part ii: case studies innovative...

Innovative Learning 75

EgyptPeru Argentina

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Innovative Learning

To become confident and competent adults,

students must possess critical thinking and

problem-solving skills as well as a solid grasp of

technology. A variety of PiL grants and initiatives

are helping educators achieve these outcomes by

looking beyond traditional methods of teaching

and learning.

Part II: Case Studies

nited Kingdom

India

Singapore

Australia

76 Partners in Learning Progress Report 2007

Enquiring Minds aims to empower students to take a more active role in their own education and to develop important lifelong learning skills such as creative thinking,

teamwork, problem solving, and conducting independent research.


The bell rings, and 30 seventh-year students scramble into a sunny classroom at the Gordano School near Bristol for the last lesson of the day. They laugh and

gossip until the teacher settles them down, takes atten-dance, and gets down to business. It’s a scene you might witness in any of thousands of schools across the UK: kids in uniforms rushing to class, anxious to get through their lessons so that they will be free to move on to more “impor-tant” things, like playing football or spending time with their friends.

In a typical class, students spend their time listening to a history lecture or working through a series of math problems. They sit at desks in orderly rows, answer ques-tions when called on, and get one hour closer to acquiring the knowledge they need to pass the all-important General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations they will take in a few years.

The lesson is much different in this corner of the Gordano School. The students are divided into six focus groups to discuss mobile phones—a topic of great interest to most of them. This is more than idle chatter about which phone looks the coolest or takes the best pictures, however. One group is debating whether the reported health hazards associated with mobile phone usage are real. A girl named

Transforming Students into Lifelong LearnersThe British education system has produced some of the greatest writers, scientists, and thinkers of the modern world. In recent years, however, educators and policymakers in the UK have begun to question whether the country’s highly structured national curriculum and focus on examinations are developing the knowledge and skills that students need for the 21st century. Enquiring Minds, an innovative new approach to learning designed by UK research organization Futurelab and supported by a US$2 million grant from Partners in Learning, looks beyond test results toward a different goal: enabling children to become effective researchers, innovators, and creators of knowledge.

Enquiring Minds, a research proj-ect that takes a new approach to curriculum, emphasizes personal-ized learning that encourages children to be researchers, innova-tors, and creators of knowledge.

The Education Evidence Portal (EEP) and E-librarian service are helping UK educators develop best practices based on research.

A strong Innovative Teachers Network is being used by more than 3,500 teachers nationwide and features more than 200 Virtual Classroom Tours, Lesson Plans, and Quick Ideas.

The Collaborative Technologies for Languages Initiative is help-ing students develop foreign language skills through a virtual environment shared with schools in Spain and France.

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Key impacts of piL in tHe UK

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Anna suggests that mobile phones might be most harmful to children because their brains are less developed than those of adults. A boy named James points out that the health effects aren’t really known yet, citing conflicting evidence on many of the Web sites the group has looked at. Brendon weighs the risks on both sides: Mobile phones might be harmful to your health, but so is being stuck without one when you’re in trouble. Eric is taking notes and helping to keep the discussion on track.

Other groups are tackling issues such as whether parents should use mobile phones to track their children’s whereabouts. Their teacher walks around the room, answering questions if asked but generally allowing the students to direct their own discussions. A few minutes later, the groups take turns sharing and debating the results of their discussions.

enquiring minds: exploring new methods of teaching and Learning

These children are participants in Enquiring Minds, a three-year research and development program that explores alternatives to traditional teaching and

learning methods in the UK. The goal of Enquiring Minds is to empower students to take a more active role in their own education and to develop important life-long learning skills such as creative thinking, teamwork, problem solving, and conducting independent research. The project was conceived by Futurelab, a UK-

based education research organization that works to transform the way people learn through innova-tive technologies and teaching practices, supported by US$2 million in funding from Microsoft Partners in Learning.

Enquiring Minds was launched in 2006 to answer a number of challenging questions about

the future of education: How can schools prepare students to engage with the world around them and identify problems, patterns, and opportunities? How can it encourage young people to follow their instincts about the way the world works and give them the tools and confidence to investigate their ideas? And how can it equip them to share their solutions and turn them into reality?

Enquiring Minds is not so much a curriculum as it is an ongoing experiment in forging new models for teaching and learning. It includes activities and strate-gies that support students in creating coherent plans for their own learning, and it incorporates digital tools such as collaboration software, digital cameras, and laptops. It also explores new approaches to assessment, evaluating students’ skills as collaborators, researchers, and innovators. Futurelab is currently pilot-ing the program in two schools in the Bristol area, including Gordano. These two schools are in turn serving as models for a dozen other schools in the UK that will implement the program in the next academic year. The results from these pilot schools will inform a broader remodeling of the UK curriculum that will begin in late 2007.

Students are learning how to think critically and be lifelong learners—skills that are just

as crucial in today’s society and workplace as factual knowledge and technology know-how.


The students participating in Enquiring Minds still spend much of the school year learning by traditional methods. But for a few hours every other week, they are given wide latitude to choose what they will study, how to study it, and what they’ll produce by the end of the year. The children at Gordano are only a few months into their projects. They have chosen their general topic—mobile phones—and are in the process of narrowing their focus to a few key questions. Over the remaining months, they will devise and complete a project that focuses on their area of inquiry, such as a short film or a Web site for their community. The key is that the students have to decide the project’s topic and scope on their own. Their teachers will offer guidance to support their efforts, but they won’t tell the students what to do.

Technology plays an important role in Enquiring Minds—not as the primary focus, but as a tool to facilitate exploration and research and to help students organize and present their ideas. The students involved in the program are learning how to think for themselves, to listen to and analyze the opinions of their peers, and to construct and defend arguments based on solid reasoning and evidence. In short, they are learning how to think critically and be lifelong learners—skills that are just as crucial in today’s society and workplace as factual knowledge and specific technology skills.

This approach stands in stark contrast to the way that teaching and learning usually occur in the UK. The traditional secondary school system uses the “chalk and talk” model, in which teachers transmit the knowledge students need to pass a series of examinations that can make or break their future. A standardized national curriculum specifies exactly what material should be taught—in some cases, right down to precise 15-minute increments. Teachers have had little flex-ibility in what or how to teach. However, programs such as Enquiring Minds and a broader effort toward personalized learning in the UK are affording new scope to schools.

“In general, schools are trying to help students take responsibility for their own learning, but we’re doing it in an environment where we don’t give chil-dren any responsibility or independence,” says Futurelab Research Director Keri Facer. “Schools are old institutions that are built on a particular adult-child relationship, and that relationship is not traditionally geared toward giving any power to the child.”

Ross Martland, assistant head teacher at the Gordano School, concurs. “In many ways, we still have a 19th-century school system,” he notes. “But with Enquiring Minds, the students have a space in the curriculum where they can talk about themselves and their interests, and play a role in deciding how they will learn. They like that we’re aiming to guide their learning based on what they’re interested in, rather than organizing it around the subjects we’re required to teach.”

population: 60 million people living in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland

education system: 400,000 teachers serving 9.2 million students

challenges: Enabling more flexible, relevant, and evi-dence-based school curricula and expanding professional development for teachers

Key piL programs: Enquiring Minds, Education Evidence Portal, E-librarian service, Innovative Teachers Network

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Enquiring Minds takes a holistic approach to school reform by inviting greater participation among teachers, parents, students, and the commu-nity in deciding what and how children will learn. In this new paradigm, teachers are viewed as co-researchers with their students, sharing approaches to learning and working collaboratively in the pur-suit of knowledge. Facer believes that for funda-mental reform to be successful, it must be applied to the whole school environment, rather than just to the curriculum in the classroom.

Reflecting this philosophy of collaborative learn-ing and local empowerment, Enquiring Minds is not intended to lead to a single end product or program. Rather, the mission is to assist in designing a road map for teachers and schools to develop curricula as well as sound educational theories and strategies to help achieve these goals.

a “Killer app” for schools for the future

Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is the UK’s largest single government investment in school

improvement in more than 50 years. In 2005 and 2006, the government spent roughly US$6 billion on new school buildings designed from the ground up to incorporate state-of-the-art ICT capabilities, movable walls that accommodate a wider variety of teaching environments, and even cafeteria computer systems that encourage healthier lifestyles by tracking what students eat. As part of this effort, nearly every secondary school in the UK will be rebuilt or remodeled in the next 10 years.

Futurelab is working with various government agencies in the UK to weave the Enquiring Minds philosophy and approach into a more formal program that can be implemented in all the BSF schools. To use a high-tech analogy: If BSF schools are the “hardware,” Enquiring Minds could be the killer app, the learning “software” that provides a rich and stimulating classroom environment.

Among the government organizations observing Enquiring Minds closely and working on complementary initiatives is the UK Qualifications and Curric-ulums Authority (QCA), whose Futures program reexamines what the desired outcomes of education should be.

“The question we’re asking ourselves is this: What do we want young people to be like at the end of their education?” says Mike Rumble, the QCA’s Programme Manager for Curriculum Development & Implementation. “What are the quali-ties and characteristics we want them to have? We want young people who are motivated, who can collaborate, who are willing to take risks and learn from

Brendan Corr/Getty Images


their mistakes. Programs like Enquiring Minds can accomplish exactly that far more effectively than an approach to education that’s focused on test results.”

conclusion

Given the government’s readiness to explore new approaches to education, and in light of the role technology can play in attaining the desired results,

the UK Partners in Learning team enthusiastically supports programs such as Enquiring Minds. For quite some time, the UK has been committed to ensur-ing technology access for all its teachers and students—nearly 100 percent of its schools have PCs and Internet access. In turn, Microsoft has embraced the opportunity to support the UK’s efforts to use technology in innovative ways and in service of the government’s broader education agenda.

“There’s a significant effort in the UK to transform teaching and learning, and to empower teachers and students with the flexibility to make their own deci-sions and adopt new practices,” says Microsoft UK Academic Program Manager Sarah Armstrong. “We love programs like Enquiring Minds because they take such an innovative and holistic approach to education. There’s a strong technol-ogy component, but the real mission is to nurture independent, creative thinkers and lifelong learners. And that’s the kind of outcome we really want to see with Partners in Learning.”


Empowering Teachers with High-Quality Research

A growing volume of research is identifying more effective teaching and school administration practices, but finding that information can be a major challenge for teachers, administrators, and policymakers. As part of a government effort in the UK to support such “evidence-based practice,” Microsoft UK is providing funding and technical support to help create an Education Evidence Portal (EEP) and an E-librarian service that will enable educators, teacher educators, school administrators, and policymakers to quickly find the data they need to improve the quality, efficiency, and accessibility of education scholarship.

Many school systems in the developed world are moving toward evidence-based practice—an approach to education that supplements the instincts

and professional experience of teachers and administrators with strategies and practices backed up by academic research.

In most of today’s classrooms, teachers look to their own experience and that of their peers, supplemented by guidelines and best practices at the institutional level. But as the volume of academic study in the field of education grows, and as

schools find themselves dealing with more complex pedagogical and social issues, research is becoming an increasingly important planning and pedagogical tool. For example, teachers looking for effective ways to resolve conflicts among students, address cultural differences in the classroom, or teach math concepts to students with different learning styles can greatly

benefit from easy access to current academic thinking on these topics.Authoritative, centralized research repositories exist for other fields, such as

health care, but educators must wade through dozens—sometimes hundreds—of online sources to locate research on a particular subject. In the UK, for instance, several dozen government agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organi-zations are producing thousands of research papers covering topics ranging from effective strategies for teaching geography to proven methods of supporting chil-dren with unstable home lives. Yet there is no single repository for this growing volume of information, which is scattered across a number of Web-based portals geared toward different audiences.

As schools find themselves dealing with more complex pedagogical and

social issues, research is becoming an increasingly important tool.

United Kingdom: Sidebar


Educators, policymakers, and education researchers also struggle with another challenge: They often speak different professional “languages.” This makes searching for relevant research even more difficult. For example, teachers commonly use the term bullying to describe aggressive, confrontational behavior toward other students, while academic research on the topic favors terms such as aggression or antisocial behavior.

“Academics, policymakers, teachers, and administrators use different vocab-ularies to describe the same things, and sometimes they even use the same vocabulary to describe different things,” says Andrew Morris of the Centre for British Teachers, a nonprofit organization that works on school reform issues in the UK. “It’s a real problem.”

eep: Bringing it all together

The lack of a centralized education portal has left educators and school admin-istrators with only two options: using a public search engine and wading

through pages of irrelevant results, or searching numerous specialized education Web sites one by one, in the hope of finding appropriate and credible research.

To help provide the UK’s education community with a single online tool for finding education-related academic research, the Microsoft UK Partners in Learning team has worked with Microsoft Consulting Services and a consortium of academic and government agen-cies to develop the Education Evidence Portal (EEP)—the first major step toward a central-ized national evidence portal. Launched with US$160,000 in funding and development support from Microsoft, EEP offers easy access to a range of education research materials from credible online sources, while also helping professional organizations move toward a common framework and common vocabulary that are relevant and understandable to all audiences.

Located at www.eep.ac.uk, EEP is a specialized metasearch service—a search engine built on Microsoft search technology that collects specialized results from a defined set of sources, enabling users to find high-quality research across 21 government, academic, and third-party Web sites serving UK educators. Using the simple one-step search functionality, users can quickly find relevant research citations using specific keywords, such as mathematics or bullying, while advanced search functions enable a more narrowly focused search based on type of research (such as literature reviews or policy documents) and school level (such as primary or secondary).

“A major barrier to evidence-based practice is that teachers don’t have time. It’s a serious, limiting, and intractable issue,” says Andrew Morris. As a result, ease of use was a major factor in the development of EEP. Advanced search functionality is available—such as by educational stage or type of docu-

The Education Evidence Portal serves as an important catalyst for creating a shared vocabulary and taxonomy that educators, researchers, and policymakers can all use to describe their work.


ment—but the default interface enables teachers to conduct simple searches using a list of keywords, just like any other search engine. Additionally, users who have the Windows Vista operating system installed will be able to use a desktop “gadget” that allows simple searches of EEP without opening a Web browser.

Although only a few months old, the project is already serving as an important catalyst for creating a shared vocabulary and taxonomy that educators, researchers, and policymakers can all use to describe their work. While prominent literature indices such as the British Education Index offer some consistency among terms, there is still no single authoritative “dictionary” that offers these diverse communi-ties a common professional vocabulary.

As part of the EEP development process, participating agencies are required to add metadata—descriptive keywords and tags—to their work that can help users target their searches to meet specific needs. “Having a common vocabu-lary for education research is an issue that this community has struggled with for years,” says Morris. “But EEP is concrete—since the agencies need to tag this research, they now have a very strong incentive to move forward on a common vocabulary.”

e-Librarian: a personalized service for teacher trainers

Evidence-based practice is equally important in the training of new teachers. Finding appropriate, useful evidence amid a mountain of research to

encourage evidence-based practice among teachers-in-training is complex. To assist in these efforts, the UK government’s Training and Development Agency (TDA) offers a peer-reviewed online collection of more than 2,000 research

reports, feature articles, policy documents, guide-books, videos, and other resources. Known as the Teacher Training Resource Bank (TTRB), this col-lection is a respected and widely used resource.

To make this resource even more valuable, Microsoft Partners in Learning has partnered with the TDA and several leading universities to develop E-librarian, a service that offers person-

alized answers to research questions submitted to the TTRB Web site along with guidance that helps teachers and teacher trainers hone their own research skills. This has helped hundreds of teacher trainers provide better resources and guidance to the next generation of UK teachers and has also contributed to the TTRB being recognized as a top-10 finalist in the UK’s e-Government Awards for 2006.

For this service, a team of two librarians answers specific questions from users by gathering and summarizing relevant research and insights from subject-matter experts. When submitting questions, users are asked where and how they have already searched, and responses to their inquiries often include sugges-

Building on feedback from the E-librarian service, the Training and Development

Agency can make better decisions about commissioning new research and making

it available to educators.


tions on how they can find even more information on their own. The answers are posted to the TTRB’s Web site (www.ttrb.ac.uk), where all users can browse through them.

“The goals of E-librarian are twofold,” says TTRB project manager Matt Foulds. “First is its explicit goal, which is to offer more personalized service to teacher trainers and help them find the right evidence to support specific issues. But a second goal is to help us identify gaps in our research and find ways to make the TTRB a better resource.”

For instance, if a significant number of questions relate to the impact of cultural diversity on behavior and learning styles, this might indicate that the available research isn’t as strong as it could be, or that it isn’t easy enough to find. Building on this feedback, the TDA can then make better decisions about com-missioning new research and making it easily accessible on the TTRB Web site.

Although E-librarian is an increasingly popular part of the TTRB, the success of this service is actually expected to reduce demand because the goal is to support teacher trainers’ resource location skills and improve the depth, relevance, and accessibility of existing resources on the site. Users are encouraged to read previ-ous answers before submitting new questions, and the vast majority will find what they need right away and won’t need to call on an E-librarian for help.

“With every new question, this service is helping us improve the overall quality of the TTRB,” says Foulds. “The idea is that E-librarian might eventually put itself out of business.”

conclusion

Both E-librarian and EEP are young projects, but they have already made a sig-nificant impact on policy and practice in an education system that is both

highly developed and working to adopt new methods. Both initiatives have drawn value from the partnership with Microsoft, which has helped them bridge the gaps between different agencies and has helped overcome the technical and logistical obstacles to rolling out complicated new programs.

“One of the great strengths that Microsoft brings to our efforts is that they are able to lend us their expertise and knowledge and help us get projects going that would be more difficult for us to do on our own,” says Tim Tarrant, head of ICT for the TDA. “Having that partnership makes things a lot easier for us.”

“In the BackPack.NET schools, we’ve seen much more interaction between the teachers and the students and a great deal of collaboration, both within and outside the classroom.”

– Dr. philip Wong, head of the Backpack.net centre at the national institute for education, singapore

At Crescent Girls’ School, students are accustomed to carrying around large backpacks weighed down with textbooks. But their backpacks are a bit lighter

these days; each student now has her own Tablet PC, loaded with a suite of specialized applications developed by local software companies. Digital multimedia textbooks have replaced hardcover versions in many subjects, includ-ing English, math, and science. Most of their class sched-ules, syllabi, and assignments are stored on the school’s Web site. The students are just as likely to send their teacher an e-mail or instant message as they are to raise their hand in class. And instead of taking notes on paper, they’re using their Tablet PCs to draw visual “mind maps” to help under-stand the subjects they’re studying.

All of this looks like what many governments, educa-tors, and technology companies talk about when they envi-sion the future of education, although for these students, it’s just another day in class. That’s because Crescent Girls’ School is one of the four “pioneer schools” for BackPack .NET—an ambitious program that aims to push the bound-aries of new technologies and make the “classroom of the future” a reality in Singapore’s schools. This five-year initia-

The Classroom of the Future, in Schools TodaySingapore’s education system has a long history of quality and efficiency, backed by a track record of high student achievement in math and science. Yet this prosperous city-state is always looking for new ways to ensure that its students are even better prepared to participate in soci-etal and economic advances. This spirit of continuous improvement has inspired the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Microsoft to initiate BackPack.NET, an ambitious five-year program that aims to encourage inquiry, creativity, and student-centered learning through advanced applications of ICT. This Partners in Learning initiative includes the use of Tablet PCs by hundreds of students throughout the city and the seeding of an ecosystem of in-novative new education software companies.


Students and teachers through-out Singapore are leading the way in the use of Tablet PCs in schools, pioneering new approaches to personalized learning.

In close collaboration with educators, a growing ecosystem of local software companies is developing innovative new edu-cational software and exporting it to the world.

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Singapore


tive is driving the research, development, and testing of innovative technologies in the classroom with US$13 million in support from Microsoft, IDA, the National Institute for Education (NIE), industry partners, and participating schools.

BackPack.NET complements a broader evolution of Singapore’s education system—which is shifting its focus from achievements in examinations toward a more flexible curriculum, a more holistic approach to assessment, and an

increased focus on nurturing creative and critical thinking. At the same time, educators throughout the country are being empowered to adopt new teaching methods that encourage experimentation, collaboration, and other skills that are increasingly valuable in the global economy.

BackPack.NET supports a shift toward stu-dent-centered learning through the use of Tablet PCs, digital inking applica-tions, and other innovative technologies in the classroom through four areas of investment:

• A series of pilot initiatives that put some of this advanced technology into students’ hands today

• A learning environment to showcase education scenarios 5 to 10 years in the future

• Support for a software developer community focused on building inno-vative teaching and learning applications

• Research that explores the relationship between technology and pedagogy

advanced technology, Homegrown tools

All 1,600 students at Crescent Girls’ School have their own Tablet PC, which connects to a broadband wireless network and centralized classroom man-

agement software built on Microsoft Learning Gateway, a technology frame-work for education software. Paid for by parents, with some discounts from manufacturers and scholarship support for lower-income students, the com-puters are outfitted with Microsoft Office and a number of specialized educa-tion applications developed by local software companies. To address concerns about theft, loss, and damage, Principal Lee Bee Yann has provided each parent with a contract they can sign with their children that outlines the appropriate “care and feeding” of their computers.

As the teachers and students use their Tablet PCs in class, they’re supported by researchers and local software companies that monitor their use and collab-orate to develop new applications that further enhance teaching and learning. One such application is Fun with Construction, an interactive tool developed by a local software company, HeuLab, that provides students with virtual rulers, protractors, and graph paper to explore math and geometry concepts. Using the Tablet PC stylus, students use the tools to draw, manipulate shapes, and

BackPack.NET is at the leading edge of innovation, systematically developing and

testing new technologies in a real classroom environment.


analyze maps. By working onscreen rather than on paper, students can quickly understand difficult concepts such as geometric loci and linear graphs and get instant feedback on their work. “If I want to see if I’ve done something correctly, I don’t have to wait two days for the teacher to grade my paper,” says geometry student Karen.

Fun with Construction was inspired by teachers at Crescent Girls’ School who began working with HeuLab in 2004 to brainstorm an application that could automate their geometry lessons and enable students to work independently and share their work with peers. “This was the first tool we developed in collaboration with BackPack.NET schools,” says HeuLab Deputy CEO Lim Soon Jinn. “And once they saw the value of applications like this, they came back with more and more new ideas.”

The teachers’ next idea was a little more ambitious: a per-sonal notebook that can collect all of the information students need for their lessons and give them a new way to take notes and structure their thinking. That application, called Fun with Mindbook, includes a special-ized note-taking tool that enables students to create “mind maps”—visual rep-resentations of the connections between concepts and ideas—and take layered sets of notes around a rich library of images, such as anatomy drawings or diagrams of musical instruments. It also includes calendaring and organization tools that help students keep track of their tasks and easily store Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents alongside their notes and digital textbooks. “I’m not the kind of person who can memorize a whole chapter of words, so Fun with Mindbook helps me summarize all the more important points in one place,” says science student Min.

HeuLab sees its close collaboration with teachers and students as the key to creating effective learning applications. Far too many educational software programs have been created with little or no engagement with teachers or classrooms, and the frequent result is technology that doesn’t really work in the classroom. “Every single one of our applications is designed in collabora-tion with teachers so we can design something that will meet the needs in today’s classrooms,” says Lim.

HeuLab also worked with BackPack.NET schools to address a significant obstacle to student-centered learning: the ability to keep order in the class-room while giving students the flexibility to explore on their own.

“Before there were laptops or wireless networks in schools, students might sneak a comic book over their textbooks, and that was a distraction,” says Dr. Philip Wong, head of the BackPack.NET Centre at the NIE. “But now, with wireless technology, they can surf on the Internet. I think it’s important for teachers to feel comfortable with that—some students might get distracted for

population: 4.5 million

education system: 355 schools serving more than 530,000 students

challenges: Deploying advanced technologies in the classroom; catalyzing local innovation in educational software

Key piL programs: BackPack .NET, Microsoft–Ministry of Education Professional Development Awards (MMPDA) for innovative teachers

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5 or 10 minutes, and that’s fine, but teachers should be able to help them focus on their work.”

innovative software solutions for teachers

To help address this challenge and make other classroom management tasks easier for teachers, HeuLab developed Fun with Virtual Classroom, an inno-

vative solution that allows teachers to monitor student work—even “peeking” at individual students’ screens—and conduct guided lessons by remotely con-trolling every Tablet PC in the classroom or dividing students into groups and coordinating their work. Additionally, it automates many common classroom tasks, such as taking attendance, scoring quizzes, and tabulating grades.

Teachers can even project individual students’ screens onto the classroom projector to showcase exemplary work, and administer pop quizzes to the class if they want to check on students’ progress. The software not only facilitates an ongoing feedback loop regarding students’ progress; it also gives teachers greater confidence that they can let their students explore. Knowing that their

teacher can check up on them at any time tends to keep students on task.

Software developers aren’t the only ones coming up with innovative ways to use the Tablet PCs at Crescent Girls’ School. The students themselves are finding plenty of creative new ways to put the tech-nology to work. For example, Kathy uses the Tablet PC’s Music Composition Tool to write her own songs

by drawing the notes directly onto virtual sheet music paper. She also uses it to explore and learn from the works of famous composers. “By manipulating their notes on screen and adding my own, I can better understand what it’s like to create a great piece of music,” she says.

Min uses her Tablet PC to draw–and let out her frustrations: “I find ArtRage [a popular Tablet PC-based drawing tool] very helpful to relieve stress. I can just draw what I’m angry or anxious about, and then I feel better,” she says. Several students have used ArtRage to create a series of manga (comic book) characters based on the girls at their school as well as printed posters that decorate the walls of the campus. They’ve even started a small business, selling the posters to parents and fellow students. “I didn’t even know they were doing this until one of my students offered to sell a poster to me!” says Principal Lee. And, of course, the girls are on their Tablet PCs constantly to chat with friends, plan a night out at the movies, and play their favorite games.

Educators at Crescent Girls’ School have found that the Tablet PCs have facilitated richer interaction between teachers and students and created more incentives for students to reflect on and discuss their work. Using e-mail, instant messaging, and online discussion forums, the students are often more willing to participate and share their thoughts than in the classroom.

Using e-mail, instant messaging, and online discussion forums,

the students are often more willing to participate and share their

thoughts than in the classroom.


“Many students use the forums to ask questions they wouldn’t bring up in class,” says humanities teacher Phyllis Pham. “Sometimes this is because they’ve had time to reflect and think through the matter, which leads to more high-level questions about the topic. Other times, the students are just too shy to raise their hands. Either way, I find that they’re more spontaneous and ask more thought-provoking questions when they’re online.”

This pattern is not unique to Crescent Girls’ School. “In the BackPack .NET schools, we’ve seen much more interaction between the teachers and the students and a great deal of collaboration, both within and outside the classroom,” says Dr. Wong. “We see many students collaborating on projects outside of class, even when they’re not physically together. They are more likely to work at home—they might be on the couch watching TV, but they’re also on MSN with their classmates, still working on pieces of their projects together.”

the Leading edge of classroom innovation

Because Singapore has been investing in technology for the classroom for more than a decade, it is an ideal place to pioneer a program such as BackPack

.NET. Every school in the country is equipped with broadband Internet access and well-stocked computer labs. The government provides funding to support a student-to-computer ratio of 5:1, and many communities make additional investments in technology to further enhance teaching and learning in their schools. Additionally, Singapore is rolling out a wireless network that aims to cover the entire city-state by late 2007.

With their infrastructure issues largely solved, teachers are now develop-ing new teaching methods that take full advantage of technology—making the curriculum more flexible and dynamic and moving further from a teacher-led classroom environment to learning that is centered on the students. Micro-soft Partners in Learning supports these efforts through BackPack.NET as well as other programs such as the Microsoft–Ministry of Education Professional Development Awards (MMPDA), which highlight the work of innovative teachers and give them opportunities to attend regional and global Innovative Teachers Forums.

Under the Ministry of Education’s current five-year technology plan, schools will have greater autonomy and flexibility in the use of funds for ICT, and they are exploring a wide range of technology programs—including robotics, digi-tal art and music, blogging, and podcasting. “There’s no specific recipe for how schools should use technology,” says Dr. Wong. “The aim is to use whatever means they can to equip our students with new skills.”

BackPack.NET is at the leading edge of this innovation, systematically developing and testing new technologies in a real classroom environment and then taking that knowledge and applying it to new kinds of learning applica-tions and teaching techniques that can be extended to other school systems.


This work is also important because it is helping kick-start an ecosystem of local software companies, such as HeuLab, which are beginning to export their work elsewhere in Singapore and around the world.

“Singapore has a very advanced education system, and our country has a strong drive for continuous innovation and improvement,” says Microsoft Singapore Academic Program Manager Chua Horng Shya. “It’s a great environ-ment in which to pioneer new technologies, and our hope is that the improve-ments we’ve achieved here can be exported to the rest of the world.”


“Partners in Learning has enabled teachers in Queensland to tap into and better understand the passion so many young people have for computer games

and other digital media, and to apply that knowledge to create more engaging curriculum and learning experiences.”

– Laurie campbell, Director, eLearning Department of education, training and the arts, Queensland, australia

Ready. Aim. Fire! Learning with Games in AustraliaEducators in Australia’s eastern state of Queensland are at the vanguard of efforts to under-stand how computer games, spatial technologies, and other digital innovations can enrich teaching and learning, particularly with students who don’t respond well to traditional teach-ing methods. Through a partnership with Queensland’s Department of Education, Training and the Arts, Partners in Learning is funding programs that bridge the gap between educa-tion that is relevant and learning activities that are fun and engaging.

Due to the distributed nature of education in Australia, Microsoft has supported a variety of initiatives tailored to the needs and interests of each state and territory.

In Queensland, the state educa-tion department has partnered with Microsoft since 2004 on programs to explore the efficacy of games in learning, introduce students and teachers to the rapidly emerging field of spatial technologies, and help teachers create educationally rich and engaging digital content.

Programs in other states and territories focus on innovative approaches to teacher profes-sional learning, innovation in curriculum, and systemic issues in pedagogy.

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Key impacts of piL in aUstraLia


Ken Brady has the sharp-eyed focus and quick-witted strategic skills of a Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot, which he used to be. But these days, Brady has

traded his wings for a battle of another kind—winning the hearts and minds of at-risk students at Gympie State High School on Australia’s Sunshine Coast.

Brady is among a growing number of teachers in the country’s eastern state of Queensland who are exploring the use and creation of computer games as a teaching and learning tool. To traditionalist educators, this may seem one step short of declaring every school day a holiday, but to people like Brady, it’s a golden opportunity to leverage a younger generation’s curiosity about the magic of software to actively engage them across a range of subjects.

The community from which Gympie State High School draws its student population may be at the lower end of the economic strata on the tropical and touristy Sunshine Coast, but the challenges Brady faces in getting disenfran-chised teenagers excited about learning are familiar to edu-cators everywhere.

“These kids annoy the heck out of the library because they come in and play games,” says Brady. “They annoy the heck out of their other teachers because they don’t want to type up their English assignment. They’re the ones who draw graffiti all over their desks, but they draw beauti-

Australia


fully—they create these amazing pictures. I thought, let’s tap into the things they like doing.”

Recognizing the potential of games and other emerging technologies to stimulate and personalize learning, Microsoft formed a partnership in 2004 with Queensland’s Department of Education, Training and the Arts to fund three pro-grams through the department’s ICT Learning Innovation Centre (LIC):

• Games in Learning explores the learning potential of games through initiatives focused on game study (design), game making, game play, and game innovation.

• Spatial Technologies in Schools introduces students and teachers to the rapidly emerging and relevant field of spatial technologies, including geographic information systems (GIS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS).

• Thinking Digitally offers mentoring and coaching to teachers to help them design, create, and incorporate educationally rich and engaging digital content in their classrooms.

games Help students grasp concepts and think strategically

An avid gamer himself, Brady first became interested in games as a learning tool in 1998, when he used a simple multiplayer game to introduce con-

cepts in a high school computer networking class.“I had their attention from that day on,” says Brady, who quickly saw the

power of games to motivate students, help them grasp complex concepts, and learn how to work collaboratively.

A few years later, while teaching on remote Thursday Island, Brady engaged his students, many of whom were struggling with basic liter-acy skills, by having them conceptualize a game revolving around an imaginary character and write a script describing what happens to the char-acter in the game.

“Before you knew it, the kids were writing whole paragraphs, and then whole pages. Sure, the

spelling and punctuation needed work, but they had original, creative content of their own which they were keen to get correct,” says Brady.

From there, Brady had students create a simple maze-style game where stu-dents become treasure hunters, identifying the correct letters in words to get closer to finding their stolen bounty.

“It snowballed, and before I knew it, I had students coming from everywhere wanting to learn how to make their own games,” he says.

Drawing on these experiences, Brady offered a class in game design and development when he moved to Gympie State High School in early 2006. Soon

Recognizing the potential of games and other emerging technologies to stimulate and

personalize learning, Microsoft partnered with Queensland’s Department of Education, Training and the Arts to explore the potential

of games and spatial technologies in learning.


a single class mushroomed into three, and once again, it was obvious that Brady was on to something, particularly with sev-eral students who had been struggling in school.

“I was just getting bored with all my other classes,” says one of Brady’s students, Thomas, who believes that the game-making classes “got me through the year. It definitely wasn’t boring, and I enjoyed it heaps.”

Initially, Thomas’s mom was skeptical. “She asked if this was just something to do to get out of other classes. I had to explain it to her and show her the stuff on my laptop. At first, she didn’t understand, but now she sees that I can get somewhere. I didn’t think I was going to the university before this.”

Thomas says the game-making classes challenged him to think strategically, work collaboratively with other people, improve his math and English skills, and become proficient in new subjects, from animation to photography to writing software.

While many of the students in Brady’s classes have played games since they were young, Olivia had never played a computer game in her life before taking the class. “It opened up a whole new world,” she says. “You start off with nothing, create something in your mind, and end up making some-thing that other people can play with.”

Another student, Joshua, says the class taught him perseverance and “opened my mind to looking at things in different ways. The way you want something to happen isn’t always the way it’s going to be,” he says.

His peer, Ethan, agreed, adding that he also gained confidence in his prob-lem-solving abilities. “One of the main things I learned is patience and being able to troubleshoot. In game making, you have to get every single little bit right. Otherwise, it won’t work. It helped me learn how to solve lots of problems that I never would have been able to solve before.”

In November 2006, 10 of Brady’s students attended a three-day Microsoft-sponsored School of Games at the ICT Learning Innovation Centre, where they learned how to design, build, and test their own games; create graphics, anima-tion sequences, and soundtracks; and explore potential careers in the games software industry.

For his next act, Brady will introduce a three-year secondary school course that will give students a certificate in Interactive Entertainment. Students who graduate with the certificate are all but guaranteed an opportunity to pursue further studies at university or jobs with companies in Brisbane’s fast-growing games software industry. Were it not for the personal connections Brady made at an industry conference he was able to attend with financial support from the Partners in Learning grant, the certification program probably never would have been created.

To encourage girls, in particular, to explore the frontiers of technology,

population: 20.4 million

education system: 6,902 government schools serving 2.3 million students in six states and two territories

challenges: Increasing demands on school budgets and staff time make it difficult for teachers to get the profes-sional development they need. In addition, a maturing teacher population—with many educa-tors retiring over the next five years—will leave a gap in school leadership.

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aUstraLia QUicK facts


Partners in Learning also sponsors work-shops where young women can develop ICT skills and knowledge in computer pro-gramming, graphic design, animation, and game development.

The LIC also offers professional devel-opment opportunities for P–12 teachers in developing games, learning objects, and “machinima”—short movies created using 3-D computer games such as Halo. An annual Interactive Games and Learning Conference brings together teachers from across Queensland to discuss opportunities and developments in the use of games in teaching and learning, and the LIC is also helping create a self-sustaining network of teacher mentors and other educators inter-ested in the use of games as teaching tools.

“Game making has really taken off throughout Queensland, thanks to the PiL program,” says Kristine Kopelke, project officer for Games in Learning at the LIC. “The PiL funding has helped us create links and relationships between teachers, provide professional development resources, and bring people together so teachers are not trying to figure something out and feeling isolated in their classroom.”

cultivating real skills in Virtual gardens

Down the road a few hundred kilometers from Gympie, at Kurwongbah State School, students in a mixed class of 10- to 12-year-olds are playing Viva

Piñata, a Microsoft Xbox 360 game, as part of a learning unit on the environment. Through exploration of the virtual gardens of Piñata Island, which is inhabited by “wild piñatas” such as Fergy Hedgehog, Hudson Horstachio, and Franklin Fizzlybear, students are not only learning about the impacts of various activities on the environment but also developing a wide range of critical thinking skills, say Denise Tarlinton, a curriculum support teacher, and Heather Wessling, a classroom teacher.

Individually and together, students use the game to create their own garden environment and attract, protect, and nurture various animals. Through reflec-tive journaling based on their gaming experience, the students “have to make connections between what changes they’ve made to the environment on their island and how that has attracted more piñatas, and interactions between flora and fauna and food chains,” says Tarlinton.

According to Tarlinton, the students’ play stimulates higher-order thinking through exercises in problem solving, decision making, planning, and organiza-

To encourage girls to explore the

frontiers of technology, Partners in Learning sponsors workshops

where young women can develop ICT skills

and knowledge in computer programming,

graphic design, animation, and game

development.


tion, and encourages development of social skills by requiring students to listen, share, clarify, and negotiate as they work together creating gardens.

“The perception by a lot of adults—particularly parents, but even educa-tors—is that playing a game is a solo thing: You tune out, you stare at a screen, and there’s no educational value,” says Marie Leech, one of the multi-age teachers.

But when Leech and her colleagues observed the kinds of conversa-tions that were happening between students playing the game together, they saw that “they were verbalizing and communicating with each other and help-ing each other to reach decisions,” says Leech. “One of the things I like about the students collaborating is that they have to put their case forward and negotiate. To me, this is really fantastic. It’s not just looking at a screen and press-ing buttons.”

One of the issues educators face in incorporating games into the classroom is that students don’t always respond well to those designed specifically for edu-cational purposes.

“When the game makers have an educational agenda, that’s very obvious,” says Tarlinton. “The beauty of having a commercial, off-the-shelf game is that you can tell the difference, and so can the kids. The challenge is to take the things that were designed to be a popular cultural device and see what we can do with that.”

And that’s exactly what the teachers—and students—at Kurwongbah are doing. On a recent morning, one student was working on a board game that he conceptualized, combining the best of Viva Piñata and Monopoly. Aptly named Viva Piñopoly, the project required the student to search the Internet for design elements to incorporate into the game. On his own initiative, he figured out how to design the layout of Viva Piñopoly using Microsoft Excel.

“I would never have thought of using Excel to build a board game,” says Tarlinton, who noted that when she reflected on why the student chose that application, it became clear that he had really thought through that it was the most practical approach. “I would have been building little text boxes and copying and pasting and lining them all up.”

The ability of games to tap this kind of critical thinking and self-sustaining enthusiasm, especially among boys, has been a surprising and welcome discov-ery by the teaching staff at Kurwongbah.

“Honestly, some of these boys who are sitting down and creating a (Viva Piñata) poster or something like that—these are not normally the kinds of things boys do,” says Tarlinton. “It’s not like we’re trying to force something onto them. They are totally engaged. We just try to find the educational links to take advan-tage of that engagement.”

The ability of games to tap critical thinking and generate self-sustaining enthusiasm, especially among boys, has been a surprising and welcome discovery by the teaching staff at Kurwongbah State School.


The next step, says Tarlinton, is for educators to figure out how to harness students’ passions in music, games, the Internet, and other aspects of popular culture and deeply integrate that into teaching and learning tools.

“It is just seeing the potential of something, seeing the engagement level of students, and doing something constructive with it,” she says.

exploring the World—Virtually—with spatial technologies

For teenagers living in and around Coolum Beach, water sports are a big deal—so big, in fact, that Coolum State High School recently offered a

course called Surfing Excellence. Not only do the nearby beaches provide young people with limitless opportunities for outdoor activities, but they also are the foundation on which the area’s tourism economy and many of the region’s jobs are based.

So it didn’t take much to engage the students in Sally Vellar’s ninth-grade geography class as they used spatial technologies to investigate pollution of a local swimming hole—Stumers Creek—that crosses a popular stretch of sandy beach before emptying into the ocean.

Spatial technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS) are being used by governments and industry to map, navigate, collect, analyze, and model geographic information.

At Coolum State High School and other schools in Queensland, spatial technologies are being used as an exciting new learning tool to engage students in learning about the world around them, including their local communities.

“Since everything is ‘somewhere’ on the earth’s surface, spatial technology has a broad range of uses across industry and education,” says Meegan Maguire, project officer for the Spatial Technologies in Schools project managed by the ICT Learning Innovation Centre and co-sponsored by Microsoft.

Applied across a range of subjects, including geography, math, business, and the sciences, spatial technologies enable students “to become active citi-zens investigating community issues, including water quality, environmental hazards, and proposed development projects,” says Maguire. “Through this process, students apply higher-order thinking skills to synthesize, analyze, and hypothesize information in ways that help them become lifelong learners.”

For example, the students at Coolum used GIS to undertake a virtual field trip to Stumers Creek, conducting a spatial analysis of human impact and an assessment of various indicators of poor water quality. Eventually, they con-cluded that the creek was unsafe for swimming. Using GPS data from various testing locations, the students were able to develop a set of proposed strategies for improving the water quality, which were presented to and adopted by the local Maroochy Shire Council. Today the creek is once again swimmable.

“As students, we can affect what’s going on in our environment, and using GIS, we can make a difference,” says a student who participated in the research effort.


Subsequent classes taught by Vellar have continued to monitor water quality in Stumers Creek; examined the impacts of a proposed shopping center, movie studio, and industrial park; and conducted a transportation and traffic study.

Incorporating the use of computers, the Internet, and spatial technology software into her geography classes has enabled “really powerful engagement with kids,” says Vellar. “Some students who had been disengaged from learning and were presenting with behavior issues all of a sudden were doing things they knew how to do really well, so they could teach the class and they could teach me. It’s so cool when you see it happen and the kids actually grow.”

Spatial technologies have been incorporated into curriculum and educational programs throughout Queensland. For example:

• Trinity Bay State High School students used GIS software and data to assess the susceptibility of local roads to erosion using criteria such as rainfall, geology, and vegetation, and the information was submitted to a local agency for consideration as a recommended maintenance plan.

• Pimlico State High School used GIS to work with the Townsville City Council on an assessment of water quality in the city’s major waterways.

• The North Keppel Island Environmental Education Centre (EEC) applied GPS to the mapping of coral around the island and used that information to discuss reef ecosystems, including potential positive and negative human influences, long-term predictions for the biodiversity of the reef, and strategies for protecting the reef.

• The Boyne Island EEC used geocaching activities (treasure hunts using GPS to find hidden objects) to increase student interest in exploring the island and learn about the environment.

“The implementation of spatial technologies enables worthwhile learning experiences for students, motivates teachers to try new teaching methods, and provides students with career pathway opportunities into a rapidly growing field that is always looking for qualified people,” says Maguire.

conclusion

There is still much to learn about integrating games and new technologies into the classroom, but the unique partnership between Queensland’s ICT

Learning Innovation Centre and Microsoft underscores that educators don’t have to make a choice between education that is relevant and meaningful and learning activities that are fun. Indeed, the Games in Learning and Spatial Technologies in Schools projects seem to suggest that at least in some instances, the more fun learning activities are, the more relevant and meaningful they can be.


By Stephen heppell

The past decade has wrought astounding changes across the cultural spectrum: from our news and entertainment media options to the ways that we communicate, shop, and gain access to information. Education has changed dramatically as well, influenced by factors such as the widespread adoption of digital technologies and the economic changes that have caused many nations to re-examine their skills and training agendas. In 1997, it might have been acceptable to wish that a

child’s school would remain as his or her parents’ had been. Today, that wish is as inappropriate as hoping that the dentist hadn’t changed for a generation either.

Globally, there is an unmistakable 21st-century zeitgeist extending across education—a belief that our young learners will be shortchanged if we can’t make progress in learning that matches the social, economic, political, cultural, and technological changes all around us. But what is far from resolved is what form that change might take.

Some of the possibilities that have been imagined by science fiction writers over the past few decades are disturbingly impersonal and mechanical. Several of these scenarios are alarmingly eugenic; most are dismal in terms of the lack of ambition their authors reveal for learners and learning in the future. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, for example: “And now,” the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), “now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock.”

Freeing Education from the Rigid Box: The New World of Learning

Expert View

StepheN heppell has been a professor of education for 20 years and holds chairs in a number of universities. he also leads heppell.net, a policy, research, and practice consultancy that is at the heart of a network of innovative collaborators worldwide.


And it wasn’t just science fiction authors. Much of the language of 20th-century learning conveyed this impersonality. Policymakers would speak of a curriculum being “delivered” and of wisdoms being “received.” Children were considered empty vessels to be filled, and getting a sufficient percentage of them to pass an exam served to demonstrate when they were filled to near capacity! It was the most simplistic and barren of input-output models.

moving Beyond the factory school model

Looking back, it is likely that we will view the era from 1950 to 2000 as something of an aberration in the history of learning. The “factory schools”

built around the world during that era saw learning confined to rigid boxes. These boxes were evident not only in schools’ architecture but also in their timetables, discrete subject domains, “national” curricula, rigid organization, and fixed locations. Standards were confused with standardization. The foolish consequences included generating a surplus of biologists and technologists but national shortages of biotechnologists. And how about the practice of schools ringing a bell and declaring that 1,000 teenagers would be hungry at that same precise “lunchtime”—even Skinner couldn’t achieve that synchronicity with his rats! Or dressing everyone identically: What possible role could there be in the 21st century for “uniform” children? “One size fits all” seemed to be a mantra for 20th-century learning—but it doesn’t fit.

Fortunately, in the 21st century, education is embracing a new, exciting, engaging, effective future. New technology has played a huge part in this, not only because of the new opportunities it brings to the classroom through personal-ization, but also because it allows students and teachers to quickly and effectively swap great ideas with one another. There is some-thing unquenchably enthusiastic about our desire to learn and about our ambition for ourselves as learners. Students and teach-ers break out of those 20th-century boxes at every opportunity. For example, they have long since proved the effectiveness of mixed-aged teaching in families and orchestras. They’ve shown how well the stretched school day can work through sport and dramatic performances. And they have poured themselves into ambi-tious projects.

Given the slightest opening, children will jump out of their “age phase” to confound teachers and parents alike with their precociousness. Do you remember the excitement of hearing a teacher say, “I shouldn’t tell you this yet, but I’m going to anyway”? There is something electrifying about getting there quicker than intended, about chasing and closing in on the achievements of older children.

Looking back, it is likely that we will view the era from 1950 to 2000 as something of an aberration in the history of learning. The “factory schools” built around the world during that era saw learning confined to rigid boxes.


None of that is new, but what is new is a change in employment, for many, around the world. Countries are finding that the old cheap-labour model of simple, repetitive tasks has been overtaken by the efficiency of automation. Rather than children who can repeat tasks mindlessly, we now need ingenious, collaborative children who can solve problems, be leaders, and work as part of a team. We need children who have the imagination and understanding to build and design better robots, not be robots themselves.

new Learning strategies fueled by technology

Technology has made this difference in the way we work. Fortunately, it also is making a difference to how we learn. This report contains much compel-

ling evidence that learning is rushing into the 21st century with eyes wide open. Each of us can likely think of many more examples, but we also know that noth-ing about 21st-century education is simple.

The UK government’s ambitious plan to rebuild all secondary schools by 2015 poses the complex question of what these schools should look like. The

Enquiring Minds project, described elsewhere in this publication, is focused on creating a scalable, personalized, inquiry-based curriculum that can begin to inform the design of those new schools and be complementary with the best of them.

Similarly, in Singapore, the government has always understood the link between new learning and the new economy. To help make that ambitious vision of new learning a reality, Microsoft is collab-orating with the Singapore government on a five-year, US$13 million initiative—BackPack.NET—

designed to foster creativity and align it with critical thinking and self-directed learning. BackPack.NET involves developing a strategy for testing new tech-nologies in education by providing pilot schools with cutting-edge tools such as Tablet PCs for every student. This approach is helping ensure that while tomor-row’s technology might surprise us, we will be well prepared with strategies that help us to effectively embed it in the learning environment.

Australia also has a track record in innovative learning that is as long as its history. Engaging students is easy, as we have all seen with computer entertain-ment and games; the challenge lies in keeping that engagement appropriate for ambitious and at-risk learners. Microsoft-funded initiatives in both Queensland and Tasmania involve state education officials and educators exploring the use of games and an innovative online curriculum to excite students through new models of learning.

While working with a number of schools in China, I paused to ask their head teachers what learning might be like in a decade or so if everything progressed in an appropriate direction. “Surely,” one replied after some thought, “there might

In the 21st century, education is embracing a new, exciting, engaging, effective future.

New technology has played a huge part in this, not only because of the new

opportunities it brings to the classroom through personalization, but also because it allows students and teachers to quickly and

effectively swap great ideas with one another.


be a little more joy?” The case studies in this document, and others like them, indicate that there will be a lot more joy—and learning, too—as new technol-ogy, new pedagogy, and newly ambitious young learners come together to revisit learning in schools.

New technology has enabled some fascinating models of effective learning. Children can now chat with scientists, engineers, and other experts in online communities; become completely absorbed by ambitious tasks; support one another regardless of age; and find ingenious new ways to work. Nearly 15 years ago, in the early days of the Internet, pioneering projects like Learning in the New Millennium showed how effectively these new communication technologies could help make learning outcomes far more ambitious. Today, those online revelations are being repeated in physical school buildings and school organizations.

Like Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz, learning is being whisked away on a whirlwind of change and imagination. When it touches back down to earth in another 10 years, the education landscape will certainly look significantly dif-ferent than it does today. This report provides some intriguing clues as to what we might see instead.

part ii: case studies innovative...

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