Google for Education Tools

Google for Education Tools

The Google Chromebooks for Education program is rapidly increasing in popularity. Chromebooks start at $249 and boast quick start-up speeds and a long battery life. They’re managed via a web-based approach. Chromebooks meet hardware and operating system requirements for online student assessments and have been verified by both Common Core assessment consortia, Smarter Balanced and PARCC. Students and teachers can access educational apps in the Chrome Web Store.

Tablets with Google Play for Education gives teachers and students access to thousands of apps, K-12 reading materials, and YouTube Edu. Using Google Play for Education, a school-specific version of Google Play, educators can browse lesson materials by grade, subject, and standard. They’re able to distribute content to individual teachers or students, to classrooms, or to an entire district.

Google Apps for Education includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Site and Documents, and more–all for free. More than 30 million students, faculty, and staff across the globe use Apps for Education. Using Docs, students can work together on projects in real time, during school and at home. Administrators can manage account permissions from any browser, and educators can customize security settings and features.

Google for Education offers a plethora of education programs for all, from educators and K-12 students to higher education students.

Google Code-in is a content that introduces students ages 13-17 to open source software development.

Google’s High School Symposium is a one-day program that connects high-achieving school seniors with business skills before they enter college.

Code Jam is a global programming competition. It invites professional programmers and student programmers to solve complex algorithmic problems in a multi-round structure.

Summer of Code offers post-secondary student developers, ages 18 and older, stipends to write code for a variety of open source software projects.

The Google Teacher Academy offers educators a professional development experience that aims to help educators use Google technologies to their full potential.

Digital Makers NESTA

Digital technologies touch every aspect of life and business – but relatively few people create them; most people just use them. We want to mobilise a generation of young people with the drive, confidence and know-how to make new technology – whether websites, apps, hardware, games or brand new innovations. 

 

We believe this won't just benefit young people themselves, but society and the economy too. For more on this, see our Next Gen. report.

What are we doing?

 

Our Digital Makers project comprises three key elements: 

• The campaign

Make Things Do Stuff is a campaign and website aimed at mobilising the next generation of digital makers, giving young people the tools and support to make and share digital things. It's been created by a group of like-minded organisations that want to inspire young people to be creators, not just consumers of digital technologies.

 

We think that by working together we can make more noise and a bigger impact on the lives of young people – so that every young person sees technology as a way to make new things and solve real problems.

• The consortium

The consortium behind Make Things Do Stuff is built on the following values – and if you share our values we'd love to work with you:

- Digital technology is a tool to change the world, knowing how to harness it is a fundamental literacy for the 21st century.

- We learn through making and sharing.

- We work better together (This is an open movement. Collaboration and sharing are key to its success.)

Watch this space for updates on the progress of Make Things Do Stuff.

• The fund

Nesta, Nominet Trust and Mozilla are backing seven organisations with bright ideas for significantly increasing the number of young people who participate in digital making. These seven ventures will receive a share of £260,000 – up to £50,000 each – and non-financial support to scale their projects and reach more young people.

 

They are: 

• Code Club

• Glasgow Science Centre (CoderDojo)

• Our Lady's Catholic High School

• Printcraft

• Technocamps

• Technology Will Save Us

• Imagication

 

Back in November 2012, we launched the Digital Makers Fund to support initiatives that invited mass participation, used young people's interests to drive demand and were noisy champions of digital making.

 

Find out more about the Digital Makers Fund.

 

In addition our work in Scotland involves support from the Scottish Government. Computing teacher Kate Farrellhas been seconded to our team in Scotland to work on a range of digital making CPD support programmes for teachers at both primary and secondary school level. Between now and June 2014 you will see the following work take place in Scotland:

 

• One Day Digital events (industry master classes on digital making) for teachers
• Testing CPD support and new digital making lesson plans for teachers in a cluster of schools
• Digital Creativity support networks in geographic clusters

Decoding Learning report NESTA

Our Decoding Learning report looks at the impact of digital technology in the classroom.

Key findings

• Schools spent £487 million on ICT equipment and services in 2009-2010. But this investment has not yet resulted in radical improvements to learning experiences or attainment.
• No technology has an impact on learning on its own right; impact depends on how it is used. 
• Rather than categorising innovations by the type of technology used (eg, do games help learning?), it’s more useful to think about the types of learning activities we know to be effective, such as practising key skills, and exploring how tech can support these activities.
• We identify eight learning themes that show significant promise of impact when combined with digital technology.

In the last five years UK schools have spent more than £1 billion on digital technology. From interactive whiteboards to tablets, there is more digital technology in schools than ever before. But so far there has been little evidence of substantial success in improving educational outcomes.

 

Something is going wrong. 

 

Nesta commissioned the London Knowledge Lab (LKL) and Learning Sciences Research Institute (LSRI), University of Nottingham, to analyse how technology has been used in the UK education systems and lessons from around the world. Uniquely, we wanted this to be set within a clear framework for better understanding the impact on learning experiences. 

 

Decoding Learning finds proof of technology supporting effective learning, emerging technologies that show promise of impact, and exciting teacher practice that displays the potential for effective digital education.

decoding_learning_report.pdf

Teaching styles – what does Ofsted want to see?

Date: 06th March 2014
Author: Gerald Haigh
Theme: Education Policy, Inspection, Leadership, Teacher
Tags: Ofsted, Teaching and Learning

Ofsted has gone on the attack in a bid to get the message out to schools about its position on teaching styles. Gerald Haigh gives us an essential update on this recent spate of activity.

 

Something remarkable has been unfolding at Ofsted Towers over these last few windy weeks, where leading inspectors – in particular HMI Mike Cladingbowl, director of schools, have been busy myth-busting.

His particular mission has been to reiterate that, first, there is no Ofsted-preferred teaching style, and, second, that inspectors should not grade individual lessons.

Misunderstandings proliferate around lesson observations. There has, for example, been an assumption, partly driven by the kind of comments found in many inspection reports, that inspectors want to see lots of independent learning and a minimum of teacher talk. (For example: “...work is over-directed by the teacher and there are few opportunities for students to find things out for themselves.”)

But wait! What’s this we find in Ofsted’s Inspection Handbook?: “Inspectors must not advocate a particular method of teaching or show preference towards a specific lesson structure.”

Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw, and other senior inspectors, have said the same thing, so the intention could hardly be clearer. What matters is the learning. 

And yet, school after school has heard quite a different story from inspectors and consultants. Feelings on this contradiction were strongly expressed by teachers on social media, and in November last year, David Didau in his blog The Learning Spy was moved to write a post about “The shocking mediation of Ofsted criteria by ‘rogue’ inspectors”, in which he describes (from personal experience) how an Ofsted inspector, working as a consultant in a school, told staff: “Teacher talk must be minimised. Students must be learning independently for significant proportions of every lesson.”

At the end of 2013 you have the feeling that Ofsted leadership decided enough was enough. So, in Ofsted’s January 2014 document Subsidiary Guidance Supporting the Inspection of Maintained Schools and Academies, the long paragraph 64 emphasises, with examples, that inspectors must not give the impression of a preferred Ofsted style.

The message is repeated in the February 6 Schools Inspection Policy: Some FAQs. Ramming the point home, Ofsted themselves have removed comments on teaching style from some inspection reports.

Similar efforts have now gone into finally ending the practice of inspectors grading individual observed lessons – kept alive partly, it has to be said, by those teachers who want to be graded.

Now, an Ofsted document written by Mr Cladingbowl – Why do Ofstedinspectors observe individual lessons and how do they evaluate teaching in schools? – published on February 21, reminds us that: “Inspectors should not give an overall grade for the lesson and nor should teachers expect one.”

A significant part of Ofsted’s clarification mission, important as a demonstration of the growing influence of social media, took the form of a meeting on February 18 at Ofsted HQ where Mr Cladingbowl met a small group of people well-known through their blogs and Twitter comments – head Tom Sherrington, teachers Tom Bennett, Mr Didau and Ross McGill, and clerk to governors Shena Lewington.

The five emphasised just how influential Ofsted is in determining what happens in schools and how easily information can be misinterpreted, leading to a culture of “what Ofsted wants”. 

The meeting also explored in some detail the ambiguities around lesson grading, and it was clearly this discussion that led, after further conversations, to Mr Cladingbowl’s February 21 guidance document.

So that’s it, done and dusted? No more angst about observations? Maybe, but I’d say school leaders, teachers and governors will need to be alert for continued misreading of the rules. 

In his follow up to the February 18 meeting, Mr Sherrington writes on his blog: “There are still elements of the written guidance that have yet to be fully aligned and, naturally enough, there are inspectors who have not fully taken on board the significance of the guidance. Mr Cladingbowl has been updating guidance to inspectors to make this more and more explicit – with evident frustration at how difficult this has been.”

Some heads and teachers, too, asked during an animated Twitter conversation on February 23 how inspectors  can arrive at an overall grade for teaching in a school when no grades are given for lessons. 

Mr Cladingbowl tackles this, in fact, in the February 21 document, explaining that lesson observation is only one part of the evidence on quality of teaching. At the same time, he concedes that, “...it can be difficult to differentiate between a grade for teaching and a grade for the teacher. I accept that we may need to do more here”.

For me, there’s one important message in all this that schools must not miss. If Ofsted concludes that it’s inappropriate to grade a lesson on the basis of one-off observation, it becomes difficult to see how schools can continue to do it for their internal observations. 

That said, I’d guess few teachers are holding their breath.

• Gerald Haigh was a teacher in primary, secondary and special schools for 30 years, 11 of them in headship.

Resources and further reading

• Subsidiary Guidance Supporting the Inspection of Maintained Schools and Academies: http://bit.ly/1ajEH1R
• Schools Inspection Policy: Some FAQs: http://bit.ly/1o8BG8k
• Why do Ofsted inspectors observe individual lessons and how do they evaluate teaching in schools? http://bit.ly/NyJ15z

Bloggers at the Ofsted meeting

• David Didau: www.learningspy.co.uk
• Tom Bennett: www.twitter.com/tombennett71
• Shena Lewington: www.clerktogovernors.co.uk
• Tom Sherrington: www.headguruteacher.com
• Ross McGill: www.teachertoolkit.me
• Ofsted on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Ofstednews

Textbooks replaced by iTunes U downloads (BBC)

original article

The exam revision season is approaching. It's when students want as much information as possible at their fingertips.

So how about if you could touch a screen and download all the lesson materials you need?

Not just broadly relevant, generic materials, but the actual classes you've studied, video and text, put together specifically by your own teachers.

These are the equivalent of digital textbooks supporting lessons for each subject, including the days missed or forgotten.

And for good measure, how about if every student in the school could look at the materials on their own individual iPad?

This isn't a "classroom of the future" experiment or a Silicon Valley sales pitch, it's a school in Cambridge.

The Stephen Perse Foundation school is building a pathway that others could soon follow. It's clever and digital, but also practical and easily shared.

Downloading the homework

Teachers at the independent school are making their own online library of lessons and course materials for GCSE, A-levels and International Baccalaureates.

These are interactive resources, with video links and lesson notes, customised for the specific needs and speeds of their classes. There are extension exercises and links to further reading and ideas.

They are made to share on iTunes U, the academic version of Apple's iTunes download service, so pupils can access them at school or at home or anywhere else.

There has been a huge amount of hype about online university courses - the so-called Moocs (massive online open courses).

But here in this ancient university city, it's a school that is really putting the idea of online courses into practice.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

In two years' time we may have to make decisions about whether we have printed textbooks”

Tricia KelleherStephen Perse Foundation principal

It still requires excellent teachers - to make them and to make sense of them - but you can see the far-reaching possibilities of creating the exam course equivalent of a box set of a TV series.

The pioneering and innovative principal of this high-achieving school is Tricia Kelleher.

She emphasises that such online courses depend on the quality and the skill of the teacher, it's not a plug-and-play education.

"The credibility of online learning depends on the teachers who have made the materials," she says.

"An iPad on its own isn't inspiring, it's the way it's used that's inspiring."

"Education should be a mixed economy, there should be technology, but it is only there to support what a living, breathing teacher is doing."

But she sees how online technology is about to change the traditional textbook.

"You're getting beyond the one-size-fits-all textbook. As a resource, I can't see it being bettered. You might buy a textbook, but half of it might not be relevant to your school."

Digital world

These digital versions can be updated by teachers, customised to specific classes and connected to the latest events. These instant updates will be immediately live on the pupils' iPads.

Tricia Kelleher says the credibility of online materials depends on the quality of the teachers

"In two years' time we may have to make decisions about whether we have printed textbooks," says Ms Kelleher.

Simon Armitage, a senior teacher at the school, says this switch to digital allows staff to "cherry pick from a world of resources".

"This used to be just about books, now it is way more than this. iTunes U is the wrapper. It is not changing what many great teachers have been doing, but it is changing how they are doing it and how easily they are able to do it."

Ms Kelleher is also keenly aware that her pupils are now living in a digital world - whether it's social networking or getting information from Google - and that technology cannot be kept outside the school gate.

"A school has to accept this is the world we live in," she says.

The challenge is to give young people the skills to navigate it.

So she says that a key skill in the future will be teaching pupils how to evaluate all the instantly available information.

"A school has to be about critical thinking, it's never been more important. There's a level of passivity with a screen."

But there is another big difference with online courses.

They might be created for one school or university, but if they're any good, they can be shared. It's the basic principle behind the Moocs. It uses technology to extend the reach of education beyond an individual classroom to anywhere else in the world.

The Stephen Perse Foundation gets exceptionally good exam results - among the highest in the world for the International Baccalaureate.

And the school is planning to make its online materials free online.

This school happens to use iPads and iTunes U, but there are many other Mooc-type platforms, and it raises the prospect of many more great schools publishing their own digital materials.

Sharing expertise

Such online resources are also set to be shared within groups of schools.

The United Learning education charity, which runs more than 40 schools across England, is looking at how the expertise of individual teachers can be shared within a network of schools.

The group's director of technology, Dominic Norrish, says that even though everyone can remember a brilliant teacher in their own school, such inspirational teachers can only reach a limited number of pupils.

Pupils at the Stephen Perse Foundation use technology across their lessons

If you're not in their classroom, you don't benefit from their teaching. He suggests that online learning, with a mix of video and live teaching, could be a way of getting more from the best staff, particularly in subjects where there can be a shortage of specialists.

It shouldn't depend on "accidents of geography", he says.

In the future, it should be possible for "students in Bournemouth to play an active part in lessons taking place in Carlisle".

Global library

This is also going to be an international market.

Alison, a free online course provider which already has three million registered students around the world, is planning to launch video tutorial materials specifically made for GCSE and A-level maths.

This Irish-based online education service, the biggest Mooc outside the United States, provides materials across national boundaries - and such globalisation seems ever more likely.

There is clearly a huge demand for such online learning.

There have been more than a billion downloads from iTunes U

The iTunes U service reached a billion downloads last year, with free course material on offer from more than 2,400 universities, colleges and schools. It's pumping out courses and information at an unprecedented rate.

And projects such as the Stephen Perse Foundation will see more and more schools putting their self-authored materials on to these digital libraries, available to a global audience.

They might even make it into the academic downloads chart.

After all, where else would you have a top 10 where the most popular performers are courses from Oxford, UCLA, Yale and Stanford?