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FRC Learning
- 1. LEARNING WITH ITSLEARNINGLMS A pedagogical Approach to education
- 2. The processes of learning Supportingthe full cycle of education LEARN
- 3. Plan • Store allyour resources in one place • Create plans for single lessons, individual learners or courses • Connect individual learning plans to the curriculum • Match materials to different groups of students • Map activities against learning objectives and curriculums LEARN
- 4. Planning teaching andlearning “Our students don’t need to worry about the details surrounding classes because everything is clearly available in itslearning.This takes a lot of the stress out of studying, so they can concentrate on learning.” Principal Lisbeth Eek Svensson, Horten Further Education College, Norway
- 5. Engage • Use projectand collaboration tools to enable students to work together effectively • Use social media tools in a safe school environment • Motivate students with educational tools • Create and share teaching materials LEARN
- 6. Engaging students ontheir terms “itslearning lets the children use digital tools they’re used to, likeYouTube, messaging and discussion forums, in a safe environment.” Teacher, Eastfield Primary School, UK
- 7. Teach • Use third-partyapplications and multimedia resources • Use your favorite web resources and applications • Tailor assignments for different learning styles • Re-use content made by other teachers LEARN
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- 9. Assess • Create digitalmultimedia tests • Use tools for formative and summative assessment • Give immediate feedback to individuals and groups • Follow up individual students quickly LEARN
- 10. Assessment tools “itslearning makesplanning, assessment, reporting and documenting much easier .” Managing DirectorTerje Risa, Akademiet, Norway
- 11. Reflect • Use individuallearning plans, e-Portfolios and blogs to encourage reflection • Use self-assessment tools with your students • Document students’ progress, goals and achievements Plan Engage TeachAssess Reflect Report LEARN
- 12. Encouraging reflection “Parents cansee how useful the reflective skills developed through ILPs are when their children have to take more responsibility for their education.” Monika Solvig, teacher, Hop Secondary School, Norway
- 13. Report • Visualise learningoutcomes for individuals and groups • Make reports available to stakeholders with one click • Use custom reports to analyze student/class data and performance • Use reports to support planning Plan Engage TeachAssess Reflect Report LEARN
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- 17. Where does itslearningfit in? The teacher/student digital universe
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- 21. A LOOK ATITSLEARNING, THE COMPANY IN NUMBERS Conclusion
- 22. itslearning in numbers 13Years of experience 20% Employees with a background in educational 27% Resources that are put into design and development 70% Approximate user adoption after one year of use 200 Employees
- 23. itslearning in numbers 4Releases a year 85% Customers who would recommend itslearning 99.9% Average uptime Millions Users around the globe
- 24. itslearning in numbers 11,995New courses created each month 650,000 Internal messages sent each month 450,000 Resources added to courses each month 80,000 Activities added to courses each month 715,742 Unique users a week
Editor's Notes
- #3 itslearning covers the whole learning process (global learning platform, 360°). itslearning gives teachers and students tools to all the processes of education. The circle - We show this as a circle – with the teacher’s activities around the outside, and learning in the centre. - Traditional thinking says you start with planning, but the circle is continuous – so, for example, a set of reports will help a teacher plan the next semester. - The circle can apply to a term of teaching or a single activity or lesson. Supporting how you work - itslearning is flexible. There are a variety of tools in the platform, and you can use them as you need to support your style of teaching and your students’ needs. - In other words, we provide the tools for the circle of learning, but you decide which tools you use and how you use them. Based on best practices - We have worked with thousands of customers in 8 different countries over the last ten years. - We have used our customers experiences and expertise to create a platform that utilises – and promotes – best practices. - We keep up to date with the latest research and trends (such as work by John Hattie and Gilly Salmon, rubrics assessment and visualising learning). - As we release product updates 6-8 times a year, our learning platform is always up to date. Best practice + flexibility - But there is no standard formula for best proven practice and teacher behaviour cannot be standardised. (Therefore, be careful when you quote the research in this PPT – as not all members of your audience will agree and all schools/teachers/LEAs, etc. take a slightly different approach to learning and teaching.) - Our job is to provide a product that supports best practices – and enables teachers, schools and students to work how they wish.
- #4 The circle is continuous – but we generally start with planning...Planning is an essential part of teaching. itslearning gives you a number of ways to plan and organise your teaching. Key benefits Teacher Clear overview of lessons by week, month, year, etc. Ability to link activities to learning objectives and the curriculum Easy re-use of lesson plans and resources Access to ready-made teaching content (by other teachers and third-party tools) Organisation Overview of what all teachers are doing Ability to create lessons plans for entire department Easy for cover teachers to step in Student Overview of upcoming activities and themes Quick view of upcoming tests, assignment deadlines, etc. (with reminders) Simple access to relevant resources and background texts
- #5 Planning tools include Courses, Personal Dashboard, Lesson Planner, Learning Objectives, ILPs, Virtual Classroom, My Library, Ready-made content (extensions and from itslearning Global Community) Research Most people agree that planning is an important part of teaching and learning. Our planning tools are designed to enable teachers to plan effectively, make those plans visible to students and parents – and share their plans with other teachers. Customer success story: students survey Horten videregående skole (Further Education College) conducted a survey of students (in itslearning, of course) about its use of itslearning in 2009. It discovered that students can be confused if the course page isn’t used well. One of the biggest complaints that most students study with a number of teachers, and students were confused when teachers organised information in itslearning differently. The solution was to create a simple structure for files, news and calendar events that every teacher can – and must – follow. Customer success story: We love the virtual staffroom Teachers at Pool High School in the UK are particularly enthusiastic about the ‘virtual staffroom’ which allows them to share tips, tricks and banter of all kinds - how to change the size of an image, how to book the computer suite, where to find additional resources, etc. After getting itslearning in 2007, Poole High School noticed a clear decrease in individual teacher workload irrespective of the subject, due to the ease of sharing timetables, the sharing of content created by teachers and made available for reuse as is or for adaptation, and even the availability of study guides shared within the school.
- #6 Research increasingly suggests that when learners are engaged in shaping and leading their own learning and education this can result in benefits for all learners. Learners get: Key benefits Teachers Time saving: easy to create resources; easy to find and share resources Ease of use: web 2.0 and third-party tools with single sign-on for one stop digital teaching environment Variety: a large number of teaching tools Organisation Better quality: more teaching resources available to teachers Better retention: engaged students partake more Students Greater sense of ownership over their learning Increased motivation Improved self-esteem Greater achievement Improved relationships with peers and educators Increased self-efficacy Better grades
- #7 Tools to engage students Web 2.0, ready-made content (extensions), discussion forums, instant messaging, embedded video and sound Research According to the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), when choosing educational applications, more than 70% of schools rate integration with their learning platform as more important than the quality of the application. itslearning gives schools single sign-on to some of the world’s most popular teaching and learning applications. Social Media tools in a safe environment itslearning gives teachers a powerful tool for creating dynamic teaching material that will inspire and engage students – all without leaving the learning platform. “itslearning lets the children use digital tools they’re used to, like YouTube, messaging and discussion forums, in a safe environment.” Teacher, Eastfield Primary School, UK Customer success story: Elvis Back in 1996, a group of European schools asked themselves how the internet and email would change the face of education. With true pioneering spirit, they set out to test early video conferencing equipment – which at the time took hours to set up – and looked into how email and web pages could be used for student collaboration, research and education. Then, in 2009, they started using itslearning as it was “an attractive international learning environment that could support a variety of collaborative projects.” Today, the project is known as EuroLink Virtual International School – or ELvis for short. Member teachers run projects, rather than courses, and use itslearning’s advanced collaborative tools – such as video conferencing, blogs, discussion forums and video sharing – to complete their work. This approach has led to a wide range of projects, including a Solar Panel project for which each participating school has installed a solar panel. The solar panel has stimulated scientific, technological, historical, geographical, political and social studies at participating schools, and the students report their research on a public wiki.
- #8 itslearning supports multiple intelligences (“Howard Gardner theory” i.e. Spatial, kinaesthetic, musical, linguistic, etc.) all inside itslearning (see below). Key benefits -Flexibility: teachers can use the tools in itslearning to teach in their own style -Blended learning: itslearning helps teachers work with students in the classroom, and gives students an online environment to work in at home - Inclusion: teachers can create groups within classes and then tailor assignments to suit the levels and abilities of the students Research The theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983 to analyze and better describe the concept of intelligence. Gardner argues that the concept of intelligence as traditionally defined in IQ tests does not sufficiently describe the wide variety of cognitive abilities humans display. The theory has been met with mixed responses. Many psychologists feel that a differentiation of the concept of intelligence is not supported by empirical evidence, but many educationalists support the practical value of the approaches suggested by the theory. Traditionally, schools have emphasised the development of logical intelligence and linguistic intelligence (mainly reading and writing). While many students function well in this environment, there are those who do not. Gardner's theory argues that students will be better served by a broader vision of education, wherein teachers use different methodologies, exercises and activities to reach all students, not just those who excel at linguistic and logical intelligence. Source: Wikipedia (read the full article to get a full description of the theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences) Note: A lot of schools and teachers recognise and approve of Gardner’s theory, but they do not see how they can manage to implement his theories without working their backs off. itslearning should make this easier and more efficient. Customer success story: increasing maths grades with mathsTV.com At Horten videregående skole (Further Education College) in Norway, maths students at the college increase their grade-point average by more than one point in just six months of teaching. Maths teacher Kjetil Idås uses a number of tools to achieve this. One example: links to mathtv.com, a website containing hundreds of videos in which teachers explain certain mathematic principles. When he sets homework in itslearning, he always includes a link to a relevant video on mathTV.com. This way, any student who needs a quick refresher on the subject can check out the video while they’re doing their homework.
- #9 itslearning can help teachers with differentiation in a number of ways. Learning styles Using video and audio, project spaces, discussion forums and other tools all help teachers vary their teaching in order to meet different learning styles (Gardner theory). While Gardner lists 8 intelligences, it’s important to note that he doesn’t feel every lesson should include a task for each style. The key is variety. For most teachers, the difficulty is doing this in the time they have. Itslearning helps by naturally lending itself to a variety of uses. There are many examples, here are a few: Students can be given a choice for how to complete assignments (written form, as a video, as a sound recording, etc.) Project spaces can be used to allow students to work collaboratively on tasks or research Images can be used to help visual learners Web 2.0 tools and social media can be used to enhance innovative learning Differentiation of learning abilities It’s possible for teachers to create one assignment for weaker students, and a tougher assignment for students who are ready for a challenge. It’s possible to set different time restrictions on tests and assignments. Different interfaces for different abilities - The early learners interface - Intermediate interface Standard interface Animal misfits Space Customer success story: empowering poor writers At some agricultural colleges in Norway, students are set a simple task: write an essay explaining how a milking machine works. The task is designed to assess the students’ understanding of the machinery; but some students fail even though they understand the machine perfectly. Why? Because the students aren’t good at essay writing. The solution is very simple. All the teacher has to do is give two options when creating the task in the learning platform: ‘submit your answer in writing’ and ‘submit your answer as a sound or video file’. Now, students who find writing daunting can record their explanation directly in the learning environment.
- #10 Assessment is seen as a critical outcome in most schools. Not only does it show you what the students have learnt, but it also helps schools prepare reports that demonstrate their success. We offer a number of tools to help teachers assess students, including: - Summative assessment through quizzes, assignments, tests, etc. - Formative assessment through individual learning plans, lesson planning tool, working portfolios. Key benefits Teachers Time-saving: automatic marking of work Time-saving: teachers can build up (and share) a bank of tests Closer connection to students: email and direct messaging allows direct feedback to individual and groups Organisation Clear overview: extensive reports from tests Improved ability to report student progress Students Greater motivations: students are more motivated by digital (and interactive tests) than paper-based tests Improved results: ability to retake tests to improve performance Research John Hattie, a professor at Auckland University in New Zealand, has ranked 138 aspects of schooling to find what positively influences learning. He found that feedback is essential. The teacher needs feedback about the learner’s knowledge and understanding in order to calibrate the teaching for all students – and the teacher needs both qualitative and quantitative information about each student so they can visualise what works. NOTE: Assessment for learning is a known term in schools. But many feel that it’s been hijacked by bureaucrats. They want to assess progress from a backwards point of view (how well did the student do). Teachers want to assess for the future (what can they do, and what do they need to learn next). We understand and support both interpretations of this term. How we assess backwards: through the grade book How we assess forwards: through the ILP, through reporting tool and through working portfolios tasks *** As an example of itslearning’s flexibility, you could mention how different teachers use the gradebook. Some teachers use the gradebook only to show what the student has achieved. Others also give feedback within the gradebook on what the student has to do in the future to improve. Therefore, the gradebook can be used for both backward and forward feedback – it depends on the teacher.
- #11 Assessment tools Test 2.0, plagiarism control, surveys and polls, test-mode browser Research The Association of Teachers and Lecturers in the UK carried out a survey of teachers in sixth-formers in schools and Further Education colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2008. The survey found that 58% of teachers thought plagiarism was a problem and 25% thought work returned by students included material copied from internet sites. ATL general secretary, Dr. Mary Bousted, said: “Teachers are struggling under a mountain of cut-and-pasting to spot whether work was the student's own or plagiarism.” Customer success story: you don’t actually need to use this tool You don’t actually have to use the plagiarism control tool to stop the copycats. When a teacher in Lillehammer, Norway, told one student that the school now had a plagiarism control tool, the student turned white and immediately rushed home to ‘do some more work’ on his essay. Customer success story: peer-to-peer testing At one college in the UK, instead of writing the test, the teachers often ask students to write the questions using the test tool. Each student comes up with ten questions – and the teacher chooses the best questions for the final test. As well as being motivating for students, this is also a great time-saver for teachers as they develop a large bank of questions to use when teaching the subject next time. The results? According to the Head of e-Learning, students are more motivated for the end of term test – and better prepared. And that means average grades are higher.
- #12 Reflection is regarded as a key part of the learning process. Teachers want students to reflect on what they’ve learnt, analyse the process to see what works and what doesn’t, and then use this information to improve learning in the future. Key benefits Teachers Time saving: Teachers get instant automated feedback on individual student performance and group performance Time saving: Can quickly develop individual learning plans (linked to the curriculum) quickly, even with large classes Better contact with students through continual dialogue and individual learning plans (through email, instant messaging, blogs and ePortfolios) Organisation Individual learning plans are automatically updated so all subject teachers and mentors are up to date with goals, progress and achievements Parents can be involved in the reflection process Improved retention Students More engaged in their learning Better awareness of where they are going and why Improved results due to known commitment
- #13 Tools to encourage reflection ILPs, blogs, ePortfolios Research John Hattie, a professor at Auckland University in New Zealand, conducted a 15-year study merging results from 50,000 previous studies and a total of 83 million students. Hattie used the data to rank 138 aspects of schooling and found that student-teacher interaction came out on top. The most important factor was "self-reporting", which Hattie defines as the student’s understanding of what she doing, and her ability to explain this, as well as any gaps in her understanding, to her teacher. This is what ILPs are designed for. Customer success story: a five-step approach where the student has control Monika Solvig, a teacher at Hop Secondary School in Norway, has used individual learning plans with great success over the past four years. She uses a five-step approach to ILPs in which the students create their own ILPs and she monitors progress and adds comments to encourage reflection. #1 The student sets the goal and adds them to itslearning #2 The student plans how to achieve the goals and also adds this to the ILP #3 The teacher, the student’s mentor and parents check on progress and add comments or questions on each goal to encourage reflection. #4 When the student reaches a goal, she documents her success in her work portfolio, reflecting on how she achieved success and what she learnt from the process. Again, the teacher, mentor and parents can add comments or questions. 5# The teacher schedules an ILP conversation with the student and her parents every semester. The student leads the meeting, demonstrating her achievements, showing her work and laying out her goals for the next semester.
- #14 Reporting is an essential part of any school’s processes. It enables the teacher to demonstrate progress to parents, other teachers – and the school to demonstrate success rates to authorities. itslearning includes tools for the most common reporting requirements in most institutions. Reports are also used by the teacher when planning the next semester, lesson or activity – completing the circle. Key benefits Teachers Time saved: easy for teachers to complete and automatically updated throughout the system (eliminating double-data entry) Better planning: Clear overview of individual students performance or entire class Organization Efficiency: if a teacher updates a student’s grade report, this change is automatically reflected in all instances of that report. This means everyone has access to the latest information Accuracy: reports are available to relevant people in real-time Fast export: reports can be exported to different formats (Excel, for example) with one click Parents are automatically updated of their child’s performance Students More aware: can see an overview of grades and performance More involved: can add comments to, for example, their attendance report to report planned absence
- #15 We have worked hard to create tools that are time-saving for teachers, practical for administrators and clearly set out for learners and parents.
- #16 Reporting tools in itslearning Grade books, Attendance, Behaviour, Progress, Test Customer success story: Using the homepage to raise attendance When one head teacher in Norway (the school will remain nameless) realised that attendance was a problem at his secondary school, he took an unusual course of action. Instead of sending letters to parents or asking teachers to drive the attendance message home at every opportunity, he decided to use the itslearning dashboard to ensure students always had attendance top of mind. When logging onto itslearning, every student sees to the school’s main dashboard, which includes the latest news, a calendar of upcoming events and other school-wide information. But it now contains one additional element: that individual student’s very own attendance report.
- #17 Custom reports This is a new feature in itslearning that we’re working on with our partner QlikView. The idea is that administrators can show certain data sets for each student, class or year group – and then choose to have this data set shown as a ‘standard’ report. Initially, this will be done in the attendance report, but will also be rolled out into other reports, including a report that links grades and feedback comments to student objectives. Reports made to order It will also be possible for customers to work with itslearning consultants in order to design custom reports as required by their institution.
- #18 itslearning is a system to help teachers teach and students learn – as well as a system to help administrators, parents and other stakeholders get access to accurate information quickly. As an digital school learning environment, it sits at the centre of other systems, including resources from the web and information in the MIS/data management system. Data, such as content, timetables and learning objectives, can be imported from the institutions information magagement system. Reports can be exported in many different formats.
- #19 Although not directly connected to learning, simple and fast communication is also a key part of what a learning platform brings to an organisation. itslearning gives people in a school a variety of ways to communicate with each other from school-wide notifications to individual messages to students. Key benefits Teachers Easy and fast communication with students, parents and each other All school-related messages are kept and can be referred back to Organisation Fast communication with people through group email or school dashboard Connection to parents through parent dashboard Reduce paper expenses eSafety: all communication stays within the school-controlled environment Students Can communicate with peers and teachers in a form they are familiar with Join any course anywhere By default, courses are only available to people within your school or itslearning site. However, when setting up a course, teachers can decide to allow AICC communication – and so open the course up to a wider audience. The teacher is given a URL when they set up the course They can then send this to anyone they want to join the course. Anyone with a profile in a learning platform that supports AICC can access all the course materials through their learning platform.
- #20 Teachers and staff can share their resources with colleagues in their school or site (often the LEA) or with the itslearning community around the world. Tools: My library: All teachers and administrators have a personal library where they can create and store resources. These resources can then be used in many different courses, and shared with other users at the school or the site – or with the itslearning community around the world. Global community: The global community is a library of digital educational resources that have been created by teachers from all over the world. Project pages: a closed area that project participants can use to collaborate and exchange information. Teachers and learners can all use project spaces to share ideas and produce joint work based on a specific subject. Benefits: Time-saving: can create, save, share and search for resources quickly and easily Always available: no need to carry different USB sticks, CDs and paper files Reduction in photocopy and paper costs: more information shared digitally Improved teaching quality: teachers can share lesson plans and resources and so learn from each other easily Customer success story: Better teaching quality One of our customers in the UK has had great success with sharing lessons through itslearning, especially anti-bullying courses. One teacher built up a number of anti-bullying courses using materials and structure from Child line (a UK charity for protecting children). These were then made available for all teachers to use with their students. Customer success story: We love the virtual staffroom Teachers at Pool High School in the UK are particularly enthusiastic about the ‘virtual staffroom’ which allows them to share tips, tricks and banter of all kinds - how to change the size of an image, how to book the computer suite, where to find additional resources, etc. After getting itslearning in 2007, Poole High School noticed a clear decrease in individual teacher workload irrespective of the subject, due to the ease of sharing timetables, the sharing of content created by teachers and made available for reuse as is or for adaptation, and even the availability of study guides shared within the school.
- #21 itslearning’s communication tools include: Dashboards, parent dashboard, email, messaging, internal mail. This slide shows a parent dashboard for a parent with children in different schools. All the schools use itslearning (under the same LEA). For the parent, this means she only needs one dashboard – and only needs to remember on log in code and password. The individual schools can decide what they show on their parent dashboard. Research (parent involvement) According to a 2010 One Poll commissioned by BECTA, 67% of parents say they already use the internet informally as a research tool to help them better understand what their child is learning at school. If schools can engage with these parents via secure online resources, engagement levels could be even higher. The poll also revealed that, when they were unable to help their children with their homework, 20% of parents felt annoyed that the school had not informed them about what their child was learning. An itslearning survey found that 43% of teachers do not communicate with parents as much as they would like to because they do not have the time or communication channel to do so (see the company press release on this subject). According to the survey, 46% of teachers email each of their students’ parents at least once a month; 37% use texts/SMSs and 24% still send letters. “Many teachers use a mix of technologies to communicate with parents, but none of them are specifically designed for the task,” says Fahlvik. “Teachers want a tool that will improve the flow of information and reduce their workload.” Customer success story: better parent-student-teacher meetings Teachers and parents at Apeltun Primary School began using the itslearning parent portal in September 2010. Initially run as a pilot project at the school, parents of Year 6 students each received a unique log-on code and password in September 2010. “We love the ILPs, particularly” says Year 6 teacher Annichen Morken. “As well as giving an overview of the student’s learning targets in each subject, the ILPs now form the basis of our student-parent-teacher meeting. Parents can check their child’s ILP on the parent portal – and can add comments to it – before the meeting. As a result, we’re all on the same page from the start and there are no surprises.” Apeltun Primary School wants to replace all paper-based communication with digital communication by 2012 – and the parent portal is part of this vision. “Email is a great way of notifying parents of news. But one email to 22 parents usually results in a lot of individual replies that take time to answer,” she explains. “The key is to only use email for very important notifications and put everything else on the parent portal.” Customer success story: Engaged parents At Manor Primary School in the UK, itslearning gets most use at weekends, because that’s when kids sit with their parents to work online. “The most use seems to be at weekends when the children participate in the different tasks with an adult,” says class teacher Sue Parker. “One of the games I put on for them recently has really inspired, so much so that their parents are also playing the game and telling me their scores as well! It is becoming a bit of a family activity, which is great.” Customer success story: individual feedback A English teacher in France uses itslearning’s messaging system to quickly respond to student questions. When she surveyed her students about her use of itslearning, she discovered that, without exception, the students felt they got better feedback with itslearning - almost as if they were individually coached.
- #23 Also may be interesting: We have 2.5 millions of users around the world. (This number includes local products: ScolaStance in France, Netmedia & MySuite in the UK) Revenue in 2010 was NOK 116 million
- #24 Note: The percentage of customers (not users!) that would recommend itslearning is taken from the net promoter score. We’ve done this in Norway and the Netherlands. The percentage here is an average of the results from those 2 countries. The Netherlands: 81% Norway: 91%
- #25 Note: Unique users does not include Teletop, Scolastance or MyFirstPlace Resources = pages, pictures, etc. Activities = assignments, tests, etc.