What is Home Access?

Posted by doug On February - 8 - 2010ADD COMMENTS

55421891 26ce365ae4 m What is Home Access?

‘Home Access’ is a UK Government initiative, in England, to provide computers and online access to disadvantaged learners to enable them to have access to online resources and services when outside school. It follows on from the earlier Computers for Pupils (CfP) initiative in which schools, backed by Government funds, provided computers and access to their most disadvantaged learners.

On one level, Home Access is the continuing Government attempt to close, in England, what has become known as the ‘digital divide’.  Home Access, like CfP, seeks to provide disadvantaged learners with a ‘taster’ of online access as a means of demonstrating to the learner, their parents or carers, the advantages of online access as an aide to learning. The term, ‘taster’, is used here because, while the computer is expected to have a life of around 3 years, the government initiatives would generally only provide online access for 1 year; the intention, or hope, being that having experienced the benefits for one year, the parents themselves would fund further access.

The digital divide, however, is more than just having or not having internet access from home; it is also about the way in which that access is used. Home Access provides the kit and the connectivity, which is just the first step in closing the divide, it also recognises the further issues surrounding use. It is the provision of hardware, though, which is likely to grab the headlines.

How likely is Home Access to succeed, though? Well, it already has the experience of the Computers for Pupils initiative to build upon, it has run pilot programmes in Oldham and Suffolk, and it has just completed the Home Access for Targeted Groups project (which provided kit and connectivity for looked-after children and  learners educated out of school). So it does have a fair amount of experience to build upon and help it succeed. All the projects, past and present do rely, though, upon learners and parents becoming convinced of the value and benefits of online access for their learning.

Why do it though? Why go to all these leangths and expense to provide learners and their families with online access? Well, the programme is supported by the Government’s own findings which appear to indicate that having and using online access has a beneficial effect upon learning; it can improve examination grades, lead to better financial reward and faciltate better learning opportunities for all learners. The underlying purpose of Home Access is therefore to improve the learning and future financial situation of current learners and their families.

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A Hundred Ways to Show What They’ve Learned

Posted by doug On February - 2 - 20101 COMMENT

When it comes to exams, assessments, or just asking learners to show what they have learned, education seems to offer only two options;

1) write an essay / thesis / report / paragraph/ sentence

2) tick the correct answer from a list

Yet there must be hundreds, perhaps a thousand different ways in which a learner can demonstrate what they have learned. If you want evidence of some of the many ways, then take a look at John Davitt’s page here, where over a hundred different ways have been listed (you can add your own new ways too).

Technology, e-learning, ICT (call it what you will) seems to be the worst for offering only limited ways of allowing learners to record what they have learned. You are far more likely to be offered a multiple choice question in an e-learning exercise than be asked to, say, draw a picture or make a video. Learners are more likely to use a computer to write an essay rather than make a podcast.

By limiting the ways in which learners use technology we restrict the things we teach them. By focusing upon a narrow range of uses of technology, we restrict the benefits of technology to only those learners whose style of learning best suits that narrow range. It is by widening our uses of technology that we allow the widest range of learners to experience the benefits of technology.

For a tool that is capable of displaying multimedia, multi-sensory and exciting resources, it is despairing to see a computer used in ways that are largely text based, unexciting and favour learners who learn best through reading and writing. When used in such narrow ways, learning technology can be said to be letting down the majority of learners.

Who, though, is to blame and what is the answer? By way of irony, let me give you a multiple choice question and ask you to select the correct answer!

Q) How are learners being let down?

a) Technology is letting down the learners

b) Teachers are letting down the learners

c) The way in which we use technology is letting down the learners

The answer is not a) – technology is not letting down anyone; it is a tool, a versatile tool which can be used in a myriad different ways and has appeal to many people of different backgrounds and personalities.

The answer is not b) – it is not the teachers who are letting learners down; teachers know about different ways of teaching, teachers are great at devising new and interesting approaches to engage their learners.

I believe the answer to be c) – it is by changing the ways in which we use technology that we can improve, expand and transform learning for the benefit of learners.

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Handheld Learning Conference 2009

Posted by doug On February - 1 - 20101 COMMENT

136307935 0a3e869412 m Handheld Learning Conference 2009In an early post, http://dougwoods.co.uk/blog/handheld-learning/ I mentioned that I was attending the 2009 Handheld Learning Conference in London. I also mentioned that I was looking for four things;

  • the chance to see new ideas and innovations
  • opportunities to meet with people using technology in interesting and successful ways
  • information to assess the future potential of handheld devices in education
  • some fun, well why not!

    • So how did the conference measure up and did I meet my four goals?

    Let me start by saying that this was one of themost interesting conferences I have been to in the field of education. It was spread over 3 days; the first day being taken up by a Handheld Festival showcasing some of the work people and schools have been doing. For me, the best part of the day was the Learners Y factor session hosted by Jason Bradbury, he of the Gadget Show fame and also dot Robot (which sadly we didn’t get to see). This session showcased the work of several schools in using handheld technologies and was presented by the pupils themselves. It would be true to say that each of the schools were interesting and inspiring in what they demonstrated.

    Earlier on the Monday, I had the priviledge of listening to a presentation given by Dawn Hallybone about her work using Nintendo handhelds and Wii devices. Dawn is well known for her work and rightly so for she has done some fantastic work using handheld devices in education. I however was particularly interestedwhen she mentioned some new work in the pipeline using the Wii with dyspraxic learners.

    I attended only part of the session organised by Mirandanet. The problem was that there were so many sessions running in parallel, that it was impossible to attend to all the sessions I wanted to. This was a fascinating sesion and it is a shame that I missed the drawing up of the mind-map but was able to listen in to the discussion afterwards. Thankfully the mind-map has been posted on the web and should be found by following the above link. There was one aspect of the discussion afterwards which was perhaps more depressing than anything; there was a small group of student teachers who were saying that their exposure to ICT in their teacher training was very limited andd, they felt, did not fully prepare them for teaching modern learners.

    Sessions clashing and missing speakers I would have liked to see, was a factor on the second day. I managed to attend an inspiring session by Ollie Bray , who has posted his presentation online, but this meant, unfortunately, that I had to miss a fascinating session by John Davitt. I also missed Tim Ryland’s sesion, which was a great shame. I was, however, able to catch the session from Tony Vincent, whose session came at the end of the day and after a few poorly presented sessions. Which is a great shame for I feel that many more could have benefited from his session.

    The final day, Wednesday, was a packed day with 3 strands and various breakout sessions planned. The highlight of the day was probably the final speech by Ray Kurzweil at the end of the conference. He is an influential thinker, who I had only come across before as a result of his work in speech synthesis and recognition. His work, though goes a lot deeper and this session he chose to focus upon his work into the exponential development of technology. This work, I feel has a major importance for those of us in educational ICT. We often complaiabout how slow the world of educationchanges whereas the world of ICT changes rapidly, well Kurzweil’s work suggests that the ICT world will continue to change even more rapidly as it changes exponentially, rather than linearly. So in the future can we expect to see more of a gap between the technology and the pedagogy?

    So did the conference help me achieve the four goals I set out before attending? I would say it did. I certainly had many opprotunities to see some new ideas and also to meet people. I certainly also got a lot of information bout how handheld technologies might be used in future education but any assessment of this will have to wait for a while! and was there any fun? yep!

    As an addendum to this post. I am am planning to attend the 2010 Games Based learning conference in London. Hopefully, this will further develop my enthusiasm for handheld devices in education and also allow me to discover ways in which computer games can be used to support learning.

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