ICT as an independent learning tool

A journey from ICT methods to classroom – what we had learned Comenius Meeting Norway May 25, 2009 Project: ICT as an independent learning tool Author: Fernando Rui Pinheiro Campos Agrupamento de Escolas Cardoso Lopes Portugal

Methodological Approach

Multiple case Study

Each partner has their own context.

Number of teacher involved is between 7 and 14.

One protocol, for school data generation and gathering, accorded in previous meeting.

Work done from last meeting(cont.)

Changes made to teachers questionnaire according to pre-test results.

Created individual logins for answer the questionnaire for different partners.

Added students questionnaire in English and translated to Portuguese.

Created Excel File template to register students results.

Documentation distribution for all partners, for supporting data gathering process.

Work done from last meeting

Created Several Digital resources, for several methods and organized in order to be available to students and teachers in time.

Organizing the experiences and data gathering according to project objectives.

Screening data from different partners and organization of the data available.

Analysis of data available (pending some SPSS analysis).

Support for the implementation in different partners

Survey

triangulated data through different data sources

ICT tools Teachers questionnaire Student questionnaire Student and teacher Results

Responses to questionnaire from participants

One Discipline for each Partner in Moodle Platform.

According to partner decision

Partners respond to teacher and students questionnaire (Santo António[9] , Cardoso Lopes[14]) and student results .

Partners respond to teachers questionnaire

(Aras Skule [11], Filipe Neri [1] )

Students results, registered in an separated excel file according to model, partners ARAS SKULE, Santo António, Cardoso Lopes.

Ethical

Authorizations from teachers before respond to questionnaire according to the model previously approved.

Authorizations from parents before students respond to questionnaire according to the model previously approved.

Random sample from students (4 for each classroom) respond to questionnaire, if the parents authorizations available.

Data Resources and evidences

Questionnaires' answers from Teachers

Questionnaires' from students

From results applying the methods approved previously in context (discipline, School, grade, method, resource ).

Excel and SPSS analyzes

Create SPSS codebook for each database.

Using SPSS for data validity, and statistics

Excel for data manipulation and registration from different partners (only needs a license for the all project)

School Organization

One responsible/leader for each partner (Aras Skul, Santo António, Cardoso Lopes, Filipe Neri)

One leader for dealing and support the different partners (Cardoso Lopes).

Example of collected data from Survey tools (Moodle and Excel) Moodle Platform Module Questionnaire Each partner as its own environment Answer Questionnaire Cardoso Lopes Felipe Neri Santo António Araskoll DBMS (Moodle) Extracting Data File Convertion First check http: http: SPSS import codebook DBMS (SPSS)

Validity Data – Quantitative data

Check for missing values

Remove outliers (abnormal values)

Obtain a link between students results and teachers questionnaires answers .

What to do when there are different sources?

Aggregate Data from different Partners

Use Excel Tool for Aggregate data, from Survey Platform and Excel files from different partners.

Create a common model database for all the partners, after screening and validate data.

Example Results from Moodle Teacher answer (exploratory)

Name of the methodology.

Reading by writing

Three Colour

Interactive Exercices Online (HotPotatoes)

e-portfólio

Follow up Chart

Self Evaluation (attitudes)

Gender

Male – 18%

Female – 82%

School Teacher experience

Average 27 (for example)

Example Results from Moodle Teacher answer (exploratory) Subjects & Resources used

Equivalent Data File from Moodle export

Electronic message received by the partner coordinator after an answer to questionnaire in the Moodle Platform (example).

SPSS Students results

EXCEL FILES from Partners

Import to SPSS and Adjust : measure; Label fields; …

Convert Likert Scales

On Date View, field Value labels

Convert measure variables in Likert items

Convert from “measure to “ordinal”

Convert dicotomic variables

Teachers Questionnaire - Methods Tested - - 1 - Follow up Chart - - 1 - Self evaluation - - 1 - Reading by Writing 4 7 1 - Interactive Ex. (HotPot) 3 6 5 1 Three Colors 2 - - - Project Work (WebQuest) Partner Evaluation unit E-portfólio Total Filipe Neri - - 1 ARAS SKULE - 2 11 EB 2,3 Cardoso Lopes 1 - 14 EB 2,3 Santo António - - 9

Methods

Methods and Subject Matrix

Students reference Ages, Methods and Subjects

Subjects and type of resources used 1- Digital Resource ; 2- Books; 3- Documents; 4- Digital & Books; 5- Digital & Books & Documents

Methods and type of resources used by School 1- Digital Resource ; 2- Books; 3- Documents; 4- Digital & Books; 5- Digital & Books & Documents

Some results Methods and teacher scores

Some results Methods and teacher scores Interactions

Some results Methods and teacher scores Resources used

Conclusions – teachers – Aras Skule

Methodology 1 – Reading by writing

1 teacher

Conclusions:

cooperation between students

pupils get challenges at their own level

Methodology 2 – Three colour

5 teachers

Conclusions:

students had to reflect more about their own skills and the subject

motivation increases

class work more silently

Source :content analysis – Filomena,R. . Custódia, J.

Methodology 4 – HOTPOTATOES

1 teacher

Conclusions:

more focused on the task

Methodology 8 – e-portfolio

2 teachers

Conclusions:

better overview of the students situation, both for students and teachers

prompt feedback

teacher can give continuous feedback

students can do tasks at home and deliver them

Methodology 9 – Follow-up chart

1 teacher

Conclusions:

students can reflect about their own skills in order to take the right choices

Methodology 10 – Self-evaluation

1 teacher

Conclusions:

promotes responsibility in the self-evaluation both of attitudes and problems

Conclusions – Teachers – Santo António

1 teacher

Conclusions:

allows students to make their own choices according to their own level.

4 teachers

Conclusions:

develops students autonomy and responsibility

students can repeat the tasks and learn by themselves, if the reason of the error is presented (awareness)

no need for teacher intervention to practice a content (autonomy)

prompt feedback and interactivity

students can control the pace of their learning

students can work at home

Conclusions – Teachers – Santo António

Methodology 5 – Webquest

2 teachers

Conclusions:

promotes independent work

promotes learning by finding and creativity

improves literacy ( information skills and others)

Conclusions – Teachers – Cardoso Lopes

5 teachers

Conclusions:

motivation and commitment increases

improve students ability to self-evaluation

helps students to recognize the need to find information in order to fulfil the task

helps students to be aware of their difficulties and progresses

helps students to better learn the content/ subject

4 teachers

Conclusions:

helps students to recognize the need to find information in order to fulfil the task

improve students ability to self-evaluation

students want to learn more and better in order to get better results in the next try

makes possible to adjust the difficulty level to the student skills

Methodology 7 – Evaluation Unit

1 teacher

Conclusions:

prompt feedback and interactivity

helps them to build their own knowledge

Constrains – Teachers point view

Cardoso Lopes (notes from the field)

More equipment is needed to have the possibility in some cases one computer for each student.

A better understanding and implementation techniques in the digital resource to have more accurate score in the digital resource.

Teachers don’t have access to digital resources for three color methods and have to build exercises from “scratch” .

Teacher need, most of the times an ICT expertise teacher to build the three colour resource.

Lack of time to create a quality digital resource that are appropriated for their context (discipline, school, students age, previous student knowledge…)

Conclusions – Teachers - Filipe Néry Middenschool

1 teacher

Conclusions:

students are responsible for there own choice in learning the lesson

Conclusions student answers (Three colour and HotPot)

Question 9 - Please tell us if you do learn better this subject by doing this activity in this way.

Students say :

they learn better (except one – he/ she had no previous difficulties )

They had less difficulties

They liked to try a different method

They appreciate the easy way to access the exercises

They better learn the subject

They liked to work in autonomous way

They liked to decide in what level they work (Three colour)

They were fond of the exercises interface and that helps them to work with more motivation

Conclusions student answers (Three colour and HotPot)

Question 10 - We would like to know what you would change in this task to learn better.

Students say :

Most dont´t want to change anything in the activities.

A few students pointed out:

more exercises;

increase the level of difficulty;

add more resources to the exercises;

more help or hyperlinks to additional information.

Example open question validity – Qualitative data School one generate Data by answering open question Answers are analysed by School Cardoso Lopes School “one” sends their conclusions School “one” and Cardoso Lopes agree a common conclusion School “one”, are the partners , ARAS SKULE, Santo António, Filipe Neri Work in progress

Project Constrains – Implementation

Need more time to validate and analyze data.

No commercial available digital resource for three color method.

Designing the three color method in digital format need some support to teacher.

More time to create digital resource for the specific method and organize.

More time to analyze data

Other Conclusions – What we got

A practical Scholl / project framework for data acquisition .

A dynamic way to ICT implementation and motivation for teachers and students.

A way to implement curriculum integration with technologies, using ICT and others resources.

A reflection point to better use the digital resources according to a particular context.

Achievement

List of methods using ICT.

Evaluation of the methods in context.

Digital Resources validated by teachers.

Digital resources validated by students.

Some metrics about methods, strong points and weak points.

Real data available to be analyzed in more detail for statistics.

Organization results to methods used

Complete list of resources with indications of:

Subject

School

Student Age

Resource

Results

Contributes from this project

Contribution to obtain a artifacts (digital resources) that can be used by others schools and countries.

Contribution to documented list of ICT methods in Education, that can have evidence of independent learning, according to schools context.

Contribution to build a Project data gathering methodologies, that can prove or obtain evidences in international educational projects using ICT tools (including use of Open Source Software tools).

A experimental model for organizing digital resources, that includes relevant information for teachers .

Many other things…

References

Garson,D.G.,2008. Available on Line at h ttp:// faculty.chass.ncsu.edu / garson /PA765/ standard.htm

Campos,F. Maio,V. (2008) . Unplublished paper. Medidas em Educação uma Introdução.

Campos, F. (2009). Presentation . Implementation of an International School Data collection project. Comenius Meeting, HOUTHALEN-Belgium , February 2, 2009.

http://moodle.org/, Modules and plugins available at May 15, 2008.

http:// www.cardosolopes.net/elearning , available at May 23,2008.

SPSS version 17, http:// www.spss.com /

Pallant, J.(2007). SPSS Survival Manual, A Step by Step Guide to Data Anqlysis using SPSS for Windows, 3ª Edition.Open University Press.McGraw Hill Education. USA .

Fernando Rui Campos