Birmingham eLearning Foundation, (BeLF). presentation at the 2013 Annual Conference on Feb 14th. Further information can be found at www.belf.org.uk

1. Widening learning and gaining
achievement impact: maximising and
measuring it
Don Passey
Senior Research Fellow, Co-director, Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning
Department of Educational Research
Lancaster University, LA1 4YD

2. Do digital technologies support
learning?
• A second-order meta-analysis of the last 40 years of research
(Tamim, Bernard, Borokhovsi, Abrami and Schmid, 2011)
collated evidence from the widest possible range of sources
• Average effect sizes ranged from 0.30 to 0.35
• Digital technologies lead to 12 percentile points more than
those in a learning environment without them
• But, importantly, they argued that: “aspects of the goals of
instruction, pedagogy, teacher effectiveness, subject matter,
age level, fidelity of technology implementation, and possibly
other factors … may represent more powerful influences on
effect sizes than the nature of the technology intervention”
(p. 17).

3. Where can learning happen with
digital technologies?
• Formal
– Classrooms or lectures
– Seminars
• Informal
– At home or in a car
– In a museum or gallery
• Non-formal
– In clubs or societies
– On projects
• Passey, D. (2012). Educational transformation with open and social
technologies in the non-formal school curriculum: An analysis of three
case studies in the United Kingdom. Paper presented at the OST 2012
conference, Tallinn, Estonia, on 3rd August 2012. Accessible at: http://ifip-
ost12.tlu.ee/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/passey.pdf

4. How do digital technologies
support curriculum needs?

5. How can we measure impacts
arising?
• In context
• Qualitatively
• Quantitatively
• Involving stakeholders
• At various points in time
• In the longer as well as in the shorter term
• Passey, D. (In press). Inclusive technology enhanced learning: Overcoming
Cognitive, Physical, Emotional and Geographic Challenges. Routledge:
New York, NY

6. Using artefacts to learn between
and across these settings
• Homes and home learning
• The project was initiated in 2004 in an area in the north of
Birmingham, in one of the 10% most deprived areas in
England (Batty et al., 2010)
• Concerned with community development and regeneration, it
focused in part on aspects of education and learning, as key
elements to address short and longer-term needs of the
community

7. Results arising
• By 2011, 2,680 computers were deployed in homes; some
60% of homes gained up-to-date ICT access
• All 8 primary schools in the area facilitated home support
• The project developed pupils and teachers as ‘readers’; pupils
accessed online educational games at home, they shared files
of completed homework with some teachers, and increased
their communication with parents. They did not develop as
‘newscasters’ in this project
• Mathematics and reading results improved significantly for
Year 4 pupils

8. Digital technologies in non-formal
settings
• After-school clubs and group work
• Pupil teams aged 11 to 14 years used Little Big Planet 2, a
popular Sony PlayStation videogame, in 15 secondary and
special schools in one LA
• The project focused on development of 21st century skills
required by employers and trainers, widening career
opportunities in the videogame industry, and ‘building scenes
for learning’ by creating levels in the game

9. Results in this case
• Almost all pupils involved became ‘readers’ and ‘gamers’, but
fewer engaged technically to create new levels. Teams
completing levels (about half the number starting the
project), were encouraged to broadcast their games across an
international user network for others to access and play
• Pupils used social media widely to maintain contact, including
using Facebook and mobile telephone messaging, but did not
use bespoke chatrooms or forums

10. Using broadcast technologies
• The BBC News School Report project, run since 2006, enables
pupil teams to create and broadcast video, audio and text-
based news reports. In 2009 it involved 514 schools from
across the UK
• Teams put reports onto school websites at a particular time
on a particular day (News Day), the sites are linked to the BBC
News School Report website, made accessible to regional and
national radio and television broadcasting teams, and to a
worldwide audience

11. Results from this case study
• At the end of the project, more pupils were listening to and
watching news media and developed team work and
management skills
• The project did not focus on developing gamers. Some file
sharing did happen, between pupils and between pupils and
teachers
• Communication, (working in teams), was enhanced greatly,
but the major project focus was to develop broadcasters,
which it clearly did

12. Findings from across all 3 studies
• These case studies were not run in all schools across England,
but were implemented in ways suggesting wider potential
adoption
• In each case digital expertise came from the young people,
was extended in the young people, and used in sharing
activities and experiences with older people
• The extension made the difference - reaching out to others –
parents, teachers, and wider community
• Each project fitted alongside a content-based curriculum -
curriculum intentions matched project intentions, and some
enabled important long-term skill developments such as
group work, team work and communication skills

13. What are differences here?
• These projects worked in ways described in extended schools
and extended curricula contexts (Barker et al., 2003)
• Integrated projects and after-school clubs of these forms
focus on important aspects of educational transformation –
they demand a different form of organisation from that found
in classrooms generally, putting the teacher squarely in the
role of facilitator (including technological facilitation)

14. How were the technologies
involved?
• In these cases important networking happened outside
technologies but was encouraged by the technological
medium
• Face-to-face interactions often flourished, but not in
traditional ‘apprentice-master’ form
• In many instances, the young were the ‘masters’ and the
older generations (parents, teachers or managers) were the
‘apprentices’

15. Discussion
d.passey@lancaster.ac.uk