All portfolio items

I helped develop the programme and was responsible for equipment, technical support and advice

Speakers:

IT observed in the Classroom:: HMI Peter Seabourne

Tomorrow's Learners in Tomorrow's classrooms: Prof. Stephen Heppell

Building your Agenda for Action Working groups: Bob Hart

Computers and software we used:

Minnie the Minx           CX        Videodisk & Mitsi     Bob & R2      KidPix & Great Quake

Andy Capp                   LC         CDROM                   Bob & R2      KidPix & Asterix

Dennis the Menace       LC                                           Bob & R2      KidPix & Workrooms

Donald Duck                CX        CDROM                   R1                  Dictionary of the Living World

Lord Snooty                 Classic  CDROM                   R1                  Cosmic Osmo & Manhole

Gnasher                        Classic  CDROM                   R1                  Times Newspaper

Domesday system        BBC      LVROM                    R2                  Domesday & Volcanoes

Model B                       BBC      disk drive                   R2                  Compose & others

LCD display for John

List of things to take:

1. Mains cables, SCSI cables - in 2 boxs; network cables - in a green bag
2. Big speakers - 2
3. Small speakers -  2
4. Barco
5. Monitor, Serial No: L345386
6. Sony videodisc players  - 6  
7. Stephen's suitcase
8. Dennis the Menace CPU, Andy Capp CPU, Bose speakers - in one suitcase
9. CD players - 6
10. Scart monitor
11. Little Plum
12. Fingers
13. II CX - 2; II SI - 1
14. Macintosh monitors 13 inches (Andy Cap) - 1, 12 Inches - 1
15. Yosemite Sam,  Dennis the Menace, Donald Duck - monitors
16. Lord Snooty
17. NEXT Computer and NEXT monitor - 1
18. PA and cassette deck
19. Troll
20 TVEI Teed
21.Philips monitor, Sony monitor
22. Keyboards
23. BBC Domesday system

My notes:

NCET
Jean Beck and Margaret Danby (slides available)

NCET needs ITTE help to identify developments

Agenda for '93
Peter Seaborne - Last engagement - retiring.
No surprise that IT has reduced statement in CATE 2 - IT was anomalous in CATE 1.
520,000 computers in school growing 100,000 pa, drop off 10,000.
Progression issues will surface.

Draft IT in Maths report
Logo more mechanistic in secondary than primary.
Spreadsheets not used much but some imagination.
Lack of challenge and progression in Secondary.  More confidence but less use in Secondary!

Observed uses:
WP 36%
D & P 20%
Data handling 13%
Control 10%
Logo 8%

Secondary IT use very variable.  Mismatch between policy and reality.
WP lot going on - almost can be left alone.
Data handling - little thinking.
Schools need help from ITTE institutions in LMS future.

Not much on modelling and IT applications in ITTE institutions.
Students need more support for planning and debriefing the use of IT in school-based work.
Students new to IT need to put through the pain barrier rather than the Cook's tour.

• Don't winge.
• Tell DFE how 2.3.27 should be interpreted pre-emptively.
• School-based experience not adequate for IT because vagaries of school provision: scope for institution-based case to be made.
• Emphasise quality: gather good case studies of data handling, word processing.
• Rôle of teaching and learning with IT - CDROM, integrated media etc
• NAACE and ITTE need each other should collaborate in defending ed.

PROFILING
Gay Vaughan
Permeation attempted, problems, audit revealed eg no IT in English. Variation in treatment from hands-on to demo. All this led to a profiling.
For students: plan prof. dev. with knowledge of what's to come. For staff knowledge of PL

How does the profiling get done? Tutors? Peers? Mentors from higher years?
Assignments feeding profiling?

PROFILING
Peter Williams
Year 1 for competence and confidence
•IT experience survey
•IT capability profile - tick boxes for basic operations - space for them to add more (about 10% their own)
• about five statements related to essays etc staff initialed

Year 3 - choose topic, language/info. handling/problem solving/the arts/early years, choose software, use in school practice, proforma to help focus choice, directed work, record process of selection etc
•req. element of course

•sheet for TP supervisors to record something about use of IT

CATE
Sir William Taylor.

"Learning contracts" for students and institutions instead of simple competency check lists. IT mentioned as a resource that students should know how to employ.

<quote on industrial working practice  suggesting more small group collaboration.>
Mulgan '88

such practice possible because monitoring easier.

"Learning contracts" for students and institutions instead of simple competency check lists.

Aim: To design & develop a historical archive and narrative for developments in technology enhanced learning.

Reflection: I have learnt about the history of educational computing, the methods of curation and cataloguing materials, the processes of dissemination and sharing of artefacts and the nature of voluntary research activity. I have benefited from relationships with the museum, library and gallery sector and developed thinking about the semantic web and questions of interpretation within the scope of historical analysis.

Contribution: Since leaving Ultralab I have taken sole responsibility for this work, establishing working methodology, designing a participative web site and convening and attending events to disseminate knowledge. My part 90% (Initially with Stephen Heppell and Greta Mladenova)

Originality, impact and importance: The archive is unique in the UK in its focus on educational computing. Its impact has been on international education conferences and events where it has exhibited and in its support for other projects such as the BBC’s Domesday Reloaded. I believe its importance will be found in the future to satisfy a desire to interpret the historical development of technology enhanced learning and to mine the ideas which have been developed and forgotten, but are ripe for re-invention.

This project began at a time when the last remnants of the first national programme for schools, the Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP) were closing. Stephen Heppell and I rescued a number of key collections from regional and national centres and others donated materials.

Ultralab hosted the archive until 2006, when I took ownership and hosted the work within Core Education UK. Various supporters and organisations have added funds for the archive, which continues to act as a focus for proposals to enhance, disseminate and make relevant the wealth of materials it contains.

This is the summary document about the archive:

The development of educational computing in the UK began in the early 1970s. This has resulted in a wealth of knowledge, experience and artefacts. It is timely now to look at these materials and to represent them as an accessible and substantially complete collection of one nation’s pioneering and world-renowned innovation.

SESSION SUMMARY

IT in the National Curriculum: Where are we going?

Stephen Heppell & Richard Millwood

This session introduces the conference and leads into a look at the current state of IT in the National Curriculum, SATs and allows delegates to exchange news from their own institutions.

[1] Working with information

Stephen Heppell

The four strand sessions of the conference match four of the five strands for IT in the National Curriculum. This first strand highlights databases, spreadsheets and large information systems, their current & future rôle in the primary learning environment.

[2] Modelling

Richard Millwood

The opportunity to explore theoretical models in a non-threatening and liberating way is one of the key opportunities that IT offers, but is generally poorly understood. This session addresses the key ideas in modelling and how primary children may develop conceptual understanding and skills and to begin to understand the many computer models in use everyday life, such as that underpinning the weather forecast.

[3] Presenting and Communicating

John Davitt

Wordprocessing has contributed to children’s self esteem by giving them a new and exciting channel of communication which they perceive as of high quality. Other opportunities exist and will be communicated and presented (!) in this session.

[4] Social implications of IT

Stephen Heppell

From the touch-sensitive keyboard in MacDonalds to the linked traffic lights in our city centres children’s everyday lives are permeated by computers. This session focusses on some of the social implications of computing that are rewardin and challenging to present in the primary classroom.

The Classroom of the Future, Computer Games - Children’s Vice or Virtue, A look back at the history of educational computing.

Although the National Curriculum is a key focus in this conference, in the long term these sessions presented by a range of speakers, may well prove to be the more important! They will be entertaining, provoking and occasionally participative sessions which may help delegates to consider some of the contextual issues surrounding IT and learning.

These were the notes for session 4:

Social Implications of IT

How is the use of Information Technology affecting our society?

To help answer this question, try to answer the following:

1 List all the places where your name is held on a computer database.

2 Explain where a computer is involved in the life of

• A Ford Sierra
• The television news & weather
• Hollywood films

3 What percentage of your financial transactions do you make with cash?

4 What hope is there for making Information Technology an “non-gendered” activity?

“So long as technological training and work have a function in building and burnishing masculinity it cannot be accessible to women.”
Cynthia Cockburn (1984) ‘Women and Technology: opportunity is not enough’ in Jones & Scrimshaw (Eds.) Computers in Education 5-13.

“Offer students basic competence.”

“The truth is that our society is already shaped primarily by the designs of the few and the momentum of technology, and it makes no sense to suggest that a minimal understanding of computers will empower an already technologically impotent citizenry. Computer literacy does not provide the public with tools for wrestling control of these technologies from the hands of corporate decision-makers. In fact, it is more likely that a focus on minimal technical competence ... will lead to a sort of pseudo-control, a false sense that one has power simply because one can make a computer do a little something. Real control of the direction the new technology will take involves political understanding, not trivial technical understanding, and it must focus on decisions which affect the design and use of large systems, not on the ability to create catchy little BASIC programs.”
Douglas Noble (1984) ‘The Underside of Computer Literacy’, Raritan Review, 3 Spring p 55.

The National Curriculum statements related to social implications:

LEVEL 4

d) Understand the need to question the accuracy of displayed information and that results produced by a computer may be affected by incorrect data entry. Example: Correct a file of data about individuals in the class in which some data has deliberately been entered incorrectly.

f) Review their experience of information technology and consider applications in everyday life. Example: Investigate overlay keyboards used in fast-food shops.

LEVEL 5

e) Understand that personal information may be held on computer, which is of interest to themselves and their families. Example: Collect correspondence received by their families which has been addressed using computer databases and discuss data needed to produce it.

LEVEL 6

e) Review experiences of using information technology and consider other applications and their impact on everyday life. Example: Compare own use of control devices with bar codes used for automatic stock control in supermarkets; compare own expression of information using IT with computer-produced bills or personalised mail and consider the implications of access to personal information.

LEVEL 8

e) Understand why electronically stored personal information is potentially easier to misuse than that kept in conventional form. Example: Consider cases of computer fraud and unauthorised access to computer files.

LEVEL 9

c) Understand the effects of inaccurate data in files of personal information. Example: Research cases where the use of inaccurate data has caused inconvenience; investigate safeguards on access to personal data in computer systems.

LEVEL 10

b) Discuss the environmental, ethical, moral, and social issues raised by information technology. Example: Visit organisations making extensive use of information technology, prepare for the visit by deciding issues to be discussed with employees, such as how information technology was introduced, its effects on their work, their view of information technology; make suggestions about how the introduction of information technology might have been improved.

Aim: To research the new uses for creative & communicative digital tools in secondary classrooms.

Reflections: I was lucky to be on the edge of this project, occasionally invited to school visits and project meetings, frequently involved in reflective thinking and planning. I learnt that young people could be trusted with expensive equipment and powerful functionality and that their creativity and attainment could be enhanced by technology tools, enabling considerable achievement. It also taught me that children's safety and confidence were precious and needed positive and careful action to assure.

Contribution: My part was very small in the action of the project, but I acted as a mentor (with Stephen Heppell) to the project and as research supervisor to Carole Chapman, who led the project. As such I helped develop the conceptual thinking which then provided a basis for much other research. 10% (with Stephen Heppell and Carole Chapman)

Originality, impact and importance: The project was groundbreaking in its connection between professional scientists and school students to discuss science problems, in its early use of mobile technology and in its foundation on the concept of online community. The impact of the project was felt in its larger scale successor projects such as Notschool.Net, Schools Online, Think.com, TeachernetUK, Talking Heads and Ultraversity. Its importance was the establishment of design, practice and conceptual knowledge for Ultralab and beyond.

This project was sponsored by the Nortel company, maker of communications equipment, and initially connected five schools and engineers in Nortel to create an online learning community. Its influence on Ultralab projects was far-reaching, influencing and inspiring the thinking of the Schools Online Project, the Etui project and the NotSchool project and many others. The close contact with schools and pupils, the confidence of the sponsors and the early provision of equipment permitted an agile action research to develop, establishing possibilities and identifying challenges.

A description of the project written by Carole Chapman, the project leader and Greta Mladenova describes in more detail its development and findings:

Learning in the New Millennium: A longitudinal project in three phases

Carole Chapman, Greta Mladenova

ULTRALAB, Chelmsford, UK

June 2001

Abstract

This paper sets the background to the Learning in the New Millennium (LiNM) Project which was undertaken at Ultralab, a learning technology research centre at Anglia Polytechnic University. This longitudinal research project ran from 1993 to 2000. The project informed the debate in the UK in the arena of learning beyond traditional confines. LiNM started from a constructivist conception of learning and aimed to empower project participants to utilise technology and to develop processes that enhanced paricipation and collaboration.

The paper covers briefly all three phases of the project and then describes the findings of the final phase which was concerned with a range of mobile IP devices. Recommendations based on the findings are made.

Introduction

At Ultralab we develop our projects within a framework which accepts that learning should be ambitious (and preferably delightful). Anecdotally we know some of our best learning occurs when we can explore and extend our understanding with interested others, where we can scaffold (Vygotsky¹ , 1976) learning. Ultralab projects recognise that our most memorable learning often takes place outside the formal school curriculum: we often forget lessons but remember the experience shared when friends or parents talk around a dinner table, the television programme we found by mistake, or by a teacher dropping a set lesson to speak with real passion about a topic or idea. Such an experience, topic, idea, eccentricity can establish new relationships and encourage formal and informal debate. New technologies, which enhance our abilities to communicate, for example asynchronous conferencing, allow this extension of learning by enabling the following through of a story or learning experience beyond the traditional physical and temporal confines of professional educational institutions or time limits imposed by the curriculum. New technologies can be harnessed to deliver content (Information Delivery Technology) or can be used to support the building of deeper understanding through two-way communication, participation and engagement (Information Communication Technology). Constructivist theory (Bruner² , 1986; Fosnot³ , 1996), which emphasises the latter, has informed the pedagogical foundation for the design of Ultralab projects. Constructivist theory specifically aims to empower participants via collective learning to actively construct their knowledge rather than passively receive information.

Background to Learning in the New Millennium

The Learning in the New Millennium (LiNM) project took place against an educational background in the UK of growing 'panic' surrounding educational achievement and failing schools, which resulted in the implementation of the National Curriculum and OFSTED, rhetoric concerning standards and the implementation of almost continuous rigourous testing. The model of education that developed is best described as an input / output model.

The LiNM project, throughout its three phases, has emphasised collective learning as a social process, involving the active construction of new knowledge and understanding, consideration, participation in and discussion of existing knowledge. Collective learning is most effective because it involves the active construction of knowledge, combined with peer learning, which results in the development of different methods of problem solving and interaction. This results in motivated and considered feedback (Kaye⁴ , 1995). Stafford in 1990 examined 96 learning studies and concluded that interactivity was associated with learning achievement and retention of knowledge over time (Najjar⁵ , 1995). Educational theory (Bruner, 1986; Vygotski, 1978) has long established that people learn material faster and have a better attitude toward learning material when they learn in an interactive learning environment. At Ultralab we would make a clear distinction between interaction, evoking choice and response and participation, evoking contribution and ownership. Our research projects emphasis participative environments.

Learners in a collaborative learning environment control their own learning and the asynchronous nature of the flexible learning environment of LiNM enabled this control to take place. Pupils learnt from others and collaborated to construct knowledge. Thus the project in its second phase did not simply involve working on project studies or set tasks, but true collaborative learning, where the pace of work and knowledge acquisition was in the control of the learner. Thus the second phase of LiNM involved pupils sharing and distributing their multimedia work. A cycle of comment and iteration was built into the process, which was transparent. It is worth emphasising here that communication is not collaboration, just as interaction is not participation. Effective learning requires both participation and collaboration (Vygotski, 1978). As with all Ultralab project participation and collaboration were ‘built into’ LiNM. The simple addition of multimedia materials and self paced learning is not enough to deliver other than the most basic task orientated training. The best elements of the LiNM project used new technology in a non linear, participative and collaborative way.

LiNM Project Phases

The LiNM project was sponsored by Nortel Networks. The project started in 1993, aiming to raise the profile of science and technology with school pupils in the UK. As a longitudinal project LiNM has been able to examine the considerable developments in technology which have taken place since 1993. The ethnographic, organic nature of LiNM enabled the project to adapt to meet changes in both education and technology. Teachers were always given equipment for their own use before it was taken into classrooms and were encouraged to become researchers, keeping logs of use and diaries as well as reflecting in the conferencing environment. Pupil participants communicated via conferencing and developed an open and honest approach, feeding back their success and failures as well as their observations and reflections. These logs, diaries and reflections, combined with Ultralab research observations, formed the basis of the research.

The project pupils came from a number of state schools across South East England, and were chosen specifically to cross barriers of ethnicity, age and/or ability. During the course of LiNM some 1,850 pupils aged 8 to 16 years were involved in the project.

LiNM fell into three natural phases.

Phase one of the project (1993 - 1997) connected pupils, aged 8 to 18, to scientists and engineers at Nortel, and to teachers and academics. The schools participating in the LiNM project were among the first in the UK to have a connection which allowed them to contribute to the www. The project added "experts" as additional areas of expertise became required . Project participants never met physically for the two year period of phase one and only communicated via the text based conferencing environment. In phase one of the LiNM project, connection to the computer conferencing environment took place almost entirely at school, home Internet connections being rare. The findings of phase one are published and can be found on the website⁶ .

Following phase one of LiNM, Ultralab recognised that the asynchronous conferencing process, where people could reply to someone's message after thinking about it and preparing their reply at leisure, had significant advantages in that it offered excellent opportunities for reflection. Elsewhere in Ultralab sociometric analysis of face to face meetings were helping us to understand the gains in parity of esteem and parity of contribution of asynchronous distributed online environments. Natural scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1976) was developed through the continual focus on collaboration, and participants were encouraged to use the computer and software environment as mind tools (Brown, Collins, & Duguid⁷, 1989, Jonassen⁸ , 1994; Prickett, Higgins, & Boone⁹ , 1994). Our research saw reflection and collaboration develop among the bulk of project participants.

With phase two (1997 - 1999) the research focus moved from communication and communities to the contribution symmetrical, multiple media and broader band communication might add. Ultralab had a long track record of pioneering work with multimedia stretching back into the 1980’s. LiNM Project participants were encouraged to expand communication from text to multiple media, to share and distribute their work on multiple media projects across physical boundaries and age limitation, to build their own interactive webspaces, for which they were responsible (for example they directly updated and controlled), and to explore their own new media literacy. The findings of phase two are published and can be found on the website¹⁰ .

Phase three of the project (1999 - 2001) aimed to add diversity to the technology and look at the implications of mobile IP (Internet Protocol) with a clearly distinguished personal identity for each user. In 1999 pocket mobile wireless devices were introduced into the school environments. One of the aspects investigated in this phase was the impact of the new technology on classroom practice and behaviour. This rest of this paper draws together some of the specific findings of this research

Phase three: context of the third phase

Since phase one of LiNM there has been an extension of use of the internet for learning purposes. This is demonstrated by the development of web sites by those institutions who consider they have a learning remit (Bitesize from BBC , HomeWork High from Channel 4, Learn from the Guardian, SchoolNet2000 from Tesco ). Children's use of the Internet in Europe was recently researched by NOP and the findings showed that use in England was only surpassed by Scandinavian countries¹¹ .

Since 1994 there have been twelve major UK government programmes with an investment of over £250 m to support the use of ICT in education. In schools these government initiatives, for example NGfL (National Grid for Learning), have ensured that all schools will have internet connections by 2002 and NOF (New Opportunities Fund) training for all teachers will ensure that teachers are familiar with the Internet and understand its potential value.

Children are spending the majority of their spare leisure time inside their or their peer groups homes. NOP research found that this was mainly due to parents concerns over 'stranger danger' and road safety (NOP, 2000). NOP research also found that most computers are based in bedrooms. This is in contrast to Ultralab safety guidelines to site computers in social spaces. Given the context outlined above it is unsurprising that under 16s are using the Internet in ever increasing numbers.

In our research we have observed a pattern of online activity amongst the project participants where increasingly pupils have extended the activities undertaken in the project into their leisure time. We questioned, and asked for feedback from, teachers and pupils in LiNM schools where their exposure to, and understanding of, technology futures, through LiNM phase three has informed the debate.

Phase three: findings

Our observations showed that increasingly, where given the opportunity by technology, pupils go to great lengths to keep in touch with their peer group. We observed pupil groups SMS messaging to friends and logging in to access online communities at anytime, anywhere. Here individual identity was crucial so that children knew who was sending to them as well as who they were sending to: they felt the need to identify the audience. Pupils found messages from 'unknown' numbers' or emails from strange addresses disturbing.

The majority of pupils who used WAP technology (over 70%) preferred to SMS even when the activity was almost synchronous ( defined by 6 communications sent in a 4 minute period) . We asked why this was the case and most pupils cited reflection as the reason;
“I can think before I answer”
“I like to know what I am going to say”
“It gives me more time”

Rarely were pupils observed using hand held devices to simply read personal mail or messages without making some response, even if it was only an acknowledgement. Almost all pupils who used the community software regularly (over 70% of our group logged into the community software at least twice a week) checked the discussions within the active communities they were members of. Currently this is only possible in a limited way with mobile phone technology, as multiple messaging is limited in the SMS world. This means that support for learning or social cohorts is non existent. This situation is changing with the development of 3rd generation mobile phone technology, which offers enhanced functionality. Already (June 2001) mail lists are available through mobile phones and the games industry is attempting interactive gaming using SMS. Advances in technology will enable participative functionality (see Ultralab m-Learning project) and our research shows that this will be increasing demanded by a young, sophisticated audiences.

Within the school environment duration of time contacting with others was limited and thus any spare minute was liable to be grabbed. This was true in LiNM schools where access was open and an integrated approach to new technology encouraged. Using conventional computers the most popular login times - and the longest - were just after school or lunchtime, pupils often using the whole lunch break. This was because pupils had to go to a specific place to log onto a computer. This takes time because it may involve finding a member of staff and queuing. Once a computer is obtained pupils wish to keep control of it. Personal devices which use wireless connections, were observed to be used in breaks to 'keep up to date'. We noted the tendency to use every single opportunity to communicate when pupils have access to the technology. They stopped at the cloakroom area and opened the mobile device simply to login for a few minutes to check email and/or conference messages. We observed that almost without exception they originated messages as well as read them. For them the Internet was a participative environment.

Our research showed that on systems where there was a resumés or a type of 'about me' available, children accessed this information many times. They were interested in any information concerning others in their communities or others communicating with them. They wanted to know who was in their community, what their interests were. They reread resumés of active users on a regular basis to look for additions and/or changes. They were keen to write information about themselves for others to see and changed their comments to update their information. One of the first five messages in over 50% of pupils communicated with was, “have you read about me”.

Although pupils do respond to messages in an online community in large numbers the communication, when children are the main members of a community, is characterised by short and direct responses. An average discussion involving mainly children consists of a number of quick fired one liners and/or questions interspersed with longer comments. This pattern was observed before SMS but is reinforced in SMS messaging 'conversations' which we observed taking place.

We asked LiNM pupils what they most liked doing in the online communities in which they belonged. Children's answers were as follows
"chatting", “asking” "looking things up", "making web pages", "movies"

We also asked our teachers involved in phase three what they had observed their pupils enjoy doing most when participating in the LiNM project. The teachers answers included
"..giving feedback and seeing their ideas take shape",
"sharing joint project and communicating", "taking part".

In both cases the majority (72%) mentioned some aspect involving communicating and creating , or as the children commented, "doing things!" This is not surprising: memorable learning takes place when we are 'doing', especially with others.

Within the classroom in the primary sector the attitude to wireless mobile devices was very open and positive. Pupils were encouraged to move around the school, collect equipment, use the equipment in a self directed way and return equipment to a central point, thus pupils were given control of the technology and their own learning. Teachers noted that this had a direct impact on the pupils attitudes, with younger children becoming investigative and the older more difficult pupils more stimulated and interested in learning. One teacher commented that in the case of a very difficult pupil excluded from lessons the ability to control and pace learning using a wireless computer and open ended tasks had reawakened the childs interest in the world around him.

The ability to use the wireless technology outside the confines of the school building was seen by the teachers as one of its greatest assets. The ability to include extracurricular staff, “even the dinner ladies were roped in...” proved invaluable in involving the whole school in learning. Caretakers also became involved in helping the pupils to achieve their objectives of collecting images, video and audio from around the school.

Also worthy of note was an increase in creativity. Freed from the boundaries of desk and wires pupils were able to use software tools in an inventive way. We observed for example the increased use of digital manipulation of downloaded images. Video and audio became a standard feature of work. It was common to see a group of children in the field searching for images of plants to check their rarity or crowded around the pond looking at movies of insects and, for example comparing their movements to those observed in real life. Pupils were rarely observed as one individual using a machine but in groups working together, collaboratively.

Secondary school lessons tended to be fixed, located in a central subject area. For these classes mobile IP was equally valuable, as many lessons were constrained to separate teaching areas and pupils/classes did not have the flexibility which allowed them to move to central computer suites when needed. Thus with pupils in control of the technology they became classroom researchers for both peers and teachers, able to add an additional dimension to lessons. We observed pupils not only by extending the information available to the classes but also posing questions in online conferences and receiving answers during the lesson, finding and observing online simulations or models on relevant subjects and synchronously and asynchronously questioning pupils working in the same areas in other schools and exchanging files with these pupils. All this is possible in a computer suite but of interest is the way in which these activities became a feature of almost every lesson and the way in which pupils no longer simply interacted with teachers, answering questions but truly participated in lessons.

A key feature therefore of pupils behaviour in a world of mobile IP is that pupils will access where and whenever they can, from a multiplicity of computers and from a number of devices. Increasingly, when allowed, they slip time boundaries to blur the lines between their school and leisure and wish to use their learning from their leisure time to enhance their school learning.

It would be as wrong to presume a consistency of software/ hardware in the classroom as it would be to presume such in the wider population. LiNM phase three has demonstrated the diversity of equipment available for pupils to use and the willingness of children to accept and use such technology. LiNM pupils used whatever equipment we presented them with, and will use whatever is available: ubiquitous desktop machines, portables but also anything else that they have access to, even temporarily, however limiting the interface. When we gave pupils data phone technology, they happily used these mobile wireless devices to access the Internet, despite the impoverished environment and unreliability of gateways.

Recommendations

We would be foolish to expect more consistency of technology in the future, indeed diversity is widening considerably. The findings outlined above, combined with the movement towards an integration of devices (third generation mobile phones which will allow recording of video, receipt of information, synchronous video conferencing, televisions which allow for interactivity and asynchronous conferencing etc.) point to a move from the traditional desktop computer towards a "thin client" device. Like the devices we introduced to schools these will have no local applications at all and minimal local storage. This effectively rules out local storage of files other than as a very short term expedient. This raises a number of interesting issues for schools surrounding managed service provision and standardisation around specific hardware and/ or software platforms.

Phase three has demonstrated that schools with flexible and adaptable approaches to new technology, as opposed to being locked into managed services, can successfully adopt new technologies, integrate them into the school environment and benefit from an increase in creativity that such innovation brings. LiNM pupils had limited problems with software choice; they used whatever browser and/or device was available and whatever operating system, as long as the door remained open for their participation.

Our observations confirm that children log on where (and when) there is opportunity: from school, home, public access points, friends, anywhere. The pattern of use identified in the findings above clearly evidences the importance of individual identity over group identity and of mixed age, distributed, asynchronous communities.

¹ VYGOTSKI, (1967) "Mind in Society", Harvard University Press

² BRUNER, J. (196). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

³ FOSNOT, C. T. (EDS.). (1996). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press

⁴ KAYE (1995), "Computer Supported Collaborative Learning" in "Information Technology & Society" Edited by Heap et al, The Open University

⁵ NAJJAR, (1995) "Multimedia Information and Learning", Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Vol 5, No 2 1996

⁶ Findings Phase one http://research.ultralab.anglia.ac.uk/One/linm.html

⁷ BROWN, J. S., COLLINS, A., & DUGUID, P. (1989/95). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. available at http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/ilt/papers/JohnBrown.html, last updated 29-Nov-95

⁸ JONASSEN, D. (1994). Technology As Cognitive Tools: Learners As Designers. ITFORUM listserv discussion paper published 2nd May 1994: available at http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper1/disc1.html

⁹ PRICKETT, E. M., HIGGINS, K., & BOONE, R. (1994). Technology for learning ... not learning about technology. Teaching exceptional children, summer, 56-60.February 1998

¹⁰ Findings Phase two http://research.ultralab.anglia.ac.uk/findings.html

¹¹ NOP research (June 2000)“Children and the Internet” March 2000
Under 16's using the Internet by country:
Denmark: 90%
Sweden: 84%
France: 40%
England: 55%
Italy: 45%

Aim: To clarify the importance of designing in  opportunity for self-localisation to educational software to allow regional and international appropriation.

Abstract

In this paper the authors report as a case study their experience of adapting a set of software for other languages and cultures, drawing attention to the potential pitfalls and sharing what was learnt. This experience was based on a project to translate the 'Work Rooms' software for young learners into Bulgarian and Catalan. It is also hoped to broaden the debate on CAL, stimulating consideration of multicultural and international issues.

While the questions raised by this particular adaptation of software are relevant to all those working with CAL, they have particular importance for software authors, publishers, and teachers of linguistic minorities.

Reflection: The discussion and research arising from the developments we made to create programs in the 'Work Rooms' suite as user-translateable software, had a far-reaching influence on my awareness of the importance of seeing the world from the position of the learner within the culture they inhabit and the language they use, not simply what their interests or processes in learning might be. It made clear how profound the concept of learner-centredness needed to be.

Contribution: I helped design the software methodology for translation and the implementation of it in the 'Work Rooms' software as well as co-authoring the paper.My part: 20% (with Dai Griffiths, Stephen Heppell, Sam Deane and Greta Mladenova)

Originality, impact and importance: The practice and paper was novel in education at that time and the conceptual thinking was only just making impact in the software operating systems world. Its importance is seen in the way modern software is now developed and content management systems such as Plone have been developed to manage translation as a matter of course.

Download the full paper as a PDF file

Here is the text of the notes I prepared for the two sessions:

Your task over these two sessions is to try to represent the choice of where to build a new supermarket for Brentwood.  You will work in  groups of about five students.

Firstly, we are going to use the computer to help define the choices and to explain the factors which affect the decision using a computer program called “Making Choices”.

Secondly (in the second session), we are going to make a short video, using the computer to explain the choice and your viewpoint.

First session

“Making Choices” works as a framework for you to pin down your ideas about a decision.  In this case, a good first step is to decide what the choices are.

The choices need to be in some sense co;mparable for this exercise, that is, they should all be potential geographical sites for building a supermarket.  A choice “don’t build” of course exists, but is only useful in the program if it can be compared to a choice like “Mountnessing” on the basis of the factors affecting the choice.

The factors can be varied: “environmental impact”, “cost”, “convenience” all seem likely.  Whats important for this program is that you can sort the choices into order based on the factors.

You also need to decide whose viewpoint you are taking, by deciding who you are going to play the role of: the council, the supermarket company, the residents of Brentwood, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, Friends of the Earth, the local business community etc..  This will allow you to sort the factors into order, to giv÷e more weight to “cost” rather than “convenience” for example.

Finally the computer will take account of all your factors and viewpoint and sort the choices to show you an analysis of the whole decision.  At this point you can consider whether the analysis represents your viewpoint well, and if not perhaps return to alter factors, alter the viewpoint or add in more information.

At each point in the program you can add descriptive text which helps explain the choices, factors and viewpoint.  This needs careful thought, but is perhaps the most important.  Defining what you mean as a group is critical to understanding.

Second Session

You need to meet as a group and prepare for the second session a brief introduction to which interested party you are role-playing and a brief commentary on your viewpoint card and the analysis card.  You will make a short video (about 30 seconds) using the computer and video camera.  Don’t panic - we will be there to help you of course.

This is the text summarising my speech:

Multimedia: why bother?

In the past going beyond text always had a cost implication and delivery to other users was problematic.  Graphics terminals were expensive, sound was experimental and digital television hardly conceived.  In order to achieve widespread distribution of software,  mono-font text was the sole medium for delivery.

On early  personal computers, the questions were all about justifying the use of usually minimal colour, audio beep feedback and deciding who would be able to use it & when.  Colour graphics would mean the purchase of an extra circuit card - remember CGA / EGA and VGA? Over the last five years it has become increasingly difficult to buy a text only PC - who would want one now if it was given?

Sensible technical limits to media quality have been attained and virtually all computers deliver.  The current generation of microcomputers can produce CD quality audio, slide quality graphics and broadcast quality television.  It won’t be long before it will be hard to find a PC without these characteristics for input, storage and output.

Extra costs for multimedia remain in the effective creation of quality multimedia materials, because of the artistic design skills required, offset a little by the availability of clip art, sound and TV.  These costs do not affect informal work group use of multimedia nor is there significant cost in delivery.

At the same time as this technology change has surprised us, we have changed as information consumers.  Our exposure to television, film and other entertainment, the visual and aural backdrop of everyday experience may have altered expectations.  When was the last time that you saw handwriting?  A particularly interesting change is the increase in speed of television sequence editing. Children’s television has literally exploded in pace and complexity since the days of Andy Pandy.  It seems credible that we have the capacity to absorb this kind of information since the advertisers probably know what they’re doing!

The essential question facing us now is not concerned with cost or technical features, but one of the quality and effectiveness of the use of computers.  The feasibility question has disappeared and we must now ask why leave out speech, music, pictures and animation?; after all they form a large part of our normal, everyday experience.

So what roles can multimedia play?

Communication

Arguably, computer use is strongly a communicative act. Effective human communication is strongly enhanced by the redundancy of message offered through combinations of visual imagery, animated gesture and expression, audio cues and clues and, of course, symbolic text.

Participation

The multimedia personal computer can enhance participation because those who find it hard to read and compose text will now be able to use their normal mode of communication - mixed aural and visual messages and presentations.

Delight

W. Edwards Deming explained that satisfying customers is not enough - that delighting them is desirable so that they become allies in selling products. Products where multimedia has been effectively employed have the capacity to delight where static text and graphics merely satisfy.

This is a tongue-in-cheek diary of the trip to Mallorca to present at the conference and stay with Dai Grffiths:

Tuesday
Easy journey to Gatwick, arriving exactly on time, to the minute.  Unfortunately this means we have two hours to kill, so we head for the bar.  Two pints later it’s close to last call so we nip in the duty free, only to be sidetracked into tasting some single malt whiskys.  We have to try a couple in order to make an informed purchase, but by now we’ve left it a bit late.  Man on the gate says grumpily “We’re just about to take your luggage off.”  Stewardess asks in schoolteacherly way “Why are you late”, doesn’t take Tom’s excuse and asks again (everyone in the airbus looking on).  How embarassing!

We get to Palma and Richard asks Tom to hold his carrier bag while he looks for his passport.  Tom goes on through the control, but Richard can’t find his passport which is in the carrier bag.  Richard decides to go through, mouth open ready with an excuse for losing his passport (I still didn’t know where it was), but the control is too busy watching young female tourists, so waves everyone through with trousers.  Dai Griffiths is there to meet us and we travel to Deia to have supper with Francisca, watch Bulgaria win and then go to bed.

Wednesday
Cold showers, there’s no hot water.  We go to the conference sit bored rigid through altogether too many tedious presentations full of acronyms and performance capabilities.  Our session is rearranged for Thursday afternoon.  We set up in the lab after the conference, then go to the inaugural dinner where we’re forced to eat excellent Catalan food, drink Rioja and generally pretend we’re enjoying ourselves.  Josep (Richard sat next to him) reports major sucesses on the European stage in 3D graphics work, a warming to Silicon Graphics and Telefonica (Spanish BT) and cooling from Apple.  Apple man doesn’t turn up, his story is he had some kind of accident.  After dinner we go to bar in Palma then another bar in Palma and subsequently sing ourselves hoarse, returning to Deia at some ungodly hour.

Thursday
Slow getting up, but we make it to UIB for more slow presentations - after lunch we have to perform so we’re glad to have a breather.  Finished our presentation - plenty of good feedback, as usual everyone likes the informal, mildly argumentative interplay between two speakers. Send this e-mail and we're off to the beach.

Friday
Meeting with Aina Calvo and Jaume Sureda Negre (Subirector del Dept. de Ciències de l'Educació).  She is coming on the Sunday 17th and leaving again on Sunday 31st.  Jaume suggests that we make a formal agreement - Aina is tasked with bringing a draft so I must book up a meeting with Maidi Brown. We attend the last sessions, including one from a Polish man working with an Amiga.  Say our goodbyes to most of the delegates, it seems likely that a good link with Maria João M. N. Loureiro in Portugal should be explored.  She is working in education and has long experience working with others in the UK on Project Minerva and other stuff.  She also talks about the "los chiquititos" (the little boys) who can help her with sorting out internet access to our WWW pages.  Tom and I have different explanations about who these boys might be, me preferring the affectionate reference to two young, rather enthusiastic, men at the conference who came from their region, Tom thinking it was a derogatory term for their computer services staff.

Saturday
We travel with Dai, Francisca, Juan and Katerina to see Francisca's relatives in Maria de la Salut a small town in the centre of the island.  We spend a pleasant time in the orchard digging around and watering trees, then have a really nice lunch, sit by the municipal pool all afternoon. We watch Italy play Spain in the bar near to the pool.  Outside are two local minor league football teams also playing a formal game in proper strips.  When Spain scores, all the footballers leave the pitch and rush into the bar, watch the replay, applaud, and then return to their game.   Tom and I plan an ULTRALAB book.  It has to be a "coffee table" product with plenty of good graphic, tactile quality.  Tom suggests no front cover but multiple starting points in something like a spiral bound format.  Transparent pages with overlaid commentary (learning veneers?) might be both novel, interesting but also practical.

Sunday
Went to the beach along the coast from Deia, spent several hours in the sea, met the Portuguese chaps, confirmed Richard's story on "los chiquititos".  Had a party at the caseta with Juan from Valencia.  Richard broke the hammock.

Monday
Richard, Tom, Iwan and Dai went to Palma.  Tom and Iwan go to games arcade and buy fireworks from the carnival shop.  Dai and Richard visit Logical to collect Dai's repaired computer and arrange a meeting with Pere Obrador and Josep Secchi (the mafiosi) for the next day.  Excellent meal in the Restaurant  Montenegro (in the Carrer Montenegro).  We return, swim and then a small bit of user testing of Carnaval and X with Iwan, Geoffrey and Llewellyn.

Tuesday
Dai and Richard go to Logical for meeting with the Mafiosi.  Afterwards we go to the fish market to buy fresh fish and prawns.  Tom helps with the watering on the farm with Francisca.  Return to a brilliant paella cooked by Juan from Valencia.

Abstract—ULTRALAB is a learning technology research centre researching & developing learning software and producing CD-ROM products.  Recently the team has become interested in publishing through the Internet using the indexing and retrieval software, Gopher and the hypermedia system World Wide Web using Mosaic software.  These products and the software protocols underlying them present new design challenges, new opportunities for international publishing and a realisation of the hypertext dream.  Nevertheless there are constraints to be identified and criticisms to make.  This paper discusses these issues and some of the work ULTRALAB has developed in tackling them.

You can view the product of the conference, originally published as a website on a CD-ROM.

Here is the draft of the briefing we offered to participants and a later specification, developed at the conference is below:

15th June 1994

Briefing for CD-ROM

Publishing a CD-ROM representing the conference, prepared within the time scale of the conference is one of the crazy goals we have set ourselves.  Luckily, Stephen Heppell and Richard Millwood have some experience of just this kind of madness and this paper is to help explain the project.
The aim of the conference is to articulate the debate about the future of learning with information technology as seen by the assembled delegates.  Ideally, engaging in that debate is more important than wrestling with the publishing medium, but pragmatically we all need to know what we are working with in order to understand its constraints and opportunities.  We have designed a format for the published outcome and we hope you find it acceptable and that it can accommodate your ideas.
The audience we are communicating to includes trainee teachers, in-service teachers, teacher-educators and interested parents confronting issues of learning with IT in a range of contexts and locations.  A typical use of the CD-ROM might include the following stages, although not necessarily in strict order:

1    a choice is made between several key areas of debate;
2    the chosen area is characterised by a short, provocative mini-drama set in the future designed to stimulate debate;
3    a neutral explanation (sub-text) of the drama and what issues are involved in this area of debate is offered;
4    a choice can be made from a range of “talking heads” which offer a subjective view on the issues;
5    related activities and bibliographic references can be reviewed and  saved/printed for later use;
6    a guide on how to use all of the above to support workshop, seminar and individual use is available;

To make this kind of interaction possible, the conference must include these activities:

1    Agree the key areas - based on those proposed already, no doubt.
2    (a) In groups, brainstorm these areas and invent an appropriate mini-drama;
(b) script the mini-drama;
(c) act out and video the mini-drama;
(d) digitise the video for the computer if time permits.
3    Write the explanatory text which indicates the issues for debate in this area.
4    (a) Debate the issues;
(b) reflect on the debate and come up with some “positions” and protagonists amongst the delegates;
(c) each protagonist script their point of view;
(d) speak the point of view to camera as a “talking head”
(e) digitise the video for the computer if time permits.
5    Bring & collect references to other sources & related activities and identify relevant pages/sections etc where possible.
6    Brainstorm effective ways of using the resource and write them up as a guide.

The technical production work will not be completed within the time scale of the conference but facilities to capture text, scan graphics, digitise sound and video will be available if time or need arises.  The overriding requirement is to complete all the content.  Further technical production and CD-ROM development will be completed by ULTRALAB. It is intended to produce a CD-ROM which will work for Windows and Apple Macintosh.

An approximate timetable for all this might be as follows:

Tuesday
Demonstration of framework / production process
Discuss scope / brainstorm key areas of debate and mini-drama ideas

Wednesday
Discuss areas in groups, debate points of view, script & develop dramas
Act out and video dramas
Review dramas / write neutral commentary
Discuss issues and script protagonist’s views
Video talking heads

Friday
Write guidance material for using resource
Review progress - discuss what’s left

20th July 1994

Suggested specifications for the Education 2015 CD-ROM

We’re hardening up the metaphor for the material:  a ripple in the space-time continuum causes your wastebasket from 2015 to appear.  In it are some newspapers of 2015.  Leafing through, some cartoons and headlines catch your eye...

... the cartoons provoke debate and the headlines are a key the issues within those debates.

Back to now ...

There are four levels at which you need to generate materials: the debate (a title with a provocative cartoon), the issues in that debate (four, five or six specific areas within that debate, keyed with a headline), the points (talking heads with opinions about the issues) and see alsos (references and suggestions for further research, participation and activity around each issue).

Debate
For this all you need is a title, preferably snappy, and an idea for a cartoon, imagined to have been found in a future newpaper.  Tom will draw the cartoons to make a consistent and coherent look-and-feel to the product.

Issues
These are the main areas for discussion in the debate.  It may take some time to decide exactly what they are, they may overlap and may be difficult to pin down.  Imagine a headline.  Locate the headline in 2015, to report in an attention-grabbing way some hypothetical change or event which has taken place.

Points
These are those sound (video) bites (aka talking heads), designed to explain, support, pass opinion on, criticise or justify the matter mentioned in the issue headline.  They are located in the present (1994) and may differ from the view of the future by calling into question the validity of the “wastebasket”.  There should be several of these for each issue.  They should last on average ten seconds, but an absolute maximum of twenty seconds might be goomd.  They should stand alone as far as possible so that the user could select them in any order and hear them not as dialogue or narrative but as a collection of ideas to be  actively selected, considered and evaluated.

See alsos
A collection of these for each issue.  Book, software,  video references and suggestions about what to do to make more sense of the issue.

None of this needs to be done in this order!  It may be easier to generate a lot of points first and then consider how they fit into issues.  Deciding the debate title and cartoon may arise from the rest of the work rather than be thought of first.

Abstract - This paper is concerned with cultural factors in the design of
educational multimedia software.  Two examples of multimedia software, designed
at ULTRALAB, are described explaining their design criteria and the method used
to allow for cultural factors of two kinds.  

Firstly, "Le Carnaval des Animaux" is described, explaining how the software
was designed to work both with children's culture in terms of the operation and
metaphor of the software and in terms of their native language.  The software
is designed to allow children to explore the imagery of Saint-Saens music in a
participative manner.  In this program, multimedia is created and manipulated
by children without technical knowledge using "drag-and-drop" direct
manipulation of familiar tools and objects.  The user-interface has little text
apart from that which is entered by the learner and the extensive "balloon
help".  To support learning better, the "balloon help" is translated into
Spanish, Catalan and Bulgarian and the software chooses automatically which to
display based on the version of the operating system installed.  The
opportunity to translate this help systen is built into the software to permit
any interested party to create their own translation to match their learners'
own culture.

Secondly, "X" is described to explain how the ULTRALAB team exploited
children's games culture in developing a multimedia game for practising and
learning multiplication tables.  In the design process, children, parents and
teachers were consulted by the ULTRALAB team to guide the design. The
children's desire for challenge, the parents need for educational games and the
teacher's requests for specific learning problems to be addressed were all
taken into account.  Despite the limited, factual knowledge learning involved,
the software also permits children to add their own hints to help them with the
more difficult number facts providing them with the means to customise and
"own" their learning environment.

The authors argue that software designed with learner's culture firmly in mind
can exploit their existing capability and know-how, delight them with tools and
challenges they recognise and offer learning environments they come to with
eagerness and leave with reluctance and not the opposite.

Abstract - This paper describes the design criteria, development and evaluation
in trials of software called "Making Choices". This application is designed to
support the debate between groups of students when discussing "difficult"
subjective issues,  by enabling them to model a decision.

There has been a range of software designed to support this kind of activity,
such as the UK Computers in the Curriculum Project Geography program "Choosing
Sites" (1987), The UK Careers and Occupational Information Centre's "Resolve"
software (1986) and the UK Open University Institute of Educational
Technology's software "WOMBAT" (1991) which are reviewed in this paper.

Educational software can be classified in many ways, but briefly, "Making
Choices" is concerned with modelling in a "conjectural" learning paradigm as
defined by McDonald et al in the UK National Development Programme for Computer
Assisted Learning final report (1977) .  It permits a group of students to
model a specific decision-making problem within a framework of choices, factors
and viewpoints - the computer's role is to calculate an overall ranking of the
choices based on the student's valuations and relationships.

Modelling undertaken by engineers, scientists or planners usually leads to
predictions and hard decisions. In "Making Choices" the actual decision to be
taken is not the main focus but it acts as a stimulus to understanding and
research.  It is the examination of choices and factors, discussion within the
group, compromise and resolution of arguments encountered in the process of
modelling which matters.  Indeed Montgomery (1983) suggests that decision-
making can be defined as "a search for good arguments".

Usually, modelling is quantitative in nature with numerical values associated
with variables and algebraic equations relating these variables.  "Making
Choices" belongs to the qualitative modelling category, where the elements of
the model (choices) are ordinal data (in the statistical sense) and the
relationships between them (factors) are based on orderings.  Unlike other
similar software, "Making Choices" offers direct manipulation of these elements
in a way which is faithful to the ordinal nature of the data.   The analysis
performed by the software, by a modified weighted objectives method as
described by Cross (1989), provides an outcome to the modelling activity.  This
outcome is  not objectively decisive in a strong sense, but provides focus to
the real learning activity of debating the model.

Trials using such software in the context of the professional development of
teachers and with secondary school students has led the authors to believe that
it can underpin a valuable learning activity in a range of subject disciplines.  

The software is translated into Bulgarian and issues of East-West cooperation
to develop and translate the software are also addressed.

The task of preparing for this keynote made me research more thoroughly than usual these terms and began to develop a richer understanding of open and flexible learning which provided an influential basis for my subsequent practice

In this keynote I clarified (for myself) the meaning of 'open' in learning:

The 'open' can refer to:

• entry criteria: 'are you equipped' rather than 'are you certificated'
• or choice of: when we learn, how we learn and at what pace we learn

and I developed clarity about flexible learning too:

Flexible Learning aims to motivate students to learn effectively by:

• identifying individual learning needs throughout the learning process;
• meeting these needs by ensuring that a variety of learning activities, environments and resources are accessible to learners;
• giving students increasing responsibility for their own learning.

According to the EATE Research Report 3 "Flexible Learning in Initial Teacher Education" July 1992 Employment Department, it is defined as:

• making personal action plans, increasing ownership, involvement, motivation and appropriateness;
• individual and small group tutoring, to identify the range of options appropriate to the learner’s style and task;
• recording and reflective writing to help students identify learning;
• continuous assessment identifying strengths and weaknesses to inform progress and planning;
• managing time, resources and people for efficiency and effectiveness.