The BPS research digest recently featured a study that investigated
children's reports of factual and narrative information after a visit to a museum. The children were six years old and, perhaps of no surprise to parents, the children were able to recall a large amount of information. Of particular interest is that they could remember significantly more when they drew at the same time as retelling their trip to the museum. In fact, they were able to remember twice as much factual information when drawing.

Some of the 'drawing' effect was put down to the subconscious verbal encouragement given to children by adults while they were drawing. Drawing could also be acting as a motivator and provide memory clues.

Despite recalling lots of information, the children performed relatively poorly in a traditional comprehension test of 12 questions. One explanation is that the children were interested in different aspects of the same phenomena from adults (something that is known from research elsewhere) and the adults made up the test.

As well as highlighting the value of taking children to museums, there is a strong message in this research in terms of methods for assessing and supporting children's learning.

Gross, J., Hayne, H., & Drury, T. (2009). Drawing facilitates children's reports of factual and narrative information: implications for educational contexts. Applied Cognitive Psychology23(7), 953-971.

Labels: assessment, drawing, education, memory, motivation, museums, schools

In the past week, the issue of the uptake of innovation or technology has arisen in two of our projects - one considering implementation of new LMS in the NHS, and the other at the usage of e-portfolios (and other e-assessment) in Further Education Skills for Work courses.

So, I've been reading round the subject, looking at a variety of models - the most well known probably being Rogers' Innovation Curve (or Technology Adoption Lifecycle), and have just found
"The pencil metaphor". I like this idea, where Lindy McKeown uses the idea of a pencil (and related puns!) to demonstrate ICT uptake in Education. Some aspects of her ideas match up well with Roger's model, particularly at the 'sharp' end!

Labels: adoption, assessment, education, elearning, furthereducation, ICT, innovation, innovationcurve, model, NHS, technology, uptake

The new Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), as it was named yesterday, will bring together the work of the CEL (Centre for Excellence in Leadership) and the QIA (Quality Improvement Agency for Lifelong Learning). This new body is a sector-owned organisation dedicated to supporting excellence and leadership development in the further education and skills sector.(See full PublicTechnology.net article).

Labels: education, furthereducation, organisation

It was a week for assessment events - the e-Assessment Association Glasgow seminar, and a joint Assessment meets Enterprise meets Portfolio CETIS meeting. While the eAA is perhaps more focused on schools and colleges, and CETIS relates more strongly to HE, there was still some interesting links between the two events.

Helen Ashton and Cliff Beevers gave a presentation at the eAA that covered some of the history, current status and future of e-Assessment. This wasn't just the technology though, Helen talked us through the pros and cons, referring to the three stages of generational change proposed by Randy Bennett in his forecast on the future of large-scale educational assessment, published in 1998. Even ten years on, we are some way off Bennett's "Generation 'R' Tests (Reinvention)". Yes, assessment is being "administered at a distance" and it does "use complex simulations, including virtual reality". But, can we really say that assessment is "integrated with instruction (teaching)" and "designed according to cognitive principles"?

Helen went on to talk us through how paper-based assessment questions had been converted for delivery online. There were quite a few examples from maths (she is a mathematician afterall!) but it all served to demonstrate that we need to remember to look at comparability, and Helen gave an overview of various comparison studies. Cliff and Helen's presentation is available as a pdf.

The first presentation at the CETIS event concerned forthcoming calls for studies from JISC. One of these was described as a mixed methods study regarding the 'Quality of e-Assessment'. It was suggested that it is intended to address some of the "deep-rooted concerns" regarding quality amongst those sceptical of e-Assessment. It sounds as those members of the eAA are already working in this area.

Labels: assessment, conference, education, elearning, futures, organisation

I've just come across two interesting news items - one about the use of Web2.0 in the Health sector and another about using online games to encourage children to respond to a consultation about play spaces.

Although the full text is not available without paying a hefty sum, the Executive Summary of the E-health 2.0 report is available. The report offers an overview of twenty "leading e-health 2.0 providers", and discusses a number of themes that emerge from this overview, including: Transparency in the health system; Rebalancing the doctor-patient relationship; Consumer empowerment; Empowerment through connectivity; and Mobilisation of data. According to Public Technology.net "The profiles provide a snapshot of innovation across healthcare: from organisations providing online communities for patients with specific conditions, tools for chronic disease management, sites that enable patients to rate the quality of care they receive, together with tools to enable clinicians to better search for and share research data."

The second story I saw came from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Playspace consultation tool is a neat online tool which is aimed at 8-13 year olds to try and get them involved with a national consultation on the development of play spaces. In a Sims type game it allows kids to create their ideal playspace, and they earn credits to buy cool things (like skate ramps, swings, etc) for their playspace by answering child-friendly questions based around the consultation.

I suppose what struck me most about these is the way in which technology is changing the relationship between organisations and their 'clients'. Whether that's through finding interesting and fun ways to engage children and therefore enable them to contribute to developments in their world, or encouraging greater interaction, support and freedom of choice through the use of social networking in the health sector.

It's encouraging engagement, interaction, involvement and ownership of these issues and with increasing familiarity and access to technology it seems likely to become more prevalent in every part of our lives.

Labels: consultation, digitalnatives, education, engagement, freedom, games, health, IT, online gaming, open, socialnetworking, web2.0

Just been dipping into the Eduserve symposium on 'Inside Out: What do current Web trends tell us about the future of ICT provision for learners and researchers?' It's all streamed, which is nice for those of us who couldn't make it to London in person, especially with the linked live chat. I particularly like the way the chat is set up alongside the video stream - sounds obvious and simple, but has probably taken someone a lot of head scratching on the technical front. Shame we can't see who is in the live chat, but you can't have everything. There is a efsym2008 social network tho.

The first presentation was from Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium. (NMC is the organisation that along with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative produces the Horizon report.) Larry talked through some of the history of innovation and the impact of inventions (like washing machines!) drawing on "When old technologies were new. Thinking about electric communication in the late 19th century". He moved onto the Horizon report which "charts the landscape of emerging technologies" especially as they expand the "boundaries of teaching, learning and creative expression by creatively applying new tools in new contexts". The report is in its fifth year, and part of his talk included a meta-analysis of the last five years. It was striking how despite changing membership of the panel who produce the report, there was a shared vision over the years.

Larry's presentation was delivered via his avatar in Secondlife, which was a neat idea, but not so easy to see his slides over the video stream. Although Kate has just pointed out in the chat that if Larry shares the location, anyone can explore the presentation later and chat together there, "which would be a much richer experience than just looking at his slides somewhere online".

I'll just have to read the report direct, which is probably a good thing!

Labels: conference, education, efsym2008, futures, web2.0

As the parent of a child who's been keen on computer games from the age of three(!), I welcome the Scottish Government's plans for teaching schoolchildren how to design and develop their own electronic games. Apparently, pupils will use software to create their own games, and be taught how to use computer software to create animations and feature films. While this is at least partly intended to support Scotland's games industry, which employs more than 500 and generates £20million annually, Maureen Watt, Minister for Schools and Skills, also notes "Technologies have become part of every day modern life, whether in computer programming, engineering or craft and design - and we need to encourage children to be confident and competent when using them".

From what I can see, confidence in using technology is already par for the course among primary 1s, certainly in terms of xbox, playstation, nintendo ds various... And if you need convincing about the potential educational value of games, have a look at how it is being done on gamelearning for the 'playstation generation'; read what John Rice has to stay about the educational uses of the ds; or for something more practical (and my favourite) why not see if you can beat the clock on Lunar Jim's patchwork game (Level 3), or for something a bit easier how about Spooky Spoon Sudoku?

Labels: digitalnatives, education, games, learnerexpectations, schools, scotland

Yesterday I attended an interesting presentation by Ewan McIntosh (his edublogs site is worth checking out) run as part of the Urban Learning Space seminar series (a podcast of it will be available soon).

What I found refreshing was his discussion of how emerging technologies (social software in particular) is really just another development in a long line of 'in-things' (from sliced bread in 192x!) whose use seemed daunting, unusual or even inappropriate initially.

What I took from his talk was that maybe educators tend to take the use of emerging technolgies too seriously, treating them as an all-or-nothing. Overplanning the use of technolgy, putting so much emphasis on the need for them to be successful (or the need for it to not fail) means that the flexibility, spontaneity and innovative use of technologies is often stifled in the learning environment. And yet our learners are displaying exactly these traits in their personal use of the technologies - from using their blogs to publish creative writing, to producing videos for youtube sharing their comments on current affairs, and using some impressive technical features to showcase their talents. Maybe it is time we learned from them and see it as a creative medium rather than looking for the way to assess it and 'prove' the value of the excersie... maybe the value is it can engage the interest of learners!

Labels: digitalnatives, education, educators, elearning, freedom, internet, IT, learnerexpectations, online, web2.0

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills have announced £3.9 million in funding to support the Technology Exemplar Network jointly led by Becta and LSC.

This inititative will aim to create a national support network to enable those who have successfully embedded ICT in their teaching and learning to share their experience with other practitioners and thus encourage use of learner-focused technology in education.

Read more at PublicTechnology.net

Labels: education, elearning, IT, networks, online, practitioners

The Health Protection Agency have announced a new strudy investigating the effects of wireless networks on our health. Although they say that they "have good scientific reasons to expect the results to be re-assuring", the empahsis of the study seems to be looking at patterns of use, and quantifying actual levels of exposure.

Read more at PublicTechnology.net .

Labels: digitalnatives, education, health, internet, IT, networks

Terry Freedman (and others) have publised an online book about Web 2.0 from an educators point of view, called "Coming of Age: an introduction to the new worldwide web".

It includes intriguing sounding chapter titles such as:

- What Are Rss Feeds And Why Haven’T I Heard About It?(Rss Feeds From An Educator’S Perspective)

- Virtual Support Via The Blogosphere

- Diary Of A Potential Podcasting Junkie

- Video Blogging: Terry Freedman Interviews Paul Knight


The book was completed in April 2006, but Terry is working on an updated version as we speak. To download the 2006 publication you do have to complete a short questionnaire (5 or so questions) by following this link.

Labels: education, educators, elearning, internet, practitioners, web2.0