TTA Workshop ICT & Maths

TTA Workshop ICT & Maths

TTA Workshop – ICT & MathsCurrent ICT initiatives in schools

Adrian Oldknow’s Plenary (MA)

There are two relevant handouts in the pack of notes which are also on the AMET/ATM/MA CD Rom. These are my talk from this year’s BETT show, and a new article to appear in the next Micromath with suggestions on budgeting ICT expenditure for a secondary school maths department over the next two yearrs. In summary the new developments on ICT in secondary school are the following.

  • Charles Clarke instituted a new strategy for the DfES ICT in School (ex NGfL) just over a year ago. The buzz word is `embedding’ and the mantra is `Enhancing Subject Teaching Using ICT’ (ESTUICT). There is a new DfES ICT in Schools website.
  • The projected `NOF Phase 3’ CPD for teachers using ICT was been taken back into the DfES (from TTA) and became a pilot on-line CPD project for KS1/2 numeracy and lieracy, and for KS3 science. Contracts were let to Indigo Visions (all 3), SfE (KS1/2) and the Science Consortium (KS3).
  • The DfEShas since extended these to nearly all KS3 subjects – but just to sole providers in all but science. They have renamed these as ESTUICT(CPD). Theseeach now provide an element of face-to-face support, a web-site of lesson plans, tutorials, guidance and other resource materials, and access to a mentor by e-mail. The provider for mathematics is The Mathematics Consortium, which consists of the Mathematical Association (responsible for tutorial support), University College Chichester (responsible for website content) and New Media (responsible for technical operations and admin.). There is also an opportunity to develop a portfolio for accreditation for an M-level module via UCC. The expected costs per school are c. £480 + £120n where n is the number of teachers enrolled.
  • The BBC announced a while ago that it intended to develop `digital curriculum’ resources across all subjects and key stages. A concerted reaction from educational publishers has led (a) to the postponement of the launch of these materials until 2006, (b) a restriction to 50% of the maximum curriculum coverage in each subject and (c) the establishment of `e-Learning Credits’ and `Curriculum Online’ as a means of providing schools with resources to purchase `curriculum focused digital content’. There is £100m for e-LCs at KS1-4 in 2004/5 and 2005/6. For a secondary school the formula is about £1000 + £10n where n is the number of pupils.
  • The earmarked money for schools to spend on ICT is in section 31a of the Standards Fund. This gives freedom for schools to determine their own spending priorities for ICT which may include hardware, CPD and generic software. The hardware could include laptops for teachers, more PCs and networking, IWBs and subject specific tools (e.g. graphical calculators and data-loggers). The CPD can include funding the ESTUICT(CPD) and a new scheme called `Hands-on Support’ – for which an extra £60m has been provided. Schools have much greater flexibility over how this money is used than previously. They may also spend some of their capital grant on ICT if they chose.
  • Hands-on Support (HOS) is supposed to provide schools with funds to buy in peer-to-peer support from successful practioners to help a group of teachers use their own ICT resources more effectively. Schools can buy in from LEAs, or from external providers or from each other. A possible source for HOS in KS3/4 maths is the network of ASTs and LMTs. The funding has been provided for 2004-6.
  • The DfES is also funding Subject Associations to develop a range of materials to be offered free to schools from Jan 2005, called the `Key Stage 3 Offer’. This is being focused on maths, science, English and MFL in the first instance. Materials will include lesson plans, software, resources, guidance etc. They will usually be available both in physical form (CDs and books) and in digital form (via web-sites).
  • Becta is undergoing a transformation currently and has been given a new government remit which includes providing strategic advice. It is redeveloping theBecta ICT Advice website to provide better support for subjects. Subject Associations have been working with Becta this year with quite small budgets to provide online newsletters, `ask an expert’ services, needs analysis surveys and face-to-face events. Thie work is being extended and ATM/MA are working together on this.
  • The Ofsted secondary mathematics report for 2002/3 shows that a substantial minority (c 30%) are still showing poor use of ICT. Ofsted have also been inspecting the impact that ICT initiatives in school are having, and the mathematics report is due soon.
  • The DfES have produced a 2 CD set of vidoed case studies in KS3 and post-14 use of ICT in subjects – the maths case study uses dynamic geometry software and an IWB. (The 3 CD set of case studies produced by the TTA in preparation for the NOF-funded training is still available – it contains four maths examples including dynamic geometry software, spreadsheets, small software and graphical calculators.) DfES have also produced exemplar packs with CDs giving tasters of the ESTUICT(CPD) provisions at both KS3 and KS1/2. Further CD case studies are expected soon – possibly with three in maths.
  • Interactive WhiteBoards (IWBs) are very much `flavour of the month’ with, for example, funding going into London schools, the National Primary Strategy and now ITT (via TTA). A NESTA funded project at HullUniversity has produced a 1 hour self-instructional DVD and supporting resources which will be widely distributed to LEAs, schools and ITT. (For a really bad example of IWB use in KS3 maths see the Becta ICT advice website!)
  • Against all this development it is sad to report that the KS3 mathematics strategy still does not seem to have much to offer in the way of ICT support. The ICT strategy has been developing examples of ICT across the curriculum which should soon be available.

To conclude I want to show some of the kit that I’ve lugged here to show you today! First there are a number of cheaper, and maybe more practical, alternatives to IWBs for interactive whole class teaching. These include tablet PCs (e.g. RM, Compaq, Toshiba) which are high-spec laptops with special displays which can detect a stilus – like a digital IWB. The built in version of MS Windows XP contains both handwriting and speech recognition. They also usually have wireless LAN cards installed. Used in conjuction with a data-projector they can be passed round the classroom instead of teachers/pupils standing at the IWB. At the moment their use is restricted by the need to connect to the projector by cable, but new generation data-projectors will be able to be connected wirelessly. Another important means of giving students interactive access is by use of a wireless mouse and/or keyboard. The cheapest of these are under £50 and have a range of around 2m; more sophisticated versions are available which just respond to movement (giroscopic) with ranges up to 15m.

Other means of whole class display use hand-held devices such as graphical calculators (e.g. TI-83 Plus) and personal data assistants (PDAs e.g. TI Voyage 200) – both of which have compatible data-loggers for maths and science (CBR and CBL). These can be displayed via either an LCD panel for an OHP (`Viewscreen’), or an interface box (TI Presenter) which produces a standard video output for use with a data-projector or TV.

While not strictly an ICT tool, another very useful display device is a stand-mounted digital camera (e.g. the AverVision110 from Matrix) which connects to the video or s-video socket on a data-projector or TV – an alterative would be a web-cam for the teacher’s laptop or PC. This enables you to project images of student work, pages from books, 3D objects etc.

We were involved with the DfES/RM `Maths Alive!’ Year 7 project which equipped 20 pilot classes with analog IWBs (Smartboards) where pupils called use their fingers to `touch the mathematics’. One of our tasks was to suggest the shopping list for mathematical software tools. Top of the list was dynamic geometry software (DGS) such as Cabri Geometry and the Geometer’s Sketchpad(GSP).We chose GSP because its user interface is more familiar to Windows users than Cabri’s. Soon afterwards a new version (v4) was released which includes many of the facilities of graph-plotting software. This has also been the basis of a small QCA funded project directed by Ken Ruthven using ICT as bridge between algebra and geometry. The newest version of Cabri (Cabri Geometry II Plus) also supports graphing, but again with a slightly more cumbersome interface.

Another improtant tool which is not yet widely used is `integrated mathematics software’ – best thought of as the mathematical equivalent of Microsoft Office! The first contender was MathSoft’s Studyskills Mathworkswhich is bundled in with their GCSE revision pack for around £20! This is essentially a full version of the professional MathCAD software used by modellers, applied mathematicans and engineers to solve problems and to write reports. It incorporates features of a mathematical word-processor, a spreadsheet, a graphing package, data-handling software etc., together with tools for web-browsing and sending e-mails. It also supports symbol manipulation using a subset of theMaple computer algebra system (CAS). For the pilot of MathsAlive! we chose a somewhat similar product calledTIInteractive! - the main advantages being that it was designed expressly for education and that the user interface was more familiar. The mathematical functions are very similar to those provided in top-of-the-range graphical calculators (GCs), and it interfaces easily both to GCs and data-loggers. It also has CAS facilities based on the Derive package. Priced at less than £20 for single user versions, and around £200 for a multi-station licence this is a very powerful mathematical tool.

Hand-helds (such as the TI-83 Plus GC and the Voyage 200 PDA) now contain the equivalent of a hard-disk (`flash-ROM’) where extensive software applications(Apps) can be stored, downloaded etc. For example the Voyage at c £120 comespreloaded with both GSP and Cabri as well as a spreadsheet. There are free downloads for the TI-83 Plus which include a suite of Smile software (including Rhino), a spreadsheet and a version ofCabri called Cabri Junior.

The attraction of tools such as TI-83 Plus and Voyage, and software such as GSP and TI Interactive! (TII!) is that they have such depth of functionality that they cover all the relevant aspects of mathematics from Y7 to Further Mathematics – so you don’t have new tools to learn as you progress. The added attraction of GSP and TII! is that they support a wide range of levels of use. GSP enable you to include text-boxes, and to have pages (like the work-book tabs for Excel). TII!produces a document with embedded `live’ images.Thus we can provide pre-written self-contained interactive materials in both GSP and TII! which can be used `out-of-the-box’ by teachers and pupils (`adopters’). These materials can be `tweaked’ by either teachers and pupils using the built-in tools (`adapters’). Both teachers and pupils can create their own materials from scratch using the built-in tools (`creators’). They support two-way communication – to the pupil to suggest what/how to explore – and from the pupil to report what they found.

Finally a really import means of accessing the `outside world’ is provided by digital images such as those captured by digital cameras as `jpeg’ files, and from digital video cameras as `avi’ files. Fortunately there are free tools to be found on the web which enable us to extract data files from such images for use within e.g. TII!. DGS software such as GSP and Cabri also supports the importing of digital images over which geometric constructions, graphs etc. can be superimposed.

Suppliers:

After Hours Computers

Chartwell-Yorke01204 811001

MatrixDisplay01784 439044

Oxford Educational Supplies01869 344500

Texas Instruments01604 663003

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