies in schools and take learning about digital to the next level.

We also need to make studying relevant computing courses truly appealing beyond compulsory education, and ensure students

are fully aware of what colleges, universities and other academic institutions can offer.

However, to ensure the UK workforce has the skills needed to compete on the global stage in future, we should go even further. Our research revealed that the UK came seventh out of 10 for vocational and workplace skills, with only 38% of UK workers interviewed for the study saying that their employer offers opportunities to develop their digital skills; this figure is considerably higher in India (67%), China and the US (both at 48% each).

Digital confidence is a continuum; it doesn’t stop after a single training course or certificate. Given the pace of change of technology, it is critical that these learning opportunities are available throughout our lives. Digital skills will define how successful and prosperous we are as a nation for decades to come and so, collectively, we must act now.

Ashok Vaswani is CEO at Barclays UK. www.barclays.co.uk

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INTERVIEW: HELEN WOLLASTON, WISE

CONNECTING TO THE MATRIX WISE is a campaign aimed at inspiring girls and women to study, choose and then build strong careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) areas. It aims to get another one million women working in the British STEM workforce. Helen Wollaston, CEO at WISE, speaks with Heather McLean about why WISE is concerned about women in these growing industries

What is the goal of the WISE Campaign, and why is this important?

Our goal is gender parity in the UK’s STEM workforce. This is important for women, for business and for the UK economy. Women with digital, science and engineering qualifications will earn more because these skills are in very high demand. We don’t want women to lose out on jobs with great pay and prospects.

But it’s not just about the money.

Just as important, perhaps more so, is that girls and women are free to find our niche in life. We want every girl to realise her potential, free from gender stereotypes.

A survey of women working as professional engineers came up with

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the amazing statistic that 98% found their job rewarding [Royal Academy of Engineering, Atkins, 2013]. Yet girls are still told engineering is not for them; we need to change perceptions about the kind of people who work in science, technology and engineering.

As well as being good for women, gender parity brings proven business benefits in terms of creativity, innovation and financial performance.

Currently only about one in five of those working in STEM occupations in the UK are women. Employers cannot find enough skilled people to fill the growing demand for technology and engineering roles. Those who want to improve their gender balance struggle to find female applicants. If

we can increase the pipeline of girls and young women choosing to study STEM subjects, it will help to fill skills shortages as well as bringing the business benefits of diverse teams to our STEM industries.

What are the biggest challenges we face today in terms of encouraging girls to pursue studies and careers in STEM areas?

The biggest challenge is the perception that these are more suitable subjects for boys. Girls are given direct and indirect messages that STEM subjects and STEM careers are not for people like them.

There is a big conflict between how most teenage girls identify

themselves and what they perceive to be the identity of someone who loves science and technology. These perceptions are deep-rooted and start very young. It will take a concerted effort across education, business, media and social media to free us from gender stereotypes associated with the world of work.

What can women contribute to STEM areas that men cannot, or do not?

This is a tricky question because there is an implicit assumption that men and women are wired differently, when in reality we are all individuals who bring different skills, knowledge and experiences to the workplace. The ideal is to attract and nurture diversity in its

INTERVIEW: HELEN WOLLASTON, WISE broadest sense, because diverse teams deliver the best results. Having women in a team improves the balance which in turn will lead to better decisions and better results, provided that the culture is an inclusive one that allows women to be themselves rather than having to be “one of the lads”.

Businesses with female customers like to involve women in the design, development and marketing of their products and services. Scientific research and invention needs women’s perspectives as well as men’s to make sure solutions take account of the whole population. Given the massive challenges we face in today’s world we cannot afford to ignore the contributions of half the population.

What has been WISE’s biggest achievement to date?

In recent years, WISE has changed the narrative about women in science, engineering and technology from being a ‘women’s issue’ to a business imperative. We engage at chief executive and chairman level with bluechip, global companies as a credible and valued partner.

WISE is one of a handful of Community Interest Companies in the UK to have built a sustainable business model, independent of any government or charitable funding. We have achieved this by developing an offer in partnership with corporate members and clients, 80% of whom are business and industry organisations. They help us to grow and we help them to reap the business benefits of a more gender-balanced team. As a social enterprise, we reinvest all our profits into the campaign to change perceptions and encourage more girls to choose STEM.

classroom and in the boardroom. Our classroom campaign, People Like Me, matches girls to role models with a similar personality type to them who are doing well in a science- or techrelated job.

Using a simple quiz, girls pick adjectives which best describe themselves; words like creative, organised, practical, curious. The adjectives they choose determine which of 12 types of scientist they are: explorer, regulator, developer, policy maker, etc.

They are given a list of jobs suitable for people of this type and examples of young women doing one of these jobs. With spinoff packs for digital, physics, natural oil and gas, electronics, and for a number of large employers such as Network Rail and Babcock International, this revolutionary approach to engage girls with STEM is proving a runaway success.

Our programme to improve gender balance in the workplace, right up to the boardroom, is the Ten Steps. Developed in partnership with STEM employers and with the Royal Academy of Engineering, these are ten practical steps employers can take to create an inclusive workplace culture.

‘There is a big conflict between how most teenage girls identify themselves and what they perceive to be the identity of someone who loves science and technology.

These perceptions are deep-rooted and start very young’

How is WISE pushing its goal forward?

Has it had to adapt to trends in any way over recent years?

We have two main programmes to improve gender balance in the

www.techandlearning.uk

Getting the culture right is essential because it enables women to do their best work and thrive; retention improves and women become more visible in management and leadership roles, right up to the boardroom. This in turn of

Celebrating the women of WISE course helps with the recruitment piece.

Launched in September 2014, 53 CEOs and chairmen have now signed up to the Ten Steps. WISE supports them to share and learn from each other, helping to accelerate the pace of change.

We are adapting our programmes to support changes in the external environment. The Apprenticeship Levy for example will have a big impact on larger employers. We are supporting them so they can attract and retain more women onto science, technology and engineering apprenticeships via a new toolkit, developed in partnership with the Institution of Civil Engineers and Semta.

We are also developing a new project to make it easier for women wanting to retrain or return to a career in STEM to access training and find placements, as a quicker solution for employers with roles to fill today than targeting schoolgirls.

The digital revolution has changed the way we engage with our stakeholders. Social media platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn provide access to a global audience. To reach girls and young women, we need to learn how to create content for the platforms they use. There are huge opportunities to scale up the reach and impact of the campaign through technology, but we need to make sure we keep ourselves up to date. I am delighted to welcome computer scientist Jo Hannaford to the WISE Board to help us in this space. Jo is a partner in the engineering division for Goldman Sachs.

What challenges have you come up against yourself in terms of being a woman in the workplace, and how have your experiences led you to now lead WISE? Being told that I was no good at maths held me back. If you want to be a manager and be able to operate at board level you have to be confident talking about numbers. It was not until I had to manage budgets that I realised I can actually add up. WISE gives me a platform to say to girls, and their parents and teachers, how important it is to show girls they can do maths.

On a more positive note, my mother was a doctor; very much a male-dominated profession in her generation. Her independence of spirit rubbed off on me, giving me the confidence and ambition to forge my own path, despite what other people might think or say. In her day, only 10% of those studying medicine were women. The fact that there are now more women than men going to medical school in Britain fills me with optimism about changing the gender balance in physical sciences, technology and engineering.

I have had the privilege to work with some amazingly strong women and men, who have pushed me outside my comfort zone, inspired and encouraged me to aim high. WISE is the perfect job for me because I am learning all the time and making a difference to something which is important to me. I want other girls and women to get the same opportunities I have had to find their perfect job. www.wisecampaign.org.uk November 2016

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FEATURE: GAMIFICATION A study by Oxford University found that schools using 3P Learning’s Mathletics saw substantially improved SATS maths results

TOYING WITH EDUCATION It was Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu – a man who spoke, it seems, entirely in quotable quotes – who said: “Tell me, and I forget.

Show me, and I remember. Involve me, and I understand.” Ian McMurray finds out how his thinking applies to gamification

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any, many, many years ago, at junior school, I was in St Patrick’s team. It could have been St George’s or St David’s or St Andrew’s, but the gods decreed that, for four years, my colour would be green.

Each of us earned team merit marks for good work and good deeds, and demerit marks for our imperfections. On sports day, the teams competed against each other. And, at assembly every morning, Miss Church would point at the board over the stage, which showed how the four teams were placed. I don’t think St Patrick’s were ever top.

Although we didn’t know it, we were among the early pioneers of gamification, being rewarded for achievement and encouraged to collaborate. In educational circles, gamification is now a much-discussed concept; but how should it be defined?

“Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing, for example rules of play, point scoring and competition with others, into non-game contexts,” says Tom O’Kill, account director, education, Dell UK. “Learning 12

November 2016

becomes a fun, interactive activity students can naturally engage with.”

“It’s about making subjects easier for students,” adds George Hammand-Hagan, founder of Studytracks, whose song lyric-based revision app has attracted over 35,000 users in only a few months. “Turning a topic into an engaging experience leads to greater concentration and makes information simpler to digest as a concept and ultimately retain and recollect.”

‘G Gamificationn iss not funndaamenntallly ab bouut turrniing le earnning into gam mes, butt itt’s abo out app plyiing thhe sciiennce e of motivaatio on to he elp sttude entts staay foccused d and motivvatted d’ Charrless Wile es, Zzzish h

Believes Dr Owen Barden, lecturer in disability and education, Liverpool Hope University: “Gamification is the application of the principles of games – usually video games – to formalised learning contexts. This might include elements of aesthetics, play and role play, problem-solving, competition, collaboration and exploration, and systems of reward and punishment.

So you might design a learning environment (which may or may not be digital), which replicates the look and feel of a game but has clearly defined educational intentions.”

NEAT ANALOGY Ed Cooke, co-founder of memory science company Memrise, uses a neat analogy: “The simplest example of gamification is sport at its most general,” he smiles. “Sports put narrative and structural form over pure exercise in a way that makes the exercise immensely more fun, social and engaging. I can’t jog for ten minutes, but I can sprint around a football field all day without noticing any discomfort at

KEY POINTS The principles of gamification are applicable across the educational spectrum – and even in business Gamification works through increasing engagement and motivation, and enables collaboration, to deliver positive learning outcomes Reward (and ‘punishment’), points scoring and competition are at the heart of gamification Not all students react well to gamification – some prefer more formal pedagogy. It should complement, rather than replace, traditional teaching methods Many educational establishments have successfully deployed gamification – but there are challenges all. The ‘gamification’ gives the exercise a relatable and motivating form.”

That’s what gamification is, then; but how does it work? “Gamification is not fundamentally about turning learning

FEATURE: GAMIFICATION

‘G Gamificcationn iss thhe app pliicattio on of the e princciplless off games – usuuallly viideo ogames – to o form malissed leaarnning g conttexxtss’ Dr Ow wen Barrden, Liv verrpo ooll Ho ope Univ verssitty into games, but it’s about applying the science of motivation to help students stay focused and motivated,” asserts Charles Wiles, CEO of learning apps company Zzish. “In fact, today’s leading games, whether it’s Candy Crush or Clash of Clans, use the science of motivation to keep players playing for longer. Setting and achieving small achievable and measurable goals and using social levers such as competition and collaboration are key drivers to motivation. These drivers are hard to apply in a normal school setting, but, when it comes to software, they become simple and natural features that drive usage, engagement and improvement.”

“Gamification does not simply imply creating a game,” says Jayne Warburton, CEO, Europe and Middle East of online learning company 3P Learning. “It means making education more fun and engaging, without diminishing or undermining pedagogical credibility. It helps learners gain motivation towards studying and because of the positive feedback, they get pushed forwards and become more interested and stimulated to learn.”

IMPORTANT METRIC “Engagement is the important metric for success in gamification,” she continues.

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“Gamification is about more than making boring subjects ‘fun’, though this is a common perception. It’s more accurate to say that gamification is about engagement.

It works largely by providing instant feedback, quickly rewarding even the smallest level of progress.

“We know – and teachers are constantly telling us – that gamebased digital resources boost learners’ motivation, and thereby their learning, by leveraging cognitive, emotional and social needs,” she concludes. “The narrative of a game helps achieve mastery in challenging academic tasks, simultaneously invoking emotions such as pride and frustration, while also allowing learners to test out new social identities that grant them academic kudos.”

Gamification, then, is about engagement and motivation; two key drivers of learning. It is, by the way, extensively used in business to achieve similar goals, which reinforces the case for gamification being applicable not just to younger children, but across the education spectrum, as Barden notes.

“It’s hard to say how widespread gamification is in schools but it does appear to be a growing trend,” he says.

“And it’s not just limited to schools; a growing number of university courses, for example, are employing elements of gamification because, done well, it motivates students and offers a welcome alternative to traditional, transmissive, lecture-based pedagogy.”

EMBRACING TECH For O’Kill, gamification is in many ways representative of the way in which educators are embracing technology to support and improve learning. “Schools across the UK are recognising the importance of adopting the right technology solutions today in preparation for the learning demands of tomorrow and beyond,” he states. “Although the process is still in its infancy, through our customers and partners in education, we are already seeing how growing trends in technology are beginning to shift traditional learning environments; from virtual and augmented reality and gamification, to the Internet of Things and connected devices.”

Studytracks is designed to aid revision, using the premise that you never really forget song lyrics

But, as Andy Goff, founder and MD of educational technology consultancy Interactive Opportunities, points out, it’s not necessarily only about technology; gamification is possible in other ways too. “I think that every teacher employs gamification in their teaching toolbox at some point or another,” he says. “It may be paper-based, or more commonly take the form of an app on a tablet. If you consider the increase in tablet devices, I would suggest that there is considerably more gamification going on now then there was five years ago.”

The most important question, of course, is whether gamification works.

Anecdotally, there is widespread belief that it does.

GENERATING BUZZ “There has been lots written about the subject and the studies are, so far, very positive,” notes Hammand-Hagan.

“It is certainly generating a buzz, and I believe it helps students become more engaged and enthused about learning, which will inevitably have a positive

impact on their attainment.”

Warburton, however, has proof. She describes a study, undertaken by Oxford University, in which 13,000 schools were asked to assess the impact of her company’s Mathletics game on Key Stage 2 SATS results in maths.

“The study concluded that schools that made regular use of Mathletics did significantly better on a range of measures, compared to schools that did not use it,” she explains. “More pupils made at least two levels of progress; more pupils achieved at least a level 4; and more pupils achieved a level 5 or 6.” A copy of the study is available at uk.mathletics.com/advantage/.

It seems, then, that gamification is being successful in delivering the outcomes it promises. What, though, are the challenges that arise, and the pitfalls that need to be avoided?

“For teachers, the hardest barrier is the effort to come up with the gaming element that is worth putting in front of the students,” believes Goff.

He adds: “If the gamification November 2016

13

FEATURE: GAMIFICATION

Primo Toys’ Cubetto is aimed at children as young as three component created is not of high enough calibre, then students will think that it is not worthy of their attention. They bring with them their consumer experiences, in which even the simplest of gaming apps has very high production values.

The challenge for the teacher is to identify what gamification platforms are available that are template-based, that they can quickly use, and that can create a compelling student experience.”

LEARNING STYLES “It is important for schools to realise that gamification does not appeal to every student,” points out O’Kill.

‘It is imp portaant fo or schhoo olss to o re ealise e thaat gam mifi ficaatiion n doess no ot app peal to eve eryy sttudennt’ Tom m O’K Killl, Dell UK

14

November 2016

“Instead, the focus should be on access to technology holistically, where the right technology for each unique task and each student’s unique learning style is taken into consideration.”

The theme is taken up by Filippo Yacob, co-founder and CEO of Primo Toys, whose Cubetto coding toy – which set a Kickstarter record, attracting $1.6 million of funding – is aimed at children aged three and up.

“Game-based learning is engaging, so when it comes to standard methods of teaching, some may find that students lack the concentration and attention needed,” he says. “It is crucial to get the balance right between traditional and game-based learning.”

“Introducing some kind of scoring or reward system has proved successful,” he continues, “acting as an incentive for children to reach outcomes. It’s also important that children understand the rules of the game, to avoid frustration and where necessary encourage proactive teamwork.”

Competition is an inherent facet of much gamification: pupils compete with themselves to improve scores; they compete within groups or within the class; and a growing trend enables competition beyond the classroom walls.

“Schools need to ensure that the content of the digital resource is pedagogically sound and offers clear educational value, while providing engaging and fun games for students,” adds Warburton. “It’s important that the learning environment can be personalised and offers a reward system to encourage ownership and motivation.”

RESULTS COUNT For Hammand-Hagan, it’s results that count: “Gamification has to be clearly defined in terms of outcome,” he says.

“Every app, resource and process new to the market needs to represent results or it’s just not worthwhile. I would look at it in reverse: ‘If we implemented this gamification process, what would our desired results be?’ Then, whatever we implemented would have to work to that desired result.”

Some flexibility in the definition of ‘result’, however, may be needed as Barden explains. “It’s very hard to measure the extent to which gamification improves learning outcomes, and its very nature means that it is about doing much more than meeting narrowly defined learning objectives,” he explains. “It is about providing opportunities for creative, critical and lateral thinking as well as teamwork and, most importantly, enjoyable learning.”

Yacob too sees how gamification can help address a wider variety of educational needs. “It contains a lot of promise,” he believes. “We’ve seen real eagerness to adopt products and methods that gamify learning in the UK schools Primo Toys works with, but we should and will do more. Our school system is based on grading; right or wrong, fail or pass. This can often prevent a child from developing in the areas he or she may be interested in, but may not be very good at to begin with. Understanding gamification is a step in the right direction.”

TECH-SAVVY STUDENTS Gamification is, then, a further example of how technology is

increasingly permeating the classroom and is another tool available to educators which, used well, has been demonstrated to improve learning outcomes. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, nor does it replace wellestablished teaching methods.

Yet Warburton points out: “With the UK schoolchildren of today being the first generation of ‘digital natives’ and with many classrooms equipping pupils one-to-one with tablet devices or running bring your own device schemes, it is inevitable that gamification will increasingly feature in e-learning too.”

The last word goes to Cooke, who sees clear value not only in gamification, but also in what it represents: “Education is ripe for innovation, and it definitely needs it,” he avers. “Teaching and learning need to be relevant to the next generation of students and teachers, and technology must be mobilised to make the process more efficient and engaging in order to curtail this critical decline. The good news is that tech is turning subjects like maths – an academic discipline often deemed, by children and adults alike, as one of the blandest necessary evils of the national curriculum – into something that is captivating.”

If only we’d had gamification back in the days of St Patrick’s, St David’s, St Andrew’s and St George’s. www.3plearning.com www.dell.co.uk www.hope.ac.uk www.io.uk.com www.memrise.com www.primotoys.com www.studytracks.education www.zzish.co

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FEATURE: SCHOOL MANAGEMENT Bluesky Education is saving teachers time at Lampton Secondary School

TAKING THE PRESSURE OFF KEY LEARNING POINTS Rapid, relentless advances in online management systems face schools with an annual dilemma: do they stick or twist? Richard Doughty takes a look at how technology is helping schools stay in control

M

ost UK schools now rely on a central management information system (MIS) to support key admin functions such as pupil attainment, performance tracking and assessment data storage, finance, attendance, timetabling and reporting.

But that only covers the basics.

To help pupils fulfil their potential, many schools seek additional, more specialised programmes that plug into or run alongside their MIS, and which receive, organise and analyse data on specific areas not covered 16

November 2016

centrally. This could include teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) and performance management, or specific pupil data that cannot be supplied by an MIS.

NEW, UPGRADE, BESPOKE So do schools need to buy new, upgrade, or produce their own bespoke programmes? And where do they begin looking in a marketplace swamped with differently labelled products often claiming similar functions?

Many primaries have been small enough to rely just on their MIS and avoid the cost and upheaval of additional programs; and some even devise their own bespoke programs to help interpret the basic MIS data on attendance, performance and assessments offered

by Capita’s SIMS school administration software, which is used in more than 80% of schools in England and Wales. However, with growing emphasis on more extensive data analysis and differentiated teaching, more primary schools are likely to seek out additional programs.

Schools should make sure they know exactly what they want from an add-on management system Staff costs take up to around 85% of school budgets, so it is logical to invest in CPD and performance management Using teacher profiles makes pay progression a smoother process, as teachers are expected to set their own goals A new breed of virtual learning environments (VLEs) can be used for much more than just creating and delivering learning materials Encouraging staff to use VLE tools in the same way as students can enable schools to get the most out of their CPD and performance management activities

FEATURE: SCHOOL MANAGEMENT Commonly labelled learning management systems (LMS) in the US, and virtual learning environments (VLE) in the UK, all system types overlap in certain functions, depending on how an individual school plans to use them. The lesson here is knowing your school’s exact needs to determine what additional software beyond your MIS will help you meet them.

Bluesky Education’s LMS focuses entirely on the needs of teachers, support staff and all other staff linked to teaching and learning. Staff costs take up to around 85% of school budgets, according to Bluesky Education founder Denise Inwood; she sees her company’s software as one way of redressing the balance between the energy put into pupil tracking and the lack of focus on building up the most important asset for improving pupil performance: teachers.

TIME SAVER Prior to using Bluesky’s LMS, Lampton Secondary School’s assistant head, Johnnie Pavey, says he was struggling to run a website he had created for his staff’s continuing professional learning and performance management. It was difficult to keep up with all the courses and sessions that individual staff members had attended, “and very timeconsuming as I was no expert. There was no support when I had backend problems and we were prone to a few mistakes,” he notes.

Buying into Bluesky’s online staff development and self-evaluation software changed all that around three years ago. Pavey now teaches during many of the hours a week he used to spend managing the website.

The west London teaching academy uses the Bluesky system to “monitor where everyone is from a leadership point of view, how people are teaching, the impact of training and the effectiveness of feedback”.

Bluesky’s Inwood says that, at the touch of a button, school leaders can pinpoint which teachers are strong in a subject or struggling, enabling the school to start pairing them up for coaching, and begin to identify internal experts among its own staff who could help run professional learning internally.

www.techandlearning.uk

CONNECTING TEACHERS The company’s software gives teachers the flexibility of building up an online profile that they can take with them whenever they change schools; they can also continue to use it to connect with other Bluesky teachers, whether their new school has Bluesky or not. “We have a lot of young staff recently out of university where online portfolios are how they have kept evidence of their progression,” Pavey points out.

The profile system also makes pay progression a smoother process as teachers are expected to set out their own goals. “It’s now easy for us to say what we expect a teacher to have achieved,” says Pavey. Staff can submit hard digital evidence held by the system, such as end-of-year overviews: teachers’ personal impact statements describing the targets they believe they have met, the reflection process they have followed and how they plan to improve further.

One of the holy grails for LMS and

VLE users is full integration with SIMS, a system that over the years has made great strides in recording and

‘The potential for online classrooms as opposed to physical classrooms is enormous.

We’ve actually had parents doing GCSEs alongside their daughter who, as a pregnant teenager, had missed out first time round’ Ric Belfield, Academy 21

SIMS to compare and contrast with Bluesky’s live data on teacher effectiveness, with the aim of much earlier intervention, enabling more pupils to fulfil their potential.

ONLINE LEARNING

analysing pupil progress data. Bluesky clients can, for instance, use a product called Groupcall Exporter to draw data from SIMS into other systems.

Now Inwood is looking forward to the day when, rather than drawing on data retrospectively, schools can draw out live data on pupil performance from

School management systems also have a remit that can stretch way beyond traditional schools: online learning. Founded in 2011, Academy 21 is a pioneering online school for pupils who cannot attend normal school for medical reasons, including anxiety and pregnancy, or are on the edge of exclusion. “We often receive young people who get to year 11 and become too disruptive in class so they are placed with us and we take them through to GCSEs to get them a grade,” says

Knowing your school’s exact needs will help you determine what additional software beyond your MIS will help you meet them

November 2016

17

FEATURE: SCHOOL MANAGEMENT managing director Ric Belfield.

The school has developed its own LMS, undertaking live teaching of class sizes up to 15 using the online Collaborate classroom package from Blackboard, provider of further and higher education VLEs. According to Belfield, Academy21’s system backs up everything, including attendance registers, schemes of work, a timetable for each of its 600 students across the country and some 23 teachers, and an extension activity with every lesson. Work is delivered via the LMS and marked online. Reports on the performance of all young people in lessons and on their homework activities are accessible to mentors, teachers and students. Teacher performance management is covered off in a separate system.

For pupil assessment the school uses AlfieCloud software, which delivers tests onscreen and frees up staff to do more teaching. “We do an initial baseline assessment for the core subjects of maths, English and science, which gives us a flightpath to a student’s potential GCSE grade,” says Belfield.

Belfield suggests another way of easing pressure on existing mainstream school and further education college provision is to move maths and English GCSE re-sit classes online, using twilight timeslots and thus not detracting from a school or college’s normal day.

Academy21 is running a pilot project on GCSE re-sits. Government insistence that people continue to re-sit maths and English until they achieve at least grade C up until their 18th birthday is a big distraction for schools and colleges in year 12, the first year of A-levels.

Teachers are currently totally geared up to getting the main GCSE year 11 right, and then switch wholesale to A-levels the year after.

“We’re growing at 30% to 40% a year,” adds Belfield. “The potential for online classrooms as opposed to physical classrooms is enormous. We’ve actually had parents doing GCSEs alongside their daughter who, as a pregnant teenager, had missed out first time round.”

FAST CHANGES How any system is perceived depends on how it is used in school. Online learning space provider Canvas runs parallel 18

November 2016

with a school’s MIS and can be used for much more than just creating and delivering learning materials.

“The core main job people want from us is the ability for all the admin data [collected by the MIS] to come into Canvas,” says Sam Blyth, Canvas’s director of further education and schools, Europe.

“And that is what it can do.”

Rooks Heath College, a secondary school in Harrow, Middlesex, felt it was using its original VLE as a glorified document store and not as it should. Last year, it installed Canvas, which ticked all the boxes according to Craig Ring, head of Canvas at the college and a music teacher.

Changes have come fast at Rooks Heath College. For example, time spent lesson planning and marking was slashed, says Ring. “I halved the time spent marking all the GCSE music coursework.

It often used to take the whole of the Easter holidays!” Traffic light grading systems now help students get much quicker feedback, and the college sets targets for students who can see exactly what they need to do to succeed.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT And it’s here that the assessment features of VLEs such as Canvas can also be used for teachers’ own CPD and performance management. The college was determined to get the best out of its new system and that meant serious staff training.

Ring’s solution was to get teachers to become students: “The best way to do that was through performance appraisal, so we got all the staff to write up paperwork and then submit it through Canvas as if they were students.”

The school adopted a peer review strategy with teachers reviewing each other’s paperwork to prove the system.

Meetings are then held with individuals to compare their performance with the standards set in a rubric, mimicking how pupils work with Canvas. It shows teachers which areas they need to work at, it gives senior colleagues an overview of how every teacher in the school is performing and informs the next step: planning suitable CPD courses according to need.

“The CPD courses have been fun,” says Ring. “We’ve created a badge system; it’s almost like an online certificate. When teachers complete any course they

if you have a behavioural issue or a question about something happening next day, you have a built-in chat-anddiscuss feature to communicate and collaborate with your peers.”

PERFORMANCE TRACKER

‘ t the A e to ouch of a butt tto on, schoo ol le ead derrs cann pinp poinnt whichh teaachhers are strronng in a sub bjecct or struugg glinng, enaabling g the schoo ol to staartt pairiing them up forr co oacchiing, and beg gin to ide entifyy intternal exp perrts am monng itss own staff ff who o couuld hellp runn profe esssionnal leaarnning g innterrnallyy’ Deniise In nwood, Blu uessky y Edu ucatio on choose to attend, they receive a badge that is placed on their chart and they can track their CPD. If they move between schools they can export all their badges.”

Canvas lends itself to CPD, according to Blyth. “It’s about assessment and self-directed learning. You have a framework of tools that work together to enable a department, a school or a multiple academy trust to run CPD in the same way as you would run a sixth form or reception class.

She says online discussions are a particularly strong area in Canvas: “Teachers love talking peer to peer;

Finally, we touch on Capita’s MIS system, SIMS, as a popular example among several MISs used by UK schools. “An MIS provides schools with information to make informed decisions,” says Capita’s Simon Smith. In other words, it supplies the raw material that in many cases gives a clue to how specific cohorts of students – and maybe teachers – are performing.

SIMS offers various add-on programmes, including Assessment Manager 7, an analysis tool that identifies vulnerable groups, such as students not on track or otherwise disadvantaged. Teachers can then make interventions, record them in the system, track the problem and, if necessary, try something different.

It also offers a range of assessment tools to help record staff performance targets and individual staff observations as part of teachers’ own professional development. The data, accessible to both teachers and school leaders, helps determine the sort of support that teachers may need from line managers to achieve their learning objectives.

At Harvey Road Primary School, Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, headteacher Nick Rowlands has devised his own Excel spreadsheetbased program that does all the calculations to analyse SIMS data still further. “The extra data I get is all about ensuring I understand exactly what is happening in our children in school,” says Rowlands. “If I just streamed it off the system, I wouldn’t know what was beneath it and I’d just get the headlines.

I like the level of information where I am starting from scratch and then working from that point.”

It seems that school management systems can do much to highlight strengths and weaknesses of teaching staff, and to improve school life for all. www.academy21.co.uk www.alfiecloud.com www.blueskyeducation.co.uk www.canvasvle.co.uk www.capita-sims.co.uk

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HOW TO: USE E-BOOKS

BOOSTING LEARNING IN UNIVERSITIES

E-textbooks provide exciting content that paper books cannot, at Plymouth University

Despite conflicting reports about the health of the wider e-book market worldwide, e-textbook technology is making inroads into the academic world. Monica Heck looks into how e-books are revolutionising higher education

A

recent study by the University of Central Florida (UCF) revealed that not only had usage of e-textbooks increased, but it had broadened its demographic reach, with students increasingly attracted by the lower cost and convenience.

The affordability of books in general is an ongoing concern for universities such as UCF, whose study revealed that textbook prices increased by 82% in the decade leading up to 2012. This has led to students delaying or avoiding the purchase of core texts that are key to their academic success.

On this side of the pond, Plymouth University piloted a scheme in the school of psychology with digital textbook provider VitalSource in 2011, before making over 30,000 e-textbooks available for free to students in 2014. Last year, over 16,000 e-textbooks were distributed for Plymouth University.

“This initiative is driven by the desire to give students fair access to core texts independently to income,” explains Dr Phil Gee, associate head for teaching and learning at the school of psychology and manager of the e-books project at Plymouth University. “As a lecturer, I was aware that my students’ chance of doing well is dependent on having access to good texts. Our research showed that a median student buys three books on 20

November 2016

average and 30% of students in the first year don’t buy any books at all.”

demonstrates that we value them as students and are doing what we can to help them.”

DRIVING E-BOOKS Competition within the higher education sphere is another driver of e-book tech.

This is one of the reasons why Middlesex University is offering all of its students a free e-textbook for each module they are studying, following a tender process that was won by John Smith’s and Kortext.

The university estimates that by providing access to core textbooks in this way, students will save an estimated £450 over the course of a three-year degree programme. Over 30,000 free e-textbooks were handed to students during the university welcome week this September, with 20,000 more earmarked for returning students.

“Students are paying a lot more for their education and are expecting greater value for money,” explains Matthew Lawson, head of library and learning enhancement and deputy director of library and student support at Middlesex University. “The deregulation of the market means there is more competition in London. Offering something free is a good enticement for students to look at us, but the fact that we are giving them something that is going to contribute significantly towards their experience and help them succeed hopefully

CHARGING AND STORAGE Embed the use of e-textbooks in lecture halls and classrooms by examining the charging and storage requirements associated with the use of virtual books, particularly in environments where reading devices are handed out in the classroom.

An array of USB devices can be stored and charged in devices such as Gratnells Powertrolley, which can move between classrooms and charge up to 30 devices at once. www.gratnells.com

LEARNING SUPPORT An e-textbook approach not only provides mobile-savvy students with convenient access to materials in a format that is familiar to them, but also offers additional learning support such as online communication between students, the easy migration and exporting of cited content and tables between platforms, and additional interactive features to make the content more vibrant.

From a teaching perspective, the learning analytics tools attached to these platforms offer an opportunity to understand how students are engaging with various materials and to protect a

university’s investment in its students, both intellectual and financial.

“The key here is to help students who may be struggling with the core concept, who may have taken out loans only to end up dropping out threequarters of the way through their first year unbeknown to the university,” explains James Gray, CEO and founder of Kortext. “The cost of [a drop-out] is upwards of £30,000 for an institution.”

ENGAGING LECTURERS The roll-out of such technology poses some challenges of course, with lecturer engagement emerging as one of the most important keys to success, not only during the scoping and preparations phases but once the technology is in place. “You have to provide adequate faculty training; faculty use of the platform is key and if faculty are left out, the programme will struggle,” says William Chesser, vice president of international sales at VitalSource.

“There are cost barriers still and I think the publishing industry needs to do something about that to ensure this happens more widely,” concludes Gee. www.johnsmith.co.uk www.kortext.com www.mdx.ac.uk www.plymouth.ac.uk www.vitalsource.com

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TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE: VOTING SYSTEMS

VOTING FOR ENGAGEMENT How do you tell if your students are paying attention in lessons? How can you spot those who are excelling and those who are struggling, and push them further or help them? Voting systems are the answer. Take a look at Tech&LearningUK’s top picks...

TURNINGPOINT Turning Technologies’ response solution, TurningPoint, changes presentations into interactive and engaging material. Educators are able to use PowerPoint presentations, interactively poll students over the top of any application, or deliver selfpaced surveys, evaluations and tests.

Designed to enhance teaching and learning outcomes, TurningPoint enables educators to gauge student progress in real time, utilising a range of handsets and mobile devices combined with TurningPoint polling software.

From small teaching rooms to full-size lecture theatres, educators can use TurningPoint to gather data on every student’s understanding throughout the learning process, and even use it to ask for student opinions

on important issues. The core functionality allows instructors to pose a question to students and for students to respond with ResponseCard keypads or web-enabled mobile devices.

Turning Technologies has delivered over 20 million ResponseCard keypads to more than 100 countries. In the UK, TurningPoint is used by the University of Surrey, Northumbria University, London School of Economics, King’s College London, Durham University, Exeter University, Oxford University and many more, Also, TurningPoint’s comparison slides allow the facilitator to take an initial poll of a multiple-choice question, before the students discuss the question among themselves in

small groups. The question is repolled and the results are graphically compared to determine whether more students have been steered towards the correct answer as a result of the intervening discussion.

A creative alternative is to make comparison slides the centrepiece of an opinion-based discussion, using a five-point Likert scale slide that auto-calculates the mean response for easy analysis. The results of the initial poll may even set the agenda for

subsequent discussion.

Dr Chris Wiley at the University of Surrey prepares arguments both for and against the proposition, to see if he can sway class opinion in the other direction by the time they reach the comparison slide. As with peer instruction, this opinion-based approach means that an entire classroom session can be built around just one or two carefully formulated slide questions. www.turningtechnologies.co.uk

POLL EVERYWHERE Poll Everywhere brings learning activities to PowerPoint, Google Slides and Keynote. It uses students’ mobile phones to collect responses via text

22

November 2016

message or web. Responses appear instantly in the slide.

Charts move, word clouds grow and clickable images populate as students

watch. It can also be used directly from the web, without a presentation platform. Set-up takes less than a minute, and accounts are free for classes of 40 students at a time.

Premium accounts include extras such as gradebook reports and student registration.

Poll Everywhere helps to make formative assessment instantaneous, and class participation faster, more inclusive and more focused. It also aids in removing barriers for introverts and second language speakers, who may feel reluctant to speak aloud; it ensures that pressing questions get answered before anyone falls behind.

Educators use the system to tailor their lessons on the fly, peppering content with multiple-choice quizzes to gauge understanding, or with

open response questions to ease discussion. Gabriel Grant, a Yale PhD candidate, uses Poll Everywhere to train students to improve conversations about topics like sustainability, sexuality and social justice. Students feel comfortable about being brutally honest, first in the poll responses, and then out loud as well. He calls the phenomenon “snowballing vulnerability”.

Meanwhile, Jeff Solheim, an instructor in emergency medicine, uses Poll Everywhere to simulate lifeor-death decisions. He shows medical students a video of an injury taking place, then lets them decide what to ask or do next via a multiple choice poll. The imaginary patient might go home or end up at the mortuary! www.polleverywhere.com

TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE: VOTING SYSTEMS MEETOO Downloadable onto any smartphone or accessible via the web, the Meetoo app involves students with realtime polling, Q&As and discussions.

Meetoo is designed to energise lectures, seminars and classes, encourage interaction and ensure students stay engaged. It is designed to be used by lecturers and teachers in further and higher education using the communications tool students feel most comfortable with: their mobile phone.

The app enables lecturers and teachers to create polls in seconds and publish them to students who can vote immediately and watch as the results arrive in real time. Meetoo gives moderators the chance to screen questions and comments, keeping

the lecture or class on track and the conversation flowing, while the system captures stats and feedback after the session for future use – everything from attendance and poll results to messages and comments.

A PowerPoint add-in enables the creation of polls and their results within a PowerPoint presentation. Also available is a Q&A platform: this can be used by students remotely as well as those attending the lecture or class.

Every student has the chance to get involved, sharing ideas, comments and giving feedback, either from their smartphone or online. Meetoo also gives the option of anonymity, enabling less confident students to take part and everyone to have a say, not just the loudest in the room.

www.techandlearning.uk

of Central Lancashire were asked to compare a lecture using Meetoo and one without, 88% said that using Meetoo meant they were more engaged with the topic. www.meetoo.com

CLIKAPAD

SOCRATIVE Socrative is a web-based response system designed to help teachers engage and assess their students with educational activities on laptops, smartphones and tablets. Through the use of real-time questioning, instant result aggregation and visualisation, teachers can accurately gauge the whole class’ current level of understanding.

Formative assessment activities can either be teacher-paced, for use during a classroom discussion, or student-paced for use as a more traditional class-end ‘exit ticket’ or quiz. Socrative also includes a gaming element called Space Race where teams of students can safely compete against one another to launch rockets into space. Results can be displayed

The app is already being used for real-time polling and question-andanswer sessions at the universities of Chester, Central Lancashire, Southampton, Bedfordshire and more.

When students at the University

live in the classroom to facilitate discussion with student identity kept anonymous, or reviewed in a variety of reporting formats. Teachers are then able to make informed decisions about how to best use the subsequent minutes of class.

By saving teachers time, Socrative allows educators to focus on teaching, instead of grading and assessment delivery. In the background, Socrative tracks individual student performance to provide longitudinal data to further aid teachers, students, parents and administrators to personalise learning.

Socrative currently has 2.3 million registered educators across over 170 countries and has captured more than 1.5 billion student responses. www.socrative.com

Clikapad technology works as part of an academic environment, and can be used in many ways to enhance teaching, assessment and feedback on what is being taught. The classroom response systems are often used as part of a continuous education programme to increase engagement with the course material, to enable the course leader to perform quickfire quizzes to test the students’ knowledge, and to collect feedback on the teaching methods and course content. Knowledge retention is enhanced by the sense of active participation with the response systems.

To make sure everyone is fully engaged with the material and understands what they are being taught, the teacher or professor can present questions to the students throughout the lesson or lecture.

Instead of the classic awkward silence, everyone gets the chance to respond to the question electronically, giving the teacher a more representative view of how well people understand the material.

The Clikapad classroom response system is also an easy way to collect feedback at the end of a module or course. While not everyone will feel

comfortable speaking up to voice their concerns personally, Clikapad gives everyone the chance to have their say anonymously, and the results are collated immediately so educators can address any concerns. For example, sensitive questions about whether students liked a teaching style will be answered honestly, with far more responses than requesting spoken or written feedback.

The system is portable, so it can be used throughout a learning establishment, and it can be used flexibly to fit into any teaching programme. www.clikapad.com November 2016

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TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE: VOTING SYSTEMS CLASSFLOW Developed by Promethean, ClassFlow is free collaborative learning software that simplifies the way teachers discover, create, deliver and assess interactive learning. As a cloud-based and device-agnostic system, ClassFlow can be used to connect any front-ofclass display device with any student handheld device, supporting schools with bring your own device and 1:1 learning strategies in place. This means schools can benefit from advanced assessment capabilities, supported by technology, without having to invest in additional hardware systems.

In relation to ClassFlow’s assessment

capabilities, instant polling and quizzing features make it easy for teachers to see what students know and where they need help. Teachers see a snapshot into every student’s thinking, the number of attempts to answer and length of time to answer, and can save all the responses and data.

Teachers can poll the whole class or send differentiated, levelled assessments to students to work through at their own pace. They can also gamify lessons with ClassFlow polls and quizzes.

ClassFlow also enables teachers to assess learning while promoting active

OMBEA RESPONSE Ombea is an audience response system that displays live feedback on people’s opinions and knowledge.

Ombea Response is a PowerPoint plug-in that adds voting interactivity to any presentation and offers a wide variety of question types, from simple multiple-choice to advanced comparison and demographic grouping tools.

Students have three options when it comes to voting: they can use the Ombea ResponsePad ‘clickers’; their own smartphones via the Ombea ResponseApp; or they can vote by SMS. Ombea claims no other voting technology supports the trio of clickers, SMS and smartphones at the same time.

Once the lecture is over, academics can upload student voting data to the Ombea Connect Cloud.

Now, academics and students alike

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November 2016

can monitor student progress and attendance over time.

Universities use Ombea with multiple teaching styles, from casual use in flipped classrooms to full peer instruction. Alongside this, universities are finding Ombea useful outside the academic setting, in areas such as anonymous employee engagement surveys, engagement in external conferences and National Student Survey feedback. This means that university facilities managers are able to generate an income from conference support, while the HR team is able to grow closer to the workforce, and future students benefit from improvements that stem from feedback surveys.

Ombea is in use in universities around the UK, such as Aberdeen, Coventry, Glasgow, and Newcastle. It also supports universities across the globe, from America through the Middle East to Australia.

On the practical side, Ombea is compatible with Microsoft Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10, and Microsoft Office versions from 2007 to 2016. www.ombea.com

student participation, and reward outstanding student performance with badges. Teachers can use ready-made badges or create their own.

To support assessment outside of the classroom, teachers can use

ClassFlow to send assignments and messages to students, with the students then submitting their assignments and any queries along the way using the ClassFlow platform. www.classflow.co.uk

SMART RESPONSE 2

Smart response 2 from Smart Technologies is part of the Smart Learning Suite 16.1 It has been designed to enable teachers to check student understanding of a lesson or a topic without disrupting the flow of a lesson.

Teachers are able to create assessments in minutes using either multiple-choice questions or a textbased answer, and deploy for students to respond to on a wide variety of platforms, for example desktops, laptops, tablets, phones and Chromebooks.

According to Smart, It is simple to deploy and use and it is a good way

to ensure student success, enabling educators to instantly see how well students have understood a lesson.

Teachers and lecturers can create a question set to complement a specific lesson in just a few minutes. Students can answer the questions on their devices, giving teachers an instant report in the form of a pie graph or word cloud, as well as the ability to export those results for future reference and use. Teachers are therefore able to instantly see how students are learning and their level of understanding of any given subject. www.education.smarttech.com

Connect with the key players from the professional audio industry Over 60% of ISE visitors are responsible for purchasing audio systems

The presence of professional audio at ISE represents a success story within the wider context of the show’s year-on-year growth. ISE is now the world’s largest AV systems integration show, with over 65,000 visitors participating. It is a key destination for those interested in the latest audio technologies, audio training and education opportunities.

Find out more: www.iseurope.org

Organised by

Integ gra ated Systtem ms Ev vents A joint venture partnership of

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SHOW NEWS: BETT 2017

BETTING ON MORE GAME CHANGERS The biggest show of the UK education calendar is gearing up for 2017 and more opportunities to learn and develop

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ett is returning to ExCeL London from 25 to 28 January 2017 with a fresh focus on game changers within education, looking at the people, products and organisations creating an impact on the way we teach and learn across the world.

With a history spanning over three decades, Bett is known for bringing together everyone with a passion for improving the future through education and showcasing the best the global education marketplace has to offer.

With programmes dedicated to policy and practice, governance, continued professional development, education technology, special educational needs, STEAM subjects, and creativity in education, Bett 2017 offers insight for everyone in the education sector, from teachers and school leaders to policymakers, suppliers and industry experts.

Since the last Bett show earlier this year, we have experienced a year of significant change within the education sector; issues such as academisation, governance, selective schooling, teacher retention and the outcome of the European Union referendum have been sources of lively debate. Bett 2017 will provide an arena for open and informed discussions about the future of education, and how each attendee can play a part in creating it.

BETT ARENA Bett offers an great opportunity for educators to receive free professional

Bett returns to London’s ExCeL once again for its 2017 edition

development. The Bett Arena will once again play host to inspirational speakers such as Sir Ken Robinson; Pi-Top, the build-it-yourself Raspberry Pi Laptop creators; learning games provider Lightneer; the Ministry of Science; Finland-based global research project HundrED; F1 in Schools; and digital leadership visionary Eric Sheninger.

When? 25-28 January 2017 Where? ExCeL London Time? Wed 25 Jan 10:00 - 18:00 Thu 26 Jan 10:00 - 18:00 Fri 27 Jan 10:00 - 18:00 Sat 28 Jan 10:00 - 15:00 global education landscape while also supporting the British economy.

BETT FUTURES Bett Futures, a platform designed to nurture start-up companies in the education sector, is returning to Bett in association with BESA after two successful years. Bett Futures celebrates brave thinking, innovative new products and education game changers. It was designed as a global platform for emerging learning solutions that would improve the lives of students everywhere. Bett Futures 2017 now looks set to shape the

STEAM VILLAGE Following its success in 2016, the STEAM Village will play host to a number of organisations supporting learning in the STEAM subjects. The Bett STEAM Village is an interactive space for teachers, students and parents to learn through exploration and play. It is a place for visitors to try out STEAM solutions and products while considering how they can be assimilated into the classroom to enhance education. Experts will be on hand to guide visitors through key STEAM topics, teaching methods, and new and emerging technologies.

CPD CONTENT

When we said ‘supporting learning in STEAM subjects’...

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The Higher Education Leaders Summit has been developed for 2017 to address some of the most significant challenges currently facing senior leaders across higher education.

Open to higher education leaders, this summit provides a valuable opportunity to hear about and discuss the latest

legislation updates, pedagogy and leadership strategies. The summit will offer the opportunity to learn from higher education peers from the UK and abroad, sharing practical insights into the teaching and learning experience at universities across the world.

Practitioner-led Learn Live seminars and workshops will address key issues in contemporary education, providing useful insight into the latest research, practices and policies affecting education worldwide.

Visitors will come away from these sessions with innovative teaching techniques that they can easily implement in their own classrooms.

The growing emphasis on school leadership will be addressed in the School Leaders Summit, which will explore the most significant challenges facing senior leadership teams and how they can be tackled. This summit will also provide an opportunity for school business managers and senior leaders to network and collaborate to come up with forward-thinking solutions to improve school leadership. www.bettshow.com

Save the Date IBC2017 Conference 14 – 18 September 2017 Exhibition 15 – 19 September 2017 RAI, Amsterdam

Where the entertainment, media and technology industry does business

IBC.org

SOLUTIONS: LEEDS COLLEGE OF MUSIC

WAXING LYRICAL ON AR Leeds College of Music’s production and e-learning teams developed an augmented reality app that takes education to new levels. The app superimposes information onto mixing desks and patchbays to support students learning to use these complicated pieces of equipment

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ugmented reality, also known as AR, is a hot topic in all industries right now, from automotive to fashion. Yet while it is being used for educational purposes within areas such as the medical sciences, it has not yet made strong inroads into creative areas of education.

However, Leeds College of Music (LCoM) has gone out of its way to make learning more intuitive, using AR for its ability to provide detailed information for students at the time, place and with the depth of detail demanded.

To help students learn to use the college’s mixing desks, LCoM had already developed an interactive learning manual using e-learning software Articulate Storyline. Prior to the development of the interactive manual, students had to use a PDF document user manual to understand the four Audient ASP8024 desks, with lessons taught using handson experience and the lecturer using a marker pen and whiteboard to help students visualise the signal flow in the 28

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studio. The interactive learning manual helped annotate this, with detailed pictures of the desks.

NEED FOR SUPPORT LCoM’s senior learning technologist, Ruth Clark, comments that providing support for learning to students was important: “Students have a two-hour lesson in the studio once a week, which is quite intense; there’s a lot of information about these big desks given to them; it’s like learning to drive a car, really. But students were forgetting what they had learned, even when they came in to practice, and had to spend a lot of time recapping in lessons.”

On the development of the interactive learning manual, Craig Golding, curriculum leader for music production and film music at LCoM, says: “We took pictures of the desk and used Articulate to piece them together so students could get the information they needed, embedding information from the manual into the

high-resolution digital pictures. That was stage one, which allowed us to create a learning resource and work tool that students could use and download on to their own devices and the iPads we allow them to book out.”

However, this way of supporting students who needed to practice using the desks between weekly lessons was still cumbersome, Golding recalls. “Articulate allowed us to go to the next stage of interaction and engagement after a PDF manual; even tech people are going to lose the will to live reading through a technical manual! But we wanted to provide a more engaging and interactive way for students to access this information about the desks, and to support their learning. We were trying to bring it into the world of 18-year-olds today; I thought we can do this better.”

AUGMENTED ANSWERS The answer seemed to be AR. Golding had seen the way car manufacturers

were using AR to, for instance, show customers with no mechanical knowledge where to put oil or water into the car engine, using their smartphone and an AR app. Golding notes: “I’d seen that a lot of car manufacturers had used AR to give people contextual information, even if they knew nothing, so I thought, why can’t we do that with a mixing desk?”

He went to Clark with his idea and she concurred it looked like the solution to the problem. Together they approached Jisc, and found Matt Ramirez, lead augmented and virtual reality developer at the organisation. They told him what they wanted to do; to bring AR into their music production studios to address the challenge of delivering 24-hour qualified technical support in a way that students can easily understand. And in 2014 the project began.

Golding says the level of detail the pair had to provide Ramirez with was significant, as he had no knowledge of the mixing desks, or how the

SOLUTIONS: LEEDS COLLEGE OF MUSIC Students align their iPads with the Audient desk to begin using the app

Virtual patch leads plug themselves into the patchbay hardware, with arrows showing the direction of signal flow

information needed to be taught. He says: “We had to provide [Ramirez] with a lot of information, including in what order the information should be presented, identifying learning pathways and learning trajectories, and working out how that would best be presented within the AR app. We had to work together closely.”

FACING CHALLENGES The team ran into a few challenges.

The sheer complexity of the desk was the key problem, followed by lighting and image recognition, with the latter two causing related issues.

The lighting problem was significant; Golding explains that lighting in studios is rarely great, and even within LCoM itself lighting between studios differs widely. This caused problems for the ability of the mobile devices being used for the AR app to pick up the object in front of them accurately.

The team had to choose between 2D or 3D object recognition to help

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the devices pick up the desk and its numerous details; 3D object definition was deemed the more appropriate and more reliable method.

When the app went into its first pilot in the academic year 2014-15 with three groups of students on the BA Hons Music Production course, image recognition again reared its head as an issue. Ramirez had developed an outline of the desk within the app that users had to ‘snap’ over the actual image of the desk on their device, so the app could lock on and work.

However, with students moving around the room all the time and trying to use the app from different angles, the outline was too specific and required too much accuracy to use.

Golding comments on the issue found in the pilot: “The app had to rescale, redraw and resize the superimposed coloured layers on top of the mixing desk from anywhere in the room, after students had locked in [using the outline], which should only take a couple

of seconds, but getting it to work in a robust way was difficult. One of the pillars of the project was that the app had to be quick and very easy to use, so the user experience is robust; it has to work first time, or if not, definitely second time.”

Ramirez went back to the drawing board and fixed the issue, and the AR app for the mixing desks went into use among students at LCoM in the academic year 2015-16 – however, only on the college’s own tablets that the students were able to book for use in the studios.

ANIMATING CABLES Students using the app in the pilot were asked for feedback, including what else they would like to see in the next stage of its development.

They came back with a request that the patchbays attached to each of the mixing desks also be included.

Golding recalls: “I said what would be cool would be to animate the cables to show where they need to go from and too, and also to show the signal flow of the audio. Matt was really enthusiastic.

He began development on that in 2015, using 2D image recognition, because the patchbays are flatter than the desks, and it all works.”

To use the AR app for patchbays, students have to let it know what studio they are using as it has been tailored for the specifics of each patchbay in each room. Being able to see the virtual patch leads plugging themselves into the hardware and the direction of the

signal flow being animated before the learners eyes is engaging, simple and informative, says Golding.

Meanwhile, while the patchbay part of the app was being developed, the mixing desk app ran into a problem; the Apple iOS 9 update. At that time the app was WiFi-dependent, but when all the iPads were updated the devices would not connect to the college’s WiFi, which halted the takeup of the app by students.

However, Ramirez was in the process of moving the app software, which was originally a channel in the Junaio AR browser from Metaio. Metaio was acquired by Apple in May 2015, which meant the app had to become a standalone creation. This move allowed it to operate mostly offline as a download.

The completed app encompassing both mixing desks and patchbays was released for use at LCoM for the latest academic year, 2016-17. Currently it is still only available on the college’s iPads. Golding notes: “Even though it isn’t in pilot anymore, it is still in background development.” The next stage is what to do with it next, he says, as while the college’s students will be able to use it for free, it obviously has commercial potential.

In the meantime, students are now able to learn and support themselves outside teaching hours, with the app enhancing content and providing cutting-edge engagement. www.audient.com www.jisc.ac.uk www.lcm.ac.uk November 2016

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SOLUTIONS: UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ESTATE MANAGEMENT

FROM PAPER TO DIGITAL Founded in 1919 as a correspondence university, the University College of Estate Management felt it was finally time to go fully online. In just 15 months it was able to deliver 75 modules totaling 15,000 learning hours to its students in 100 countries around the world

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ased in Reading, University College of Estate Management (UCEM) provides vocational and distance learning degree courses at foundation, graduate and masters levels, specialising in professionally accredited built environment provision. After nearly 100 years of existence, UCEM achieved its taught degree-awarding powers in 2013, which provided the opportunity for it to develop its own academic offering, create a new curriculum and redefine its vision and core purpose: providing accessible, relevant and cost-effective education.

The key to achieving that core purpose was to go 100% online, and move away from its existing offer: this was largely print-based, with PDFs available on UCEM’s virtual learning environment, along with some forums and limited multimedia. At that time, course content was dispatched by mail to over 3,000 students in over 100 countries, and internal processes used hard-copy study materials sent around the building in plastic wallets.

EMBRACING ONLINE This had to change, says Lynne Downey, head of online learning at UCEM. “A new principal came in three years ago, and technology was at the point where it would allow us to embrace the online world. We wanted to be fully online. We have a very mixed student cohort, so whatever we built had to be relevant to all those students, all over the world.”

To top off the tall order, the university’s new principal and CEO, Ashley Wheaton, added in a tight timeline for the project. The aim was to deliver 75 modules (15,000 learning hours) in 30

November 2016

15 months, well before the university’s centenary in 2019. The implementation started in January 2014 and the project was completed in March 2015.

Wheaton says: “It was the project I was told couldn’t be done, even in four or five years. The team achieved it in 15 months.”

Critical to ensuring the university college’s strategic success was updating and improving the content and delivery of its courses. It was vital for UCEM that the curriculum was flexible for students, but also that the learning material was produced in a consistent and efficient way to allow for repurpose and reuse.

Therefore key to revitalising the course content was establishing a strong core online learning team.

PULLING TOGETHER A project team was established with internal and contractor staff, including a programme manager, a project manager, project co-ordinators, instructional designers and a graphic designer. In order to complete such an ambitious project, the team expanded to include additional designers and editors and worked closely with a large number of internal and external tutors. Over 80 people were involved in the project over the 15 months.

A learning blueprint was established to promote innovative, flexible and consistent delivery, using case studies, examples and scenarios to help to build a lively and relevant dialogue with students. As well as learning new software packages, the project team worked on new processes to ensure consistency across materials. New patterns of working involved instructional designers and content developers

working with tutors from the start to carefully plan and execute modules and develop guidelines to create new materials or rework existing materials.

First of all, in contrast to the old paper-based offering, a production environment was implemented with Microsoft SharePoint for workflow processes. Different tools were then introduced to develop engaging learning material including VideoScribe, Microsoft PowerPoint, Articulate Storyline, Captivate and Camtasia.

Learning resources now encompass everything from HD video, e-books, podcasts, Moodle quizzes and webinars.

A variety of technologies are used to deliver teaching, accessed from UCEM’s Moodle virtual learning environment; these include Vimeo, VitalSource Bookshelf, dawsonera, Padlet and Pathbrite. Materials are visually appealing for students while at the same time ensuring the focus is on pedagogy, not just aesthetics, adds Downey.

FULL FLEXIBILITY UCEM’s courses are now available 24/7 across all types of mobile devices as well as desktops. All study papers have been converted for use on e-book readers, webinars are offered at different times of the day to give everyone the best chance of attending, while tailored chatrooms are available for students to assess each other’s contributions, no matter where they are based.

The online platform is also valuable for gaining student feedback in order to enrich the learning experience and implement ways of building dialogue and engagement through an educational community.

Downey comments: “The feedback from students has been very positive and as of September 2016, we have got our first module with over 700 students on it. This has made us a much more independent institution, in control of our own destiny.” www.ucem.ac.uk

SOLUTIONS: UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH

IMPROVING PEER REVIEW

University of Portsmouth students stay on top of assessment with Teammates

Assessing group work and incorporating an element of peer review or evaluation can be a fraught process that can lead to friction. At the University of Portsmouth, Teammates is used to smooth assessment and evaluations

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aving university students work together in groups and then be assessed in assignments by peers is a common feature of many discipline areas. The School of Creative Technologies at the University of Portsmouth uses group work, followed by peer assessment and evaluation, regularly. However, both students and teachers found this paper-based, retrospective process time-consuming, and a source of potential hostility.

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW Peer review was commonly done by getting students to complete a paper questionnaire at the end of a project at the university. While this was useful, it was often not done well by students, and always retrospectively, so it was not possible to pick up problems met within the group work process until it was too late to resolve them.

Looking to improve upon the traditional method of peer review and evaluation used by groups of between three and 15 students was Rod Jeffcote, deputy head of the School of Creative Technologies. He comments: “The

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paper-based review system meant we had to distribute and then retrieve bits of paper from students. In the classroom, a lot were reluctant to fill in the reviews in front of their classmates, plus if some of them weren’t there when the paperwork was given out or needed to be handed in, they missed out.

“An online system would make peer review and evaluation part of the formal assessment process. The traditional peer review was always done at the very end of a project and students were asked to reflect back, whereas with a simple online system, you can do it at various points within a project and pick up any potential problems,” he states.

PROBLEMS ANSWERED After investigating a number of different softwares, the School of Creative Technologies chose to pilot the use of Teammates in the academic year 2014-15. Jeffcote says the advantages of Teammates for the School are that it is free; it has been developed by and for an academic environment at the National University of Singapore; and that it runs in and can synchronise with Google apps, as used by the School’s staff and students.

“Since the system was easy to set up we piloted Teammates on a class of 80 students split into 20 teams of four,” states Jeffcote. “As the students were working on a single year-long project we set up a review stage after just one month of the course starting.

This allowed us to see if there were any problems within groups that might need some intervention. A further review was set up for the mid-point and a final one just after project completion. In the final review we encouraged students to give positive feedback to other team members about the experience of working with them. We did not use the reviews for peer marking, only perceived effort and contribution, but the system will allow for this if you wish.”

The pilot proved successful. It was popular with students, it enabled staff to better monitor the groups, and reduced paperwork, says Jeffcote. He notes: “Teammates allows students to give feedback on their peers, is flexible enough for us to add in our own questions, and gives different levels of access and anonymity; online system anonymity helps students be a bit

more forthcoming at an earlier stage if they’re having any problems.”

EASY USAGE The software is flexible and easy to set up, Jeffcote says. Students’ names, email addresses and teams can be uploaded by a simple cut and paste from a spreadsheet. The program comes with a range of default questions but these can be amended or added to. It allows for varying degrees of visibility of responses: they may be seen by either the tutor only, the tutor and other group members, or everyone in the class. A final time-saving feature is that the system automatically emails students with a link to ask them to complete the review on a pre-determined date, and also sends out a reminder 24 hours before the session closes.

Teammates is now being used in a range of modules across the School.

Jeffcote concludes: “I would absolutely recommend Teammates. I haven’t seen anything that’s better, as well as being open source. It works very well for us.” www.port.ac.uk www.teammatesv4.appspot.com

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PRODUCT FOCUS

APPLE SWIFT PLAYGROUNDS A free iOS 10 app that is bringing real-world coding to the classroom

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wift Playgrounds bridges the gap between block-based coding like Scratch, to actual syntax coding, which is quite something,” enthuses Daniel Edwards, director of digital strategy at the Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge.

Speaking to Tech&LearningUK, he continues: “Swift Playgrounds is a powerful, intuitive programming language. We might move it down to Year Six, possibly even Year Five, certainly for the fundamentals, which is quite exciting; it would have to be scaffolded well, but our junior school teachers are looking at it, and they’re excited.”

Swift Playgrounds is a new iPad app from Apple that the manufacturer claimed can make learning to code easy and fun. With Swift Playgrounds, real coding concepts are brought to life with an interactive interface that allows students and beginners to explore working with Swift, an Apple programming language used by professional developers.

However, the app is approachable enough for students with no previous experience to begin exploring key coding concepts, but also powerful enough for skilled programmers to experiment and express their creativity.

The app features built-in templates that users can modify and build on to create their own programmes. They can share their creations using Mail or Messages or by posting to the web. And since Swift Playgrounds uses real Swift code, projects can be exported directly to Xcode and ultimately be turned into fully fledged iOS and Mac apps.

Edwards says the Stephen Perse Foundation is using Swift Playgrounds as part of its maths curriculum, using it for its ability to teach computational thinking, problem solving, plus creativity and collaboration.

“We expose children to many different types of coding, and Swift 32

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KEY FEATURES Bridges gap between block-based and syntax coding Powerful, intuitive programming language Based on real-world coding language Swift Students can publish apps to peers and to Apple Store Suitable for children with no coding experience Playgrounds has given us a very easy access point to visualise concepts as it’s a very easy-to-use 3D model,” says Edwards.

Swift Playgrounds also includes 45 hours of Apple-developed programming lessons that guide students through a series of challenges and puzzles to guide three on-screen characters through an immersive graphical world as they learn core coding concepts, like

WELL SUPPORTED Fraser Speirs, head of secondary at Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, near Glasgow in Scotland, is teaching Swift Playgrounds to first-year pupils at the school, aged 12 to 13 years old. He is excited by both the teaching guide and built-in lessons it comes with in books Learn to Code 1 and 2: “The teaching guide is very useful for teachers who cannot code themselves, who have no experience of it, but who have been told they have to teach coding. Also, I was wondering if we should produce more teaching materials ourselves, but the lessons are so good we don’t need to. We’re going to use the lesson material wholesale over this year. It’s very interesting the way Apple has written it; it gets hard very quickly, and the latter half is really quite challenging. We will finish these books and then next year I will get these students into more challenging, more real-world exercises.” issuing commands, creating functions, performing loops and using conditional code and variables. Apple has stated it will also regularly release new standalone challenges so users can continue learning new skills.

Additionally, the app includes teacher guides with presentations, which helps remove the stumbling block often encountered by staff of how to incorporate new technology and applications into lessons.

Because of the self-contained learning ability of the app, Edwards states that students are using it outside class hours.

“This is like the Minecraft generation; the students are getting involved in it, and using it in their own time.”

Swift Playgrounds is available on the App Store for free. The app is compatible with all iPad Air and iPad Pro models and iPad mini 2 and later running iOS 10. www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds

PRODUCT FOCUS

XIRRUS WI-FI INSPECTOR 2.0 A sophisticated yet easy-to-use tool for managing your WiFi network

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iFi is the lifeblood of existence to many today, including children. Analysis of artwork submitted for a UK-wide competition shows that children see WiFi as almost elemental; literally part of the landscape. Being able to control it and having continued access to it is of deep concern to children.

The Art of Technology competition was entered by kids of all ages. The artworks were then analysed by educational psychologist Dr Kairen Cullen to establish the effect that technology is having on children’s education, opinions, friendships and decisions. With life on- and offline blurring, as children no longer distinguish between them as ‘real’ or ‘unreal’ anymore according to the research, maintaining WiFi connectivity is vital at home, and in school.

Within schools, colleges and universities, IT staff and network managers are therefore faced with the vital task of making sure connectivity to the internet is constantly available, both hardwired and WiFi. With increasing pressure on WiFI networks to support the lessons being conducted across the establishment, as well as students demanding constant access, the pressure is on.

Aiding that process is Wi-Fi Inspector 2.0 from Xirrus. Used in education establishments across the world, Xirrus’ recently updated Wi-Fi Inspector 2.0 is a free download that quickly provides visibility into a school’s WiFi network. It provides administrators and students with a painless way to manage and troubleshoot WiFi networks at no cost, as well as enabling the management of the WiFi operation of laptops.

Martin Simpson, network manager at Aylesbury High School in Buckinghamshire, implemented Wi-Fi Inspector in August this year.

He says it was bought in to replace a

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KEY FEATURES Wi-Fi Inspector uses plug-and-play access points previous, six-year-old solution from a different vendor that did not have the functionality the school required in terms of flexibility and scalability.

Speaking to Tech&LearningUK, Simpson comments: “I spoke to a number of the main suppliers for this kind of product. In the end Xirrus won because of its competitive pricing and the fact that its cloud-based solution is very simple to use; plug-and-play access points, easy to upgrade, and plenty of scope for fine-tuning things.

Wi-Fi Inspector didn’t lack any features we were looking for.”

Wi-Fi Inspector 2.0 is available to users on devices running Windows or Mac OS, and supports the latest 802.11ac Wave 1 and Wave 2 standards.

It provides a useful tool for anyone deploying and operating WiFi. It can be used to search for WiFi networks, troubleshoot WiFi connectivity issues remotely and verify WiFi coverage and conduct a site survey. It can also detect and locate WiFi devices and access points including rogue, unauthorised

access points, verify and monitor network quality and performance and determine access point placement in network planning and expansion.

It features a dynamic radar view displaying local WiFi network names and relative distance, as well as a detailed information table of all local WiFi networks and display of laptop WiFi connection details and the most important network addresses.

Managers can make use of connection, quality and speed tests for troubleshooting WiFi network connections. They can also see realtime graphs of signal strength of one or more WiFi networks, with an eight-minute history, as well as put the system into locate mode for tracking WiFi network signal strength, including audible beep.

Additionally, Xirrus provides more network management software in the form of XMS Enterprise and Xirrus Application Control that together provide the support that schools like Aylesbury High need to connect

Cloud-based solution is simple to use Useful tool for deploying and operating WiFi Troubleshoot network issues remotely Use to detect and locate WiFi devices Plug-and-play access points students’ and teachers’ WiFi devices to the network, control usage and prioritise or block which applications can be accessed on the network.

Simpson states that Xirrus’ products together will be used to implement a bring your own device (BYOD) policy at the school.

Simpson concludes: “We are absolutely delighted with Wi-Fi Inspector. There have been very few teething problems, and when there were issues on our network, Xirrus has worked very quickly to help us resolve them. It’s really positive, I would definitely recommend it.” www.xirrus.com November 2016

33

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National University of Ireland – Galway

Track and monitor pupils’ progress on the go

Get priorities straight when choosing a uni

EES for Schools has released its Target Tracker app for iOS devices, an addition to its pupil progress and attainment software, Target Tracker. The app makes evidencing progress simple for teachers. They can create and upload pupil observations into Target Tracker while in the classroom or on the go. Observations and associated notes can then be accessed on the desktop version of Target Tracker and can be further amended or developed.

The Target Tracker software and app also supports teachers with Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) submissions. Using the app, teachers can capture photos and upload existing images straight to the software, so pupils’ work can be easily added to their profiles.

Teachers can assign formative assessments within the observation feature of the app against the EYFS and national curriculum.

Quality of teaching, teaching style and technology are the key factors current undergraduates advise sixth formers to consider when selecting their university choices, new research reveals.

The study from virtual learning environment provider, Canvas, spoke to sixth formers about factors influencing their choice of university, and undergraduates about what they find actually enhances their university experience.

While teaching quality (57%), location (50%) and campus facilities (46%) are sixth formers’ priorities, undergraduates say if choosing again they would decide based on teaching methods (47%), tech (34%), and quality of teaching (51%).

Sixth form students looking at uni’s expect tech to be integrated, with 59% saying a blend of traditional teaching and online learning is the approach that best suits their needs, with less than a fifth (19%) wanting traditional ‘chalk and talk’ lectures.

TOP TIPS Parents demand dedicated mobile apps Parents have stated that schools should invest in mobile app technology, as they want to receive instant notifications of important information like school closures, holidays and events.

Almost 80% of parents in the UK have said they would use a mobile app that gave them instant access to information about their child’s school, according to research.

The study conducted by digital agency, Web Foundry, revealed a rising expectation among parents that they should have access to updates about their child’s education on the go.

Of the 1,000 parents surveyed for the report, 70% said they wanted access to information about school holidays and 67% said it should be easier to find out about school events.

Meanwhile 66% said schools should send urgent notifications, such as if the school was closed for the day, while 56% wanted to be able to view their child’s school report online.

Asked how they preferred to access information online, almost a quarter of parents said they would use their mobile phone and 14% said they would be more likely to use a tablet.

EDITORIAL CALENDAR Coming up in Tech&Learning UK 2017 January 2017

September 2017

Features: Futurist - we take a look at the tech of the future that will be coming to your classroom and lecture theatre.

Which ecosystem? - choosing which ecosystem to take your school towards is a big decision. Windows, iOS or Android?

How to: Secure the network Technology Showcase: Touch displays Show preview: BETT and The Education Show

Features: Coding - we look at why and how coding is being taught progressively from primary to university and why it is important.

AR and VR - AR and VR and technologies that are edging their way into education.

We look at how, where and why.

How to: Create lesson content with tech Technology Showcase: Gamified learning Show review: EdTech/RM Event

April 2017

November 2017

Features: Inclusion - how tech is being used to help those with disabilities, English as a second language and SEN Robotics - how robotics technologies are being used in the classroom today, and how it will be used in the future.

How to: Make the most of mobile Technology Showcase: Lecture capture Show review: BETT

Features: Industry and education - how industry is being bought into educational institutions to improve job prospects.

Mobile apps - what, why and how are mobile apps being used to open up education, from primary to university.

How to: Use video tech well Technology Showcase: Projectors Show preview: BETT

Please send editorial submissions to heather@mclean-media.com

Remember – you can follow Tech&Learning UK on Twitter at @TechLearningUK and on the web at www.techandlearning.uk 34

November 2016

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