A role for Learner Analytics in identifying intervention points for accessibility improvement

With 3 colleagues from other UK universities I have just had the following paper accepted for W4A2012:

A Challenge to Web Accessibility Metrics and Guidelines: Putting People and Processes First

[By Martyn Cooper, David Sloan, Brian Kelly, Sarah Lewthwaite]

In this paper we argue that web accessibility guidelines such as WCAG 2.0 are insufficient in ensuring accessibility is achieved in any web-based resource or service. A key deficiency is in an appropriate level of understanding of the users, their needs and behaviors. In a higher education context one approach to address this that I am currently exploring is based on Learner Analytics. This blog posts expands on the ideas floated in the above paper and invites comment on them. I am just beginning to draft a project proposal to fund a pilot project exploring these ideas with real data and real students in their learning contexts. If this project might be of interest then please e-mail me: m.cooper@open.ac.uk.

The 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge defined Learner Analytics as:

… the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs.

The Open University is currently hosting various projects exploring how such approaches may be adopted to enhance its educational offering and support an ethos of continued improvement. A survey report on this area, Ferguson, R. (2012). “The State Of Learning Analytics in 2012: A Review and Future Challenges.” Technical Report KMI-12-01, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK, is freely available at:
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/publications/techreport/kmi-12-01.

But how can Learner Analytics be used to enhance accessibility?

A possible starting point was outlined in the above cited W4A2012 paper and is quoted here:

One area of interest is withdrawals – e.g. when students stop study before completion of a module towards a degree. Such “drop-outs” are a high-stakes issue for universities, because they form part of the assessment of the quality of their teaching, which in turn impacts on levels of funding from government and from student-paid fees.

It is envisaged that, with a learner analytics approach, it will be possible to map for the whole student body what points on paths of study withdrawals occur. It will be further possible to analyse this data comparing withdrawals by disabled students in particular with the student body in general. It is worth noting that the Open University is a large institution with more than 200,000 students, more than 12,000 of whom declare a disability. Hence there is a reasonable chance of data about the point of withdrawal across the educational context revealing that there is something of significance relating to that context over and above the more random distribution of withdrawals for non-study related issues such as health problems and family circumstances.

An analysis has been made of completion and pass rates on all undergraduate modules presented in 2010-11, with a minimum of 10 students who had declared at least one disability (164 modules). The differences in module completion and pass rates between disabled students and non-disabled students falls in the range [-33% to +29%]. On the majority of modules (67%) disabled students fail to complete or do not pass the course in a greater proportion than non-disabled students. If this data was routinely reviewed in a learner analytics approach investigations could be triggered of what might be the factors in module design that might be leading to poor completion and pass rates for disabled students. Further, what are factors in the modules where disabled students are doing as well or better than the non-disabled members of their cohort? The reasons for these could be diverse, but might include issues of accessibility at the teaching and learning level or at the technical level of how the teaching and learning is mediated; which increasingly is web-based. The learner analytics here only indicate where there might be a problem, not what it is.

Now the above approach is only possible in a university context because data is held as to which students identify themselves as having a disability. This would not normally be the case with most public websites for example. However knowing which students have a disability says little about what their needs and preferences might be in interacting with eLearning resources for example. The university does collect slightly refined data but this is to meet the requirements of national statistics agencies. This is coarse grained and based on medical model classifications of disability and not functional requirements with respect to interaction with computer environments. To illustrate the most recent data for all OU disabled students is shown here:

	Category	Feb 2012
0		1
1	Sight	1376
2	Hearing	978
3	Mobility	3938
4	Manual Skills	2522
5	Speech	441
6	Dyslexia	3530
7	Mental Health	4755
8	Personal Care	862
9	Fatigue/Pain	5486
10	Other	2041
11	Unseen Disability	2177
12	Autistic Spectrum	325
	Total	28432

[Source: OU internal data. N.B. some students declare more than one disability; the actual total of disabled students currently registered with the OU is 13,884.]

Now we can infer that students in the Sight, Hearing, Manual Skills, and Dyslexia categories are likely to have web access needs, those in the other categories may too, but we do not know anything about the detail of their needs. Further the access needs will be diverse within any given category. Probably the most effective way of addressing this problem is asking the students to create for themselves on initial registration a profile of the detailed access needs and approaches. On candidate standard to base such a set of profiles on is AccessForAll 3.0 which is currently near finalisation within the IMS Accessibility Working Group. Note I will blog about the AccessForAll 3.0 specification when it goes to public draft which I am informed is imminent. Suffice it to say for this discussion, a learner’s needs and preferences with respect to how the learner can best interact with digital resources is represented using the IMS GLC Access For All Personal Needs and Preferences (PNP) v3.0 specification. This specification includes descriptors for all envisaged access approaches that can be encoded in a variety of ways; probably most likely in the application considered here as user profiles made up of sets of RDF Triples as defined by the vocabulary of the specification. We can set aside the “under the bonnet” discussion for now. All we need to know is that from the student perspective they can complete (once and for all but amend if necessary) a web form detailing their access needs. Then the university has this information, mapped to the PI (Personal Identification) number for each student that does so. Thus for any Learner Analytics approach we now know not just which students have a disability but specifically the nature of their access needs and preferences. These profiles could also be used for other purposes such as personalisation; managing alternative formats and quality assurance of services to disabled students but I will not discuss those here.

Another type of information that is being collected for Learner Analytics purposes is “Click Rate”. This is generated from the automatic monitoring of the frequency of clicks of individual students on all learning resources on the VLE. This gives a reasonable measure of what resources each student accessed, for what period and how actively they interacted with them. This information is stored against PI number for each student.

Now in the 3 sets of data described above we have some powerful tools to assess what is the actual performance and attainment of disabled students compared with their non-disabled peers. Where there appears to be a disparity here we can analyse as to whether web accessibility is likely to key factor. If so targeted remedial action can be instigated to improve accessibility. Further this accessibility improvement is strategically focused where it will have greatest impact on student learning and attainment. This makes best use of the limited resources and staff expertise to address accessibility issues.

In summary I remind you what the 3 sets of data here are:

1. Information about the students
   Disability flag, disability type, and access needs and preferences profiles completed by the students
2. Progression and attainment information
   Student module pass rates, grades, and withdrawal data
3. Information about activity in the VLE
   Information about individual student interaction levels with all specific learning resources

Given ready and simultaneous access to this data it will be possible to construct a wide range of specific accessibility investigations that will identify issues which when addressed will have real impact of the learning of disabled students. What is more, these will be based on actual student interactions with the resources and not just measures of accessibility focussed on the properties of the resources. This approach directly takes into account user experience and context both of which are excluded in approaches based just on evaluation against WCAG2.0.

Comments, questions, discussion and suggestions of collaboration are all welcome.

What have we learnt? – Transmitting knowledge, facilitating learning c1960-2010

29 November 2011, 10:30-15:30

The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

Blog Post Introduction

I singed up for this seminar not because I expected that there would be a lot of content of direct relevance to my work on access to higher education (HE) for disabled students but because I think in all contexts it is important to know our histories.  Well my knowledge of the history of post war UK-based HE was greatly increased beyond my own experience of it, which begun in 1979, and a general awareness from current affairs coverage.  Then above that there were important highlights of direct relevance to my work.   The most notable being in all reports of studies of the experience of students in HE, there seems to be a total dearth of studies specifically looking at the experience of disabled students.

This fact is going to be both a challenge and an opportunity in a research project planned for next year looking at specifically the experience of Open University (OU) disabled students studying online.  It looks as if there is going to be much less work than I anticipated that we can draw on to contextualise what original research we can do within the scope of an internal project.   For OU colleagues this work is planned as part of the “Completing the Loop” project.

This blog consists of the title and abstract for each presentation taken from the official publicity available at: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/History-of-the-OU/?page_id=1764. (Some readers may be interested in exploring other content on that blog of the History of The Open University project).  Then my bullet point notes of the presentation and discussions from most sessions.  My notes are in blue to differentiate them.  At a later date I will post another blog entry reflecting on the points of direct relevance to my work.  There should be a “pingback” in the comments below giving the link to this entry once I publish it.

Introduction (from the published programme)

Higher education has played a significant role shaping our culture and our social, religious, ideological and political institutions. Since the Second World War, in common with other western societies, the UK developed mass higher education from an élite format. New universities opened and existing institutions became polytechnics and later universities. In 1969 the Open University provided a new form of higher education institution. The existing universities developed new student bases and students engaged with a variety of communities

This one-day forum, organised by the History of The Open University project, brings together a range of experts to discuss elements of the history of higher education over 50 years.

The morning session will ask how have students been taught, looking at the move from traditional lectures and tutorials to the use of new technologies, a variety of pedagogies and the development of student-centred learning.

The afternoon session will reflect on 50 years of the student experience, placing learners’ perspectives at the centre.

Opening remarks:

Dr Dan Weinbren, History of the OU Project

• How university learning has changed over last 50 years - exploring roots of changes towards a more helpful account

• The importance of learners

• Change in no. of students
• Change in the range of students
• Focus change – teaching to learning
• Shift in nature of learning
• New methods
• Greater separation between research and learning
• Team / multi-skill teaching
• Shift in political landscape
• Public purpose
• Support of the nation
• Root to stable social democracy
• Contrast to limited training for a static labour market of Communism
• Towards a human right
• Globalisation
• Quasi-markets and hollowed out state sector

How have students been taught?

Chair/commentator: Prof Mary Thorpe, The Open University

The doubts expressed about the equivalence of degrees from some universities compared to others have often been framed in terms of teaching methods. Others have promoted the validity and efficiency of a variety of methods including broadcasting, correspondence, telephone and online self-help groups. This session aims to promote discussion about how we understand the development of the current interest in student-centred learning.

Widening Participation: the post-war scorecard

Prof Malcolm Tight, Lancaster University.

Abstract

Widening participation – though it has only recently been labelled as such – has been a continuing concern for policy makers and higher education institutions in the United Kingdom since 1945 (and before). This presentation will review the evidence for four key target groups – women, lower socio-economic groups, mature adults and ethnic minorities – to produce an overall assessment, a score card, of what has been achieved, and what remains to be done. It concludes that, while progress in the recruitment of women, mature adults and ethnic minorities has been substantial – though with some qualifications – it has been much less for lower socio-economic groups.

Notes

Women

• Longest standing concerns about participation in HE
• Post WW2 uninterrupted progress in women’s participation – now arround 60%  - the problem now is men  ;)
• Problem of representation in STEM disciplines (only partially true e.g. not in biology and medicine but yes in physics, chemistry and engineering)
• Under represented at highest levels

So fairly positive!

Ethnic minorities

• More recent concern
• Not as under represented as think but issues for particular minorities and gender/ethnicity issues
• Concentrated at particular institutions (urban newer universities)
• Although done well their experience is different

Mature Adults

• Long history 1870s or before
• Only became a group of focus in 1970s/80s
• Close relation between mature study and part-time study

People from lower socio-economic backgrounds

• A concern for a long time (mid C19th)
• Do so much a tale of discrimination but the structures they live in (e.g. get away from education to get a job)
• When attend tend to have different experience
• Where universities could be said to fall down most
• Not really catching up

Giving the sector a mark: Women 5/5,  Ethnic 3.5-4/5,  Mature Adults 3/5,  Lower socio-economic groups 1/5

We need non-graduates as well!

What further might we do?

NB – Disability did not appear as an issue in the literature until 1980s so not included in above analysis.

[I would like to check that out further]

Oxbridge still seen as a norm.

Widening participation vs widening access

Supporting isolated remote learners

Prof Judith George, The Open University

Abstract

This presentation focuses on the challenge of meeting the needs of learners in the remote and isolated communities in Scotland, and the needs of ALs (tutors) on the ground who supported them:

• developing structures of support which met affective as well as cognitive needs
• the use of technologies as they came on stream
• developing tools for confident professionalism for the equally isolated ALs (tutors)
• the use of action research to evaluate innovation
• creative interactions with the wider educational context and a developing identity for the OU in Scotland.

This was a period of great change in adult education in Scotland; the Alexander report on community education, for example, the Scottish Committee on Open Learning, pilot work on credit rating and transfer, the impact of nationalism and local demands for university provision – leading to the creation of the University of the Highlands and Islands, and of the Dumfries Crichton Campus provision.  The OU played a significant role in all this, building a distinctive identity and making a unique contribution within Scotland and the wider educational context.

Presentation not noted (but very interesting)

Discussion points:

• Increase of technology (internet) does not seem to have increased reach  - but many remote areas can not yet receive broadband.
• Also strong link to local cultures re: comparison with University of Highlands and Islands (is UHI a success?)
• Everybody is a remote learner
• Radio is underused (OU now only uses it as it does TV  - not specifically course linked)

‘Redrawing the Map of Learning’? The Experience at the First Plateglass University

Prof Fred Gray, University of  Sussex

Abstract

The University of Sussex, given its Royal Charter in August 1961, was the first ‘plateglass’ university. Five decades ago it was seen as part of ‘the greatest single expansion of higher education England has  ever known’.Sussexand the other new universities that followed it depended on critical elements of state intervention.

There was substantial new government funding for universities and students. And in place of the old apprenticeship system of university colleges controlled by the older and established universities, the new institutions began life as full universities – hence the Royal Charter – conferring their own degrees, ‘controlling their own curriculum and free to experiment as they think right’.

These new possibilities and freedoms allowed universities such as Sussex to innovate. To use the phrase of the first Vice-Chancellor, John Fulton, the Sussex mission was about ‘making the future’ for students and society by developing a radical new curriculum based on interdisciplinarity and using new organisational forms (departments were dispensed with). The purpose was to ‘provide undergraduates with the combined benefits of specialized and general education’. Asa Briggs, the driving force behind the developments at Sussex, saw this as ‘redrawing the map of learning’. But Sussex also drew on elements of higher education orthodoxy and could never (even if it had wanted to) throw off the tag of being ‘Balliol By The Sea’.

Just what was done at Sussex? What was the impact on students and faculty? How do we measure the success of the Sussex experiment? And how did the experiment change over time?

Notes

• Focus on 10 years period
• Sussex first post-war university
• Postwar consensus – labour and conservative – re-construction after the war
• HE should expand for family aspirations / international competition / to educate managers for new Wealthy State
• “Education as the new universal religion” [Fulton VC Sussex]
• Importance of HE to Brighton’s regeneration
• Campus based – transforming landed estates c.f. York and even OU
• Royal Charter critically important – degree awarding powers – control content of degrees
• Backed by substantial Government funding / and funding of Students!!!

What happened at Sussex?

• Focus on students, little focus on research
• Prospectus – generalised and specialised
• Great quotes from David Diaches and Asa Briggs (sorry not noted)
• Radical elements – new curriculum - abandoned faculties, interdisciplinary

But:

• “Balliol by the Sea” [Times] copied from Oxford – tutorial and essay based
• “Be still and know” motto
• Sussex students selected and self selecting
• Early interest in what we now call “widening participation”

Challenges

• Growth 3,000 – 12,000 students
• Scientists not interesting in the tutorial model
• Disciplinary strength threatened Sussex model
• Research funding unsympathetic
• The post war consensus eroded

TV broadcasts: the public face of OU teaching – what did we learn over three decades?

Prof Andy Northedge, The Open University

Abstract

Three decades of Open University TV broadcasts present a kind of family album, offering fascinating glimpses of the university’s growth and development as it learned the craft of distance teaching in full public view. We see the various faculties working out how to use television to teach, how to design compelling programmes and how to speak to students in their own homes. The History of The Open University project commissioned a review of thirty OU TV programmes, spanning the 1970s, 80s and 90s to provide an overview of the range and variety of broadcasts and the ways they changed over the years. The review reveals rich variety, sharp contrasts and impressive ability to adapt and develop. This presentation will offer selected highlights and some general conclusions.

•  Presentation based on lots of video samples so not noted.

Link to full report on History of  OU blog site: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/History-of-the-OU/?p=1897

What’s it like to be a student? Reflections on fifty years of change

Chair/commentator: Prof David Vincent, The Open University

Having considered the changes in how learning was supported over half a century, the emphasis this afternoon will be on reception. Some of the themes of the morning will be revisited but from different perspectives.

Students in places: general and particular

Prof Harold Silver

Abstract

What the research on students and higher education (HE) tells us and does not tell us, e.g. history of sectors and structures, institutions, change and reputations.

Meanings of student ‘experience’: expectations, perceptions (what kind and of what), the learning environment, outcomes, identities.

Students, HE, Elites, leaders, participants, professionals, occupations.   Examples from 1960s – Robbins, Latey, choices, new universities, towards the OU, student movements – and late/end/turn of century, e.g. CNAA, polytechnics, colleges, policies and spokespersons

Types of research on students (UK, US) and categories of students (full/part-time, mature, gender, ‘adolescent’), persistence, success and failure, social class, statistics and people. A particular case – students with disabilities.

Possible implications for the history of students in contexts (competition, marketing, policy….) and the history of the OU.

Notes

• A shame nothing said so far about outside UK
• Will mention some American research but will not be talking about America
• Focus on the experience of students
• How do we know the aim, and perspectives of students
• What do you know, how do you know it?
• Talk mainly about research on the student experience (an apology)
• Begins with the Robins report (admirable descriptor of students in HE in – 1963)
• Hale Committee on Teaching and Learning in University (1963) did not get the publicity but v. good.
• Most important of many discussions in 1960s: Peter Marris, “The Experience of Higher Education” (1964)
• “While the growth of higher education has questioned its aims the aims of its students remain unconsidered.”
• In 1968, 3 years after Warwick University opened students reported valuing an independent university in contrast to state organised polytechnic sector
• 37 years later “What’s a former polytechnic and why is it so bad?” – Quote from an Internet chat site
• What research can we identify as being important?
• 1960s students in their “deferred adulthood”
• Later adulthood on political agenda
• Student hostility to exclusion from the academic side of the university (part of 1960s radicalism not often highlighted)
• Students in the 1970 perceived as having lost their idealism
• Students anxiety about their learning processes – they want to succeed, feel their views need to be taken account of

[Some of presentation not noted]

Concluding point:

NB  - the published research almost totally does not ask of disabled students their views and aims!  Talks about support but not the student perspective!

[MC to check with research from Leeds, Southampton, John Richardson's work, etc.]

Internationalisation and the University of Nottingham

Prof John Beckett,University of Nottingham

Abstract

The Times has described the University of Nottingham as being ‘the closestBritainhas to a truly global university’. The University first began to consider developing international campuses, rather than simply attracting overseas students to study in Nottingham, in the early 1990s. The need to attract overseas students in a competitive market came together with an internationalisation strategy involving both teaching and research. By 2006, two campuses in Asia had been established, in Malaysia and China, and today Nottingham recruits more international students than any other UK university. This paper will examine internationalisation in terms of curriculum, teaching and student experience with particular reference to the campus at Ningbo, China, and will consider also the extent to which the UK higher education model has been successfully implemented in China. It will also address the question of inter-cultural understanding and the development of an international focus in teaching and learning for home students at Nottingham.

• Not noted

Student Community Action and Social Education, c. 1970-1985

Dr Georgina Brewis, Institute of Education

Abstract

Student volunteering in the UK has a long history, from university settlements and missions in the nineteenth century to workcamps for the unemployed in the interwar period to CND protesting and Student Community Action (SCA) after the Second World War. However, there has generally been greater historical interest in the more overtly ‘political’ activities of students, ignoring other forms of social action that have shaped students’ lives. This paper will show that a study of student volunteering, fundraising or campaigning can deepen our understanding of the changing ‘student experience’ in late-twentieth century Britain. Based on Student Community Action publications and a witness seminar with the movement’s former leaders, this paper will focus on SCA and its contribution to the social education of university students in the 1970s and 1980s. It explores the educative function of participation for students themselves, arguably of greater value than students’ contributions to local communities. It shows how involvement in SCA was connected to a wider critique of the function of universities and course content, contributing to debates about broadening access to higher education.

Notes

• Drawing on students own words and own writing
• In UK little formal citizenship programmes (different from USA)
• Student movements shape youth culture more broadly
• Successive generations of students seek to distance themselves from the previous generations
• Overseas volunteering schemes emerged in 1950s – impact on their return to university on subsequent volunteering
• 1960s radicalism – wider questioning of the value of higher education – student volunteering used in these arguments
• Boundaries between fundraising, volunteering and activism blurred from late 1960s on

Notes on Student Community Action:

Course content:

• SCA demanded changes in course content
• Role of social studies
• View that volunteering in past had been separate from studies and this was a cause of failing
• Students questioning if courses relevant to the social needs they become aware of through SCA

Community relations

• Students express acute awareness of separation from surrounding community and the demands the university put on them
• How about making university resources/facilities available to the community?

Educative function for participation in SCA:

• Awareness raising remains essential
• Skills development, project management, etc.

Cross curriculum volunteering modules developed across many universities not just pre 97

• Controversial - not proper volunteering; not proper learning

Distances and distance technologies. A review of rhetoric and reality

Dr Janet Macdonald, Higher Education Consultant

Abstract

How successful have distance technologies been at meeting the challenges of study at a distance?  To what extent has the rhetoric met the reality of life as a distance learner?  The OU has a long and proud history of deploying distance technologies to support learners and has developed a wonderful array of online tools with the potential to extend traditional methods of distance learning into new and exciting territory.  This presentation will focus on the student experience of learning with distance technologies over the past few years, drawing on studies of the practicalities, joys and perils of life as a distance student.

Janet has 20 years’ experience as a tutor of remote students, a remote research student studying student perspectives on online learning, and finally from working with fellow staff in a “remote” national centre at the OU in Scotland. She has now retired from the OU and undertakes consultancy in online and distance learning.

Notes

• 1985 – OU guide to communicating remotely – including telephone techniques
• Horizon Reports – forecast emerging technologies however …
• So much depends on the context
• What do students need to do
• What are the constraints
• What do the technologies enable?
• Reading and listening (large number OU courses still using print)
• Some students find electronic format particularly helpful
• Online quizzes one way making sense of content
• But depends on people writing the module for seeing the issues
• What do tutors do? e.g. history tutors very different from maths tutors
• When is staff student contact important (e.g. the tricky parts of the course? – How technology and or face-to-face used facilitate this?)
• 1990 “No new conference messages” in online tutor groups
• Development of plenary groups – Module wide – a Major headache for staff – too many messages – no one knows who is not taking part
• Peer groups have grown up on university networks and Facebook etc.
• Use what is appropriate to the context
• Students can be in touch with Alumni
• Note-takeing – old lecture theatres might not accommodate laptops
• Fulminating from George Orwell on writing by cut and paste (1946!):

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” 1946

“… modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.“ 

• Searching and researching user generated content is not new – example of Chinese ancient annotation on poetry
• Online systems made a big difference to how much students are exposed to – but behoves to us to remember that an awful lot is to be learnt from what has already happened with past technologies/approaches that is applicable.

Much to reflect on – not time to reflect or note reflection now – but I will revisit this.

Notes from TEDx London 17 Sep 2011: The Education Revolution

[I will be attempting to live blog notes throughout the day]

MC – My own questions and comments preceded by “MC”

Link to the event website with more details on the programme, speakers, etc.: http://www.tedxlondon.com/event/the_education_revolution_1

14:45 Session 1 – Hosted by Marcus Davey

What’s wrong?

A video introduction from Sir Ken Robinson

Direction for conversations:

Roundhouse cultural and political history

Why need a revolution?

Misused by politicians but need to get back to basics – politicians often talk about what their school experience was

Economic – education has powerful roles in growth and sustainability – but economies have changed

Cultural – students need to understand their own culture and identity but also to understand others

Personal – about people – lots of people dropping out of education – governments attempts to control education impede the addressing of the personal

All need for theatre is an actor in a space and an audience – parallel for education is what is needed is the relationship between the teachers and the learners

Core principles:

Education has to be personalised

Education has to be customised to the student’s context

Diversity – the drive to standardisation offends the principle of diversity – human life is inherently diverse and we need to celebrate that in education

Education needs to be a partnership with societies institutions

No more important conversation than how we transform education for the 21 century!

What’s happening?

Adam Roberts – Campaigner

Youth campaigner

The importance of questioning – of being critical

Young children are natural critical thinkers

Teenager – asking why am I learning this – often dismissed

Education revolution needs to come about throughout the way we assess children

Goal of education is independence

We don’t need more knowledge but more critical thinking

Questions are important

Tolerate a child’s willingness to think critically and engage them!

Georgia Allis Mills – School Student

I learn’t most this morning and haven’t been anywhere near school!

Education is a very loaded word.

Is learning waste of time – why are we learning things we don’t need to know in late life e.g.

Simultaneous equations

MC – some need to know those – I have used them – how do we best decide “what young people need to know”?

Goldie (video) – Artist, DJ and Actor

The education system is very old fashioned

“What I learnt in education was punctuality”

I learnt from good mentors in the real world – completely different from the way learning is organised in school

I am still learning every day

I knew what I wanted to see but did not know how to get there – that is what we need to give to kids

Carmel McConnell – Social Activist

Magic Breakfast – fuel for learning

Educational value:

In UK 1,000s of children can not access their education because they are hungry

1 in 4 children – only hot food they get is food they get at school

Magic breakfast improves attainment, punctuality, …

Dan Roberts – Teacher

Self confessed geek

Example from his own Maths lessons -

Exercise by exercise from books

Copying off board

Example of upside down calculator entries to spell funny or rude words – creative but not approved of by teachers

Technology can engage – can make life long learners – if users properly!

(Stories not noted)

The egg cam – free range chickens

Teleconferencing to Indonesia rebroadcast to their national TV – mass audience inspired kids

Saltash.net Enable – web app

What will maths lesson be in 2021?

Allowing students to use technology in amazing ways but some schools tend to ban and block!

www.unblocked.com

Entertainment

The Baker Brothers – Musicians

16:50 Session 2 – hosted by Adjoa Andoh

“Education dislocating people from their natural talent” – Ken Robinson

What’s right?

Nick Stanhope – CEO

Every spot on the planet has a vast extent of history behind it!

Can be represented as points on a map but need a 4th dimension

Overlaying old photos onto their modern equivalent

How scale up?

Dynamic mapping tools

Historic pictures onto street view

Moving comparative mapping

Making history an immersive experience

The important roles that schools play in capturing this history

Value on both sides – kids and older propel with their memories

Invitation to all schools batting involved!

Max Whitby – Filmmaker & Scientist

Theme of talk – floating

Apps for Touch Press

Very good demo floating a foil boat on dense gas but didn’t say what it was MC – frustrating to me!

Evan Grant – Creative Technologist
Arts and technology collective Seeper

Explored use of motion sensing technology firs typed to give access to music with kids with autism – created a sensory school. Immersive interactive technologies!

Video

Geoff Stead – Education Technologist

Sophie Bosworth – Student

Alternative paths to University

The ideas foundation

Education that prepares for after education:

Knowledge
Skills
Passion

Vocational education viewed as second class

Too many students not able to distinguish themselves after university to show what they are offering the word of work

Creativity is a cycle … Peddle it!

Professor Ken Spours – Professor of Education

Education is arguable the most important thing societies do!

Education is too important! …

To be treated as a political football

Complete absence of policy memory – no willingness to learn from the past.

A real revolution in the English system will mean agreement and acting in a different way

How?:

We should start by agreeing about out values

Everybody counts everybody can think and do

A law of care

????

Leave the world of “verses” and move to the world of “and”

We need to think ecologically about food

C.f Bruce from Finding Nemo

We need a Hypocratic oath for education:

The micro educational level of the learner

A dedication to the area

Politicians offer real leadership by giving power away!

Warning: if we do not take this line we will not see the good ideas we have seen today permeate our schools!

Entertainment

Tim Exile – Musicial, Performer and Developer

19:00 Session 3 – hosted by Steve Munday

Head teacher – how many messages you get telling you what to do!

Technology future can scare people in schools – but it must be embraced

What’s next?

Scott Snibbe – Artist, Filmmaker & Researcher

iPad Apps:

Bubble Harp

Use patters of nature to model something new – what maths was invented for

Work with Bork

(Too visual a presentation to note)

Ewan McIntosh – Entrepreneur

“What did you make at school today?”

Problem based learning – what we need is problem finders

Divergent thinking is where the future lies – need a bit of convergent thinking at the end to pull things together

Pledge – wants to engage 10,000 learners in problem finding curriculum

Emily Cummins – Inventor

Grandad taught to to design and work with wood while primary aged

This country would still be using the abacus if children had not taught their parents

Designed a toothpaste dispenser for other grandad – entered for technology competition

Invented a fridge for developing countries – open sourced it!

Why are we not using young people’s imagination and then trusting them?

Dougald Hine – Writer and Creator
A new kind of university

Life shaped by a university in exile who escaped higher ED because of where it was going

University promise:

Places dedicated to knowledge

We underestimate how little people change from century to century

Projects

The university of openness

Pick me up

The school of everything

Learning is not a commodity to be exchanged

Talking about first life not second life

The temporary school of thought

Let’s recycle Woolworths

Spacemakers

A DIY spirit and a culture of reflection

John Geraci quote

The Edgeless University – Demos

Hub Westminster

“I want to start a University”

Happening in many places

14-16Oct 2011 universities Past and Present (check out)

Jude Kelly OBE – Artistic Director

What does the future hold?

A review of inspirational women in the arts

Motivated by a burning sense of injustice
Telling of a personal journey

Thinking of changing tack – can only dream for yourself – so what can Southbank Centre do?

“The propaganda of the imagination”

I could be as daring and as bold as my predecessors

Events to date essentially for adults – need to turn this on it’s head

Taxes are there to create a bounty for the future of civilisation

A Call To Action – video message from Sir Ken Robinson

Drivers of change:

Population growth

Technology

Rate of change will accelerate

Civilisation is a race between education and catastrophe

We don’t have to reinvent everything – many similar attempts in the past

E.g. Montessori, Piaget … … ….

Personalise curriculum

Intensive relationship between teachers and learners

The principles of all good education not just alternative education

Technologies have their role but are not the whole answer

He pledges his work and his support!

21:35 Event ends