Have been experimenting with ideas for the use of VR kit in schools for a while now.  So far, my focus has been on some uses in Art, uses in Design Technology plus also in History and Geography.   The other day however I thought of another possible application focussed on pedagogy and self-review.

In terms of pedagogy, one of the most powerful tools in terms of supporting improvement has always been that of peer or self-review.  Now I am not talking high pressure lesson observation here, I am talking constructive low threat observations where colleagues sit in and watch each other teach then discuss.   I remember spending time as an IT teacher watching a colleague teach History, and I remember taking much away from his approach, which was very different to mine at the time.

The challenge here however has always been that of inviting someone in to watch your lesson.   For some this can feel somewhat daunting.   It is also important to acknowledge that we are all individuals so just because someone else prefers an approach to teaching, behaviour management, etc, doesn’t necessarily mean it is right for you.  

While working with teachers some years ago this brought me to the use of video footage where a camera was placed in the room, under agreement with the teacher and then they could watch the footage back and conduct a self-review.     This largely got over the issue of reluctance or nervousness in relation to having someone else in the classroom observing.   It wasn’t however a perfect solution as video footage is the limited view it presents.   It can be focussed on the front of the room, if there is one, but that misses out the edges of the class or it could be a wide angle, but then loses the detail.    Two camera setups would help address this however result in additional cost plus setup requirements as well as the potential need to edit the footage together for review.

So where does VR come in?

My thought therefore is the use of a 360-degree camera to take the video with the camera sat in the centre of the room as much as is possible.    The footage can then be either viewed on a PC, using VLC for example which allows you to pan around, or better still uploaded to a VR headset such as the Oculus Quest 2, where the teacher can then sit virtually in their own lesson and look around as the lesson progresses.  Basicallly this allows the teacher to put themselves back in the lesson but from the viewpoint of a student, dependent on the location of the camera, but able to look around the room as needed.    Looking at Hattie’s Visible Learning research (see more here) “video review of lessons” has a high effect size of 0.88 and that would have been based on standard video camera based footage so my hope would be that 360-degree based footage would be equally effective if not more.

Limitations/Challenges

So cost is an issue here as you need the camera however the VR headset is an optional although nice to have.   The next issue is the fact that having a camera in the room may encourage students to play up to the camera, however I think this can be managed and if usage became common students would grow accustomed and therefore eventually ignore the cameras presence.

And when using the little Theta 360 camera I am currently looking to use the recording is limited to 25mins per recording which represents only a fragment rather than the full length of a lesson.

Conclusion

Now at this point this is only an idea which I am looking to experiment with.  My thinking is that anything that supports self-review of teaching and learning will have potential for significant impact.  Whether the VR element adds enough additional impact over the lower cost video solutions, I am unsure of, however I am equally unsure of the potential benefits of a more immersive lesson review experience.   

So, for now its onwards with the experimentation.

The challenge therefore is how do we build this confidence, with “training” being key.    Training in relation to the technology itself and how it works, and training in relation to how to use it for the purposes of teaching and learning.   

One of the limitations though in relation to training, to sharing and building confidence, is time.   Time to train has historically been limited to specific inset days where the schedule is often prescriptive.   To counter this limitation, we have increasingly been referring to continual professional development (CPD) or continual professional learning (CPL); I prefer the later as the former suggests something is lacking and in need of development.   The emphasis here, in both versions, being on the “continual” nature of the learning and sharing.   It isnt a once a year or once a term, but something ongoing, continual and day to day.  It should be part of the culture of our schools.

The challenge with CPL (or is CPLS better, where the S refers to sharing?  Education has more acronyms than a series of Line of Duty!)  is supporting it to occur and I think the last year of lockdown has given us a bit of a window into what we need to be doing.

The last year has seen massive amounts of fast paced change as teachers across the world have had to shift from face to face classroom learning, the type that every teacher would have been used to post their training, to online teaching and learning.    What I have seen as a result of this forced change is a need to find support and help.   This need has been met through online platforms, EdTech tools and social media, including solutions such as Microsoft’s Educator Centre, through groups of proficient users such as Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts, Google Certified Educators and Apple Innovative Teachers, and also through more local groups including groups of schools which have come together to support each other.    I have also seen support groups form in individual schools using platforms such as Microsoft Teams to allow staff within school to share their successes and issues, and for other staff to learn from and support each other as and when required.   This is something I feel has worked well in my own school.

The last year has seen various support groups pop up plus I suspect will have seen greater engagement in such groups as teachers everywhere sought to adapt to the forced change brought about by the pandemic.    Teachers have been sharing their issues, sharing their techniques, sharing what worked and what didn’t, supporting each other to get through the challenges the pandemic has brought.   For me the key going forward is for these groups to continue to support teachers, providing a place to share techniques, ideas and thoughts, and for teachers continue to engage.   These groups also need to exist at different levels from the large corporate sponsored groups offered by Microsoft and Google, through to the support groups operating inside our schools, made up of our colleagues helping one another.

One of my favourite phrases continues to be “the smartest person in the room, is the room”.    I think this is key to “training” or CPL.   The days of the expert trainer and one-off training session are gone and especially in relation to EdTech where technologies change, disappear or are introduced on a daily basis.   As such it is critical we embrace a more open, just in time model, sharing not just what works but openly discussing what hasn’t worked, so that we can all benefit.  This needs to be available throughout the year for teachers to engage as and when it is appropriate for them, to dip in and out as needed.

I do wonder that maybe one of the challenges we currently have is that the sharing of ideas, resources, etc is spread across different platforms.   I have seen resources on specific websites belonging to companies or groups, on social media using twitter, on YouTube, on MS Teams, etc.    As such it can be difficult or time consuming to find things, plus it means that on each particular platform you are only able to access a subset of the teaching expertise available rather than all of it.    I suspect this fractured nature of sharing and the associated resources is unlikely to change as people tend to their preferred platform or the platform used within their school, however I suspect as we move forward there will be a greater curation of the available resources.

Building confidence is key to the successful use of EdTech in schools.    We therefore need to consider how we support and enable confident to be built.   Also worth noting, the above refers to confidence of staff however it is equally important that we build confidence in our students, however I will leave that for another post.

Accessibility

The session on accessibility led by Hector Minto (@hminto) is the one that sticks in my mind the most.   In fact from discussing with some others, it stuck in their minds too.    During the session a variety of accessibility tools were demonstrated with the most important factor being that these solutions are already available within Windows 10 and the Office 365 suite.     Some of the ideas where horribly simple;  Horrible in the fact that these simple approaches hadn’t been something I had realised could have a significant impact.    A larger pointer for when demonstrating on screen or a slightly different windows colour scheme were just two of the tips.    Adding Alt text to images in documents and on social media posts was another.    The ability to add subtitles to video via using Microsoft Stream or the use of PowerPoint and inline translation were also discussed.

It is clearly for all of us to do our bit, and generally this only requires making small changes to our normal practices.

The “MEC” or Microsoft Educator Community

I have been aware of the MEC and the variety of resources available within it for some time.   The three-day event however highlighted how the MEC could be used as a vehicle for CPD.   I, myself, have recently seen the power of training codes and badges on motivating people to undertake CPD in relation to educational technology and the event only served to strengthen this view.   One of the keys tasks I believe I now need to undertake is to curate the MEC content which I believe is most valid and will have the biggest impact with staff at my school.

Microsoft Teams

A fair amount of the event was focused on how Teams could be used in schools, colleges and universities.    It was notable that the actual platform used throughout all three days, to facilitate collaboration, discussion and sharing, was in fact Microsoft Teams.   People were posting questions, links and other content so that all attendees could benefit from the shared knowledge and experience of the group.   I can clearly see the benefits of using Teams to support educators from across department, across a school or even across institutions to get together and work collectively to bring about continual improvement and to tackle challenges.

A number of the events sessions included remote sessions delivered from the Seattle and also Glasgow, a reasonably diverse choice in locations.    These highlighted how Teams could facilitate opportunities for learning more akin to that experience by the increasing number of remote workers which now exist.   This also, again, highlighted where Stream could play its part in the recording of such meetings complete with the automatic creation of subtitles which were easily searchable by users.

Microsoft OneNote

A number of individuals shared how they were using OneNote in their institution.   I found a particular presentation by Esam Baboukhanto be very interesting.    Esam pre-prepared regular checklists and review questions in OneNote in order to get students to take greater responsibility for their learning.   He also mentioned the use of review questions which students were required to undertaken to get them to revisit learning in order to aid better memory retention.    The use of OneNote as a tool to aid such spaced retrieval practice was something which I hadn’t considered however I can easily see how this might work well.

Overall

It was a tiring three days with lots going on.   The event itself was specific to FE and HE, whereas my current context is that of an independent school.   I had decided to attend given the large number of students we have which study A-Levels which otherwise they would study in an FE institution.    In hindsight I made the right call as the event was very worthwhile.   I left with plenty of notes and an equally high number of points either for consideration or for action.    All attendees also left with Microsoft Trainer accreditation, thereby able to deliver training and issue training codes via the Microsoft training platform.   For those who are considering attending a Bootcamp I would definitely recommend it.

I am also looking forward to continuing online discussions via Teams with those who attended the event and with others who have attended previous events.   I suspect, despite what was an excellent event, I am still to experience the true benefits of the event.   I suspect such benefit lies in the network and community of individuals sharing their ideas, resources and thoughts on the Microsoft platform, and on other EdTech following attending a Bootcamp.

The Engage platform used for the session was reasonable intuitive to use with a limited set of controls to get used to.     You can easily wander around within the presentation environment or can make use of the ability to teleport as you can in lots of VR apps.    Engage also comes with a short tutorial, which I made use of, to help you get used to how things work.

Within the platform the event organiser has the ability to display slides which in the event I attended were displayed on a big screen towards the back of the environment.   The organiser can also mute or unmute attendees which is useful in avoiding audio issues and in particular audio feedback.

Through their controllers attendees are easily able to make use of common hand gestures including raising a hand to ask a question, waving and pointing at objects or people as needed.   You can also bring up a virtual tablet device which allows you to capture photos from the session, or even a selfie or two, as well as take notes and access your settings.

For me one of the key takeaways from the session was the ability to collaborate across distance.  In this case Steve was in the UAE while I was in the UK.  Am not sure where some of the other attendees were from however I suspect some US attendees may have been present.   Clearly VR allows people to discuss or work collaboratively independent of distance although time zone would need to be considered.      Another advantage I can see was the openness of the environment which to me would facilitate students exploring locations, ideas and concepts with a degree to freedom which is not easily replicable in the real world.

It should also be noted that VR allows you to replay previous events, such as being able to step back into the presentation at a later date, viewing it from a different perspective or just revisiting or revising the content.    This might be useful in terms of reviewing a session, its successes and challenges, prior to identifying next steps or areas for improvement.   Additionally, just prior to the session, I explored some of the pre-prepared content which comes with Engage, such as a David Attenborough presentation focussing on Dinosaurs.    There appeared to be lots of content to view being a mix of proper VR experiences and 360 degree videos.   I expect with a bit more time I will explore some of this content.

Overall I enjoyed the experience and can see how it might be useful for CPD and for collaborative activities with students.   I think my next step will be to play with creating my own event and how this would work, with a particular focus on how students might interact and work together within a Engage environment.

During the day I attended a number of different presentations on different topics so I thought I would share some of my thoughts from these sessions.

The first presentation of the day was from Daisy Christodoulou who was discussing assessment.    She drew a really useful analogy in comparing preparing students for their exams with preparing to run a marathon.    It isn’t something where you can jump straight into a marathon distance on day 1 of training.  You need to slowly build up your preparations, focusing on developing certain skills and approaches.   You need to have a plan and then work to this plan, although amending it as needed as you progress, should injury arise or due to weather conditions, etc.    I found myself wondering about how often we actually spend with our students in discussing this plan, the proposed goal of the subject or year and how we will all, teachers, students, support staff and others, work towards those goals.

Daisy also spent some time discussing summative versus formative assessment suggesting that the use of grades should be kept to a minimum of only once or twice per year.   My first reaction to this was concern as it seemed to disregard the potential benefits of spaced retrieval testing which ultimately would result in a score representing the number of correct answers.   Following further thought my conclusion was that spaced retrieval is very focussed on knowledge plus just indicates where an answer is right or wrong as opposed to grading which is more a judgement of students ability.   As such it may be possible to reduce overall summative assessment grading while still making regular use of testing of student knowledge.   I think this also highlights the fact that assessment and testing are actually different things even although they are often generally used as two interchangeable terms referring to the same thing.

Mary Myatt was the second presenter who discussed how we might make learning high challenge but low threat.    As she discussed Sudoku I couldn’t help but draw parallels with computer gaming.  In both case we engage, of our own free will, in a form of testing.   In both cases the key is the low threat nature of the testing.    For me the question is therefore how do we make classroom learning and assessment low threat.    Mary suggested a path towards this in discussing with students our expectations such as setting reading outside their current ability level, which is therefore challenging, but telling them this and then promising to work through it with them in future lessons.   I think this links to building an appropriate classroom culture and climate such that students feel able to share the difficulties they face and work through them with the class.  It is very much about developing an open culture and positive or warm climate in which mistakes and difficulties are not seen as something to be feared or embarrassed by, but to be embraced, shared and worked through together.   Another thing I took away from Marys session was a list of books to read;  My bookshelf will be added to with some of her recommended books shortly.

The third of the sessions which I found most useful was the session by Andy Buck.    He discussed leadership drawing a number of concepts from the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a book which is one of my favourites.     I particularly enjoyed the practical demonstrations where he evidenced how we all show bias in our decision making.  This is a fact of being human and the way the brain works, we bring to decision making processes assumptions and viewpoints based on previous experiences, upbringing, etc.   He also, linked to this, demonstrated anchoring, managing to influence a whole room of educational professionals to get a question in relation to the number of Year 11 students in the UK wrong.   Statistics suggest that a percentage of the audience should have got this question correct based on a normal distribution of responses however using anchoring Andy influenced the audience away from the correct answer.   I have since used a very similar approach in a lesson with Lower 6 students to show how easily I can influence their answer and to suggest that Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. with their huge amounts of data on individuals may therefore be able to influence individuals to a far greater extent.

There was also a presentation on VR in education which has opened my mind up a little to the possible applications of VR.   This might therefore be something we experiment with at school in the year ahead.

Microsoft’s Ian Fordham presented on the various things Microsoft are currently working on.   I continue to find the areas Microsoft are looking at such as using AI to help individuals with accessibility and in addressing SEN to be very interesting indeed.   I also was very interested by his mention of PowerBI as I see significant opportunities in using PowerBI within schools to build dashboards of data which are easy to interrogate and explore.    This removes the need for complex spreadsheets of data allowing teachers and school leaders to do more with the data available however with less effort or time required.    I believe this hits two key needs in relation to the data use in schools, being the need to do more with the vast amounts of data held with schools however the need to do it in a more efficient way such that teachers workload in relation to data can be reduced.

I also say a presentation by Crispin Weston on data use in school.    His suggestion that we need to use technology more to allow us to more easily analyse and use data is one I very much agree with.   This partly got me thinking about the Insights functionality in PowerBI as a possible way to make progress in this area.   He also talked about causation and correlation suggesting his belief that there is a link between the two and that the traditional call that “correlation is not causation” is in fact incorrect.   At first I was sceptical as to this however the key here lies in the type of data.    Where the data is simple and results in a simple linear trend line the resulting reliability of an argument that correlation equal causation is likely to be very low.   The world is seldom simple enough to present us with linear trends.    If, however the data over a period of time varies significantly and randomly and the second data element follows this however the reliability that correlation equals causation is likely to be significantly higher.     I think the main message I took away from Crispins session was to take data and findings with a pinch of salt and to ensure that context is taken into account.  If it looks simple and clear then there is something which hasn’t been considered.

Overall the day was a very useful one and the above is a summary of just some of the things I took away.   I must admit to taking 5 or 6 pages of tightly written notes, hastily scribbled on an iPad during the course of the day.

I hope that Bryanston decide to repeat the conference next year and is the quality of presenters and their sessions continues, that it becomes a reliable yearly event.   Here’s hoping the trend of good weather also continues should they decide to run the summit again next year.

So to my book list for 2018; the initial books are:

• The Upside to Irrationality by Dan Ariely
• Open by David Price
• The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel
• Shut Up, Move On by Paul McGee
• Make it Stick by Peter Brown
• The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
• Twitter Power 3.0 by Jim Taylor and Joel Comm
• Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
• Change by Richard Gerver
• The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey

In addition to the above books I have also picked a couple focused on data science for the year ahead.   The reason for this is an interest in how schools might make better use of data which fits with my current experimentation with Microsoft PowerBI.  The books in relation to data science are:

• Data Science from Scratch by Joel Grus
• Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

The above twelve books represent my initial book list for 2018.   Twelve books to match my plan to read at least one book per month however I have every intention to add to this list as the year goes on or as my focus or interest areas change.    I have already had a list of books suggested to me by Matthew Larson (@mlarson_nj) of which I suspect a number will be added to my reading go list.

Let my 2018 reading begin…..

I found the talks on offer to be both topical and interesting starting off with the keynote on Online Safety, previously known as e-Safety, by Karl Hopwood.    I have now seen Karl present on a number of occasions.   As always his focus on the “how students are using technology” as opposed to the “what” comes through clearly.   It doesn’t matter which app students are using, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Yellow, etc.   What matters is the purposes and the method of use.    He also explained using personal anecdotes the reasons why students may not raise issues with the adults who may be able to assist them through fear of losing their access to technology and to personal devices.    This represents a key challenge in opening up channels of communication with students such that they both know who they can speak to and also feel comfortable in doing so.

The presentation by Cal Leeming on hacking was a very interesting session in terms of Cal’s frank discussion of the risks associated with hacking plus his view on how students should be supported where they are beginning to experiment and explore technology.    I found he made a lot of sense in his comments around making vendors “criminally responsible”.   If a vendor is processing another organisations data and a breach occurs, and where the owner of the data has carried out all required due diligence, should the vendor not be considered liable?   Where a vendor suppliers hardware which has poor security capabilities should they not be considered responsible.   I think this makes a lot of sense, and it aligns with some of my thoughts as included in previous postings.   The new GDPR regulations will help move us in this direction in some respects however there is further work to do especially in relation to hardware vendors of IOT devices and other home network devices.

On a related topic to Cal, Christopher, the director of IT at Harrow, presented on Data Retention and Records Management.   Given the impending introduction of the GDPR rules in May of next year this presentation was very well timed.     It was useful to hear the process which Chris and his team went through as they looked to move towards a paperless record system with a clear policy and processes around data retention and destruction.   This will be key area on which I will need to work over the coming months.

Overall the day was a worthwhile event, and it was even sunny for the drive home.   I left with plenty of ideas and areas to work on between now and next years event.     I am sure time will fly, and before I know it I will be preparing to attend next years event.   I look forward to it.

I have almost successfully managed to complete the full #29daysofwriting despite repeatedly finding it difficult to find a topic to write about each day.    Somehow I have managed to overcome the difficulties and progress onwards.

I managed to complete #teacher5adaysketch while also working on #29daysofwriting.   Somehow I managed to find the time and motivation.

In the above cases it wasn’t my ability that was trying to stop me or hinder my progress however I must admit I am neither an author or an artist.   In both cases it was motivation and the difficulty level of the task in hand that were the hindering factors.

Overcoming these involved my own intrinsic motivation, my “want” to complete the tasks in hand.   I felt it was important that I completed the tasks and I saw the purpose and reason behind the tasks in hand.   I also could see the benefits of completing the tasks.   This meant that when faced with difficulties I still retained the motivation to move forwards.

I also had extrinsic support in the form of comments and suggestions from people with the educational social media sphere.   They helped keep my motivation up and helped make sure that I had ideas for moving forward.    There was also the social aspect of discussion and also some joking which further made the tasks in hand more pleasant to undertake and more engaging.

The experience of #29daysofwriting has been very positive although I will write more on that tomorrow as my last posting.    The key thing I see is how can we make more our in-house CPD in this format.    If we could then I suspect such CPD would be significantly more effective and successful.   TeachMeets are one way however they are limited in that they take place after school including on weekends and therefore are unlikely to engage the majority of staff.      We need to achieve professional learning with all staff across all CPD events.

I have been a user of twitter for almost 4 years now although initially I just started to test the waters, finding little use for twitter at the time.   Some months later a colleague got me back on twitter mainly due to the enthusiasm he displayed with regards the potential twitter had to help educators develop professionally.

I haven’t looked back since then with my involvement and use of twitter steadily increasing.   My new years resolutions for this year included the intention to build on a 2015 average of around 1.9 tweets per day.   My regular involvement in #sltchat, #mltchat plus involvement in #teacher5adaysketch, #29daysofwriting, #hacktheclassroom and #appsharelive sees me currently having posted around 370 times across Jan and Feb so far which amounts to over 7 tweets per day.   I will admit that Buffer is playing a keep part in this as it allows me to schedule my regular tweets.

The question is why I am finding twitter so useful?

My first answer to this lies in the list of events above.    Without twitter I would have never came across #appsharelive or #hacktheclassroom to name but two events.   The events are also not limited to online events.   I found out about the up and coming #tmbmth16 event in Bournemouth via Twitter.

A second answer would be access to resources and ideas.   Educators are regularly posting about apps or teaching and learning approaches which they have tried or are planning.    #appsharelive for example provided me a list of 5 or 6 new apps in each of its 3 sessions to date.

I also find twitter allows me to engage with other educators who may share similar or different viewpoints and beliefs with regards education.   As such this leads to questioning and discussion allowing for reflection.    Only the other day via #29daysofwriting a person who I would consider a colleague even although we have never me, questioned a sweeping statement I had made.    This made me question my views and the statement I had made, which in reality had been a little sweeping.    Next time I will try to be more careful.

My final benefit relates to the social aspect in that via twitter I have access to teachers and educational staff like myself who are engaged in trying to continually improve and to collaborate and share.    I consider them colleagues!   Events like #teacher5adaysketch serve to strengthen this bond, to provide support when I need it and encourage balance.

I continue to enjoy using twitter and look forward to continuing to share ideas and thoughts with you.

Recently I read a blog post entitled “Why teacher should connect” which echoes my feelings.    I also saw the below post on twitter (surprise, surprise) which sums up the reasoning behind why teachers should make use of social media such as twitter:

Another post I saw referred to the need for communication.

We are preparing students for a a globalised world where more and more people are migrating to work away from where they were born and grew up.    As such do we not need to start considering a globalised approach to education?    If we are going to consider such a globalised approach there is a need for discussion across the world and surely social media such as twitter provides just the tool needed to facilitate such discussion.

So, if you haven’t already, Get Connected!!