Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Portal Solution Brings the Whole Community Together to Raise Educational Standards
Overview
Country/Region: United Kingdom
Industry: Education
Customer Profile
Shireland Language College is an 11-19 inner-city institution in the West Midlands, U.K. It has approximately 950 students and is situated in a linguistically and culturally diverse area.
Business Situation
Shireland is working with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) on a Test Bed initiative to promote inclusion and support diversity through the use of information and communication technology (ICT).
Solution
Shireland worked with Microsoft, Microsoft® Gold Partner, Tesksys, and independent ICT consultants to deploy a Microsoft Learning Gateway.
Benefits
n Improved best practice thanks to collaboration between teachers and schools.
n Personalised learning at the touch of a button.
n Inclusion for the whole community.
n Improves individual research capabilities for pupils.
n More effective use of teachers’ time. / “Teachers, pupils, parents, and other stakeholders now have a single place where they can allocate work, share information and ideas, and support the wider community. The possibilities are vast, and we are essentially only limited by our imagination.”
Jon Nowicki, Independent ICT Consultant for Shireland Language College
Working as part of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) information and communication technology (ICT) Test Bed project, Shireland Language College, based in Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, wanted to deploy a managed learning environment to support distance learning, personalised learning, and inclusion across a network of local schools. It decided that the Microsoft® Learning Gateway offered the best fit for its needs. This portal solution is based around Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal® Server and Microsoft Class Server 3.0. The Learning Gateway was deployed in 2004 by a partnership formed between Shireland, independent consultants, Microsoft, and Microsoft Gold Partner Teksys. For all the 10 participating schools and colleges in Sandwell, each pupil, teacher, and parent has a personalised space within the portal. Class Server allows teachers to distribute differentiated tasks to pupils, according to needs and abilities. Teachers can also collaborate to improve best practice across schools, and excluded students can use the Internet-based solution to keep up with their schoolwork.
Situation
The U.K. government is focusing on personalised learning within wider learning communities as a key to raising standards in education. To achieve these aims, schools and colleges nation-wide are striving to promote and support learning for pupils of all abilities. Shireland Language College (Shireland) in Smethwick is committed to meeting these needs for its own pupils, for other schools, and for the community at large.
Shireland teaches pupils aged 11-19 and is linked to the Education and Lifelong Learning Theme. In its 2004 Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) report, the college was named among the 86 most-improved schools in the country, and has partnered with George Salter High School, West Bromwich, Sandwell, to raise standards there. During the first two years of the partnership, the percentage of A*-C grades achieved at George Salter has risen from 16 to 24 per cent. This focus on partnership is also an essential part of Shireland’s approach to information and communication technology (ICT).
As part of a Department for Education and Skills (DfES) ICT Test Bed project, Shireland is working with the following schools and colleges in the Sandwell area to improve learning through the strategic use of ICT:
• Bearwood Primary School
• Cape Primary School
• Crocketts Lane Primary
• Shireland Hall Primary School
• St Matthew’s CE Primary School
• St Philip’s Catholic Primary School
• Victoria Park Primary School
• Sandwell College
• George Salter High School
In order to help raise standards, Shireland and its partner schools wanted to deploy a managed learning environment to support distance and personalised learning. It also wanted to promote inclusion across a network of local schools, with the potential to serve schools all over the country. This managed learning environment was to be supported by the provision of PCs and broadband connections to families in the Sandwell region.
Mark Grundy, Head Teacher, Shireland Language College, says, “We want to provide the sort of educational experience that will equip our children not only to continue to learn, but also to serve the wider community. By using the latest educational technologies, we know we can forge closer bonds with all education stakeholders, bringing students, parents, teachers, and support workers together to raise standards. We required a solution that could satisfy the different needs of all these groups.”
Solution
Shireland explored a number of managed learning environment solutions, but decided that the Microsoft® Learning Gateway offered the best fit for its needs. The Learning Gateway delivers personalised learning and collaboration through messaging and communications tools. It offers a range of administration and management features, such as curriculum and content management, and the ability to provide secure parental access to school management information systems.
The Learning Gateway also offers a single sign-on function for each type of user, whether teacher, pupil, parent, support worker, or network administrator. This portal solution takes advantage of the combined power of Microsoft products such as Microsoft SharePoint Portal® Server and Microsoft Class Server 3.0. It was the collaborative working opportunities provided by SharePoint Portal Server that particularly attracted Shireland to the Learning Gateway.
The Learning Gateway was deployed in 2004 by a partnership formed between Shireland, independent consultants, Microsoft, and Microsoft Gold Partner, Teksys. For the 10 participating schools in Sandwell, each pupil, teacher, and parent has a “Mysite”. This is a personalised space within the portal where they can view specially-tailored information, interact with others, ask questions, view pupil progress, and much more. Teachers can set work for students online, mark multiple choice tests automatically, and post marked work within a student’s Mysite.
Class Server allows teachers to distribute differentiated tasks to pupils, according to needs and abilities. Currently, teachers are uploading content and creating communities. The solution was made available to pupils in January 2005, and parents will be able to access the portal in spring 2005.
Teachers can also share lesson plans or examples of best practice with their peers, including teachers in other schools. And parents can log on at home to view their child’s progress, or see whether they have been set homework.
Broadband connections have been set up in about 1,200 homes in Sandwell to support this, and 1,600 computers have been distributed to families in Smethwick. Students can also access the portal through the Internet at their nearest library or City Learning Centre, and many local mosques and Gudwaras offer computer facilities, so families without Internet access at home can still benefit from the Learning Gateway.
Jon Nowicki, Independent ICT Consultant for Shireland Language College, says, “We anticipate that 70 per cent of Sandwell families will have Internet access at home by early 2005, and there are a great many public places where students and parents can get onto the Web too. In this context, the Learning Gateway offers all the tools Shireland and the other Test Bed schools need to promote personalised learning and collaboration.
“We worked with Microsoft and Teksys to deploy the Learning Gateway at Shireland and its partner schools, and teachers, pupils, parents, and other stakeholders now have a single place where they can allocate work, share information and ideas, and support the wider community. The possibilities are vast, and we are essentially only limited by our imagination.”
Benefits
Improved Best Practice Thanks to Collaboration
Teachers from Shireland and the other schools connected to the Learning Gateway are now able to share ideas and expertise. The solution provides a pool of learning resources that teachers can draw on, as well as adding their own content, and taking part in discussions with peers. This not only improves best practice by pooling the most successful methods from each school, but forges closer links between each institution to promote collaboration in the long term.
Nowicki says, “The resources on the Learning Gateway are created to be practically useful and will genuinely improve learning, because they’re created by teachers, for teachers. Because the lesson plans and teaching ideas have been tested in the classroom, teachers are confident that they work. For example, teachers at Shireland use interactive whiteboards, so a maths teacher can save screen-grabs at each stage of explaining an equation and make these available to other teachers.”
Personalised Learning at the Touch of a Button
Every student has different learning needs, and using the Learning Gateway, teachers can easily provide differentiated assignments. Thanks to the user-friendly controls within the solution, it’s simple for teachers to set tasks for each of their students, whatever their needs and abilities.
Alan Dodson, E-Learning Content Manager, South East Smethwick Learning Partnership (SESLP), says, “If a pupil is struggling, the teacher can set work that will help them catch up. On the other hand, if a pupil isn’t feeling challenged by class work, the teacher can assign them something more demanding, using the Class Server component of the Learning Gateway. This means teachers can cater to the full range of pupils’ needs without increasing their own workload. Personalised learning is one of Shireland’s key goals, as well as playing an important part in the government’s wider educational strategy.”
The solution also promotes individual learning by making research simpler and more effective for students. Shireland has indexed useful sites to each search term, so students can use the Internet more effectively for their studies. For instance, a search for “World War II” would return sites such as the British Pathé Film Archive, the world’s first digital news archive, where students can view and compare different war footage, as well as BBC education sites containing a wealth of multimedia information.
Nowicki says, “If a student goes online to do research—outside the Learning Gateway—and they search for information on a given subject, there is no guarantee that the information they find will be relevant or balanced. We’ve set up the solution’s search engine so that it’s easier for students to find well-researched, reliable, and relevant information. The Learning Gateway portal integrates with the wider Sandwell infrastructure, which provides content filtering, to ensure pupils don’t access unsuitable material.”
Inclusion for the Whole Community
The whole learning community of parents, pupils, teachers, and support workers has access to the Learning Gateway. This means that there are stronger links between Shireland and the local community, which helps promote learning beyond the classroom. This is of particular value where excluded pupils or pupils unable to attend school due to illness are concerned. Pupils who are temporarily out of school can keep up with their school work through the portal, as they can log on at home to receive assignments, and ask questions about work using e-mail, or online discussion groups.
Nowicki says, “In the past, it has been difficult to fully support pupils during periods of fixed exclusion, or when they are out of school for other reasons. Now, we can communicate more easily with pupils and their families, even when they’re not attending school. This means that students don’t fall so far behind and it’s easier to re-integrate them when they return.
“In wider terms, making closer connections with families means that students have more support in achieving their learning goals. We can provide parents with information about their child’s progress in a consistent, ongoing manner. Previously, parents attended parent and teacher evenings and only had the chance to really find out how their children were doing after a whole term. Now, parents are constantly in touch with what their children are doing in school so they can take a more active role in the learning process.”
More Effective Use of Teachers’ Time
The solution helps teachers use their time more effectively so that they can concentrate on the core task of teaching. Because teachers can create and deliver targeted work assignments swiftly to groups or individuals, setting work is a far shorter, smoother process. Teachers no longer need to mark multiple-choice tests, as this can be handled by the Learning Gateway.
In addition, teachers can offer online support to students, which allows them to make more flexible use of their time. For example, during the run up to exams, they do not need to set fixed times when students can come and see them. Instead, students can submit questions through the portal, which teachers can then answer from any Internet-connected computer, whether in school or at home.
Dodson says, “The system reduces teacher workload through sharing expertise and resources, by eliminating unnecessary paperwork, and by cutting out time spent “re-inventing the wheel.” Teachers can spend more time with pupils on tasks that will challenge and support them, rather than administrative tasks like setting tests or printing off worksheets.”
Window on the World
Shireland and its partner schools in Sandwell now have a complete learning solution that they can use as the basis for a vibrant connected learning community. This community stretches beyond local schools—Rylands High School in South Africa is also connected to the portal. The Web basis of the solution means it has the potential to link up any school in any part of the world.
Pupils and teachers at Rylands will be collaborating with Shireland’s pupils and teachers to create projects based on their respective countries. Pupils at Shireland can learn about life in South Africa from students who live there, helping to bring the learning experience alive.
Nowicki says, “We’re constantly thinking of new ways to use this portal. The opportunity for pupils to be able to work closely with students on the other side of the world is just one example of how the Learning Gateway can expand horizons and provide young people with opportunities to explore and understand the world around them. The students at Ryland can access and use the solution in exactly the same way as the students in any of the Sandwell schools. That’s the beauty of having a Web-based solution.”
Unlimited Potential
Shireland and its partner schools now have a flexible framework that can adapt to fit the requirements and suggestions of teachers. Teachers are designing new content all the time, including interactive animated quizzes, which are designed as a storyboard by teachers, then developed by the ICT support teams.