Greenshaw High School

How can we use technology to engage and challenge our students achievement?

Greenshaw High School Grennell Road Sutton, SM1 3DY T 0208 7151001 F 0208 6417335 Esbutcher12@suttonlea.org Wsbutcher12.wix.com/mediacpd

How can we use technology to engage and challenge our students achievement?

When my son, James, was doing homework for school, he would have ve or six windows open on his computer, Instant Messenger was ashing continuously, his cell phone was constantly ringing, and he was downloading music and watching the TV over his shoulder. I dont know if he was doing any homework, but he was running an empire as far as I could see, so I didnt really care. Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything Abstract
We are all aware that students learn in a plethora of ways; methods that they use to understand the world and square the circle in their journey to become adults. We never, of course, stop learning, we continue to develop and ne tune our methods continually throughout adulthood, constantly striving to better our understanding. However at some juncture in our adult life we acknowledge that the things that we learn whilst at school are in part, relevant and in part irrelevant. We may have taken a path that does not make use of the parts of learning which no longer hold resonance for us and consequently lter out the useful parts of our school experience. The most useful part of the school experience is learning to learn; understanding that we have the capacity to work things out; understanding the world and effecting it in some way. The most useful part of school is beginning to question the things we experience and going some way to solving and understanding these concepts; what we call the higher order learning. We need to produce people who know how to act when theyre faced with situations for which they were not specically prepared (Papert, 1998) But, of course, the world keeps changing and so do the jobs that we are preparing our students for. We are inundated with statistics regarding the percentage of jobs that do not yet exists but that we are preparing our students for, and this is a worrying concept for educators as we have been trained to teach our subjects within a 2D curriculum which does not always allow the exibility for us to be able to teach beyond the exam.

Greenshaw High School Grennell Road Sutton, SM1 3DY T 0208 7151001 F 0208 6417335 Esbutcher12@suttonlea.org Wsbutcher12.wix.com/mediacpd

Greenshaw High School

We also train our students to be 2D and tell them what is right and what is wrong in a world where neither truly exist. Ken Robinson in his book The element 2009, says If your not prepared to be wrong, youll never come up with anything original and I tend to believe schooling often stops students from being wrong and therefore does not create the safe environment for them to be wrong. This is not a criticism of schools but indeed curriculum. With all this is mind how do we go about creating a model for our curriculum that addresses some of the issues we are faced with? Media and Digital Literacy are two strands of the literacies that I believe can go some way to addressing issues in schooling. In learning through these methods students can feel comfortable and empowered as it is within their nature and culture to use these tools to learn within their extended learning environment. Much has been said about the power of learning through play, indeed only this morning I was reading an article which discussed the relative merits of learning through computer games with some convincing statistics on the impact on dexterity and cognition brought about by hours of game play. Now I am not suggesting that we begin teaching Call of Duty as a route into secondary History but I am saying that we need to set aside our preconceptions and prejudices about what is right to learn and how it's right to learn it. In conclusion this research project is born out of a desire to educate effectively and with the highest potential impact on a students understanding of the world whilst not neglecting our core purpose to acknowledge the students achievements as competing individuals in a competitive world.

Background

The project came about from discussing the strengths that media and digital literacy have on students understanding of the world. We began looking at our strengths as a department, and discussing the potential of a research project that explored our strengths in teaching. We discussed as a team what area of research would best understand the benets of studying media and this led to our discussion around technology and its importance in the pedagogy of our department. Rob and I already teach with iPads and make use of technology to support the teaching of our subject, and students make use of cameras and technology to create the media texts that we require for controlled assessment. There is a natural correlation between the technology that we use and the subject matter, however I increasingly nd that the medium we use to teach is often more powerful and valuable than the message it provides. What I mean by that is the technology becomes a vehicle for learning rather than the thing being taught.

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This made us consider the possibility of the methods we use to teach transferring across to other subject areas. We set our long term goal, which is to spread this practice to other members of staff to embrace the potential of mobile technologies. You will see from this initial interim report that indeed we are in the process of developing the idea further and pursuing the wider goal. However the beginnings of our project came about from a conversation with Victoria Mole from the History department who was looking for advice. She was in the middle of a project with Year 9, teaching around the theme of Terrorism. The students were looking at how the media represents terrorism, what terrorism is, and what the impact of terrorism can be. She wanted advice on how the students could present the materials they had developed. From here we considered several possibilities but the main principles we were working towards were to present the information they had gained from the teaching and to make it engaging and meaningful. We discussed the possibility of using the iPod touches to create a keynote presentation (Apples version of powerpoint) to develop slides and content to create an interactive presentation. This developed further into considering the students making video presentations where they could create mock interviews and show real footage. All of which would be collaborative and creative and all be facilitated by the iPod. From a technical point of view the iPod can be used to browse the internet (Safari), record video (Rear and front facing HD cameras), edit video (iMovie) with sound and graphics, and present (Keynote). As these are devices that the students are familiar with and have grown up with the time taken to develop the skills is relatively short. Marc Prensky in 2001 coined the term Digital Native to describe the generation who are growing up with technologies as consumer products. The familiarity of the technology is such that it does not deviate from the core principle of learning about History. We organised for the History department to use the devices with each Year 9 class to develop their presentations making use of George Bligh (Media Technician) to support the deployment and technical introduction to the methods they were going to use. We decided to use the measure of Historical data on this unit of work as a measure of the success of the project. We also made use of qualitative data through observations and questionnaire responses. I was adamant that the only outcome could not be engagement by the students, as I am sure you will agree that this has some sense of inevitability about it. For example teaching anything interactively will be engaging but unless it has educational outcomes which challenge the students more cognitively then it is just another trick in a teachers arsenal.
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The project was bound by some limitations, for example, it was not ethically right to make use of a control group and not allow one form to not participate as a control group as it did not seem right and fair. Equally it was agreed that it would be more meaningful a process for all staff to be involved in a project which could potentially take them out of the traditional comfort of their teaching methods.

Methods

The students were given the iPods and shown how to use them to record video, they were also given some expectations regarding the effective and safe use of the device. Beyond this however they were only bound by their creativity.

The Keynote presentation given to the students by Media Technician (George Bligh)

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Examples

Jess and Asta (Year 9)

Alex (Year 9)

Shania (Year 9)

Chloe (Year 9)

The students were active in their learning and through the technology explored the potential of the device. They looked at developing the ways in which they presented through using animation, interviews, live action re-constructions, news reportage, graphics and sound. Notably some students explored outside of the perimeters that they were given and created better outcomes as a result. For example two Year 9 girls found an app which allowed them to create a stop frame animation that they used in their video to dramatically and graphically present the materials they had gathered. The app they found (Video star) was free to download and provided them with further creative tools to present the information.

Findings
The whole project was very student led and required them to problem solve and explore their journey to the nal result. For most this was a welcome liberation, however some found this to be an uncomfortable departure from the regular style they have grown accustomed.

I think that iPods are a very smart device and could be very helpful in interactive lessons, but if used excessively, could take away the whole aspect of learning. Kiran Evans (Year 9)
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Interestingly Kiran had detached the process of using the iPod with learning processes and this is not to be overlooked. It is a surprising observation but one which is indicative of the perception surrounding learning methods involving mobile technology. In addition to asking for feedback from the staff involved and explaining their observations of the project we also asked the students to respond to an online questionnaire created on Frog (MLE). This allowed students to freely write their responses and feedback on the experience of using the iPods in this project. 100% of the students stated that they would like to use iPods more in their learning across the school. 80% of girls felt that they had learnt more from learning in this way than the 68% of Boys who felt the same way. Intuitive was the most popular term to describe their engagement with the iPod followed by exciting and informative. Interesting enough the least descriptive term of the ve was engaging. Though I wonder if this might just be a semantic barrier. Student responses were very insightful and informative regarding the potential suggestions of how the iPods could be used. One student mentions how the iPods could be used in Drama lessons to record their practical work, in Geography to look at countries (Google Earth) and populations, in Languages to act out scenes using the language and maybe using translation apps. Students also suggested that this would be a better way of doing group work as they seemed to enjoy this process of developing a collaborative piece of work. Overall the responses were very positive and students appear to be excited by the prospect of this becoming a normal method of learning at Greenshaw. In addition to the students responses we also received very positive/insightful feedback from the History staff. When asked about the progress of students through the process the response was:

The technology increased engagement for many pupils and all of the kids said they enjoyed the project. This meant
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thatcertain pupilswere more responsive than normal in short starter activities and did work externally from lessons of their own accord. However in terms of content knowledge I don't think they used the technology to research more, I think they just re hashed what we had taught them creatively. I do think though that they will remember this more as they were physically doing the learning instead of just being conned to a classroom and certain pupilsthriveoutside of teacher lead lessons.
The interesting thing here is that the students had already completed the learning around terrorism and that the iPods had been brought in to support the outcome of their learning. It is insightful as there is clear acknowledgment that the iPods have enabled the students to give gravity and weight to their learning making it something memorable. When asked about the progress of specic groups the response was:

I think girls responded better to the task. I mainly think this because the boys seemed to get too involved in the whole guns terror type thing and girls are seemingly more creative (XXX will probably shoot me down in ames for this generalisation!)As for social/ethnicity I didn't notice anything particular all socio-economic groups enjoyed the task and a range completed work at home.
Again, an observation has been made about the level of engagement across genders and interestingly enough the girls come out on top. This was not a predicted outcome, there was some assumption that because this was technology that stereotypically the boys would respond better than the girls. This proved not to be the case as the key was creativity and the creative use of the technology. Staff were very positive about the support that was given in terms of the technical side, which afforded them the condence to manage behaviour and work ethic. George also observed good teaching strategies and commented on the positive use of discovery in the students learning towards creating their outcomes. He stated that the students were not afraid to embrace the technology and explore its potential.

Discussion

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The future for this project is now in the hands of the teachers we have recruited for the iPad trial. We will explore the educational potential of the devices and look at how they can be used both as teaching and learning tools.

For further information please visit:

http://sbutcher12.wix.com/mediacpd

Appendix
The Element - how nding your passion changes everything - Ken Robinson 2009
A text which explores the element of success in peoples lives. A denition and anecdotal story of people said to be In their Element

Out of our Minds - Ken Robinson 2009

Textbook which explores a contemporary view of education and creativity for engagement and progress

Digital Literacy across the Curriculum - Futurelab, BECTA 2010

This paper aims to explain the importance of digital literacy whilst citing some examples of DL in practice, this is aimed at promoting DL in schools and so therefore focusses on the positive outcomes.

How the Digital School can improve teaching and learning - Colin Rose 2011
This paper is rather a philosophy and vision for digital schools and how the implementation of technology to support learning needs to run in conjunction with all other aspects of the curriculum. It uses case studies of success stories of effective uses of digital technology in schools.

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The essential guide to Digital Learning - West One Ltd 2012

This guide is used by several of the companies working with Apple to provide technology for schools. It outlines what digital schools should look like and outlines the benets of using technology to support learning.

Mindset - How you can fulll your potential - Dr Carol Dweck, 2007 (iBook store)
Dweck looks at the inuence of mindset on achievement and how with positivity in thinking the potential for achievement is increased.

Making Learning Whole - David Perkins, 2010 (iBook store)

David Perkins discusses the seven principles of effective learning looking at engagement and how to develop engagement, though not directly associated to the research topic the development of pedagogy within this research project has been inuenced by these principles.

Engaging Learners (Outstanding Teaching) - Andy Grith (iBook store)

In this text book the author discusses the features of outstanding teaching and learning which has helped look at the core principles of what create the perfect environment for learning.

Great by choice - Jim Collins, 2011 (iBook store)

A book which explores how to optimise for greatness and sharpness of thinking. It explores the capacity for change and development.

Using Technology in Education - Jodi Bray 2013 (iBook store)

In this iBook the author sites interesting and innovative uses of technology to support teaching and learning. It incorporates web 2.0 technologies to support learning.

Getting Started with Apple iOS devices - Apple 2010

This is aimed at teachers to get them started using iOS devices to support learning. It goes through the technical aspects of running the devices and offers curriculum specic advice on how the devices could be useful for specic subject areas.

Apple iOS 5 Education Deployment Guide - Apple 2012

The deployment guide is meant to provide network managers with the skills and knowledge to support the deployment of Apple devices into school Networks.

Getting Started - Classroom ideas for getting started with the iPad - iPads4Learning 2012
Created by a company in Australia this guide is aimed at providing teachers with a foot in the door regarding the use of devices in the classroom. It has specic reference to the subject areas.

Raising Standards - Discover how technology helps schools, colleges and skills providers improve their performance - BECTA 2010
Produced shortly before the company was folded in 2010-11 BECTA created this document to explain the statistical evidence they had to support that technology is having a positive impact on schools and the success rates.

The iPad as a tool for Education - A Study of the introduction of iPads at Longeld Academy, Kent - Naace 2012
This publication aims to fully explain and describe one schools integration of a one to one iPad deployment across the school. Longeld Academy though recently refurbished is a very similar school to Greenshaw in terms of the demographic and geographic.

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Using Technology to improve teaching and learning in secondary schools - DfE 2012
This document, like others, aims to describe effective use of technology in schools. It looks at the management structure of a school and that the vision and aims need to be led from the top down. It goes onto describe how the staff need support and training to ensure the smooth running and deployment of ideas across a whole school.

Theory and Practice of Online Learning - Creative Commons 2012

More specically about Online learning this publication discusses some of the ramications for learning in this way and attempts to offer frameworks and ideas relating to how best utilise this practice.

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