1. education
2. school

In
learning
Issue 2
From failing
school to shining
star
learn how
Barnsley Academy
turned things
around
The skills you
need
7 skills a modern
teacher should
master
Raising maths
grades
a recipe for
success
A CURE FOR DYSLEXIA?
Meet the man who’s helping dyslexics read better (page 12)
|
CONTENTS
How can you get unmotivated
students to take an interest
in, and responsibility for, their
education? It’s a question without
a simple answer, but in this
issue of In learning we look at a
number of ways that teachers and
institutions are succeeding where
others have failed.
Take Barnsley Academy in the
UK. The school had one of the
worst reputations in England
in 2006 – but in just four years
a dedicated staff and school
leadership have turned the school
around. Today, it’s one of the
most improved schools in the
country. We take a look at some
of the things the academy has
done to complete this remarkable
turnaround.
But even the best-performing
schools have students who
struggle, and there are highperforming students who fail in
certain subjects. So we talked
to a teacher in Norway who’s
developed a method of teaching
maths that is shown to increase
motivation and raise grades above
the national secondary school
average.
Throughout this issue of In
learning, there are examples of
people and institutions who are
finding new ways to motivate
students, by helping dyslexics
to read better, by using online
games, and by utilising new digital
tools. They’re all great examples,
and I hope you find them
motivating in your work.
Enjoy the issue. And of course,
if you have any comments or
questions you’d like to put the
editorial team – please drop us a
line at:
[email protected].
Helge Hannisdal
Chief Editor
6
11
12
From failing school to shining star
See how Barnsley Academy went from one of the worst
schools in the UK to a model of student achievement in
just four years.
Are you ready for the digital age?
Students need new skills to succeed in the 21st century –
and so do teachers. Here are 7 skills you should master.
A cure for dyslexia?
A new font is helping dyslexics read better. We meet
the man who created it - and explain why it works.
1997
16
3 ways to teach
maths online
18
We asked three teachers
to review the best digital
maths tools – see what
they have to say.
24
Watching the
horizon
In five minutes
Find out (almost)
everything you need
to know about the
PISA Report.
22
26
Are you stealing?
32
Tips & tricks
The story of
everything
Can a new timeline
presentation tool bring
your subject to life?
Maths teacher Kjetil Idås
has found a teaching
method that is proven
to raise grades with
secondary students.
We look at six new
technologies that will
change the way people
teach over the next five
years.
29
Raising maths
grades in
Norway
1998
The internet makes it all too easy for students – and teachers –
to break image copyright laws. How can you protect your school
from a possible lawsuit?
Use your students’ online
networking skills to your
advantage with our tips
on using blogs and online
discussion forums in
class.
35
Top 10 hashtags
Tweeting without
hashtags is like shouting
into the wind. We look
at the best hashtags for
education.
In learning
Tools and ideas for today’s educators
www.inlearningmag.com
2011 – Issue 2
Chief Editor: Helge Hannisdal
Deputy Editor: Dan Elloway
Editorial contact:
[email protected]
Advertising contact:
[email protected]
Contributors: Roger Stjernberg,
Øyvind Flatnes, Alastair Cameron,
Simon Elloway, Robin Manners,
Ramon Masià Fornos, Kevin Boodhun,
Rachel Womack
Design: Anthony Peters
Advertising: Kristine Lango
Produced by:
itslearning AS, Bergen, Norway
www.itslearning.eu
4|
In learning
Free webinars for teachers and school leaders
From blended learning to free online tools, our free
educational webinars help you keep up to date with the
latest trends
Building capacity for 21st century learning in schools
Justin Reich (EdTechTeacher)
How to succeed with learning platforms – new research into
the student’s perspective
Albin Wallace (United Church Schools Trust)
The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators: How will you be inspired?
Shelly Terrell (Teacher Reboot Camp)
How to use technology in education…and why
Gilly Salmon (Australian Digital Futures Institute)
More webinars each month
With a new speaker every month, itslearning’s online
webinar series allows you to connect with and learn
from educational experts from around the globe.
Just visit www.itslearning.eu/webinars
to watch these webinars and more
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
In numbers
38 million
1,070
65
2,600
375
22
APPROXIMATE number of people in Europe who
have dyslexia
NuMBER OF ACADEMIES IN THE UK. Directly
funded by the central government, academies
are outside of local education authority control
Number of countries that TOOK PART
IN THE PISA REPORT, an internationally
standardised assessment of 15-year-old school
children
NUMBER OF VIDEOS ON KHANACADEMY.COM,
covering everything from arithmetic and physics
to finance and history
NUMBER OF IPADS BOUGHT by Gibbon-FairfaxWinthrop High School in the US in 2010, enough
for every student
THE NUMBER OF IPADS BROKEN OR LOST
by students at Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High
School in the US in 2010. All were replaced
thanks to the students’ mandatory insurance
policy
Food for thought
“If we teach today as we
taught yesterday, we rob our
children of tomorrow.”
“The foundation of every
state is the education of its
youth.”
“Education is a progressive
discovery of our own
ignorance.”
John Dewey
Diogenes Laertius
Will Durant
6|
In learning
attainment
level
14%
2006
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
From failing school to
flourishing academy. Barnsley
Academy has gone from one
of the worst schools in the
UK to a model of student
achievement. What’s behind
the big turnaround?
56%
Barnsley Academy has undergone a remarkable
transformation in recent years. In 2006, just 14 percent
of students obtained five GCSEs or more. Four years
later, this was up to 51 percent and the academy is now
recognised as one of the most improved in England. So,
what’s behind this remarkable rise?
Barnsley Academy opened in 2006 with a difficult
legacy. The academy’s new principal, Dave Berry,
found himself tackling challenges such as 35 percent
staff absenteeism, worryingly low rates of student
achievement and a school building that did nothing to
inspire students or teachers.
2010
“I knew we had our work cut out for us,” says Dave.
“This area had had a high rate of unemployment since
the decline of the mining industry and education was
rarely a priority for the students. Added to this, the
previous school had an incredibly negative reputation so
we had a number of barriers right from the start. When
we first started we were in the old school building and
it was hard for people to see that things could change. I
knew that if we were going to turn things around, we’d
have to begin with aspirations. We needed to teach the
students to care.”>
8|
Getting the drop-outs back in
It wasn’t just student perceptions that were a barrier;
the negative reputation of the former school meant that
parents had also lost faith. “One parent commented
that, with the same staff and the same pupils, we had
no chance of making this work,” says Dave. “I had a
student approach me and say, ‘Sir, this is a Dougie
school. We’re Dougies and that’s why we come here.’
I had to ask what he meant; Dougie is slang for rubbish
in the area. And he wasn’t the only person who held
this view. To parents it was a real risk to send their
children here. But we were determined. I told parents I
wanted to rewrite education in the community. I wanted
to change the way people thought of the school and
the way children thought of their futures. It was a steep
learning curve for us all!”
that teachers face and make it easier for teachers
to track the progress of each student. Nic Atkinson,
Director of Science at the academy since 2009, sees
this approach as instrumental to the learning platform’s
success.
“The entire scheme of work for science was rewritten on itslearning so that we could have organised
structures and a framework to map out the whole
school year. Every week, every lesson, every resource
is on the learning platform; students can log on from
home and can see which topics they’ll be covering in
classes throughout the year. They can see when they
have a test that they need to prepare for. This gives a
structure and format to follow that really helps students
and teachers manage their
workload.”
“In the first year the corridors
I used to patrol felt a bit like
a warzone”
Some of the early
changes that Dave
introduced, such as proper
maths and English lessons
and a mandatory school
uniform, represented a discipline that the children just
weren’t used to. “In the first year the corridors I used to
patrol felt a bit like a warzone, but things began to calm
down when the students got used to the changes,” he
says. “Working on aspirations was a logical first step –
if we could get the students to care about their results
then it could provide the momentum we needed to
drive change.”
After the academy moved into a new school building,
it was easier for Dave to implement some of the
things he saw as central to their aims. This included
introducing itslearning, a web-based learning platform
that Dave saw as a way to promote better quality and
more consistent teaching across the curriculum.
New structures and frameworks
Using itslearning, Dave could introduce structures that
streamlined many of the regular administrative tasks
issue 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
With the teaching
year mapped out on the
learning platform, time is
freed up to implement new
learning objectives in order to further raise standards.
“Most headteachers would give targets relating to the
quality of teaching and raising attainment; but that’s a
given here,” says Nic. “We use the platform to promote
and advocate good and outstanding teaching, and my
personal objectives are to use the learning platform to
help develop independent learning. Its potential to assist
us in what we are trying to achieve is massive.”
Working with high performing students aged 11 to
14, Nic is using the platform to develop a distance
learning course outside the curriculum with open-ended
assignments to help students develop resilience and
confidence. “It’s great to see that the students care so
much now, but we realise that we need to take it a step
further and make sure that if they make a mistake, they
learn from it rather than see it as a huge setback. The
students log in and do the assessments, which take
into account ICT, English, maths and science. When
In learning
|9
and this runs through the targets that he has set his
staff. “If I can free up teachers from some of the more
repetitive administrative tasks, we can create an online
school community that helps us share our best ideas,”
he explains.
Moving to a new building has given the academy
the infrastructure it needs to drive change
through ICT
Scott agrees. “With so many of these tasks out of
the way it frees up some of our time. We can focus on
thinking beyond the curriculum so that we’re offering a
really rounded experience. We cover Of Mice and Men
each year and with the schemes of work set in place,
it frees up my time to start thinking about ways to
supplement the lessons.” >
they pass the assessments, they receive a letter and
a certificate from the academy – it’s an itslearning
baccalaureate and it’s proving to be very popular.”
Instant feedback for the digital generation
The academy also prides itself on the community feel of
the learning platform and Dave is keen for the students
to feel that the platform is there to help them make the
most of their time, something that Scott Kroeller, who
heads up English for 14 to 16 year olds, has certainly
seen evidence of in his lessons.
“We were determined. I told
parents I wanted to rewrite
education in the community.”
“Technology plays such a huge role in students’ lives
now and it has the capacity to speed up the processes
of education in a great way. Work such as marking or
giving feedback on what the class have done can be
completed quickly on the learning platform and the
students definitely appreciate the speed of feedback on
their work. They can log on and see what their teacher
thinks of their work quickly, which means there’s less
dead time, the conversation is ongoing. We should
never underestimate the importance of having this sort
of dialogue on a regular basis – it reinforces what we’re
teaching them while it’s still fresh in their minds and
lets them see that their work is as important to us as it
is to them. It helps us create a culture of learning.”
Going beyond the curriculum
The end goal for Dave Berry is for itslearning to provide
a springboard for reaching out beyond traditional
curriculum topics so that Barnsley can offer its students
a learning experience that goes beyond the norm –
The academy is using technology, including the
itslearning learning platform, to raise the quality
of teaching and learning
THE UK ACADEMY SYSTEM
First established in 2000, the academy system is
seen as an attempt to help rescue failing schools.
Unlike regular schools, academies are directly
funded by central government and independent of
local government control.
Most academies are run as registered charities or
operated by other educational charities. However,
they must meet national curriculum core subject
requirements and are subject to inspection
by Ofsted, England’s Office for Standards in
Education, Children’s Services and Skills.
There were 1,070 academies in England as of
August 2011.
10 |
The big turnaround
ICT can also be used to increase enthusiasm in
students, as Nic explains. “Recently we used Zu3D in a
lesson and it was incredibly popular. We took timelapse photography of plastercine models to show
sperm and egg fertilisation, chromosome division and
to illustrate chromosomes pairing up inside the zygote,
the cells splitting and the chromosome dividing. The
software, which is already on the platform, runs at 12
frames a second and I told the class I wanted a fivesecond video. I had students producing 140-frame
videos in an hour! They were so motivated that they
used up some of their lunch hour to email them to me.”
Sharing tips and ideas
Peer-led development is almost second nature to
many staff at the academy now and this sharing of best
practices is something that Jane Harris, Director of ICT,
believes is fundamental to the academy’s success with
itslearning – and she’s developed a structure to help.
“We have teacher champions within curriculum areas –
people who are confident and can show other members
of staff how to use it – and the ICT department will help
wherever they can,” she says. “We have people who
work out strange and wonderful things they can do with
it, pioneers who can share advice on its functionality
with other teachers. We also audit it from time to time
with students to ask what does and doesn’t work for
them, which is a great way of making sure we’re giving
them a voice.”
Better results
Ultimately, Barnsley Academy is trying to use
technology, and itslearning in particular, to make life
easier for teachers and students, so that they can then
concentrate on raising the quality of teaching and
learning, and to encourage innovation and help students
meet their aspirations. Dave is justifiably proud of how
far the school has come.
“The results for the last year group were a highlight for
us,” he says. “On the day students came to collect their
results, the parent who told me we had no chance saw
her daughter get the results she needed to go on to
study biology, psychology and English at A level. The
student who said ours was a ‘Dougie’ school achieved a
C in English and passed all other exams with distinction.
The parents who said they were taking a real risk told
me it was the best decision they ever made. And our
story isn’t finished yet.” |
The United Church Schools Trust
Barnsley Academy is run by UCST/ULT, a leading
education charity. UCST currently operates a
family of 11 independent schools, including some
of the best performing in the UK. In 2002, the
United Learning Trust (ULT) was established to
extend UCST’s work and ethos into the state
sector through the Academies Programme. Since
then, ULT has taken over 21 underperforming
secondary schools and has begun to turn them
around.
All 32 schools and academies in the UCST/ULT
family share the objective of ‘bringing out the best
in everyone’.
issue 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
7 skills a 21st century
teacher should have
Like all professions, teaching has to adapt to new
technologies. Here are seven basic skills that every teacher
should have as they prepare today’s students for tomorrow
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When the text
stopped dancing
When an art school teacher gave his class
a badly photocopied 500-page text to read
for homework, most students just got on
and read it. But for one student, the text
marked the beginning of a journey: to
create a font that enables dyslexics to read
better
“I was staring at the first page of this badly set-out
document, and I thought: ‘I’m never going to get
through this’,” says Christian Boer, a Dutch graphic
designer and the inventor of a new font which has
proven to improve reading understanding for dyslexics.
“So I re-read the first three sentences again, trying to
consciously understand what my brain was doing.”
The answer turned out to be something of a
revelation. As one of 38 million dyslexics in Europe,
Christian already knew that his brain tended to flip,
mirror and re-order letters as he read. But he now
realised that he didn’t see the letters as most people
do; instead of flat lines on the page, he saw the letters
as 3D objects.
“There are 32 variations for the word cat, and the
word can turn around in my head again and again and I
still won’t get the furry animal,” explains Christian. “So,
for my final year art school project, I decided to try to
design a font that presented the 3D letters I saw in such
a way that they didn’t move around or change as I read
them.”
The result is the Dyslexie font, a font that uses design
adjustments – such as making the letters heavier on the
bottom and longer at the top – to make it harder for a
dyslexic’s brain to flip, mirror or re-order the letters as
they read.
Improving reading comprehension
One of the most common reactions to Dyslexie from
dyslexics is that it stops the letters from ‘dancing’.
As a result, instead of trying to work out what each
individual word says, the dyslexic can concentrate on
understanding what the words mean.
In learning
This has been backed up by research from Twente
University in the Netherlands. Using two common
tests for dyslexia, the researchers compared people’s
reading ability when using a regular font and when
using Dyslexie. The results show that dyslexics make
fewer mistakes when reading text in Dyslexie and their
reading comprehension improves. Interestingly, though,
the font doesn’t appear to improve reading speed.
“It’s nice when people like
the logos I design for them.
But helping people to read
is a much better feeling.”
For Christian, Dyslexie is something of a labour of
love. Although he enjoyed his time at school, he always
struggled with languages, including his native Dutch.
“Some teachers understood dyslexia, but others didn’t
even believe it existed. They just thought I was a lousy
reader,” he says. “I just wanted to be like everyone else,
without any additional classes or help. It worked okay,
but I always performed below my abilities in languages.
At art school it was different. Nearly half the students
were dyslexic.”
Christian is now working as a graphic designer in
studiostudio, “It’s nice when people like the logos I
design for them,” he says. “But helping people to read
is a much better feeling.”
| 13
Random reader test
Simon Elloway, 40-year-old dyslexic stone mason.
Simon was given two texts of similar length and style.
One was in the Helvetica font, the other in Dyslexie.
“With other fonts, I have to work out each word, one at
a time, and by the time I get to the end of the sentence,
I can’t remember what it was about. Dyslexie seems
much clearer and much easier to read. The words stand
out, and I even have the confidence to guess what
some words are, without needing to read every letter.
It’s amazing. If everything was like this, I’d read a lot
more.”
Why are there fewer dyslexics in China?
The percentage of dyslexics in a population seems
to vary with the language spoken. For example,
around 6% of English speakers are dyslexic,
compared to 1.5% of Chinese speakers. Why is
this?
According to the Institute of Cognitive
Neuroscience at University College London, this
is partly due to how brain functioning is moulded
by experience. Learning the English spelling
system creates differences in brain organisation
than learning character-based Chinese. Also, in
English each letter is linked to a distinct sound, or
phoneme. The word ‘cat’ for example, contains
three phonemes and changing one letter changes
the word. In Putonghua, the national language of
China, each character represents a whole syllable.
As a result, learning Chinese exercises the ability
to remember visual patterns, while English readers
need to develop their phoneme processing –
which is far harder for dyslexics.
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
14 |
When the text stopped dancing
10 reasons why the Dyslexie
font is easier to read
People with dyslexia flip, rotate and mix up letters when they
see them on the page. This makes reading difficult, and in some
cases almost impossible. The Dyslexie font has been developed
specifically to make text easier for dyslexics to read. Here’s how
it works
1
3
The bottom
The bottom of the letters are ‘heavy’, pulling
focus to the bottom of the letter, and stopping
people from turning them upside down.
The tilt
Some letters are tilted, a bit like italic fonts,
which makes the form of the letter more
obvious.
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
2
4
The opening
The openings of the letters are larger, so the
form of each letter is clearer and the letters
look less like each other.
The tail
Letters which look similar are given different
‘tails’, making it less likely that they will be
flipped, reflected or rotated.
5
7
9
The height
Every letter is a slightly different height, so it
takes less energy and concentration to read
the letters separately.
The width
Letters are made higher but not wider, this
gives each letter more space and makes them
easier to recognise.
The full-stop
Full-stops mark the end of a sentence and
capitals mark the start. By making them bold,
it becomes easier to see the separation of
sentences.
6
8
The differentiation
On letters that look similar, the individual
features are changed to make them easier
to tell apart.
The sticks
Some letters have longer ‘sticks’, making
them more substantial so they are less likely
to be flipped, reflected or rotated.
10
The space
The space between letters and
words is wider, so each letter is
easier to read.
de het
* The blue font is Dyslexie. The red font represents ‘normal’ fonts.
Playing
with
numbers
Sick and tired of
correcting maths
assignments? What’s
the alternative?
The traditional textbook may feel safe, but it has
its drawbacks. Students forget them or lose them,
teachers have to plough through stacks of them
while marking, and they are rarely motivating.
It’s no wonder there’s a sudden rash of digital
resources available – promising engaging activities,
immediate feedback, automatic marking and
simple file sharing.
We asked three teachers to look at digital maths
teaching tools that can reduce your workload and
improve student participation. Here’s what they
found out.
Making maths irresistible with
Mangahigh.com
An online maths teaching resource, Mangahigh.com
is designed for schools to use with students aged
7-16. As well as offering maths games and adaptive
‘Prodigi’ lessons, teachers can set assignments and
then analyse their students’ performance.
I first tried Bidmas Blaster, a game on Mangahigh.com
covering the order of operations, with a class of mixedability 11 year-olds. It was an instant hit, and at the end
of the lesson I struggled to stop them playing.
The games on Mangahigh.com present many maths
problems in an engaging and fun format. And, unlike
many other maths games I’ve tried, they don’t just
cover numeracy. They include a wide range of topics,
from geometry and algebra to quadratic and cubic
equations. In all, there are 12 excellent maths games;
and more are coming soon. Many of the games also
include interactive tutorials, which students can refer to
for help when I’m not around.
Prodigi is a quiz not a game, and it contains almost
60,000 questions covering the whole curriculum. For my
class, the best thing about Prodigi is that it adapts to
the answers the student gives. If you give consecutive
right answers, the questions get harder; if you give
consecutive wrong answers, the questions become
easier.
I can analyse my students’ results, on both games and
Prodigi, in great detail, which means I can track how my
class did on a particular assignment, and easily identify
who is struggling. All in all, Mangahigh.com is the best
maths teaching resource I have used, and has really
helped me to get the best from my students.
Review by: Robin Manners
Harris Academy Merton in the UK
More info: www.mangahigh.com
In learning
Maths calculations made easy with WIRIS
WIRIS is a complete set of online and offline tools
specifically designed for mathematic education –
including WIRIS cas and the WIRIS editor.
An online platform for mathematical calculation
and graphics, WIRIS cas has a powerful calculation
icon toolbar with all common operations. It also
includes high level operations, such as zero function
approximation (with several methods) and matrix
diagonalization. These functions are called up using
pseudonatural language (for example, if we want to
approximate one zero of the function 2^x=6 with
Newton’s Method, we must write: “numerical_solve(2
^x==6,{method=”newton”})”) which makes the online
manual very useful.
You can also build new functions easily with the WIRIS
programmer tool, so WIRIS can do whatever calculation
we need in university classes, except high level statistic
calculations.
The WIRIS WYSIWYG editor for mathematical
formulation is very useful for inserting formulas into
online environments, such as Joomla, WordPress
and Drupal, as well as your own web platform. Once
installed, it gives you a WIRIS icon in the html toolbar
so you can introduce formulas into your web pages.
Almost all students are able to write formulas the first
day they start using WIRIS editor. In short, with WIRIS
cas and the WIRIS editor, our students can calculate,
make graphics and introduce formulas in an easy way.
Reviewed by: Ramon Masià Fornos
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
More info: www.wiris.com
| 17
Kikora: solving problems for secondary
maths students
A set of thousands of online maths exercises aimed
at different student levels and themes, Kikora
solves many of the problems secondary maths
teachers face when teaching large groups.
The use of Kikora has solved many problems for my
students, and myself, in a classroom situation. My
students respond well to the instant feedback they
receive, which shows their calculations as they solve
mathematical exercises. This encourages students to
write down what they are thinking on the way to a
solution, and to investigate different solutions when
they have made mistakes.
I can give homework to classes via Kikora, and the
program also gives me reports and statistics on what
homework has been done, and how much time each
student has used. Kikora also allows me to check
through each student´s calculations, so I can pick up
on mathematical misconceptions far more easily and
effectively.
I believe that these functions alone make Kikora
unrivalled among anything in its field today. Since Kikora
is in constant development, there is also a very good
support team which can help if things go wrong. My
only hope is that Kikora will expand its usage to all the
mathematical courses in upper secondary school.
Reviewed by: Kevin Boodhun
Nydalen Upper Secondary School, Oslo, Norway
More info: www.kikora.com
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
Using technology
to raise maths grades
Photo by Helle K Hagen
Kjetil Idås teaches at Horten Further
Education College, a Norwegian national
demonstration school for the use of IT in
education. A teacher since 1981, Kjetil ran
his own business for more than 15 years
before moving back to teaching in 2006.
He speaks frequently about his teaching
techniques in Norway, Sweden, Finland and
the US.
In learning
| 19
Q1
Your maths course has achieved great
success in terms of grades. How do you
measure this success?
At our school, we use two different methods to
measure the success of the course. We compare
results to previous years to see if there’s been an
improvement, and we also compare results to the rest
of the country. This gives us a good idea of how well
our classes are working.
I first did this comparison two years ago, and
realised that in the last four years my student results
had gone from level with the national average to being
a full point higher. That’s a significant leap on the
Norwegian six-point scale, so I began to ask why. What
is it that I am doing in my maths course that makes a
difference?
what are you doing that makes a
Maths teacher Kjetil
difference?
Q2 And
I use technology to make the teaching more
Idås has found a
efficient, to improve the quality of teaching and learning
and to free up time so I can give each student more
formula for teaching
feedback. In essence, I’m getting the same benefits
from ICT as businesses do when they use ICT.
maths to 16–19 year
For some maths teachers, using ICT means replacing
the calculator with software. I don’t look at it that
olds that works – so
way; instead I use ICT to create a more efficient class.
That way, the students produce more work at a better
well that his students
quality, and I can give each student more attention.
consistently improve
you explain how this works in
Q3 Can
practice?
their grade-point
In practice, this requires that we have a good tool
for our students to produce digital maths work. We
average by nearly 1.5
have chosen the maths software TI-Nspire, which is
essentially a digital version of the students’ workbook.
points after just one
All the assignments they produce from each chapter are
archived in a file that’s easy to share with me or other
six-month course. We students through our school learning platform. I can
either mark this and send it back digitally or speak to
student during class.
spoke to him to find out theTI-Nspire
also enables me to differentiate my
teaching
by
sending
differentiated tasks
what he does … and if before the class. Thisstudents
means they can work more
in class, and I have more time to give
it can be replicated by independently
feedback to individuals. I also use digital tools, like
Kikora and mathTV.com to help students overcome
others
individual challenges on their own. >
20 |
Raising maths grades in Norway
Q4
It seems that frequent feedback is an
important part of your classes.
Would you agree?
Yes. One thing that I’ve noticed is that even a small
amount of face-to-face feedback is appreciated by
the student, especially if it’s directed to the student’s
specific goals. At the start of the course I ask all my
students to set their goals for the course using the
assessment tool in the learning platform. I can then
refer to these goals when I give feedback, explaining
what they need to do to improve in order to get the
grade they want. Even if I only speak to the student
for two minutes, they still feel they’ve got a lot, which
makes it easy for me to give valuable feedback often.
Q5
Is your approach influenced by any
particular educational theory?
Not, exactly. But when I realised that my approach
was working particularly well, I spoke to a number of
education professors about it, including John Hattie
at Auckland University in New Zealand. Hattie has
identified a list of factors that positively influence a
student’s education, and I saw that I prioritise four of
the most important: feedback, teaching quality, goal
setting and innovation.
Q6
There are always new teaching tools being
developed. Are there any that you’ve seen that you are particularly excited about?
I’ve noticed that my students are more engaged in
their work when they produce something that looks
professional, especially the boys, so I’m very excited
about our maths tool TI-Nspire, a CAS tool for creating
and solving maths problems, writing maths text and
using special maths symbols, like square roots and
functions. The great thing about TI-Nspire is that it
seems really simple for my students to use.
To differentiate tasks for students, I use the task
database in Kikora. A web-based solution, Kikora
follows the algorithm that the student is using to solve
the task and, if the student makes a mistake, it gives
immediate feedback on how to solve it. To enhance my
technical explanations, I use videos on mathtv.com that
explain the subject matter. |
The tools in the box
TI-Nspire
Made by Texas Instruments, TI-Nspire software
enables teachers and students to create and solve
complex maths problems on their computers – and
share their answers with each other.
itslearning
Kjetil describes the online learning platform as the
“glue that holds everything together.” He uses it
to manage his classes and store resources; while
students use it to get information and links, and to
complete work and homework assignments.
mathTV.com
A free website containing hundreds of maths
teaching videos.
Khan Academy
An online library containing 2,600 teaching videos
and hundreds of exercises.
Kikora
An online tool containing more than 4,000 maths
exercises that gives students feedback as they
work, and even gives hints if they are really stuck.
More info: www.kjetili.wordpress.com
issue 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
In learning
Now available on iPad and tablet
www.inlearningmag.com
| 21
22 |
763 BC
The story of everything
762 BC
761 BC
760 BC
Exploring
time,
place and
everything
with Geanium
By enabling students
and teachers to create
interactive timeline
presentations that combine
images, sound, video and
text, a new online tool from
Geanium promises to take
story-telling to another level
Imagine you’re teaching trainee doctors about the
spread and treatment of a certain disease. Now imagine
you have a digital tool that can not only visualise
the human body, but also the degeneration as the
disease progresses. The body becomes an interactive
educational map, with each important event shown
on a timeline. At each point, students can zoom into
the timeline to get more information, such as which
medicines were administered along with time-lapse
photography and x-rays showing how the body
responded. Geanuim is a new digital presentation tool
that gives you this possibility – and a whole lot more.
issue 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
759 BC
758 BC
757 BC
A compelling teaching and learning tool
Chronological visualisation tools, or timelines, already
exist. However, Garan Goodman at Geanium is
convinced that Geanium is an altogether more dynamic
tool, enabling teachers to visualise events in greater
details than ever before.
“Geanium enables you to tell any story using critical
locations and times,” explains Garan. “Basically, it
combines a map – whether it’s an actual geographical
map or an image map like the human body – and a
timeline of events. At each event, you can add different
types of digital content to make the story more vivid
and add more detail. Think interviews, films, photos,
music and social network apps. The result is an
extremely compelling teaching and presentation tool,
because it allows students to move back and forth along
the timeline, exploring detailed information behind each
event.”
Allowing students to research, analyse and
create
But Geanium is not just for teachers. It’s also easy
enough for students to use for their own projects and
gives them an exciting forum to present their work. As
an example, Garan points to the recent events in the
Arab world.
“Take the Arab Spring,” he says. “There are thousands
of news reports, videos and social media channels all
trying to explain the events. As an exercise in research,
prioritising and presentation, students could be asked
to create a Geanium presentation of how things started
in Egypt. Cairo could be the map. Where exactly
was the first tweet sent from, and what did it say?
In learning
756 BC
755 BC
754 BC
753 BC
752 BC
751 BC
| 23
750 BC
Where was the first gathering of protestors, and what
happened next? Based on the map of the city, students
can recreate the event in great detail, looking at news
footage, reading tweets and listening to eyewitness
accounts – and they would then need to decide which
events to focus on and what to explain at each point.”
“Geanium enables you to
tell any story using critical
locations and times. The
result is an extremely
compelling teaching and
presentation tool.”
Geanium is currently working on an iPad version of the
application, and the company is also happy to develop
customised applications and ready-made timelines for
educational institutions. Simply email Garan Goodman
at [email protected] to find out more.
Sharing and reviewing work online
Created by Croatian company Geanium ICT, Geanium
is a great example of what happens if you mix IT
experts with experts from other fields. The Geanium
team includes historians, artists, teachers and
mathematicians, but, according to Garan, they all share
the same passion: to create something new, useful and
easy to use.
“Using Geanium isn’t complicated. In fact, if you can
send an email with an attachment, you can probably
create a multimedia timeline in Geanium,” he explains.
“And it’s easy to share your presentations with teachers
or the rest of the class using the Geanium Player. The
Player has a simple interface, and simple tools for
exploring content, such as an integrated media player,
social media sharing, linear navigation controls and full
text data search.”
Give it a try?
If you’d like to try Geanium, visit
www.geanium.com
DID YOU KNOW…?
Schools and universities using itslearning, an online
learning platform, already have access to Geanium
through the itslearning App Library. itslearning users can
create their own timelines or use ready-made content
created by Geanium.
ONE EYE ON
What technologies are on the
horizon? And how will they change
the way your school works?
The 2011 Horizon Report K-12 Education identifies the new technologies that will most likely have the biggest
impact on education in the coming five years. All the technologies have the potential to change the way educators,
students and institutions work without increasing costs – and some of them will be here sooner than you think.
NEAR-TERM TECHNOLOGIES (ONE YEAR OR LESS)
MOBILE DEVICES: ACCESS TO THE
CURRICULUM, ANYWHERE AND ANYTIME
CLOUD COMPUTING:
MUCH MORE THAN A SILVER LINING
Mobile devices already give students the ability to
study where and when they want. As Android tablet
devices begin to battle Apple’s iPad for the mobile
computing market, more educational programs will
be developed and refined – such as electronic book
readers, annotation tools and applications for creation
and composition – further increasing students anytime/
anywhere access to the curriculum.
Cloud computing has been around for a while, but
education is only just beginning to feel the benefits.
According to the report, cloud computing gives schools
and universities quick and easy access to ready-made
teaching and learning applications directly over the
internet – vastly increasing the variety of digital tools
available in education.
In learning
| 25
WHAT IS THE HORIZON REPORT?
Released by the New Media Consortium in collaboration
with the Consortium for School Networking, the Horizon
Report investigates technologies that will have a major
impact on education in the foreseeable future. You can
find the full report at www.nmc.org
THE HORIZON
MID-TERM TECHNOLOGIES (TWO–THREE YEARS)
GAME-BASED LEARNING:
CATCHING UP WITH THE HIGH STREET
OPEN DIGITAL CONTENT:
MAKING TEACHING RESOURCES FREE FOR ALL
Game-based learning has made great strides in
secondary education, but it still suffers from a scarcity
of decent educational games. Educational developers
are struggling to keep up with the technology used
in consumer games, but as more schools look to
incorporate games in the classroom, the educational
developers will begin to catch up.
Open textbooks offer numerous benefits, including
reduced costs and quick adaption to new information.
(One example is Free High School Science Texts,
written by volunteer experts for disadvantaged schools
in South Africa). As the books and exercises are offered
online, educators will soon be able to pick and choose
from new content on an almost daily basis.
LONG-TERM TECHNOLOGIES (FOUR–FIVE YEARS)
LEARNING ANALYTICS:
DATA CRUNCHING FOR THE CLASSROOM
PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS:
GIVING STUDENTS CONTROL
Learning analytics may sound boring, but the power
to monitor and respond to students’ academic
performance offers great advantages to educators and
learners. Until now, learning analytics has focused on
identifying at-risk students who can then be coached
to avoid dropping out of a course. But the technology
has the potential to help educators determine the most
effective pedagogical approaches for specific learning
styles and differentiate instruction to suit individual
needs.
Often delivered through learning platforms, personal
learning environments (PLEs) give students control
over the pace, style and direction of how they learn.
Students using PLEs will be able to develop their own
‘resource libraries’, incorporating materials that suit
their learning style.
THE
BIGGER
PICTURE
Teachers and students copy images from
the internet every day to use in their work…
and many of them break copyright laws when
they do. But there is a better, faster and legal
alternative
I ssue 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
In learning
| 27
is perfectly legal. Flickr and Wikimedia Commons
images, for example, have clear rights statements
using Creative Commons licences, and many people
use these resources. Pictures we take ourselves can
also be shared and used broadly. But there are cases
where teachers and students might be infringing upon
copyright law.”
One answer is to use institutional and commercial
image collections. As well as legal advantages, these
collections offer other benefits, including how to meet
institutional and individual needs in an environment
of rapid technological change. “The collections are
built to last,” says Maureen. “The strengths are related
to the issues of sharability, quality, extensive content
coverage, data standardisation for discoverability and
conscientious rights management.”
A real alternative to copying from the internet
Are you
breaking
copyright law?
In the digital world, images are easier to create,
duplicate, collect and share than ever before. But this
easy access creates a new issue: the risk of copyright
infringement. For educational institutions, there are a
number of alternatives.
With images widely available through searches on
the internet, educational institutions need to better
understand the implications of uncontrolled image
use and find a way of making images legally available
for staff and students.
Helping educational institutions get the full
picture
As president of the Visual Resources Association
(VRA), Maureen Burns is deeply engaged in this
process. VRA is dedicated to furthering research
and education in image management in educational,
cultural and commercial environments. “In the predigital world, more control could be exerted over the
reproduction of images for educational purposes,”
Maureen says. “But today, anyone can easily copy
or share an image from the web. Sometimes this
Images courtesy of Bridgeman Education
There are a number of subscription image collections
available, such as ARTstor and Scholars Resource. But,
according to Pandora Mather-Lees at the Bridgeman
Education Art Library – an image library that offers
around 370,000 digital images from museums, private
collections and contemporary artists which are all
copyright-cleared for educational use – it’s surprising
that more educational institutions don’t use image
libraries, especially considering the advantages they
offer.
“Digital content is only as good as it is discoverable.
This means having excellent metadata attached to it so
it can be easily found in searches – and this is one area
in which libraries like ours excel,” she says. “Another
advantage is accessibility. Bridgeman Education is
now starting to integrate with learning platforms,
which gives teachers and students direct access to our
content through a piece of technology that they use
every day.”
Teaching good practice by doing good practice
In the pre-digital world, images were the domain of the
school librarian – and in many schools that is still the
case. But as more students are now working remotely,
many school librarians make content available through
publicly accessible social network sites, such as Flickr
or Facebook, because it’s the only way for the schools
to inform students who rarely visit the library of what
content is available. However, it may also be in breach
of copyright as the content can then very easily be
copied and potentially used without proper credit or
copyright information. >
28 |
The bigger picture
By integrating with learning platforms, Bridgeman
Education is giving librarians another choice: to supply
digital content through the learning platform, and so
avoid placing copyrighted material on public internet
sites. But Pandora still recommends institutions develop
firm policies or guidelines on copyrighted material.
“For many institutions, it should come as a relief to
finally be able to ban the use of images from the
internet by offering their students the alternative of
using a legitimate image resource. There are many
tracking systems that can trace who has used an
image illegally and it’s probably not worth risking
your institution’s reputation by taking someone else’s
images from Google,” she explains. “But perhaps more
importantly, it’s also an opportunity to teach good
practice regarding copyright and plagiarism, whilst
encouraging students to judge what they discover with
a critical eye and be aware of image sources.”
Copyright-free classroom success
Universal Image Group recently integrated its database
and image library with Encyclopedia Britannica’s online
picture subscription services – with great success. A
collection of more than two million images, Britannica
Image Quest includes material from the Wellcome
Trust, the National Portrait Gallery, The British Library,
the National Geographic Society, the Natural History
Museum, De Agostini Editore, the Science Museum and
many other picture libraries. The database is cleared
for educational use, so students and teachers can use
the high-quality images in student assignments, school
websites, classroom lessons and more, without fear of
breaching copyright rules.
George Sinclair, director of Universal Images Group,
believes the library is a picture goldmine for educational
institutions. “Image libraries have to be available from
where the users are. This is why an integrated solution
like Image Quest has become a success. It makes
it really fast and easy to find rights-cleared, quality
images online, all in one convenient place – and as
they’re all cleared for educational use, teachers and
administrators can feel entirely confident about using
them.”
Library Journal, The Booklist and Library Media
Connection have all given the product ‘highly
recommended’ ratings for its excellent time saving
abilities, access and discoverability. In the US the
Association of Educational Publishers awarded Image
Quest the Distinguished Achievement Award in June
2011.
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
Britannica are also receiving compliments for the image
collection from their customers. “The take-up has
been very good,” says Ian Grant, Managing Director of
Encyclopedia Britannica UK. “In the first six months, our
users have downloaded more than 370,000 images. 22%
of the use has been in areas such as history, science
and natural history, but we have 32 different subject
categories and we expect the proportion to change as
our users discover other subjects in the collection.”
Learning an essential lesson
Maureen Burns believes that there is clearly a need for
copyright education and when a student graduates from
high school or college, she should know a little bit about
copyright. But she also believes that the responsibility
for educating image users lies in a partnership between
image suppliers, information professionals and
educators. “Twenty-first century teaching places great
importance on visual literacy, educational institutions
want easy access to quality images and the image
industry has created good solutions for them,” she says.
“But image suppliers should work more closely with
teachers and students to facilitate image access and
use. The new range of visual skills includes identifying
reliable sources, judging quality and understanding
intellectual property. We need to build this into the
curriculum.” |
DID YOU KNOW?
Users of Bridgeman Education have free access to a
new interactive module on the Olympics, where they
can explore a timeline of past Olympic posters along
with art from the period. The module enables them to
learn about stylistic and cultural changes in society –
and create their own Olympic poster.
Looking for an image library?
You could try…
ARTstor
(www.artstor.org)
Scholars Resource
(www.scholarsresource.com)
Bridgeman Education
(www.bridgemaneducation.com)
Universal Images Group
(www.universalimagesgroup.com)
For more information on the work of the VRA, visit
www.vraweb.org. You can also find the organisation’s
whitepaper Advocating for Visual Resources
Management in Education and Cultural Institutions at
http://tiny.cc/g1306
In five minutes
Get up to speed without the effort
the pisa Report
The Programme
for International
Student Assessment
What does
PISA stand
for?
So it has nothing to do with the
famous leaning tower then?
No. Although Italy did take part.
Along with 64 other countries.
So who does compile the
report?
Another acronym. The
OECD, which stands for
the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation
and Development.
The OECD tests 15-year-olds’ reading, mathematics
and science skills in each participating country
every three years. The last one was completed in
2009.
Because the digital
reading results
from 2009 were
released in the
summer of 2011.
2009? So why are we
talking about it now?
Continued on the next page
Okay. So what
does the PISA
Report tell us?
According to the people
who run it, it shows how
effectively different
countries educate their
children in comparison
to other countries
and so encourages
governments to use the
findings to improve their
teaching and student
performance.
And is this true?
Not according to some critics. They argue that, because the report ranks
countries, the media, politicians and decision makers only focus on who’s
better than who. The tests themselves have also been criticised for not
being culturally neutral.
Good question. According to
the OECD video, the tests are
designed to test students’
ability to use their knowledge
and skills in real-life situations.
I wouldn’t like to say.
Is the criticism
of the tests
valid?
Can you get a culturally
neutral real-life situation?
What does the report
tell us about education?
According to the OECD, it tells us that money alone doesn’t make a great
education system. Successful education systems are those that make
education a priority, value teachers and believe all students can perform
to high levels.
Yeah, yeah. But
which country has
the best education
system?
That’s a very
superficial question.
Do you work in the
media?
Yes. I like drawing general
conclusions from complex results.
Well, in that case, you might
like these: Girls test better
at reading than boys in
every country, while boys
generally do better at
maths. Also, systems that
allowed students who
failed to repeat the
year generally scored
lower than systems
that gave students
and teachers only
one shot.
To find out more, visit www.pisa.oecd.org
What students know and can do: student performance in reading, mathematics and science
Comparing countries’ and economies’ performance: the PISA top 10
On the reading subscales
OECD average
Shanghai-China
Korea
Finland
Hong Kong-China
Singapore
Canada
New Zealand
Japan
Australia
Netherlands
On the overall
reading scale
Access
and retrieve
Integrate
and interpret
Reflect
and evaluate
Continuous
texts
Non-continuous
texts
On the
mathematics
scale
On the science
scale
493
556
539
536
533
526
524
521
520
515
508
495
549
542
532
530
526
517
521
530
513
519
493
558
541
538
530
525
522
517
520
513
504
494
557
542
536
540
529
535
531
521
523
510
494
564
538
535
538
522
524
518
520
513
506
493
539
542
535
522
539
527
532
518
524
514
496
600
546
541
555
562
527
519
529
514
526
501
575
538
554
549
542
529
532
539
527
522
Source: OECD, PISA 2009 Database.
PISA 2009 Results: Executive Summary
2x 4
tips for
better
teaching
Online social
networking is the
current big thing. Here
are 8 ways you can
tap into your students’
social networking skills
in class
I S S U E 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
4
tips for
using online
discussion
forums
Almost every learning platform allows
you to set up student debates through
online discussion forums – and they
can increase learning outcomes if
used the correct way. These four tips
will help you get started…
such as the use of closed circuit television (CCTV) in
schools. Then split the class into two groups and ask
one group to argue for and the other against CCTV.
1
3
Pleased to meet you, why are
you here?
Many students shy away from open
face-to-face discussions in large groups,
especially if they don’t know the people in the group
very well. Online discussion forums can be a great way
to introduce the class to each other before they meet.
Simply set up a discussion thread, and ask the students
to each post a short introduction about themselves (it
helps if you give an example).
2
Develop critical thinking
skills
Discussions force students to present their
ideas clearly, and to consider responses
from fellow students. To help develop critical thinking
skills, create a discussion forum on a controversial topic,
Let students help each other
Want to save time? An online discussion
can take the pressure off you when it
comes to answering questions. Set up a
help discussion on each theme and let
your students discuss potential problems between
themselves. Chances are that the brighter students can
answer most of the questions, and you simply have to
steer the discussion in the right direction if needed.
4
Continue teaching outside
school hours
Discussion forums are great for
homework, as students can continue to
discuss things from their computers at
home. You can see who’s taken part in the discussion
and how active they were. You can start the discussion
by adding a question that you think will engage your
students (referring to certain pages in the textbook, or
even embedding videos, images or music files) and then
ask your students to take over.
4
34 |
The bigger picture
1
tips for
getting your
students
blogging
Getting started online
Most learning platforms have in-built
blogging features. If you don’t have a
learning platform there are a number of
different free blogging tools you can use,
such as wordpress.com and blogger.com. The process
is straight-forward and registration only takes a couple
of minutes. But be careful: unless used in a learning
platform with access permissions, blogs may be viewed
publicly on the internet. Make sure you have the correct
permissions – for example from parents – before you
start a blogging project.
2
A blog enables anyone
to publish texts, images
and movies on the
internet. Blogs can also
be used in teaching…
here are a few ideas
A digital work portfolio
Use blogs to present and organise student
work as digital portfolios in one or more
school subjects. The blog’s archive
feature is a great tool to show progress
over time – and most students find it more motivating
to write when they believe others may read and
respond. Also, as blogs are published on the internet,
students may be encouraged to think twice before they
publish an entry. In this context it’s the quality that
counts, not the quantity. The goal is for the students to
assemble a collection of blog entries that illustrate their
talents.
GOT ANY TIPS?
If you have tips you think other teachers could
benefit from, email them to us at
[email protected]
issue 2 - W W W. I N L E A R N I N G M A G . C O M
3
4
Collaborative projects
Blogs are great for collaborative projects,
for example, if a group of students wants
to publish their research results or findings.
But it’s best done in small groups, so
divide the class up and let each group set up their blog.
You can then post comments to give advice, help and
support – and you can encourage students from other
groups to comment as well.
Put your projects on an
international stage
The internet has no borders, which
makes blogs a great way for students
in different countries to share ideas,
experiences and advice. A simple international
blogging project could deal with nutritional education,
for example, and students from participating schools
could post recipes and information about food in their
country.
In learning
| 35
The top ten
Twitter hashtags
for educators
Twitter helps you keep in touch with your
friends, colleagues, students and the world in
general over the internet. But tweeting without
hashtags is like shouting into the wind. What
are the best hashtags for education? And how
do you use them?
One of the most complex features for new users
of Twitter is the hashtag (#). Hashtags are a way
of categorising tweets, and they enable you to
search the millions of tweets generated every day.
(For example, if you search for #edtech, you will
get a list of tweets connected to technology in
education.)
Why you should start tagging your tweets
Using a hashtag makes sure your tweet is
searchable in the right category – and as a result
helps ensure you are talking to an interested
audience. It can also be a good way to attract
followers who are interested in the same topics
as you.
You can tag any word on Twitter. However, there
are some unwritten rules: don’t overuse them and
make it very apparent what it is talking about.
1
2
3
4
#edchat
a really useful tag if you want to
tweet with educators worldwide
#highered
topics for higher education
#teaching
mainly used for job-seeking
#edtech
technology in education
#elearning
5
this one’s pretty obvious
6
apps for education
7
#gbl
8
#flipclass
9
10
#edapp
game-based learning
flipped classroom
#bullying
good for finding resources, help
and support
#ntchat
for new teachers
WHAT IS TWITTER?
An online social networking and microblogging service, Twitter enables people to send and read tweets
(text-based posts of up to 140 characters long). Created in 2006, Twitter has rapidly gained in popularity
and now has around 200 million users, generating over 200 million tweets per day.
Go to www.twitter.com to give it a try.
Issue 2
Apps for education
It’s time to forget your passwords. With the itslearning App Library, you can get your favourite teaching
and learning applications fully integrated into your learning platform – which means you and your
students only have one password to remember. You can also add assignments to your students’
calendars with one click, get full reports on student progress and automatically import results into your
students’ grade books.
The itslearning App Library
www.itslearning.eu
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