For me the last term like many teaching has been sitting at a computer working from home. I found that this has required more community support than ever. I posted about collaboration and community in May, but felt there was more to say about the approach going forwards.
After the change in emphasis at the end of June it is unclear exactly what school will look like in August but whatever it looks like curation and community will remain important.
This blog was started to share my experience of using blended and flipped learning approaches and I have learnt much over the past six years that I have been an MIEExpert (Microsoft innovative educator expert). This past year I also became a physics teacher coach with the Institute of Physics Scotland, supporting the teaching of physics in my local area and across Scotland during since April.
When remote learning started the IOPS coaches saw the need to further improve the curation of resources. The IOPs physics coaches team led by Stuart Farmer (Education Manager, Scotland) consist of myself, Allan Reid, Brian Redman, David Vincent, Drew Burrett, Jennie Hargreaves, Malcolm Thomson, Martyn Crawshaw, Matthew Burke, Murat Gullan and Tim Browett.
The physics teacher community have always been good at sharing resources and have Talk Physics to upload documents and an active email discussion group called SPUTNIK. (To sign up to SPUNIK please contact Drew Burrett). Much has been made of the difference between remote and face to face teaching, I would argue good learning and teaching is the same in either situation, a good summary of good teaching can be found in the evidence based education report.
There are of course challenges in remote learning, many teachers and their students had little IT equipment at home and little experience in using Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom. The Scottish MIEExpert and the IOPs team have provided support to their schools, LA and across Scotland with how to videos and webinars for educators, parents, and pupils to help. I am pleased to have helped leading sessions attended by almost 200 teachers on Teams, Forms and Sway. This blog has had 11,000 views and the videos on my YouTube channel have been more than 22,000. I have also contributed to the posts and 5,000 views on the Scottish MIEExpert blog .
The IOPs team have carried out over 20 online sessions and received excellent reviews of their online CLPL sessions with a rating of 4.8 out of 5. Recordings and details of the presentations from many of the IOPs online webinar session can be found on Talk Physics.
When considering remote learning, aspects of direct instruction can be replaced asynchronously by videos and narrated lessons. Many teachers across Scotland have been creating and sharing how to create these using PowerPoint recorder, Loom, Flipgrid etc. I myself have made over 60 videos during lockdown for my students. To replace questioning and provide instant and delayed feedback Microsoft/Google Forms quizzes have been used. More challenging has been replicating the discussion and collaboration remotely particularly for digitally shy learners, with some using Teams, OneNote or Flipgrid for this. Successful learning remotely had to get digital accessibility, instruction clarity and teacher clarity right often by taking the learners point of view to check and consider the pedagogy. To facilitate this the IOPS team created a spreadsheet to link resources for each part of a lesson, introduction, activity, practice, assessment, consolidation for each of the learning outcomes within all the senior phase courses.
With practical work and the observations, contradictions and analysis that leads to an important part of physics, the IOPs team were keen to share how experiments can be designed so they can be completed at home.
For assessment Google Forms and Microsoft Forms can be used. The Microsoft Forms quizzes have been curated in Wakelets with over 150 so far shared from teachers across Scotland. The quizzes are linked in the spreadsheet but can also be found here: AH Physics: https://wke.lt/w/s/oA4U2b Higher Physics: https://wke.lt/w/s/4IXUni
N5 Physics: https://wke.lt/w/s/TjmEk8
My belief and that of the IOPs team is our role is curation of resources from across Scotland, saving time in teachers reinventing the wheel. This allows teachers to have more focus on the pedagogy and worry less about the what have I got and how do I do that. This approach has been shared with other science disciplines in the recent senior phase webinars organised by Education Scotland and taken up as good practice.
Moving ahead to blended learning these resources will be crucial and we hope that teachers across Scotland will contribute their resources for the benefit of all.
Clicking the open in app option produces more options. Lots of pen choices in the menu at the bottom, highlighter, ruler, insert images, and an insert menu for lots of file options.
At the top of the screen is also the settings menu with a range of options including post to Teams (a link) and send the link to OneNote.
Microsoft have this video showing all the available features in the Whiteboard app.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UunJleM0m-c
Post to Teams
For within the Whiteboard app you can open up the whiteboard and choose share in Teams, pick a team and a channel of where you want the link shared.
Here is what the post looks like.
Share a Whiteboard from Whiteboard app
New whiteboards can be created within the Whiteboard app, they can be renamed and then we can invite students to share the whiteboard app. When students are invited there is an option to allow them to edit or view. So using this approach provides an option to have a read only Whiteboard.
At the moment there is no straightforward option to change a Whiteboard from collaborative to read only, this is being worked on by the Microsoft Team.
Within Glow the setup does not seem to allow the addition of invites by O365 groups or by Team details.
Using more than one device
If as a teacher you join the Team meeting with another device then you can use that one to access the Whiteboard and add resources, inking, etc. For example join the Team meeting on a PC then use your iPAD to add inking.
Using OneNote
An alternative option to using Whiteboard is to use the OneNote within Teams as a whiteboard.
You could use the the collaborative section within a Team OneNote as a whiteboard for collaboration or could use a page within the content library within a Team OneNote for a read only option.
Using inking in other Office 365 apps (PowerPoint, Word)
An additional option for a read only display would be to use PowerPoint and inking or Word and inking.
The Institute of Physics are running a number of online learning sessions and offer a range of support for physics teacher.
The Scottish curriculum support resources can be found on Talk Physics in the Teaching Physics in Scotland Group. This includes a spreadsheet of shared resources including videos, questions, quizzes and simulations useful for remote learning and available for both Google and Microsoft platforms.
There are weekly virtual physics staffroom meetings the next one is tomorrow, Friday 22nd May with one arranged for the following week Friday 29th May.
Finally for the next week we are having our second meeting on using Microsoft tools for teaching physics remotely. This event will focus on the Microsoft Teams platform, with emphasis on:
• Channels & Posts
• Assignments
• Insights & Grades
This post follows a challenging week for myself, I reached out to a colleague sharing these challenges and received the comment from a colleague that I should feel proud of the leadership, compassion and support that I am offering teachers, pupils and parents during these challenging times and that my help and advice guidance have been invaluable to them and many others.
This has led me to reflect on two of the communities that I am proud to be a leading part of. These are the Microsoft Educator community in Scotland and the Institute of Physics physics teacher community.
The vast majority of members of both these communities are like myself classroom teachers.
Microsoft Educator Community
I have been a user of digital technology for many years and joined the Microsoft Educator Community and became a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert (MIEExpert) for the first time 6 years ago.
Being part of this community has been invaluable at these times for the transfer of knowledge and sharing of information that takes place on a daily basis. It is heart-warming to be able to ask questions and get answers from other teachers by sharing our expertise amongst the other 90 staff we are in turn able to support others within our school and local authority. We have a weekly Teams call to discuss ideas, share practice and solve problems.
I have shared my previous and current experience with my colleagues in school and across the local authority, despite my job role being just a physics teacher. This has led me to achieving trainer status due to the number of hours and level of support provided.
I have created Glow help Teams for pupils and for staff and created videos to show both how to do things within Teams. Videos on my YouTube channel include:
Colleagues, pupils and parents have shared their thanks for my help and assistance.
Physics community
In addition to being part of the MIEExpert community I am also part of the physics teacher community as a physics teacher coach for the Institute of Physics Scotland.
We have been holding webinars and meetings to support physics teachers. Helping their wellbeing and providing support to build capacity in use of digital skills and advice on how to plan effective digital lessons. These have been running for a couple of week very successfully with each meeting having at least 50 attendances showing that there is a need for this support. Topics in the staff meeting included SQA estimates as well as other support.
On Tuesday we held a 90 minute workshop on using Microsoft tools and had over 80 attendees. The presenters were all Scottish classroom teachers from across the country:
Mr Burrett, Stewarton Academy, East Ayreshire
Mr Beattie, Inverclyde Academy, Inverclyde
Mrs Clarke, Queen Anne High School, Fife (Biology/science)
Mr McCord, Firrhill High School, Edinburgh
Feedback from the session was really positive and satisfying. Two that sum up completely positive comments are:
This sort of event is invaluable to folks like me who are at the beginning of the journey with this stuff. Thanks so much
An excellent session. Presenters were clear, concise and very well prepared. Questions were answered quickly and helpfully. There was a real sense of community surrounding the proceedings. The team is to be congratulated for having the vision to step outside of the Physics environment to bring in experts regardless of their subject and for opening the session to scientists of all denominations. Once again Physics is leading the way. Well done.
The following day other colleagues in the IOPs physics coaching team gave a session for those using Google classroom tools.
Mr Lawrie, George Watson’s college, Edinburgh
Mr Crawshaw, Millburn Academy, Inverness
Mr Burke, Lochaber, Fort William
Mr Browett, Aberdeen
Today I have been helping our regional partner from Skills Development Scotland understand how they can use the Teams digital platform to provide careers advice and information to across Tayside.
I shared a Forms survey with my pupils to ask them how things were going, 76 pupils responded with feedback and comments. Here are some images from a presentation I am making for teachers about what they said. The layout of my Team and the structure is discussed in the post about My Microsoft Team
The top rating is for physics and the bottom one for all other subjects.
If you are looking to arrange Teams Meetings it is important that you use the correct settings.
Within Glow Scotland pupil video during a Teams meeting is switched off at all times. Teacher video can be switched on. Both teacher and pupil are able to use audio and both are able to share and present their screen depending upon the settings.
It is not currently possible to record Teams meetings as within Glow this functionality is not switched on. You may see mention of Microsoft Stream in videos shared on the internet. This feature is also switched off in Glow.
There are several ways of arranging a meeting, using the meet now feature, scheduling in Teams, scheduling via Outlook.
Stewart Brown of Athelstaneford Primary School shows these here.
In general it is not recommended to use the Meet now feature with students. This is because there are fewer controls in this option in terms of who is a presenter and who is an attendee. There could also be potential issues with the meeting remaining open or pupils re-joining a meeting after you the teacher leave it.
I would therefore recommend you schedule any meeting. In either scenario you need to make pupils attendees rather than presenters. Otherwise you can find pupils can remove other pupils and mute other pupils too.
Here is a video that looks at stopping that.
Teams meetings they can be within a particular Team or channel or can be scheduled directly from Outlook.
If you schedule in a channel then pupils will be able to chat during the meeting and could posts gifs etc unless the channel setup prevents member (Pupil) chat or posting of gifs/memes etc.
If you schedule via Outlook as shown in this next meeting then since the chat in Teams is not enabled for pupils there is no possibility for pupil chat in this situation. This may well be good for larger meeting like assemblies but might be less useful in teaching situations.
This is a video from Mrs Barr showing how you would join this meeting.
When ending the meeting as a teacher you should click the three dots and click end call rather than use the hang up (red phone) button. This ends the meeting for all participants.
We are using Microsoft Teams as a school for our distance learning. Being in Scotland we have access to Teams through Glow Scotland a Scottish wide Microsoft tenancy I believe it is the 2nd largest tenancy in the world.
Teams Settings
Within Teams there are some setting for your Team that you might want to turn on or off. GIFS, memes etc. Although I have GIFS and memes turned on in my senior channels as they are good fun. Here is a video about using stickers and memes from Microsoft.
Particularly the rights to delete and edit messages.
I have set up my Teams with a general channel that can only be posted to by the Owner/teacher. This is set in the manage channel setting click on the three dots to the right of it.
In the general channel I make announcements rather than posts and have some custom backgrounds for each Team. Here is a Microsoft video on announcements and messages.
Each channel also has a tab that links to the Class Materials document library in SharePoint for those on Android devices that cannot currently access the files on the Android app.
Insights
I have also added the Insights app to the Team. Here is a video from Microsoft showing how the data from Insights can be used. You only need to add this to one channel within your Team. Microsoft are planning to increase the features including one that allows owners to see student activity across a number of teams.
There is an option to export data from Teams into Excel. Here is a quick video showing you how this can be done from the Insights tab and the Grades tab.
A very quick and easy way to get a list of names of students who are both inactive or have outstanding assignments or no assignments handed in. The export from Grades also allows you to read the comments and marks you gave in an offline context. One of the possibilities using the export to Excel feature is that you can do additional analysis that may not be available directly within Teams. For example you can look at inactivity over a different period of time as shown in my video or a section of time. Microsoft are adding more directly reported features to Insights but this allows you to do the analysis you want.
Creating a Team from an existing team as a template
You can create a Team from a template. This copies the channel structure, teams settings, apps and tabs – content, such as files, is not copied across to the new Team.
This can be selected in the creation process.
Announcements and custom backgrounds
I like to use announcements for my posts and have created custom backgrounds for them that I uploaded to the post. These were created in PowerPoint where I shaded a rectangle and added some background images appropriate to the topic being learnt.
snup
The Team has a chat channel where students are allowed to informally chat and post anything they like as long as it is appropriate.
Add channels by clicking on the three dots to the right of the Team name.
The chat channel is to encourage some socialisation and the more informal conversations that happen in class. You might notice I have used an Emoji 💬 in the channel name this is a fun way to get visual engagement. It is recommended that you name the channel with normal characters first for Team stability in underlying SharePoint then you can edit the channel name to the right of the channel. Remember you can’t rename the general channel. On Windows devices pressing windows key and . together get you the emoji keyboard. Teams channels are ordered alphabetically and by unicode number for emoji.
Whilst on the subject of keyboard shortcuts, make sure you know windows-shift-S for snipping things using the Snip and Sketch tool which is how I collected the images in this blog .
Each week I create a new channel. I start off creating this new Weekly channel as it hidden from the members, but unhide it when I want it to go live. Remember to do this otherwise pupils can’t see it. You unhide the menu in the edit this channel menu and click the box.
Within the weekly channel I start with an announcement with the work that is set for that week. This information can be copied directly the Team assignments set for that work often about 4 per week.
The announcement includes hyperlinks to all of the resources that are loaded into the Class Materials folder in folder created for Week 1 linear motion (in this case).
The same files are duplicated into the file tab within the week 1 channel. Unless changed this folder is not read only. To do that click on the three dots and select open in SharePoint.
On SharePoint the library click the documents menu at the side.
On the right of the folder click the three dots and manage access.
The panel on the right is then shown and change from can edit to can view.
Although this blog has a lot of digital specific details, the most important part of distance learning is the pedagogy. The work I am doing is almost entirely asynchronous so that it can be done at any time. There are some live chats or voice calls to check up on pupils and answer questions.
The Education Endowment Fund have published a research evaluation about digital learning. The key findings from their rapid research review are:
Teaching quality is more important than how lessons are delivered
Ensuring access to technology is key, especially for disadvantaged pupils
Peer interactions can provide motivation and improve learning outcomes
Supporting pupils to work independently can improve learning outcomes
Different approaches to remote learning suit different types of content and pupils
We know how important feedback is to learning and therefore I feel this is an important area digitally for two reasons. Firstly without face to face interactions and questioning we lose our ability to make judgements as to where the students are and to diagnose misconceptions and misunderstandings. Secondly without effective and regular feedback students do not get recognition of their efforts. We may then find that engagement may dwindle for all but the most dedicated students – hardly closing the attainment gap! Using Microsoft Form quizzes can provide that provide instant feedback. A short quiz can be used as a diagnostic assessment, branching functions can be used to provide more questions for learners that struggle and to add in a video or something to read as a substitute for the teacher classroom scaffolding. For each question feedback comments can be provided too indicating where to improve or what to think about.
The structure I have for most of the lessons or tasks are:
Recall quiz from previous week or prior knowledge
Introduction video
Activity
Questions
Diagnostic assessment
Consolidation
Some quizzes and assessments are reissued to pupils to do again if understanding is not shown or I can see they were completed in a very short time.
Videos are hosted on Office Videos as we don’t have Stream on in our Glow Scotland tenancy. I also have the videos uploaded in my Mr Bailey YouTube channel as some pupils find this easier to access.
I have been making videos for a number of years so am able to reuse some from the past and also the experience of making them.
Most of the videos are recorded using Microsoft PowerPoint recorder where I narrate over slides, sometimes incorporating animations and short online videos.
Here is a Microsoft video on using PowerPoint recorder. This includes some feature not available in Glow.
All Glow users can download Microsoft Office on their PC for free. If you log into Glow and go to www.office.com there is then an option on the top right to download. Many LA also have a tile on the launchpad to download Glow as shown in this video which you can on 15 devices.
The PowerPoint recording menu is switch off, go to File menu then Options and customise ribbon. On the right side click recording.
The following week starts with a recap test on the previous week to check for understanding. Some quizzes are reissued to pupils to do again if they do poorly especially if I can see a small time of work.
If you are attaching files for pupils to edit and put in answers within assignments then you should make sure that they are:
docx not doc for Word
pptx not ppt for PowerPoint
xlsx not xls for Excel
So make sure you upload the correct file format and if you want to make the file editable choose the students edit their own copy option in the three dots to the right.
Remember if you upload PDF files then these cannot be edited if if they are editable ones. So only use PDF files for notes or instructions. If you want to change PDF to word you can do this in Microsoft Word. Here is a video showing how you can change a PDF to Word using the Office app on your phone.
Alerts / Notifications for Teams Assignments
It is possible to set up notifications for when pupils upload work to Teams Assignments. Thanks to Donna Shah for sharing this. This is done in the underlying SharePoint site for the Team.
Go to the SharePoint site by choosing the files tab and then selecting behind the three dots on the right open in SharePoint. You then see the view below.
From here choose the Site Settings. Then click on the student work folder.
Within the student work folder are two folders submitted files and working files. The working files folder is the one we are going to use to set an alert/notification when a student add a file to Teams assignments. Here the student can still edit the file, when they click hand-in the file goes to the submitted files folder and the student can no longer edit it.
Choose from the three dots of the right of the working files menu, the alert me option.
We choose email, alert when new items are added, all changes would also alert when pupils edit items. Then we have chosen a daily summary by email at 3.00 pm.
Tags for Assignments
Adding tags for assignments can help you find them quickly and filter. This from Lucy Lock shows how to add tags.
Marking Assignments
Sometimes when reviewing students hand-in work in assignments the files don’t load properly. To overcome this I have added a link to the underlying SharePoint site adding a link to the Student work folder and then you can go to the submitted files folder, find the correct pupil and click the handed-in files. Here is a video showing how to add that Student Work shortcut the SharePoint navigation menu. You can see this on the left in the picture below.
Making Work clear to students
Here is my announcement post. Within the announcement posts I include hyperlinks to all of the resources that are needed for these tasks. I feel that this helps make the learning much clearer.
Note the Form link in the video above is not correct. The hyperlinks for the Forms quizzes if setting using an Assignment need to be shared from the Form that sits within the Groups part of Forms as shown below. Then open the Form and share. Here is a Microsoft video on Forms and sharing.
Opening the files document in SharePoint allow you to click the dots on the right of the file and click copy link.
Here is the announcement post with all the links. The same details are copied into the Assignments tasks including the hyperlinks as well as attaching the files to complete or Forms quiz.
This is what it looks like on the Assignment. By scheduling the assignments they can go live at the start of the week.
For each channel I have also created a SharePoint Webpage called To do list and have linked to this SharePoint page using a tab. I got this idea and some of the other I use from a Remote Learning webinar with Dr David Kellerman on what he is doing with Remote learning at UNSW Australia.
I have this saved as a template page and then adjust the content accordingly.
I add into the page:
Videos hosted in Glow Video.
Slides PDF documents
Forms Quizzes
Question documents
This SharePoint page is added as a weblink tab at the top of the weekly channel. At the moment resources loaded via SharePoint seem to be quicker to respond than those through the Teams interface.
Within SharePoint I have added a menu link to the Student Work folder link as sometimes I use that a few times Teams Assignments has struggle to load files handed in. So adding a link to the hand-in work directly in SharePoint means you can view the files there.
The file location is TeamName/Student%20%Work (the %20% is just the space) between Student Work.
Last but not least I have populated my OneNote class notebook in the Team sharing resources with pupils here.
This is a post to show teachers how to add feedback in Microsoft Forms and to show where pupils will receive and see that feedback.
Create a Microsoft Forms Quiz
Add questions, in each multiple choice question there is an option to add feedback to students choosing particular answers. This is seen after a pupil submits the quiz.
For short answers there is an option to put in the correct answer for automatic marking. For long answers there is not automatic marking response or feedback.
Now create the assignment with the forms quiz. Choose quiz in the create assignments option.
Select the Forms Quiz you made earlier.
Add instructions, set which students, dates etc. Then click assign or schedule if setting at a later date.
Pupil view
Assignment post appears in general channel and can be opened by clicking view assignments or can be accessed from the assignments tab.
Pupil clicks on attached Form Quiz.
Pupil completes Forms quiz
Clicks on submit. After clicking on submit the Thanks screen appears and there is an option to view results.
The view results screen indicates points awarded and can indicate feedback for question responses “message for respondents selecting this answer” if the teacher added them into the form.
Correct answers for short answer questions are shown. If the pupil answer differs this will be marked incorrect, it may be an acceptable alternative.
For long responses there is no feedback or mark at this stage.
If the pupil goes to the Grades tab in that Team they see that they have handed in this work.
Now the pupil waits for the teacher to put in their comments and feedback and return the work.
Teacher adds feedback
In the assignments tab, teacher can see pupil has handed in work. To open the Forms quiz, they can click on handed in or Open in Forms.
In the Grades tab, teacher can see that work has been handed in as they see a score. They can then click on the three dots …
If using from Grades, click Open Student Work to enter feedback and correct marks.
Don’t click return work or you will not have sent in any comments or checked their work and will not be able to add later.
When Microsoft Forms is open you can leave overall feedback by clicking the box to the right of the band that includes the pupil name. This is the feedback that goes to the pupil assignment summary view.
You can click on the other questions and accept answers if they were correct and not marked correctly for short answers changing the points awarded. You can leave feedback by clicking on the feedback option for each question.
Here is a view of some feedback for the overall section at the top and question 1.
For short answer questions we can correct the automatic marking if the pupil response was correct but not exactly the same as the correct answer. If pupils are still to hand in you can go back to the Form and add other correct responses. You need to go to Forms then Groups then choose the Team Form you have set. You can then click it open and edit the correct answer option for this question.
Longer questions are not automatically marked so you need to read the response and allocate marks accordingly. You can leave additional feedback under these questions.
Now you need to Post Scores for pupil to see the feedback you enter. If you do not Post Scores the pupil will not see any of the comments.
A confirmation message comes up when Post Scores is selected.
The teacher view in the Grades tab now shows returned.
In the assignment tab the pupil moves from the To mark list to the Marked list. Clicking on the toggle feedback option shows the summary feedback you entered in the Forms quiz and you see the total marks.
Pupil view to get feedback
Grades view in Team shows assignment has been returned to pupil and a points score.
To see the detailed information the pupil click assignment and goes to the completed assignments.
Or they can click on the view assignment post in the general channel.
Pupils see this, the points and the feedback added. This feedback area can be blank if none was added by the teacher.
The feedback added here is from the overall feedback section (see teacher view).
Pupil clicks back on the attached Forms quiz.
Feedback is shown (if teacher has added more).
Here are some annotations of the feedback and where it comes from.
A video showing the process above, how teachers can provide feedback in Microsoft Forms.
A video showing how to view pupil feedback in Microsoft Forms.
Review answers, overview, by question or by person
When you open the Form, click on the responses tab. The first view is the overall response view. Information is presented in pie charts or bar graphs.
Clicking on review answers you have a choice to review by people or by questions.
The review by questions screen that allows you to look at responses for the same question and leave feedback too. You could copy and paste some of the feedback between different students.
These instructions are created thanks to Al Friend from CastleBay school in Barra and the #TeamMIEEScotland team where this was shared.
This uses a Microsoft form to add an entry into a shared Excel spreadsheet. The form includes a rating question asking how the pupils are and if the mark is 3 or 4 out of 10 then it sends an email is sent upon submission to certain staff members. If the mark is 1 or 2 out of 10 an email is sent upon submission to other staff members.
Our pupil care and support staff team, heads of years, deputes and senior leaders have access to the shared Excel file so can check the entries during the day and contact the young people or their families accordingly.
Instructions for creation.
Create the Microsoft Form . We have found this only works with a personal form. Power Automate doesn’t give the group forms as an option to choose from.
Here is the form we are using. A mixture of multiple choice, a rating, long answer questions.
2. Create the Excel file that will store the data. Ours in created in the documents storage in SharePoint in a Staff Microsoft Team.
Create the headings.
Insert Table to turn them into a table.
Not all of the headings we have are used by Power Automate.
3. Create the Power Automate Flow. Here is the outline of the Power Automate (Flow). We will go through each section.
Step 1 and 2 shown below.
Name the Flow (1)
Choose the when a new response is submitted from Microsoft Forms (2)
For the condition int (rating) part put the cursor into the brackets of int( ) and then click on the green field that holds the rating value. and choose from the Dynamic Content tab.
The link to the spreadsheet in the email can be copied from the document library. You can of course put in the pupil names if you wish into the email, we choose to make the email anonymous and ask staff to check the spreadsheet for the name.
At the end of the digital prototype pupils and parents were asked to complete an online survey to collect their views. This report is a summary of the responses.
Helpful?
80% of pupils and parents thought the digital prototype helped with their learning with 25% of pupils and 55% of parents saying by a lot. 15% of parents and pupils saying it didn’t help at all.
Ease of use
Almost all pupils and parents reported they found the device easily to use, and the resources in OneNote easy to find once they were shown how to find them.
Digital Inking and digital resources
Almost all found the digital inking easy to use and very helpful for physics equations, 50% of the pupils still preferred at the end of the prototype to write on normal paper, 25% of them preferred to use the keyboard to enter digital information and 25% use the digital pen to enter the information.
20% of pupils preferred just digital notes, 30% preferred paper notes and 50% stated no preference.
Software & IT
60% of pupils had no issues with their device with 40% having some issues that were almost all fixed. Issues included pen functionality, sometimes it did not write properly and sometimes the buttons did not work. One pupil had an issue with charging the Surface as the charger was missing.
Wi-Fi issues occurred for some pupils using the Surface in classes other than physics due to weaker wireless connectivity in some areas of the school. One pupil had an issue with the auto saving features of Word online not saving files properly, this was resolved through discussions with Glow support. Sometimes the pupils did not notice that the Wi-Fi was not connected and this mean that sometimes new work was not synchronised from OneNote to their device or they needed to renter their Glow username and password after an update. Sometimes Windows updates meant devices were updating rather than available for use.
Almost all pupils and 70% of parents found it helpful to be able to install software on the surface. In addition to Office 365 software (Word and Excel), some pupils installed Serif Draw for graphic communication, Music Writing Software such as MuseScore, iTunes, Avid Sibelius, Flash card software for revision.
Wi-Fi Access
All pupils and 85% of parents felt it was really helpful to have Wi-Fi access within school. Their reasons were;
Allowed use of IT if the library PC’s were booked.
Allowed them to look up information in class
Enabled them to look up information instead of asking the teacher.
Ability to look at a range of notes from different subjects whilst they were in school.
Internet access during study periods.
With everything from Physics on OneNote. It allowed them to access materials within form tutor time.
Pupil comments about Wi-Fi access.
It’s very beneficial to have access to Wi-Fi in school, especially during times where you’re doing homework or revision for a certain class (like in form tutor time). This is because if you’re stuck and your teacher isn’t there to help you, you can try and look up help or find notes online. You could of course go to the department for help if it’s urgent or necessary, but having the internet to help you as an alternative is also a good option. It’s also good for accessing past papers online in school for revision at any times and being able to write digitally on to the past papers.
Allowed access to internet notes in my study periods and helped ability for self-study.
I could use online resources for homework and classwork as well as making notes (e.g. Quizlet, OneNote online)
It got to connect to the internet wherever you were, so if you ever got stuck in a subject and the teacher was busy then you could just look it up.
Some parent comments about Wi-Fi access
Seamless learning – also teaches pupil to access responsibly
Internet access is required for modern research and learning.
Helpful as easy access to internet information at any point when required.
Ability to access the information during school hours when e.g. Form time was quiet.
To use the Internet to answer a question if the teacher is busy
My daughter could go into the SQA website while at school and access past papers without having to go find a computer to use.
Use of Surface
70% of pupils used their Surface at home for a range of school work with 25% using it only for physics, 5% did not use it for any school work at home. 50% of the pupils said they used it at home every day and 30% every other day. 85% of parents reported their children used it most days.
Other subjects
70% of pupils used the Surface in English, 30% in Maths and Chemistry, 20% in Graphics Communications, PE, Geography, French or Design.
30% of pupils reported that no other subjects provided digital resources for their learning.
Uses in other subjects included, digital textbooks such as dynamic learning in Geography, researching information, writing assignments and reports, finding past paper questions, for getting feedback on written or digital work in class to reduce time wasted at home, for translation and Linguascope listening in languages.
Learning
60% of pupils felt they received more feedback in Physics than in other subjects and all stated they read the digital feedback in OneNote.
85% of pupils watched the learning videos embedded in the OneNote and found them helpful for their learning.
80% of pupils used the OneNote resources to catch up on work missed when absent or for revision.
80% of parents were aware of the digital feedback being provided in OneNote.
75% of parents knew their child could use the resources to catch up on missed work.
90% of pupils and 60% of parents felt the digital resources helped them to be more independent and control the pace of learning.
Only 50% of parents were aware that pupils also had been issued with a physics textbook.
Digital Skills
75% of pupils and parents felt digital skills had improved.
75% of pupils and 60% of parents felt they were now more likely to work independently.
Revision
75% of pupils used the Surface for exam revision in all subjects. 20% used it just for physics revision and 5% didn’t use it at all for any subject. Activities included, BBC Bitesize, Scholar, downloading past paper questions, A few copied notes for all of their subjects onto OneNote replacing all their paper resources, pupils practiced typing essays for English and History, Quizlet was used for online quizzes.
Pupil comments regarding revision included:
Used the past papers on OneNote for Physics revision, with the advantage of being able to write straight onto them. Also accessed the notes on OneNote. For other subjects like chemistry, I mainly just used the surface at school or at home for quick access to past papers. For English, I got from the internet different notes on the novel I had to do an essay on and the Scottish set text poems for revision. The surface was mainly used for physics though.
I copied notes for all of my subjects using the Surface and did a lot of past papers for them all which was easier to do on the Surface as I didn’t need to get paper and a pen and instead was just able to us the tablet itself.
I used it for history – typing essays and finding information. I also used it for English – typing essays I also used it go on the SQA website to do past papers.
I accessed past papers for my other subjects, also accessing Scholar and OneNote
I looked through course notes through OneNote which really helped me as everything gave examples and I had Mr Bailey to look through my work and mark it but also to give me feedback.
I used OneNote for physics and English, Linguascope for French and Quizlet for biology, English and chemistry.
Parental comments
Although surface was used during year for classwork I believe most of revision appeared to be written in note former and taken from a variety of sources.
Accessing the past papers, making use of BBC Bitesize, accessing the listening tests for Spanish, accessing internet to help with research on history topics etc.
Accessing past papers and BBC Bitesize and Scholar
Revising through each page in OneNote for each unit to prepare for the exam
Future recommendation
80% of pupils and parents recommended that future pupils should be issued with digital devices.
Some pupils would prefer a mix of digital and paper resources. A few parents stated a textbook would have been easier to flick through (they must have been in the 50% unaware that textbooks had been issued).
Some pupils and parents felt they were distracted with the internet and games and this impaired their learning. One parent believe that the digital device reduced the time spent with the teacher. One parent commented that whilst helpful to catch up with work, they were not convinced that exam results would improve. Another felt that once the surface was provided my child lost interest, it was too easy for them to stray off from the work they are meant to be doing and they lose interest. If the teacher is working with the children there is more chance of them learning and the teacher is more likely to see what stage the child is at, since getting the surface my child lost all interest with Physics.
Pupil comments
Positive comments
I do think the devices are good for having the digital notes, doing questions/past papers and independent learning, etc. However, I do think it would also be beneficial in class to still have jotters for class-written notes and any worked examples, while still doing what we did during Higher Physics on OneNote. I personally feel more of a mix between normal learning and digital learning would be best suited for me.
The Surface made it much easier to access notes and when it came to assignments it was a lot better with the tablets as we didn’t have to book a library or anything and saved a lot of time making it easier to focus on the schoolwork. The teacher feedback was also very good as the teacher was able to see everything we did on each note so we always received fast feedback
The surface is a great device for obtaining feedback on your coursework for Physics from your teacher. You can ask for help at home when on study leave or on school holidays. The surface will help improve your digital skills for the future.
Able to work simply at your own pace. Teachers can mark work in OneNote quickly and easily. Easy to access other online learning resources.
Extremely easy to access useful learning resources such as OneNote and Scholar, and unlike paperwork, work on the tablet cannot be lost or misplaced
Access to digital notes and past papers is extremely useful and using the devices allows pupils to develop more independent learning skills.
I believe the surface allowed me to have a better understanding of the coursework and I think future pupils can have the same experience as far as understanding the coursework goes
I think the Surfaces where very effective for home learning and revision and allowed me to study more independently
Helpful with learning and much faster and more portable than school computers which are atrocious.
The tablets are good for continuing were you left of from at home and you were easily able to get the formula sheet when needed and was also able to get any other question sheet easily which was helpful
It was far easier to access school work if I was ill or if I was behind everyone else in a lesson, it also helped because it was easy to access and had lots of resources.
You get help from your teachers even if you’re at home and this helps a lot and you won’t need to wait till you in class to ask for help. This can speed up people learning and help them to do better in the subjects also its very easy access school resources.
Negative comments
I feel they are a useful tool in learning, but they were sometimes a distraction in class.
They are broken too easily and will be expensive to fix.
They become distracting for people and make it harder to concentrate the best thing about it was being able to access work at home, but people usually get distracted by things like the internet and games.
I personally got distracted sometimes during class with the OneNote and would not finish/do the work given.
I found using it in general was difficult for me.
Don’t do it again people just want the Wi-Fi to connect their phone and not for learning.
We didn’t have the source S folder on our tablets, so if we needed something from there we could not do the work on our tablets.
Parental Comments
My daughter has always been on top of her class work and always studied independently but the digital device has been a great help as she could see what they have been doing in class easily and catch up on work if she missed a class.
It was a very useful tool. It enabled revision of all different subjects when away from home. The Physics resources provided were extremely helpful. I think it increases engagement more than learning from a textbook. It allows access when at school to lots of different online tools e.g. Linguascope.
It allows access to a great range of resources which otherwise would be missed.
Appropriate for use and learning in the modern era. Will provide opportunities to locate information and to test knowledge. Plus the added advantage of increasing IT skills, beneficial to the job market.
It was extremely easy to contact the teacher from home and pupils prefer electronic devices rather than sheets of paper
Provides equality of access to digital equipment and improves digital literacy
Gives pupils a more independent learning approach which is not classroom specific
Surely it is the way forward with cost being the limiting factor. If it frees up teacher’s time for other learning activities then it may be easy to justify the cost.
Digital learning is the future and I feel being exposed to this early can only help with my child’s learning.
Has given access to wider resources to study and also allowed him to do some background preparation for forthcoming lessons in class.
I think this is the way forward for preparing pupils for self-learning, on going to college or university.
It’s a great piece of kit that my child has found very useful in all areas of their schoolwork.
This has been a fabulous resource provided by the school and believe it helped my son to apply himself much more and become much more likely to study in a more fun way
Negative comments
They were too much of a distraction in class.
I believe that possibly because of the type of learner my son is, he would have been more suited to completing the course in a more traditional manner. I realise of course that this is not the same for all children and there will be I’m sure huge advantages to delivering subjects on digital devices.
The kids need to be disciplined in using it. There should be restrictions for using apps.
I don’t think these are a good way of teaching, I feel the teacher should be working with them and not letting them do as they please at their own pace on the Surface.
The content was found to be harder to access than a text book and jotter which could be flicked through.
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