ICT - Networking and Communications
Taking the lead on evolving learning environments T
oday, more than ever, teachers are challenged to create lessons that excite learners. With education increasingly competing for students’ attention over video games, the internet and TV, teachers must ensure lessons capture and, moreover, retain the interest of learners. The obvious way to achieve this is by ensuring that interactive technology is integrated and made a seamless part of the learning environment.
Flexible learning
We now expect that learning will involve many different activities, and collaborative learning technologies such as interactive whiteboards have become an intrinsic part of teaching and learning in most schools. With the recent introduction of more flexible learning spaces such as learning pods, break-out areas and education centres, interactive technology can facilitate learning through introducing a much more flexible approach.
Technology has helped to challenge the traditional notion that learning should take place predominantly in the classroom. With a range of mobile solutions available, such as mobile interactive whiteboard systems and Learner Response Systems, schools are increasingly utilising less formal environments that allow students to participate in practical exercises. By varying the environment and creating a more hands on experience, students are required to continually gather and process information, and encouraged to take greater ownership of their learning.
Outside the classroom
A number of educational establishments have discovered the potential of using Promethean’s handheld ActivExpression Learner Response System in a range of unconventional learning environments. A case in point is the partnership between Portsmouth Football Club and The Mary Rose Trust. As part of their ‘Get on Board’ initiative, pupils of Isambard Brunel Junior School found themselves using the handheld device for a
June 2010
Whole school implementation Moreover, Alder Grange Community and Technology School in Rossendale, Lancashire, implemented the ActivExpression Learner Response System school and curriculum wide, assigning each of the school’s 700 students their own handset.
David Hampson, Head of School at Alder Grange, is clear about the benefits: “We’ve been able to develop more creative and exciting
history quiz while on board the football club’s Pompey Learning Bus. Joining the pupils on board the learning bus, England and Portsmouth goalkeeper David James led the lesson which put their local history knowledge to the test. “The Get On Board programme is designed to get more children engaged in local history and culture by recruiting the help of people and technologies that we know appeal to young people,” explains Clare Martin, Portsmouth Football Club’s Community Projects Officer.
applications for the device since the wider roll- out. For example, in a recent anti-bullying campaign, we used the handsets in anonymous mode to get a clear and honest picture of bullying across the school and work to eliminate problems where they existed.
“We’ve also been able to use the system in governors’ meetings to help make key decisions. Using the device in this way not only helps parents and stakeholders experience the technology, but means the governors gain definitive answers.”
Adapting to evolution
Mobile learning solutions such as portable computing devices and mobile interactive whiteboard systems, allow for technology-rich learning spaces to be created in any location throughout the school, including informal areas such as libraries, breakout areas and hallways. Allowing space to be re-allocated and re- configured, the mobile solution enables a more demonstrative teaching method and better support of vocational teaching and learning. Other developments are helping students to access learning beyond the school building altogether. These include Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), which enable classroom and homework material to be accessed from any location.
Making a good investment
Investing in interactive technology to engage today’s digital generation is fundamental to creating motivational, flexible and innovative learning spaces that extend the boundaries of traditional teaching. Supporting a range of purposes simultaneously, mobile solutions remove the barriers to learning outside of the traditional classroom, and can seamlessly adapt themselves to both the context and the learner.
u01254 298598
uwww.PrometheanWorld.com
www.education-today.co.uk 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42