Education Innovation

Education Innovation The Bett Education Show 2016 Brings: New Ideas New Technology New Exhibits On 20-23th January at ExCel Arena, London

“I want out next generation to have the skills to compete in the global job market.�

Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP, Secretary of State for Education

Innovate to educate Welcome Message Now that 2016 is in full swing and underway, the Burning2Learn has set its sights for the new year on discovering what’s new in the world of education. What role do breakthrough technologies have in improving student engagement in learning? Is technology a tool for teachers or a replacement? Is the current curriculum preparing the next generation for life in modern Britain? Where better to immerse ourselves in all things new than at the Bett Show?

Keen to find out more, we headed to London on January 20th to explore the show.

Bett 2016 Expecting a triumphant 34,000 visitors from over 120 countries, Bett is the largest education event held in the UK. Every year Bett gives students, teachers, parents and educators the opportunity to experiment with the latest technology and to connect with peers from around the world. The show floor is always packed with industry experts and inspirational figures - and this year was no exception! On the first day alone, Bett welcomed keynote speaker Professor Sugata Mitra, a video message from Founder of the Khan Academy, Sal Khan and a Ministerial Address from the Secretary of State for Education, Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP.

Key Topics • EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES • COGNITIVE HEALTH • THOUGHTS OF LEADING

INNOVATORS IN EDUCATION

• MINISTERIAL ADDRESS • COLLABORATING FOR POSITIVE ACTION

“Comprehension, communication and computation are the new basic skills.”

- Professor Sugata Mitra

www.burning2learn.co.uk schools@burning2learn.co.uk

Emerging Technologies In Education Part of our reason for attending Bett this year was to learn more about the cutting edge technologies that are being developed right now for use in the classroom. Technology is sometimes a taboo subject for educators, as it can take people out of their comfort zones and can sometimes seem unnecessary. Many teachers attended Bett this year to find out more about what’s coming in and how effective it can be at enhancing learning experiences for young people.

Microsoft present new ideas and technologies live from Bett

iPad Band Comes to Bett!

In April 2013 Hove Park School launched a 1-1 iPad Learning Transformation Project for 1600 students. Since the introduction of this project, enjoyment in lessons, group learning, student behaviour, support from peers, attitude to learning, working independently, completion of homework and sharing work with parents have all improved.

The students gave Bett a taste of their talents as they performed an array of musical numbers from Adele, to Take That!

Find out more at www.bettshow.com

Google’s interaction wall at Bett 2016

Google’s VR Field Trips are coming to more schools every day in the UK In September 2015 Google launched a new Expeditions Pioneer Programme which was created to reimagine the meaning of field trips. Imagine visiting Singapore with your classmates and still having enough time left in the day to take a tour around Buckingham Palace.

Now featuring over 150 locations, the Google Expeditions let students experience 360 degree views and are becoming an extremely useful resource for learning in schools. Each headset is made from cardboard and an android phone, and are accompanied by a teacher operated tablet.

The Expeditions Pioneer Programme works with teachers and content partners to create each journey.

Emphasising the importance of finding a balance between teacher control and child control, Johnathon stated, “They’re not told everything, they can look at other places too.

It is a student-centred experience”.

Project Manager, Johnathon Rochell introduced Bett to ‘Google Expeditions’; a virtual reality experience that enables students to visit exciting and world renowned landmarks in an instant.

From the depths of the ocean to right out amongst the stars in space, these VR expeditions allow teachers to guide their students through interactive tours and learning experience of real life locations and points of interest.

These platforms are ‘extremely engaging for students’ and ‘very simple to use and easy to operate,’ he says Johnathon.

Most recently, the Pioneers team have added a ‘Great Barrier Reef’ expedition to the experience, which was created in collaboration with Sir David Attenborough.

Johnathon invited a group of year 3 students from Barclays Primary School onto the stage to demonstrate how easy it is for teachers to steer the students through the experience.

The audience were blown away by the detail and life-like experience that the students were having.

Google Expeditions is a great example of an emerging technology that can be brought to the classroom in a low cost and accessible way.

Microsoft roll out 1 million Micro:bits to 11 year olds Imagine having a pocket-size computer and being able to strap it to your wrist. That’s exactly what a Micro:bit is, and Microsoft have just announced their plans to give every 11 year old in the country access to one. Designed by the BBC for use in computer education, a Micro:bit is a programmable computer device that enables students to build anything from a robot to a musical instrument. You can even play rock paper scissors with it!

“It really sparks the imagination of what kids can do and build.”

Over 1 million Micro:bits will be given free to every 11 year old in UK schools this year. Developed in collaboration with 29 partners, this device has been created to inspire creativity and to encourage and develop a new generation of digital pioneers.

Minecraft Education Edition Microsoft’s Partner Village was on of the stand-out exhibits at this year’s show. Playing host to 13 Microsoft Partners, the village even welcomed visitors from Seattle who have built and coded some of their products.

Director of education for Microsoft, Steve Berwick announced their latest addition to the Minecraft gaming world, which is an Education Edition. Although the game does not come out for schools until the summer, the

education specific edition was on display at the show for teachers and students to have a go!

What’s new with this edition?

Steve explained how more educational features have been added to help teachers and to enable it to be used as a tool in learning.

“It’s not just about computing, we’ve got schools using Minecraft to teach Shakespeare.”

Management App Another useful tool for teachers that we came across was a Microsoft classroom management app that helps teachers to manage all the tablets in their class.

This app provides teachers with great insights into student performance in a very easy and efficient way. It measures which students spend the most time reading through materials, the number of times students have viewed various work documents and how well they have performed on each topic of work. In addition, the app also enables teachers to attain authentic 1-1 feedback of their students’ comprehension levels, whilst simultaneously avoiding any chances of embarrassment for slower learners. Each of these measurements are indicated privately to the teacher alone and stored in a secure and structured folder.

This app gives teachers full control over what goes on in their classroom and can even restrict access to certain apps or lock student devices until they are ready to be used again.

Students also gain from the app, as it provides an excellent learning space for collaboration and simple solutions for catching up on missed lesson via its audio and video recording features.

Brain Go Braingo puts an educational twist on a game that’s familiar to us all. It swaps random numbers for national curriculum content in a fully interactive and fun game of bingo. The game offers a unique audio-visual learning experience and gives teachers an extremely

easy and adaptable tool to use in the classroom.

Braingo is an active learning tool giving all students the chance to learn as well as having fun Choose from thousands of during game-play. The content questions, print out your tickets for has been written by teachers for the class and press play! The game teachers and can be used before, can be programmed to run itself during and after class as a booster and can be paused for discussions. session.

Cognitive Health My Cognition www.mycognition.com 15 minute cognitive assessment tool, MyCQ, measures the 5 main cognitive domains. MyCognition has carried out studies for three years and has now produced a video-based training programme that measures and trains student cognition.

MyCQ enables teachers, parents and mentors to develop the cognition of learners through engaging assessments that are personalised and inclusive to each user. The assessments identify individual strengths, as well as areas that need improvement.

Squizr.

Squizr’s online platform allows students to transform any learning content from any subject into an interactive quiz.

This platform makes game creation simple and can take just two minutes to create a quiz - it can even be done without coding. Learners can create, play and share educational minigames which develop understanding and enhance enthusiasm for learning. A tool like this may be a great way to explore teaching cognitive health, as it will introduce a new concept to students in an engaging and interesting way.

“Embedding Self-Directed strategies to promote lesson effectiveness and address the inspection concerns of OFSTED.�

- Best

Behaviours

www.bestbehaviours.co.uk

Visit www.burning2learn.co.uk for links to more events in 2016 Email us at schools@burning2learn.co.uk or give us a call via 01322 614 000

Many young people are unaware of the significance of cognitive health, and are limited in their access to tools that can help enhance their understanding of it. We came across several exhibitors who, through the use of technology, can enable learning about cognitive health in an engaging and informative way.

Apps that develop emotional intelligence Business Development and Marketing Manager, Paulina Olsson shared how Peppy Pals’ hope to improve society through the development of emotional intelligence. She believes that we all have a role to play in ensuring that young people develop their emotional intelligence from a young age. Paulina also added that, as children, we can learn these skills from as young as two years of age.

parents, colleagues and society, short years later they are about we all have a role to play”. to launch their fourth emotional intelligence based app.

How do we teach it?

Their current apps are being used By focusing on soft skills we can by teachers, schools and parents further young people’s understanding in Sweden and are proving a useful of empathy and improve society. tool for training learners. Feedback also highlighted that the apps are Why isn’t it being taught in very effective with SEN students, as they create very relaxed schools already? environments for students to “Over the last thirty years we’ve explore emotional intelligence. become less empathetic”, Paulina Why learn about emotional states. Quite often, people The Peppy Pals apps are available intelligence? are also put off by the costs of to download now and for more introducing something new on information visit peppypals.com Emotional intelligence is as natural a large scale. But to say it isn’t as walking or tying your shoe necessary does not make any laces for human beings. Having an sense to the creators of Peppy enhanced understanding of it gives Pals: young people a higher chance of better mental health, treating “It’s like saying that a child doesn’t others better and doing a better need to speak English because job in society on the whole. they speak with their parents at home.”

Who’s responsibility is it?

The team behind Peppy Pals Paulina pointed out that parents believe that social and emotional often seem to think it’s the teacher’s learning is something that should job to teach their children these be taught as commonly as maths skills; and that teachers think it’s or reading. In 2014 they released the parents’ job. Paulina’s response their first app, and only two was to say, “It’s all of us; teachers,

Thoughts of Leaders

“We know what the problems are. We know that schools are factories...”

Are Self-Organised Learning Environments the future of education?

Making his second appearance the 21st century is the time for were talking to each other and at Bett Professor Mitra shares the next and most advanced age working together in Self-Organised Learning Environments (SOLE). what 16 years of work seems of education in human history? to say about learning.

Throughout the history of education there have always been leaders and change-makers ahead of their time making influential contributions to the industry. From Aristotle to Einstein, to Bett Show royalty, Sir Ken Robinson, there are always innovators challenging the norm and thinking a little differently. This year’s opening key note speaker is no exception to the list of modern day innovators in education.

Education scientist Professor Sugata Mitra is attracting attention across the globe with his pioneering approach to learning that could revolutionise how schools and educationalists worldwide think about teaching. Could it be that

“We know what the problems are; Self-Organised we know that schools are factories Learning that try to produce people that are Environments exactly identical to each other.”

Sugata described this ‘factory’ school structure as being ‘obsolete’ as it is from another age. “I used to have to convince people of this”, he added, commenting that he no longer has.

Professor Mitra conducted a series of real-life experiments to explore what happens when you give groups of children self-supervised access to the Internet. The experiments first took place in New Delhi, India, and revealed that the groups of children were able to do ‘pretty complicated things by themselves’. The children

Sugata explained that there are three stages to SOLE in education; chaos, presentation and order.

Throughout each experiment, teachers have been equally as puzzled by how their students could go from chaos to order without any intervention from the outside. One additional feature that helps to encourage and motivate the groups of students is Sugata’s ‘Granny Cloud’. The Granny Cloud is the video presence of a friendly adult who admires their work and praises their achievements.

“Reading, writing and arithmetic are of newer and lower priority.”

- Professor Sugata Mitra

“If you put the SOLE and the cloud together you get a teacher-less, • self-organised learning environment that has the presence of an admiring adult.”

children to work in the old offices.”

Current education systems aren’t keeping up with life in modern day Britain. “Today I haven’t found a single country where the internet is allowed in the examination.”

What does this Students ask me, ‘Why is it that story tell us? the day of the examination is the • only day in my life when I don’t Groups of children in the presence have my phone with me?’ In life of the internet if left unsupervised we use it 24/7 and yet in education can learn almost anything by it doesn’t exist.” themselves? “What shall we do • with a result like that?”

Sugata emphasised the importance of more research going into These kinds of environments automated and continuous have produced children who are evaluations of open ended extremely good at problem solving questions. If you immerse children when clustered around the internet. into SOLE in a chaotic fashion searching for questions that have We are producing people for the no answers you get spontaneous needs of times gone by, not for the order. needs of today. “The system says ‘So what? We aren’t interested in “Teachers say ‘the internet is just that, we are interested in what a tool’. It’s not just a tool, it’s the they can do alone with pencil and biggest network we’ve ever had paper’. But I would say to them, • ‘why are you looking at that?’ If on the planet. It is the collective knowledge of 7 billion people and you look at an office from 100 years if we make that available to young ago, everything was done alone people it’ll change the meaning of and with a pen and paper... We learning.” are still training and preparing our

The future of pedagogy In Sugata’s view, “Reading, writing and arithmetic are of newer and lower priority”. He believes that, “Comprehension, communication and computation are the new basics”. As shocking as it was to tell a room full of teachers that maths and English are no longer a top priority, Sugata certainly got people talking and discussing the possibilities of what he was proposing.

“Arithmetic is no longer a fundamental skill, we have machines that can do that now... What we need to teach is how to compute an answer. That’s the world we live in today.”

He later added his view that the nature of assessment needs to change greatly. “It is irrelevant to provide direct factual information manually. The role of memory in education does not need emphasis, devices are playing that role.”

“I believe that the future of learning depends squarely on the future of assessment.”

Key Ideas from Professor Mitra • Throw out all of the irrelevant content within the curriculum.

‘Just in case’ skills and knowledge should be replaced with more relevant and topical skills of learning that are ‘just in time’.

be reviewed and updated • Not all teachers need to be human. every quarter. Textbooks should There is so much knowledge be either eliminated or made at our fingertips that anybody electronic so that they can be can access if they know how to. continuously updated.

Teachers could play more of an encouragement role in these • New designs for schools to be scenarios as appose to a guidance • More emphasis on learning about considered. Schools should enable role. the internet. We have maths, people to live healthy, happy, biology and physics, why do we productive and healthy lives. In • If you put all that together the future not have a subject called the order to do so, we need to continue of learning is a continuously internet? ‘You can only learn about to learn and grown throughout changing curriculum in a redesigned the internet from the internet,” as our lives. So perhaps the duration school that will remain relevant a child put it to Sugata. “The internet of schooling needs to be revised and prepare the next generations must be a subject as important as and the length of school days effectively. science or mathematics.” needs to be reviewed. “Schooling may be redesigned to last • The National Curriculum should throughout life.”

The Khan Academy Sal Khan, Founder of the Khan Academy, dropped into Bett via a video message where he shared a few key thoughts on ‘Mindset and Mastery’.

What’s on the syllabus is spoken about more and more in education circles, but what about learning how learn?

What about those other skills like grit and perseverance?

Khan emphasised the importance of teaching meta cognitive skills such as these as they’ll stay with you regardless of what you do in life.

With regards to mastery, Khan pointed out that even though a test identifies gaps in the material, the whole class is then forced to ‘march into the next subject regardless’. “We keep getting pushed and those gaps keep accumulating.”

If we want good grit and resilience, we need to keep working on these gap areas until we master them!

For more information about Sal or the Khan academy, visit their website: www.khanacademy.org

Amy O’Toole, Student Scientist Play can be a brilliant source of learning and 16 year old student, Amy O’Toole believes that experiments are just games with the added fun of rules. When she was 10 years old, Amy and a group of 24 other students aged 7-10 took part in an experiment that got people all around the world’s attention.

They asked, what if bees could think like us? Bees only have 1 million brain cells (as appose to our 100 billion as human beings), but nevertheless, Amy and her team were keen to put it to the test. The experiment wasn’t done in the conventional way however; they were performed outside the

classroom and the paper of their findings was written in the pub!

Their story began with ‘once upon a time’ and they even included a few ‘smiley face’ emojis in the paper. At first, “Nobody in the world of science wanted to take our paper seriously,” Amy recalled.

She continued to reflect, “But then I got a call to say that our paper had finally been published”.

Quite remarkably, the paper had been downloaded 30,000 times in its first day (making it one of the most downloaded papers) and scientists, teachers and the general public were commenting world wide.

“Not bad for a few bees, a few kids and a pub hey!”

Following the paper, Amy was on the front page of the times newspaper and became one of the youngest ever published scientists in magazines and journals.

Amy’s achievements are incredible, and she has shown that anybody, from any academic background can achieve remarkable things.

What could you achieve today?

“We need to be eagles so that we can inspire children and get them to fly!”

Connecting Silos Ministerial Address backs technology in education Bett was joined by Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP this year, who took to the stage fresh from speaking at the Education World Forum two days prior to the show.

“It’s such a treat to be here at Bett again. The showcase of education technology continues to go from strength to strength... I’m excited and this government is excited to see what’s going on.”

The Education Secretary shared her plans to ensure that every young innovator in the country has access to the technology that they need, announcing that the UK government would be supporting this feat to the tune of £1.3 billion pounds. She stated, “If we are serious about being a world leader then we have to nurture all of our talent to spread education excellence everywhere.”

Methods for making technology available and developing key skill sets include; learning coding throughout each key stage, reformed computer science GCSE and A Level courses that are ‘on par with the rest of the world’ and research into skills in vocational training. Nicky Morgan believes that knowledge is the key to excellent educational outcomes and expressed, “I want our next generation to have the skills to compete in the global jobs market”.

Technology as an aid to teachers Whilst the Minister is championing technology all the way, she reinforced the importance of teachers in young people’s learning: “We’ve made it clear that teachers are our best resource. That’s why we’re committed to bringing the very best candidates into computer science.”

There are plenty of ways for technology to be an aid to teachers that positively impacts on outcomes. The instant nature of computer testing has obvious impacts and assessments can be tailored in real time to the needs of the students. “There are established market leaders in this area as well as exciting new prospects too.”

Parents to have confidence in technology “We want parents to have confidence in the way that their children are using technology.”

With the introduction of new technologies in learning, there are unlimited possibilities and many more opportunities to learn in a way that suits students as individuals.

It is much easier for students to work at their own pace whilst remaining an active and engaged member of the class.

Safety is one area that can also be improved via GPS technology which enables parents to track their children’s whereabouts (i.e. their arriving at school). There are also various web platforms which are protecting young people from negative influences.

Collaborating for positive action

“A Sustainable World is everyone’s business” The UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development are something that everybody has a role to play in. The goals represent seventeen very real and relevant areas of global concern. Whether you can help by picking one goal to work on or you can help with several, your role is important.

We came across ‘Inspiring Knowledge’ at the show, who’s vision is for ‘new beginnings in learning, education and skills.

Here is an example of how a single organisation can make a difference in the real world in a way that impacts us all. (www.globalgoals.org)

Have a go!

For news on more exciting innovations in the education world, visit our website and see what events are in store for our team later this year!

If you have a career choice in the media industry in mind, or want to try something new why not join our Junior Media Team at an upcoming event?

Get in touch There are lots of ways to get in touch with our team. Below are some of the options: T: 01322 614000 E: schools@burning2learn.co.uk W: www.burning2learn.co.uk

Bett returns to London next year on 25-28th January 2017