Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize — much less cultivate — the talents of many brilliant people. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: “If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk, please stop whatever you’re doing and watch it now.”

This video has useful statistics on how students use technology for learning in and out of school.

‘Raise the bar, narrow the gap’. This buzz phrase during the 4th iNet International Conference in Beijing had particular resonance in the city preparing itself for the next Olympics. For me, the main focus of the conference was sharing new ways to help all our students achieve their personal best.

Wherever the speakers came from in the world, the message was the same. If we want our school to perform better the main priority is not concentrating on what we teach, but who we are teaching it to. James O’Neil, Principal of Carmel RC Technology College summed this up really well. He explained that analysing student data is often like seeing the terracotta army. It is only when you view each soldier individually that you realise that every one is unique. At his school they have a consistent tracking system to build up a more detailed picture of each student’s progress in every subject. Students also have focussed conversations with their learning mentor to make better sense of their data and set targets for future progress.

One of the most important Olympic ideals is the need for team work to succeed. The students of Greenford High School are a shining example of this. Like all schools they have a Senior Leadership Team, but they also have a Junior Leadership Team comprising of students. Each member of the SLT has a JLT buddy and they have a wide variety of responsibilities including observing lessons and interviewing job applicants. New initiatives such as moving to a three year KS4 are also discussed with the JLT. In this way the student population not only have a voice, but are able to have an impact on the the whole school community to work together as a team.

At the opening ceremony of the Olympic games the athletes will march in as separate nations, each with their own flag. The closing ceremony brings all the participants together to unite under one flag. The iNet Conference promoted a similar message. Schools should not innovate in isolation. They need to reach out and become global enterprises. If schools are to become a model of how the world should be, it is vital that enable teachers and students to share ideas with their peers in other countries. It was therefore very encouraging to see the enthusiasm of delegates to seize the potential of the internet and websites such as www.elanguages.org to bring this about.

The motto of the Beijing Olympics is ‘One World, One Dream’. The iNet conference showed how different education systems and individual schools can come together to improve learning for all. It is now up to the returning delegates to make the dream a reality.

My presentation at the conference:
iNet07 – A powerpoint presentation that I gave
iNet07_handout – A handout of quotes and website links to go with the presentation

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A project that my school is doing on SEAL (social, emotional aspects of learning) provided the ideal opportunity to update our first unit in Year 7. They used to create presentations about their family and hobbies, but this was rather dull and the content of what the students produced did not teach them anything new. Instead we used an emotions tree diagram with people showing a variety of different emotions and asked the students to create presentations showing which five characters best summed up their own personality.

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I needed to find a way to enable my pupils to share their ideas and use the best language to describe their emotions. The solution came in the form of edublogs.org. This free, educational blog site allowed me to quickly put up an idea on the web and then invite my students to contribute comments (see examples). This is a safe and easy way to use web2.0 as there is no need to generate accounts and the comments are moderated by the teacher before they go live on the Internet.

To add a global dimension to our research, I created a project page on elanguages.org. This DfES funded website enables teachers around the world to link up and collaborate ideas and resources. I soon had a response from Apeejay School in New Delhi. You can imagine the cries of excitement when my students were reading their comments and found phrases written by Nikita, Dhruv, Eashan and their classmates in India! They were also surprised to find out how similar they felt about school life in both countries.

Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person who is scared to climb higher up the tree:
I feel like this person when I am in a class that I am not so good at, so I must cling on to hope that I will still get a good result! Krissi, UK
I feel like this image when I am feeling low, because then I feel helpless and alone in this world. Kavisha, India

Here are some examples of what the students wrote to describe the person at the top of the tree:
I feel like this person when I do well at lessons and get it right because I have tried really hard. Zak, UK
I feel like this person when I’ve overcome all the obstacles in my work and I feel on the top of the world. Ujval, India

There has been a marked difference in the engagement of my students in creating presentations about their emotions towards school life rather than their families and hobbies. I have also been surprised at how personalised their phrases are. I have realised that SEAL is an interesting theme to explore with my students. It also teaches them valuable lessons about positive attitudes towards learning and the need to understand themselves better.

Often in ICT, we concentrate more on how to create a product rather than the message that it is trying to communicate. However, I am convinced that allowing students appropriate time to generate quality content on a theme that is relevant to their own lives leads them into producing a better end product and consequently better progress.

Click here to view the lesson plans.

They started by researching the latest films on the BBC Film Review Archive. They then shared their ideas on the films they liked by contributing comments to posts on notreblog.
Adventure Reviews| Animation Reviews| Comedy Reviews | Fantasy/Sci-Fi Reviews
They then completed an online survey and analysed the csv file in a database to see what film other students reccomend.
Finally they used Audacity to create their own film review podcasts with podsafe soundtracks from www.garageband.com

Example Podcasts
You can either listen to a streamed version of the podcasts below, or download the files by clicking on the titles.

Dumb and Dumber

Dream Girls

Harry Potter, Goblet of Fire

Mean Girls

Mean Girls

Pirates of the caribbean 2

Pirates of the caribbean 3

Pokemon

She’s the man

Storm Breaker

The Corpse Bride

The Da Vinci Code

Tokyo Drift

How much does it cost to feed a penguin?

According to 2020 Vision Gilbert Review and research produced by EPPI Centre ‘pupils are more likely to be engaged with the curriculum they are offered if they believe it is relevant and if they are given opportunities to take ownership of their learning.’ To make the vision a reality, teachers need to shift their focus from what they teach, to learning more about who they teach it to.

Achieving the vision with ICT
In fact, many students are already personalising their learning. ‘By the age of 21 the average person will have spent 15,000 hours in formal education, 20,000 hours in front of the TV and 50,000 hours in front of a computer screen’ (Futures of learning Seminars, Future Learning Practice; seminar report June 2005). Young people are using technology informally to learn about real issues that interest them. The challenge for schools is whether they can catch up with their students!

Using real data
Instead of creating a model for an imaginary zoo, our students research all the ways they use water during an average day and calculate how much they actually use (see water unit). We then tell them that the water budget for a child at our link school in Malawi is only 20 litres. They then interrogate the model to find out ways to reduce their water budget. This really engages the students, as they are keen to find out how much water they use and the importance of using less.

We used to teach correlations by showing how to make scatter charts plotting height against shoe size of 100 children that did not actually exist. Trying to make sense of the data also led to rather embarressing questions such as what else can relate to your shoe size?! Instead, our students now use web sites such as the World Factbook to access a wide range of up to date national statistics. They explore the data independently to look for possible correlations such as life expectancy and GDP, or literacy rates and GDP etc. (see national statistics worksheet).

A good way of generating real data is by using an online survey tool such as SurveyMonkey or SurveyAtSchool. Our students create their own surveys on energy use at home. They analyse the data, then suggest ways to use less energy. They also create a survey to compare the lives of young people in the UK and USA. This year we had 1298 children in both countries complete the survey (see blog post).

Our KS3 students learn about confusion marketing in mobile phone contracts (see modelling unit). They are able to create models and use online databases to work out the best deal for the number of minutes they use. At KS4 we go on to teach students about personal finance using software called Adding Up To A Lifetime. Activities such as how to understand interest rates and compare bank accounts have also proved useful, not only for students but their teachers too!

Making the 2020 Vision a reality
It is clear that technology has a significant role to play to inspire and motivate our learners. WWW stands for World Wide Web, however, many schools have yet to realise its true potential for bringing the real world into the classroom.

Am I bovverd?!
Have you ever stopped to think why students lack the motivation to learn? According to research produced by EPPI Centre ‘pupils are more likely to be engaged with the curriculum they are offered if they believe it is relevant and if they are given opportunities to take ownership of their learning.’ This requires a shift in focus from concentrating on what we teach, to learning more about who we teach it to.

The 2020 Vision Gilbert Review identifies the vital role of personalised learning to ‘transform education’. This vision of tailoring the curriculum to the unique needs and interests of every child would certainly help to enagage learners more. However, can this vision be made a reality?

Achieving the vision with ICT
In fact, many learners are already ahead of the game. ‘By the age of 21 the average person will have spent 15,000 hours in formal education, 20,000 hours in front of the TV and 50,000 hours in front of a computer screen’ (Futurelab Report). Young people are using technology informally to learn about issues that interest them and share their ideas with online communities. The challenge for schools is whether they can catch up with their students!

It is clear that technology has a significant role to play to inspire and motivate our learners. We all know that WWW stands for World Wide Web. However, many schools have yet to realise its true potential for bringing the real world into the classroom. Communication is literally at the heart of ICT. Sadly, students are often given tasks involving made up situations rather than being given the opportunity to communicate with a real audience for a real purpose.

A Right to Learn
In the past our students did a project to research and create leaflets about their school. They included information about the history of the school and subjects they learn. The ICT skills they demonstrated were fine, but the information they communicated was very basic and uninteresting.

This year we adapted our scheme of work by making it more personal. We asked the students to think about how they learn best and what makes a good teacher. They shared their ideas by adding comments to a blog post. We also invited students at our link school in the USA to contribute too. We gave the students a digital camera and asked them to take images of the school from their perspective. Students at our link school in Malawi took photos of their school using disposable cameras and we uploaded them into a digital gallery. The students then did some basic research about the universal right to education and why it is such a valuable part of our lives.

With all of the ideas and information they had gathered themselves, the students are currently creating leaflets on the right to education and learning to learn. The best examples will be sent to our link schools. It will be the students that make the selection, not the teachers. This will provide a real reason for peer assessment and consolodate what they have learnt to produce a well designed leaflet with a clear sense of audience and purpose.

Keep IT Real!
Enabling students to research real issues, create real resources and communicate with a real audience gives their work a real purpose. The improved quality of our students’ work proves that this motivates the students to produce their best. So, if you want to inspire your learners, remember to Keep IT Real!

Links:
Alex Savage’s Blog www.communicty.org
A Right To Learn lesson plans http://www.ndhs-sites.org.uk/ICT/7.3/index.htm
Futures of Learning Seminars 2005 Report http://www.futurelab.org.uk/research/personalisation/report_01.htm
2020 Vision, Gilbert Review http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=10783
Eppi-Centre Review on Motivation and Assessment http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=304