Software learning platforms which come complete with learning content for students to work through are not new.   I remember an online Maths programme from my days as a university student as I was studying to become a teacher back in the late 90’s.   Basically, you worked through content and then were presented with different options as to how you progressed through the programme.    As a learner the individual modules of content were pretty much fixed, having been written into the software, but the path through the wider programme of learning was up to me.    I was provided options as to how I progressed from one module to the next.   Now, I was never a great fan of this as each module was presented in a given way and worked through examples in a given way, as it was programmed to do.  If you didn’t understand the way it was presented then there was no help or way to progress through this module although you could move to further modules in the hope they would provide you with insight which might eventually get you past this issue.    I liked the idea of online programmes and self paced learning however had concerns about user motivation, especially when you hit concepts which provide difficult for you to understand, and about the fixed nature of the content materials;   A great teacher adjusts and customises their learning materials and approach to their class and the individual students within it.   As such the self paced learning aspect was a step forward but this was about as far as it goes.

Fast forward to more recently and little progress had been made, at least as far as I saw it.   Newer learning platforms are capable of gather much more diagnostic data and analytics which allow the developers and content writers to adjust and improve their content.   So, the content is better than the content I experienced in the 90’s but generally it still provides largely linear and fixed content and if the content, its style, etc don’t match your needs then there is little that can be done.   As so, until very recently I have had a largely negative view of learning platforms which come complete with the vendors own content which teachers cannot adjust or customise to their content.   They have their place for example supplementary to classroom teaching or self paced learning when teachers are absent but that was it.

That was until recently when I saw a video of some new developments within the Khan Academy platform including its new use of the GPT4 Large Language Model (LLM).    Still the content in terms of problems set within the platform and the way they are worked through appears very linear and fixed.  So if it is maths problems it will work through the problem in a specific way;  no change there.   The difference, and the massive leap forward in terms of learning platforms is their new chat bot style assistant.   It prompts and supports the student using the platform.   It identifies common misconceptions and provides guidance.   It acts as a coach and facilitator but customising its responses to the efforts being made by the student using the platform and this includes providing motivational “well dones” and corresponding emojis.    Watching the demo it was almost as if there was a teacher sat behind the chatbot rather than an AI solution.    Now I note that this demo was short and was for the purposes of showing off what is possible in the Khan Academy platform so may not be fully representative of how it all looks and feels in real life, however if the final product is anything close to this then it is a major shift forward.

Flipped learning has been a concept long discussed looking at releasing teachers from supporting students practice of learning concepts however maybe AI solutions like GPT4 and its use in Khan Academy will allow us to release teachers from more of the basic learning.    Maybe the AI and learning platform can be used here, allowing teachers to act more as facilitators rather than delivering new learning, and allowing them to focus much more on the high order skills of creativity, critical thinking and the like.    

AI and large language models could potentially facilitate significant shifts in what learning in our schools and colleges looks like, not in the distant future, but in the very near future indeed.

One of the particular things I like with SharePoint Online is the ability to easily embed content from other educational tools such as Wakelet or Flipgrid.

The key to doing this is the Embed Webpart, which is available when editing a page.

Simple add this to a page and then past in the appropriate Embed code from the site into the relevant embedcode box which appears on the right of the screen.

Please note, if you are unable to embed from a given site/service it may be necessary to allow the embedding for this site/service or to ask you IT admin to do this for you.   This involves going into Site Settings and then HTML Field Security.

Here you will find a list of the domain names/web addresses which are enabled for your sharepoint site and therefore can be embedded.  To add additional sites simply add the web address.  E.g. to allow Wakelet we simply add http://www.wakelet.com to the list.

Alternatively you could change the setting to all contributors from any domain however this is a less secure approach and therefore isn’t recommended.

For me SharePoint online may not be filled with specific educational related functionality however it is quick and easy to use, is very scalable, allows embedding of common educational tools such as wakelet and lacks the high additional cost of traditional VLEs.  I think this therefore makes it an ideal tool to consider for use in schools.

I am not a fan of VLEs and haven’t been for many years due to the fact rather than being interactive and part of learning they often end up being little more than a repository of learning materials and resources.   It isn’t the nature of the VLEs as a repository that bothers me but the significant cost, often related directly to student numbers, which they command.   I recognise that many schools have them and need to continue to offer a nice and easy way for students to access resources ideally in a nice visual way so with that in mind I went searching for an easy solution.

Initially my thoughts alighted on MS Teams, as we use Office 365 heavily, but I felt teams is more a collaborative space for discussion, collaborative working, etc, rather than a repository of resources, plus Teams lacks the visual presentation side of things.     It may be important to demark which online spaces are for collaboration and which are simply sources of materials hence I thought this another reason to avoid using Teams for this purpose.

So, I arrived at SharePoint.   I was a little trepidatious initially as my previous interactions, albeit a fair number of years ago, with a locally hosted SharePoint installation had me remembering it as very fiddly and complicated.

Where SharePoint online is concerned these concerns quickly disappeared and I found myself identifying the below positive features:

• Its simple to use. Training staff to create pages and build sites therefore takes little of the limited time that is available.   Yes, there are limits on design, layout, etc however this means the sites created simply work and display correctly across different devices and platforms.  In my eyes this is an acceptable limitation.
• Its easy to integrate into Teams; I can make a SharePoint online document library appears as a tab in a Microsoft Teams so teachers can simply open the team and drag and drop files in, with these then appearing on the SharePoint site, via the appropriate document library webpart, for students to access.
• Its flexible and scalable; I can use one site or many interlinked sites as is defined by needs, easily adding additional sites as required.
• It supports several integrations with learning tools such as FlipGrid and Quizlet among others.
• Its included within Office 365 licensing so offers a saving on commercial VLEs.

I am not saying SharePoint is perfect but with limited effort a site or series of sites can be created to act as your repository for learning materials, all without the significant cost of a VLE.

I remember 1997/98 and introducing a flat LCD panel for use with a conventional overhead projector, to a technology department I was doing my placement in.   The LCD panel sat on top of the old style projector and allowed the images from the computer to be projected in much the same way as a data projector does.   I think the lesson was regarding orthographic projection and I was using a small piece of software I had written in order to show students  the 3 views of a 3 dimensional object.  This was the time when the Archimedes and the BBC B still had a place in schools.

1998 saw one of my first jobs as a qualified teacher morph into something different as I introduced a network to the technology department I was working in, in order to facilitate both file and print sharing.   I think it was Windows 95 if I remember correctly.

1998/1999 brought me away from Scotland and secondary education and saw me start working in Further and Higher education.    The college I worked at was still largely working on Windows 3.1 however during my first year they engaged in the migration to Windows NT.    This was all a major undertaking as everyone had to adapt learning materials and approaches to learning to the new operating system, new software and the overall new user interface.   It was also not without a few technical challenges.

In 2001/02 I took possession of a number of Promethean whiteboards for use in my department while working in a 6^th form college.    I don’t remember actually choosing the boards, instead I think they just appeared as was the way at that time.   My initial response at the time was very positive however on reflection I think I was taken in by the “shiny new thing” phenomenon and a certain amount of naivety.    What followed was a period of engagement as my team all sought to use the devices as best we could, accompanied by a lot of lost interactive pens!    My feelings on interactive whiteboards started developing at this point as I started to see limitations.    Today I would class myself as being NOT an advocate of IWBs.

Learning management systems were the subject of the year in 2003 (I think it was 2003!) as we looked at various options before finally adopting Learnwise as the chosen platform.    Since then I have also used Sharepoint, Moodle and a few others and overall I am not a fan of the LMS, VLE or whatever you want to call it.   Or at least I am not a fan where the system is applied to all, as one size does not fit all.

2005/06 saw me take possession of a new set of Xbox 360 devices for the colleges gaming club which had begun just over a year previously using the original xbox gaming systems.   We used the systems as an enrichment activity but also to build interest in games programming and games graphics among other games related IT roles.

At the end of 2008 and start of 2009 I found myself working in a totally new context of schools in the UAE.   Technology availability was minimal with most classrooms lacking any tech at all.   The IT labs included standalone desktops with no network and the schools overall internet connectivity was a domestic connection which had developed into an unstructured network providing internet access, albeit unreliable access, to the school as a whole.    At the time I engaged with schools to try and resolve this situation by putting in place more structured networking as a temporary solution to bridge the gap until the education authority deployed its own IT improvement project across schools.    I was also lucky to get involved in the IT project.

2010/11 saw me working with a school using Intel Classmate laptops which were little notebooks complete with a touch screen and stylus.    These were Intel Atom based units so not exactly fast however this was the start of putting devices into students hands.    I combined the devices with a solution which allowed students to wirelessly send their screens to a projector and even to allow for 4 way split screen which all added to the flexibility.

My first educational blog was created in 2013 although initially it didn’t see much use.   It wasn’t until the following year that I made more significant use of my blog plus a number of other micro blog sites I created for specific training programmes.    It was around the same time that I also started making use of social media including Twitter and Pinterest in particular for my own professional learning.

2014/15 for me was the year of the iPad as finally after many years resisting Apple devices in favour of a more techie Windows or even Linux solution I had to give in and admit the iPad had its place.     This was the year that first saw me singing the praise of the Apple eco-system and the large number of educational apps which were available.

Its interesting reflecting back on how technology has changed over the time I have been working in education.   It is also interesting how the technology differs within different contexts and countries, plus how my own viewpoints and beliefs have been shaped by my experiences.    I wonder what the next 20 years have in store?

The BETT conference is now only two days away.  Now I won’t actually be going on day 1 however I do plan to be visiting with some colleagues on Thursday.    I haven’t attended the BETT conference in over 8 years having been out of the UK for that period of time although I have attended similar events in the UAE including BETT and BFE, before they were discontinued, and then GESS and GEF following that.

As I prepare to visit BETT I would like to summarize some of my predictions and hopes for the event.

Interactive display technology including the humble Interactive Whiteboard is likely to still occupy a significant number of the vendor stands on display.   I am unhappy with this given that IWB technology is now around 25year old however equally I can understand why this might be the case:  IWB technology is interactive plus can be demonstrated without any real preparation and where visitors are not required to have any pre-requisite skills, experience or learning.   In a class this lack of need for pre-requisite skills is useful at the start of the year when students are new however students don’t remain new for very long.

I expect to see a number of content vendors on show selling interactive content designed for various subjects.   Again this is not something I am particularly fond off mainly due to the wealth of free content available on the internet plus the ease with which content can either be created or adjusted by teachers as needed.

I have noticed an increasing number of learning platforms, especially cloud hosted systems, making appearance.   I would suspect this trend will continue at BETT.

I expect to see most vendors offering solutions which are incremental improvements on what they previously have offered.    I accept that this incremental approach may result in improvements although I question the magnitude of the improvements.    I doubt we could consider the improvements to be innovative and it is something innovative I am seeking.   I also question whether rather than seeking to be slightly better we should be seeking to do something different, something creative and to bring about disruptive innovation.

My hope is to see some vendors with something truly creative and original.   I know of one vendor who will be in attendance who will be demonstrating something which at least partially fits my criteria.   They will be demonstrating giant dice like devices which students can sit on but also which students can interact with as part of the lesson, passing and throwing around, answering questions by orientating the dice in various ways.  Student interactions with the devices can then be communicated back to a teacher device via Bluetooth allowing for assessment of learning to take place.    As such learning becomes both a physical and mental activity while providing teachers with data as to student learning.

I observed another example of what I consider innovative at an event in the UAE.   It was a School Management System styled like a social media site with the system making predictions as to what information and users may be useful much in the same way Amazon or similar shopping site predict what other items we may wish to consider buying.   The system also made use of a very visual user interface.   Sadly since the demo I have been unable to locate this solution so either it never went beyond demo stage or it went out of business at some point.     Although the fact it doesn’t exist now is hardly a great selling point, I think the underlying idea had lots of merit and was in a number of ways, innovative.

I hope that BETT will include a number of creative and new solutions for use in learning and that my visit to BETT on Thursday fulfills my expectations!   Only time will tell!!

The article also identified that countries in Asia were inclined to be reluctant adopters of computers use in classrooms while achieving excellent PISA results.    The fact that these specific schools exist within a given geographical location and that this may in fact be related to the high results as opposed to any specific reluctance to adopt technology should have been identified.   Sally Weale in her article suggested that the high PISA scores for schools within Asia may not just be related to specific teaching styles in the region but may relate to the prevalent culture in the region and in schools in the region.     Their study didn’t even make any mention of technology or the slow adoption of technology as a potential factor impacting on high PISA results.

Moving away from the research side of things there is also the issue of what computers are used for in the classroom.    Computers and technology in a wider sense are just tools to be used in the classroom by the teacher much in the same way as a whiteboard, pens and paper.   How they are used depends very much on the teacher.    Some may use it a way that adds value to teaching and learning while others may use it in a way which detracts from the potential learning experience.    So maybe the issue isn’t as simple as looking at technology in isolation but instead should focus more on how technology is used.   Other aspects worthy of consideration include technology professional development and sharing or collaboration among teachers with regards technology usage as each of these may have a significant impact on the success of technology usage.

There is also the issue of why we are educating students however I will only briefly mention that as I suspect it will be a post in itself in the not too distant future.   The BBC article looks at PISA results as the outcome, suggesting that education is all about student results however as a teacher education is about more.   It is about shaping students in adults prepared for the world with the skills and characteristics to survive and thrive in the world they find themselves in beyond school.   No we all know that the world they go to will be very much a technological world beyond the current already technological world we live in.     So how can anyone think that taking technology out of classrooms or banning it from classrooms is a good idea?

Sources:

Computers ‘do not improve’ pupil results, says OECD,   Sept 2015, BBC, Sean Coughlan

‘Culture, not just curriculum’, determines east Asian school success, Oct 2014, Guardian, Sally, Weale,

The issue is that the purchasing of edtech will not bring about improvements as tech is nothing more than a tool.   It relies on the person wielding the tool and it relies on the purpose to which the tool is being applied.    So if the purchasing of tech is on the basis of the tech and what it can do as according to the expert demonstrator, without consideration for who the users are and the purpose for which they are using the tech, then it is doomed to have only limited success at best.

Schools need to look towards the purpose of tech use.   What do they hope to achieve with tech?   What will tech use look like in their specific classrooms with their specific students?    How will tech impact on students and learning?    What constraints on tech use exist in their school?   How will the adoption of tech by staff be encouraged and supported?    How will tech use be supported and maintained over time?

In addition to schools rethinking their approach to tech maybe vendors need to relook at their approach as well and instead of showing what their tech can do, focus on showing off the purpose of their tech and the impact it can have on schools.

I met with a Learning Management System vendor today in Dubai and for once I managed to get into and out of Dubai without getting lost, although I do suspect I got at least one motoring fine, although that’s another story.   Basically I was in the meeting to see a company’s system as demonstrated by a woman from Norway who had significant experience using said system in the classroom.    Now I went into this meeting not being a great fan of learning management systems (or virtual learning environments or learning platforms or whatever else you want to call them) as in my experience I have seldom seen them used such that learning has been positively impacted upon.

During the course of the meeting my viewpoint was changed as I was regaled with stories and examples of how this particular learning management system had been used by this particular teacher.   I was shown specific examples of materials plus was shown the system from a teacher, student and parental standpoint.   I began to see how the system could have a positive impact on student learning however I found myself wondering why the learning management systems I had seen in the past had not had a positive impact.   Was it that this new learning management system was significantly superior to systems I had seen in the past?  I wasn’t sure this was true however I should make it clear that the system being demonstrated to me had some good features with the ability to share course content with other users across schools and even countries through their network being most significant.

My viewpoint as to being generally against learning management systems had by this point changed as I had seen a concrete example which, although anecdotal as opposed to research based, was enough to suggest to me that learning management systems could have a positive impact.  At this point I considered the common factors in the previous systems I had seen which I had judged as unsuccessful and identified one particular issue: learning management systems which were mandated for use and applied to all in a school.    In each of the previous learning management systems I had seen, they had been applied to the whole school with staff mandated to provide content.    This struck me as being a significant problem as teachers are all individuals, like students.   Some will be happy using a particular learning management platform, whereas others will prefer another system, and some may not like learning management systems at all.    As school leaders and teachers we talk of differentiation, yet here we have an example of where leaders say one thing and then do something else, at least in terms of their teachers.   Why should making all teachers do the same be any more successful or acceptable than making all students do the same?

So this brings me back to my initial feeling with regards learning management system, in that they are generally bought for a whole school at significant cost, which therefore encourages school leaders to “mandate” use in order to ensure an appropriate return on investment.   The problem being that this single system, no matter which system, is unlikely to meet the needs of all or even most teachers.   As such for a small few, such as the Norwegian teacher who presented today, learning management systems will have a significant and positive impact on the learning of their students however for others these systems become nothing more than another bureaucratic task which teachers are mandated to undertake.

In terms of an alternative to learning management platforms there are plenty of solutions with the most likely to be the approach of “app smashing” where teachers use multiple different apps to achieve their aims as opposed to looking for a single unified platform.  This might involve the use of Edmodo, ClassDojo or Classjump along with GoogleDrive, DropBox and Box .Net, or it might involve Survey Monkey or Google Forms, maybe some use of Evernote and Youtube.    Basically a teacher selects the apps which suit them and the students they teach.   For some teachers this may be a single app while for others it could be 10 or 12 different apps used in combination.   This is the feature which the learning management system does not include; the ability for teachers to choose and to differentiate according to their needs, experience and skill level, as well as to adapt to their students.

It is about time we gave up on learning management systems, at least as they appear now.    The system I saw today had one feature I did particularly like being the ability to share teaching content within the system.   Maybe this idea may provide a starting point for a new kind of learning management system.

Image courtesy of jscreationzs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net