Norwich City College of Further and Higher Education

Year 1: Harnessing technology towards personalisation 2007/2008

The ‘Harnessing technology towards personalisation’ project aimed to develop student and staff expertise in the use of mobile technology by providing personal digital assistants (PDAs)and smartphones to learners and their tutors across a comprehensive vocational range. Working at all levels the project will contribute to a mobile learning blueprint for ‘e14–19’ curriculum partnerships in Norfolk. 

Set in the context of personalised learning, devices were pre-loaded and Wi-Fi enabled to encourage learners to investigate and identify flexible assessment opportunities while  encouraging an element of ‘fun’ and enjoyment in the classroom.

The project involved staff and learners from City College Norwich and 9 local schools.   

Although the project was unable to confirm the impact on retention and achievement, clear benefits have emerged together with an enthusiasm for taking the work forward.

College and Project Background

The ‘Harnessing technology towards personalisation’ project consortia was led by City College Norwich and included staff and pupils from the college and nine local schools – a mix of urban and rural secondary schools with a catchment area spanning most of central and southern Norfolk. Also included in the consortia were City College Norwich Student’s Union (representing the learners) and a commercial partner/adviser, Cambridge Education.

City College Norwich is a large college of further and higher education based in Norwich, in the East of England. The college was founded in 1891 and has its roots firmly in the Norfolk community. it enrols about 16,000 students per year and employs around 1000 staff. City College Norwich offers a wide range of courses – from Foundation and Level 1 through to Masters degrees and professional qualifications. However, the main thrust for the College is in vocational areas and increasingly in the 14–19 age range: from September 2008 the College will be offering two of the new Diploma schemes; Creative and Media and Construction and the Built Environment. Nearly all (92%) of the College’s intake comes from the surrounding area – either the City of Norwich itself or the rural community around the city. 

Attleborough High School is a popular11–18 communityschool with around 950 students. It has specialist status in Maths and ICT. Attleborough itself is a small market town about 10 miles from Norwich.

City of Norwich School, or CNS as it is popularly known, became a secondary comprehensive school of approximately 1600 students and 95 teachers in September 2007. CNS is a specialist technology college and arts college. Based in the City of Norwich, CNS is part of ‘OpenOpportunity’ an innovative 14–19 partnership alongside City College Norwich and four other city schools.

Earlham High School is a specialist sports college situated in the west of Norwich with over 750 students. Earlham is also a member of the ‘OpenOportunities’ partnership. The school admits students from primary schools across Norwich, including a proportion within socially and economically less advantaged areas.

Framingham Earl High School is a rural school with around 800 students. It is also a specialist sports sollege and a member of the ‘OpenOpportunities’ partnership.

Hethersett High School and Science College is an 11–16 community comprehensive school set in a large village location just outside Norwich. Hethersett High has around 750 students.

Hewett High School is based in the centre of Norwich and has around 1000 students. A specialist arts college, Hewett admits students from primary schools across Norwich, including a proportion located within socially and economically less advantaged areas. The proportion of students whose first language is not English has risen from 4% to 14% in the past two years.

Notre Dame High School is a Roman Catholic secondary school in the heart of the City of Norwich. With around 1300 students Notre Dame is a specialist languages and science school. It has a very special ethos that stems from the way it is led and the strong emphasis placed on its Catholic principles.

Old Buckenham School is a small rural secondary school with around 600 students serving a rural area of Norfolk where the level of deprivation is lower than that found nationally. The majority of students are White British; very few are from minority ethnic backgrounds or have English as a second language.

Wymondham College is a boarding school in rural Norfolk, one of only 35 boarding schools maintained by the state in England and Wales, and has the largest number of boarders of all the state boarding schools.

Wymondham High School is an 11–18 mixed comprehensive school with 1450 pupils on roll. A specialist school for the arts, Wymondham's traditional catchment area comprises Wymondham and its satellite villages, although many children travel from much further afield.

Cambridge Education is an established name in the education sector, a global education services company working with schools, public sector agencies, education institutions and organisations, donors and charities, and governments.

Project aims

To develop student and staff expertise in the use of mobile learning technology to enhance and extend the personalisation of learning model led by the College

To enable personalised learning activities through differentiated (learner defined) content development

To provide access to innovative and flexible assessment opportunities, in particular incorporating peer assessment

Curriculum development contributions from learners through individual activities

Development of replicable systems of teacher development in m-learning by embedding reflective practice, action research, dissemination and collaboration

To enable learning activities which are enjoyable, engaging and where applicable self-directed.

To provide a mobile learning blueprint for ‘e14-19’ curriculum partnerships for personalised learning success and progression.

Key objectives

To make the personalisation of learning, through the utilisation of m-learning activities, enjoyable and contemporary.

To develop learner advocacy by empowering learners to evidence their own learning against clear criteria that they understand and can access at times that suit themselves

To investigate, identify and create innovative learning materials to support the College’s model of personalised learning

To build a sustainable community of practice in m-learning that includes the development of ‘cool tool champions’ in the curriculum who will act as reference points for their curriculum peers

To establish the impact of individualised personal learning programmes on retention and achievement rates

To provide learners with access to innovative assessment opportunities – including peer assessments – to develop and measure their competencies and knowledge as they progress through their learning programme

To provide an accessible tracking facility that enables all learners and assessors, irrespective of location, to monitor individual progress against specific learning objectives and competency milestones

To offer learners the opportunity to gather portfolio evidence through the use of the video, photographic and audio functions available on their PDAs

To produce best practice advice on the capacity of m-learning to enhance the personalisation of the learning model – one that not only describes the methods used but also includes commentary and development by the students involved in the project

To hold a range of dissemination events – both within the partnership and for external organisations – outlining the progress of the project and use these as an opportunity to further develop expertise and reflective practice.

Benefits for participants

Benefits for learners, across all learner groups

Learners gained:

• access to alternative methods of recording evidence
• access to peer assessment tools/techniques in self-regulated groups
• increased access to learning materials
• raising of self-esteem
• increased peer interaction
• access to alternative assessment methods
• feeling of community/contribution between learners and between learners/tutors and learners/college
• opportunity to contribute to lesson planning,

Benefits for staff

Staff gained:

• the opportunity to think about/assess new pedagogies
• increased interaction with learners
• increased flexibility of delivery
• increased flexibility of assessment
• the opportunity to contribute to peer discussion/feedback on teaching and learning
• the opportunity to swap ideas with the larger learning community.

Benefits for the lead college

The lead college gained:

• the opportunity to ‘take stock’ and think about new cross-college learning and teaching methodologies
• the opportunity to hear the learner voice
• the opportunity to assess readiness for new technologies and new ways of learning and teaching
• great advertising – via word of mouth and news media
• the opportunity to see the college on the wider stage.

Benefits for institutions taking part (partners and colleges)

Staff gained:

• increased links between partner institutions
• opportunity to assess readiness for new technologies and new ways of learning and teaching.

Teaching and learning lessons

The most important lesson for the use of m-learning in teaching and learning can be summed up in four words: ‘Plan, Experiment, Embed, Enthuse’.

Plan: this one is the key. The use of m-learning must be planned. Teaching staff need to get to know the device with which they’ll be working. They need early introduction to the technology and solid support around both its technical use and pedagogical value and implementation.

One of the surprising outcomes from this project was how enthusiastically the devices were accepted by staff and how quickly they grasped the potential offered by m-learning. However, to implement the perceived possibilities teaching staff need strong technical support so that everything is in place and works when it’s required. They also then require strong support from staff development (and their peers) around how to use the device to enhance their traditional teaching and how to recognise new opportunities to put the device to practical, worthwhile use.

It cannot be stated too strongly how important it is to give teaching staff time and space to think about/discuss and formulate ideas for usage once they have had sufficient time to master the technical aspects of the device. It is equally important that staff are able to identify situations where m-learning may not be appropriate.

Experiment: The introduction of any new/innovative way of doing things requires that those involved are given the room to ‘play’ – and to fail – in a non-critical space. For many institutions, and the staff in them, the advent of m-learning raises serious concerns; will the technology do what I need it to? do I know enough to make it work? do my students know more than me about these devices? Teachers are often being asked to step out of their ‘comfort zone’ and interact in an area where the students are generally perceived to be more knowledgeable (how true this may be is discussed elsewhere). Giving them the space to experiment, especially with peers, is essential if they are to develop both confidence and product/pedagogical knowledge.

Embed: After the process of planning and experimentation the teacher/practitioner should feel confident enough with, and appreciate the pedagogical effectiveness of, m-learning and the chosen device. They will now be able to effectively embed m-learning into their learning and teaching plan for the year. Everyone involved in this project has seen benefits that m-learning can bring but the general consensus has been that for m-learning to be truly effective it should lose the ‘m’ and just become ‘learning’. Embedding the use of a mobile device into learning and teaching from day one will help this to happen and help to remove the ‘shiny toy’ or ‘added extra’ feeling that has been widely evident during this trial.

Enthuse: The results of our internal research for this trial were disappointing; only 45% of those surveyed thought that using the smartphone device was ‘fun’. There was a mix of reasons for giving this response (from an overly complicated device to ‘it’s just added workload’) but, on reflection, it’s undeniable that the enthusiasm and ‘fun factor’ is something that teaching staff could and should have a huge influence over. By going through steps 1,2 and 3 and having planned, confident usage teachers should have a more positive impact in this area.

One of our teaching staff came up with the ‘Moley Awards’ for her learners. ‘Moleys’ were awarded to any member of class seen using their mobile device in a constructive/educational way – at the end of term the person with the most ‘Moleys’ was awarded a prize (in this case a large, stuffed mole!).

If City College were to run the project again – and as it will be running future m-learning pilots – these four key themes would be embedded from the beginning.

Classroom management lessons

Throughout this project teaching staff used a variety of classroom management techniques involving the use of mobile devices – from the hands-off, free-for-all approach to those who strictly monitored the use of the devices. It’s impossible to say which approach is most effective (individual teachers must judge that for their own classes) but a solid approach reflected in schemas and lesson plans should be taken, laid out so that learners understand the rules, and stuck to throughout the term.

"I also had to remind them that although they had phones in class they were not to answer calls or use them for texting. This perhaps is one of the disadvantages to the phones, as it has proved too much of a temptation for one or two, meaning the rule has had to be reinforced on more than one occasion! ” Lecturer, Childcare and Early Education