schoolscape @ future project, an EU Minerva project
b.DO:Digital Opportunities
Adviser Christina Preston
In this project which is about crossing the digital divide students
are encouraged to develop E-learning achievements using mobile computing
and a web based environment. These resources were given free to
the Gifted, Disaffected and Disadvantaged by Toshiba and Oracle.
The aim of the project is to develop students'literacy skills
not only in reading and writing but in information literacy and
web publication.
The digital divide bridged
by elearning: Teacher briefing pack three
Introduction
The participant teachers in the Schoolscape @ future project
have built up classroom evidence that indicates that e-learning
is a significant learning tool for learners with special needs:
particularly students who are gifted and those who are disaffected
by the school system. There has been concentration on basic skills
but also one confidence and raising self esteem.
Teachers have been drawing on UnITy citizenship materials.
The focus on notebook computers that the students could take home
has been funded by Toshiba who also provided the teachers with notebooks.
The use of mobile computers has been linked with the use of interactive
whiteboards in learning progress. The project has been using Think.com
and the UnITy website.
Technology
- Oracle Think.com
- Toshiba notebook computers
- Promethean IWB
- Tools for Schools notebook computers
Key players
- Teachers of English and Literacy
Learners
- Disaffected, disengaged and gifted students
Methodology
- Action research planned and executed by the teachers working
collaboratively.
- Mind mapping to examine teachers concepts
The Educational Objectives highlighting the issues
- To increase the learning challenges for gifted and disaffected
students
- To increase teachers understanding of the potential of notebook
learning and whiteboards used by students
- To develop ways of extending and sustaining web based learning
communities
- To share expertise with notebook users in other schools
- To increase the pool of replicable materials for teaching and
learning by students for students
- To evaluate the significance of notebook computers on learning
progress in home and school
- Whiteboards evaluation of impact on learning
Some draft conclusions
E-Learning was not used as a tool for information transmission
but as an effective means of encouraging unconfident young people
to publish their interests and to engage in participative dialogue
and debate with others. The impact on their self esteem was a major
reason for the progress that they made. The opportunity to publish
and communicate online about subjects that interest them personally
appears to have a significant effect on their school performance
and on their relationships with teachers and other students. In
some cases, using e-learning as a catalyst, teachers were able to
build up a rapport with difficult students that they had not thought
possible.
The teachers found that these students could be persuaded to use
E-learning to develop active and participative screen pages based
on interests and concepts that they want to communicate to their
peers. Learners used E-learning in innovative and engaging ways,
to publish their work, invite the participation of peers and to
present their achievements. They used their skills and talents creatively,
referring to their teachers when necessary as a mentor, guide and
learning manager.
The work demonstrate the National Curriculum links publishing online
by offering a real context to practice in and real audiences :
- Writing and editing skills
- Publishing skills
- Writing for different audiences
- Negotiation and collaborative skills
- Teamwork
Two teachers worked on different approaches to creating interactive
and participative magazines on line which are called webzines for
example one group of gifted pupils produced a poetry webzine in
English which developing writing and editing skills. The opportunity
to publish was one effective way of engaging the young people to
comment constructively on one another's work.
Another teacher found that disaffected young people asked to create
specialist pages for the Webzine demonstrated profound knowledge
on topics as diverse as mountain biking and cartoons.
Publishing their knowledge and asking others to share in their
expertise raised the self-esteem and sense of achievement of the
less able because their publications attracted a participative audience
of peers. E-learning proved to be a useful tool in meeting these
pupils'needs, giving them a constructive place to learn independently
and embedding their work in productive curriculum activity.
The students appreciated the opportunity to use this communications
tool which reflected the new balance between words and pictures
that is common to them outside school. The pupils enjoyed creating
their own specialist pages by including integrated video, sounds,
pictures, data files and text.
Both of these groups of students tend to be rather solitary. A
major advantage of E-learning was the students'enthusiasm
for inviting other students to participate in Q&As, hot seats,
conversations, brainstorms and debates about their specialist topic.
Producing an interactive webzine involves not only the publishing
of articles but also debates, interviews, hot seats and brainstorming
with other young people. The young online multimedia authors and
publishers developed better communication skills as their confidence
grew. Their success in these projects helped to raise their self-esteem
and improve overall standards of literacy.
Three other teachers are working on webzines as a way of extending
their work with special needs learners in presenting mathematics
puzzles, using the collaborative facilities of E-learning for students
to explore and develop Mathematics concepts and using Think.com
as a means for music students to collaborate on arrangements and
music files. An outdoor activities webzine is also planned with
a group of educationally challenged and disaffected students.
Appendix
Mind maps to come
Teachers'analysis of the mind maps they have produced.
Learning with the community
online at school and at home: Teacher briefing pack four
Introduction
The original aim of the project was to introduce a group of
Year eleven students to Think.com and encourage them to use and
develop their home pages.
The students were a very specific group and a profile of them is
integral to this project. All students were in Year Eleven and had
been classified as 'disaffected'. They had been identified
towards the end of Year Ten as either very disruptive, poor attendees,
or consistently failing in most areas of the curriculum and consequently
'switched off'. In order to deal with this group of students
the school set up an alternative Year Eleven course. This 'alternative
curriculum'had various objectives: to withdraw students from
mainstream and provide them with the opportunity to do a combination
of work experience and college courses and continue studying some
core subjects.
Technology
Oracle Think.com, a web based community that can be accessed
from home of school. This Internet community provides a safe, protected
environment in which students of any age and ability can share ideas
and learning with others around the globe. It gives students a space
to create their own homepage, post work and communicate with other
inside the community. It is easy to use and therefore can be accessed
by learners and teachers at all levels.
The main focus of this project was to investigate whether membership
of an online community and the use of a web based learning environment
can alter or improve the learning outcomes of a group of 'disaffected'students.
The provision of Toshiba online mobile computers that can be taken
home is intended to involve their families and carers in the students'learning.
Key players
- A teacher of English teaching basic skills
Learners
- "Disaffected" students at KS 4 and soon to leave school.
Methodology
- Teacher observation using action research with support
Analysis of the key issues
The teachers'hypothesis was that the students in this
group were poorly motivated towards work. They had displayed this
lack of motivation by rejecting their entitlement to the national
curriculum in one way or another and consequently earning a place
in the group. Thus in order to improve motivation and encourage
the students to use a variety of skills they had to be exposed to
something to provide a catalyst to motivation. A web based environment
that could be accessed from home and school seemed to offer to these
learners a system which would provide something suitably new and
interesting and result in a positive change in motivation and work
ethic.
Conclusions
This project has prompted a large range of conclusions. Many
arise from fragments of conversations with the students involved,
some come from viewing the students'think.com sites, and others
are observations made of the students throughout the year. In essence
the conclusions are formed around the categories disaffection amongst
students, learning styles, computers and on-line learning.
- With a group of 'disaffected'students relationship
with the teacher is of critical importance.
- Students need to recognise that they control the content, and
there are consequences for inclusion of inappropriate content.
- You must have the flexibility to ignore the conventions of the
'classroom'.
- The natural differentiation that the technology allows is ideal
for a group of this kind.
- The lack of pressure on the students to produce a formal outcome
(assessed work) gave them the freedom to control the content rather
than have it dictated to them.
- Most students need to see the potential of the site the first
time they look at it in order to engage with it.
- The girls seemed more interested initially in the idea of a
'global'audience for their ideas.
- Think.com gives students the ability to construct their identity
through language.
- Feedback from the virtual audience has a very important impact
on the students'view of their own page and motivation towards
the project.
- The ability to interact freely with other members of the community
offers important learning gains.
Appendix
Full details of this case study with illustrative materials for
the UnITy website
Writing for an Audience
at Key Stage 1: Teacher briefing pack five
Introduction
In the project the UK teacher was able to introduce National
Curriculum projects to young children in real contexts. Communications
focused on lively questions and conferencing. Geography was tackled
in time differences and local weather, crops and sense of place.
Maths extended to graphs of journey times, estimating times and
distances, telling the time, making a graph, and pie charts of a
day's travelling activities. Cookery involved testing national
recipes supplied by the children. Literacy skills were developed
throughout.
In the UK teachers'case study the motivation for writing
that an audience provided.
"Initially the US teacher and I were writing about and drawing
ourselves and mounting the work in a book developed on the computer
which we posted to the States. Autumn Terms so often start with
the instruction describe 'Yourself'or 'Your Holiday',
but the difference was that, for once, our children had a real audience
- children like themselves but in a country a long way away, albeit
some pupils had been to Disneyland so there was a bit of reality
attached to this concept. We had certainly all been on seaside holidays
that had taken 'ages'to reach, but a glimpse at the globe
told us that these children lived not just across the Atlantic but
in a water based community by the sea. Immediately National Curriculum
Geography bells started to ring about comparing a country area with
a seaside area.
Our new friends lived in the smallest State in America, but small
becomes a relative term when you look at the globe. We could obliterate
our whole island of four countries with just one finger whilst America
took a whole hand span with Florida still 'hanging out'.
Ideas of Geography - size and distance - began to form.
We compared flight times for our various holidays. A flight to
Spain took a boring two whole hours, from sitting down to breakfast
at home until the end of morning break. How did this compare with
a flight to Providence, Rhode Island? We made graphs of journey
times and actually pretended to board our plane at the start of
the day so that we could get a feel for the length of a 7-hour flight.
This brought in lots of Maths, estimating times and distances, telling
the time, making a graph, and pie charts of a day. These were made
on my newly acquired data-handling programme.
When Beverly's envelope arrived I was as excited as the children
to see what was inside. My class was amazed at the names of the
pupils and to see their efforts to convey information in wobbly
handwriting and spelling like ours, they really WANTED to read about
their new friends even if it was a struggle. They could identify
with some of the favourite activities of our Rhode Island penpals,
such as liking to go to McDonald's, but the recreational activities
of children living two hours from Cape Cod were both similar and
different. There was just enough information to kindle the imaginations
of my class.
Next we tried to make our own questions and to email from the computer
suite in the school. By the time we had logged in and got half way
through the laborious typing of our questions our lesson time was
over so my answer was to scribe their emails online myself. With
the aid of a mile long connection lead from the Science block I
was able to log onto the Internet so we could read our emails in
the classroom. The twentieth century had arrived at school! "
Technology
Increased use of IT over the period of the Schoolscape @ future
as the learners needed more sophisticated technology to fulfil their
growing communication needs. Email, digital video, CD creation,
datahandling, net conferencing and web publication
Key players
Two teachers in primary schools in the UK and the US
Learners
Two classes of six year olds sharing their writing across the Atlantic.
Methodology
- Action research conducted by the teacher
Analysis of the key issues
In this classroom a teacher used a link with the USA as a motivational
aid to encourage learners to enjoy writing for a real audience.
Working with an IWB provided a motivational context and made writing
a more shared activity.
Conclusions
Six year olds were greatly motivated by this exchange project
which enriched their practical understanding of the relevance to
their personal lives of a range of curriculum subjects. The technology
underpinned the rich communication and publishing agenda. The UK
teacher herself says:
"I could probably write a book about what staff and children
are gaining from this relationship. Aside from all the curriculum
based learning that Beverley and I have collaborated on, the greatest
gain is a feeling of world citizenship. Holidays do not teach children
about lives in other parts of the world. This experience enabled
the children to identify with lives that in some ways mirrored their
own, but in other ways were so very different. It opened their eyes
to diversity and opportunity in a way that posters, videos and Barnaby
Bear just cannot.
We are now installing network conferencing using 'Netscape'next year and now that we both have websites and publish our topics
on the net we are able to exchange video, photos and information
between schools.
The purchase of a Canon digital video recorder has given the children
a lot of practice in planning and producing presentations on various
subjects from caterpillars to homes. Information is quickly and
easily transferred and answers come back by return while they are
still alive and relevant. The children have had plenty of practice
in considering the needs of their audience, selecting appropriate
information, presenting it clearly and in appropriate order and
enjoying the feedback they have received. Our children review their
videos critically and are keen to remake them if they feel that
they are not right and show a great pride and interest in their
work."
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