Innovation Profile 099

Forgetting pre-ICT

When ICT enables you to change the way that you work, it is very hard to remember how you used to work before ICT became embedded. How did we manage to work effectively before word-processors and email?

In some jobs past productivity figures give a measure of the change but 'productivity' measures for teaching are much harder to obtain. It is the lesson-by-lesson change in pupils' engagement, attitudes and activity which show how teaching and learning are improving.

When teachers reflect on their work in a systematic way, and make some written notes about what they are doing and what is happening in the classroom, then change can be seen and measured.

During 2003 teachers from schools, colleges and universities responded to an online questionnaire and posted information about their use of interactive whiteboards. They noted the effects they had experienced in their teaching and their students' learning.

You can find details of these reflections on the Promethean website, at http://www.promethean.co.uk/training/effective_practice/mirandanet.htm. They give a good indication of the many different ways pedagogy can be changed with the aid of interactive whiteboards. The wider variety of learning activities that results helps learners who need work presented to best suit their different learning styles. It also helps to motivate and engage students.

Promethean has supported a wide range of research by education practitioners and researchers. There are links on the Promethean site to deeper research as well as to teachers' reflections. Of course deeper studies cannot be created by busy working teachers, unless they can be released from some of their teaching load.

Somewhere between extensive and deep studies, and the brief notes that all teachers could find time to jot down, we need some pragmatic formalisation of the measures that will allow us to see clearly improvements in learning from ICT.

What are the learning metrics that are important to show that learning is improving, day by day?

The Promethean Company Profile on our web site will give you a list of other Innovation Profiles connected with the company.

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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