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Schools
Summary
In total 37 schools have taken part in MoLeNET. The schools involved
in MoLeNET were all partners in projects led by FE
colleges. Other partners in consortia involving
schools included local authorities and city learning centres. In
some cases a close relationship between schools and their local college
pre-dated MoLeNET. In others one of the aims of the project was to
strengthen relationships and improve communication in advance of
collaborating on the delivery of diplomas.
In some cases there was a focus on particular subjects, for example
Gateshead College focussed on science teaching, with an aim “to expand
the curriculum and widen participation by using mobile technologies to
support science demonstrations in schools”.
In City of Wolverhampton College’s Learning2Go-Further
project the local authority was a very active partner and their
experience as mobile learning pioneers in the schools sector gained via
the Learning2Go
initiative was very helpful for the MoLeNET project. Two reports
produced by the Wolverhampton project include useful information for
future projects, especially those involving schools, local authorities
and colleges. The preliminary report
focuses procurement, device specification, working with suppliers,
e-safety the political process, training and support. The interim report
includes advice on device distribution and roll out in schools and the
college, achieving parental support in schools, utilisation of mobile
devices for teaching and learning.
The rise of gun and knife crime amongst young people was chosen as
the powerful theme for a set of collaborative projects between South
Thames College, Wandsworth City Learning Centre and students of schools
across Wandsworth. South Thames College led the .
In this project “…students worked jointly in their schools and at South
Thames College on a range of curriculum based projects incorporating
music, performing arts, media, business studies, art and design and
health and social care, to demonstrate their commitment to finding joint
solutions to violent crime. Over the course of LIFEWISE students
produced a theatre production (which will be toured around schools and
community groups); wrote, mixed and produced a professionally mastered
CD of original music tracks incorporating anti-violent lyrical content
and filmed video promos, and produced an action plan to tackle the
social cohesion problems that can contribute to violent crime. Students
also created the project name ‘LIFEWISE’ and accompanying logo design.
The project was supported by a programme of seminars, workshops
visits and speakers involving figures from across music, media and
social services. The use of mobile technology was vital to this
project for communication, collaboration and portfolio development. All
of the resources produced were distributed between learners through
their smartphones and the Lifewise website (www.wandsworthclc.org/gunandknife)”. Some key messages from the LIFEWISE project:
“The aim of the technology was to increase communication between
students and teachers and to encourage a more learner based approach to
portfolio building…we saw a marked increase in communication and good
exploration of the devices as portfolio building tools.”
“Communication between staff and students can be increased allowing a
stronger teacher/ student relationship to develop.”
“The collaboration between the schools and colleges was very
successful. South Thames College students developed skills in mentoring
and all school students involved were enriched by the mentoring
process.”
“No smartphones were stolen and the majority of students
did not feel that their safety was threatened by having/ using the
smartphone.”
One objective of the project was “3% average improvement in
achievement across school courses involved”, a “4% uplift” was
reported.
Another aim was improving Community Cohesion and the contribution of
the project to achieving this was described as “This project allowed a
new way of collaboration using a common managed learning environment in
conjunction with always available, connected personal technologies.”
It was also reported that increased collaboration with, and learner
progression between, consortium institutions including the college,
schools and the city learning centre, was a significant outcome of their
project.
The Cornwall consortium
involved Cornwall college, with 6 campuses spread over the whole
county, and 4 schools and their interested in mobile learning was partly
a result of needing to support learners in sparse population spread
over a wide geographic area. As well as installing wireless
networks in the participating institutions, part of the project involved
installing a wireless network on a bus used to transport students from
schools in the Camelford area to Cornwall College (approximately a one
hour journey) with so that mobile devices could be used to access the
Internet whilst learners were traveling. They reported some technical
problems and issues with the speed of the Internet connection, which
were quite frustrating for the learners and noted that the devices were
used for accessing recreational sites as well as online documents and
messaging. Feedback was “generally positive” with participants
saying they “enjoyed using the device and would like to have access to
them on the bus in the future.” Roseland Community College, a
school in the Cornwall consortium, plan to develop their flexible
learning strategy by encouraging and supporting learners to use their
own devices. They report that some students/parents have purchased
their own Asus eeePCs and are regularly bringing them into school.
Diplomas
Some 2007/08 MoLeNET projects were designed to prepare for the introduction of diplomas
in vocational subjects the following academic year. The diplomas
will necessitate closer co-operation between the different types of
organisations involved in their delivery, i.e. colleges, employers and
schools, and some MoLeNET projects were a vehicle for introducing such
co-operation.
9 projects included diplomas as one of the national priorities that
were addressed. Eccles, Norwich, Weston and New College Swindon stated
that the technology would be put to use in their diplomas programmes in
the future.
4 projects considered diplomas to be a local priority. Eccles
focussed on the development of new diplomas including creative and media
courses whilst Tower Hamlets concentrated on a new IT diploma with
extensive mobile learning opportunities. South Thames reported that
their partners were much better prepared for delivery of the Diplomas in
the subsequent academic year as a result of their MoLeNET
collaboration: “The LIFEWISE project has created a platform for collaboration and communication for the new Diplomas” South Thames.
Mobile technologies can be particularly helpful in supporting diploma
students whose time is divided between learning locations at school,
college and in the workplace, a student from New College Swindon
commented “You don’t always get to carry your books around
with you but you probably always carry your iPod around so if you want
to look at something you can look at your iPod instead of waiting to get
home and look at your books” and “When you have ten minutes between
appointments you can go and look something up, send an email, do
whatever.”
Potential problems for college/school collaborative mobile learning projects
Cultural and procedural differences
A clear message from MoLeNET projects which involved both colleges
and schools is that it is important to take some time to learn about
each others cultures, policies and processes. “Although
understandings can be drawn up very tightly there is no compensating for
not understanding the procedures in other institutions...” Weston.
This is easier where there is some history of communication and collaboration between the institutions involved: “Partnerships
work best where there are tried and tested relationships and links, as
well as common needs of course. Partnership work is beneficial, however
it does require time and therefore has cost implications if it is to be
effective”(Gateshead)
The problem of negative or restrictive mobile phone and Internet policies
Several MoLeNET consortia have encountered problems, or been obliged
to limit their ambitions for the involvement of school partners, due to
negative attitudes and policies regarding mobile phones. For
example the Norwich consortium, which had planned to involve learners in
10 partner schools, found:
“most schools have in place a policy on mobile phone usage
in class (in most cases an outright ban). To introduce a small number of
learners in each institution that are allowed to use mobiles in the
classroom can cause friction. To begin with the project management team
attempted to have a common policy of “licensed” usage of phones within
the schools. This would have meant issuing each MoLeNET learner with a
“licence” that they could show to their teacher and peers that explained
they were allowed to use their phones in lessons. Unfortunately most of
the schools viewed this as too problematic and resolved to keep their
“no mobiles” rule.
However, in some cases exceptions were agreed with positive results:
“One of the partner schools … were hugely keen to get fully
involved in the trial with a single science class – looking at evidence
gathering, peer assessment and group work. The team arranged to conduct
inductions and supplied the school with the requisite number of
Smartphones only to be informed that…camera phones were completely
banned from the campus. .. this looked like a showstopper. However,
after some discussion the management of the school took the matter to
their governors to request dispensation for learners involved in the
trial. Duly given these learners worked well throughout the project and
their teachers reported no disciplinary problems and a real raising in
the learners self-esteem through the trust given.”
South Thames also had some difficulties with school partners’ mobile phone policies and concluded:
“The use of mobile phones in lessons will need to be reviewed.
Rules that ban mobile phone use may have to be more flexible to allow
for work to be completed whilst still discouraging personal use of
phones in a classroom environment.”
Many schools (and some colleges) have Internet policies that restrict
students’ access to some popular social networking sites which mobile
learning innovators see as potentially very useful for teaching and
learning and/or have implemented “whitelisting” which is a strategy of
trying to predict and restrict access to only Internet sites deemed to
be suitable for students. South Thames believes that “The
project would have been more successful if the restrictions on the
firewall were removed more quickly. Students were not able to access
social networking sites and websites related to research for the
project.”
IT department collaboration
In the modern world any collaboration between organisations must
involve consideration of the compatibility of their IT systems and
policies and co-operation between their IT departments. Norwich
warn that working with a large number of partners “means
involving a large number of IT departments – each with its own more or
less unique way of doing things. Many are reluctant … to support new
technologies unless they’ve had a good deal of time to test, assess and
prepare for them… and, in virtually all cases, they are not prepared to
let “outsiders” come and work with their systems. In some ways this is
to their credit, IT departments stand as gatekeepers to a schools data
and learners’ protection..”. This situation has the potential
to delay or stop mobile learning projects and should be anticipated in
the planning stage by ensuring early involvement of all IT departments
and adequate time for them to prepare and to agree common strategies.