How teachers’ inclusionary and exclusionary pedagogical practices manifest in disabled children’s uses of technologies in schools.

There has been much debate in recent years about how to promote regular and effective use of digital technologies for learning in schools. Alongside this, there has been much critique of how inclusive education policies are enacted in schools, often said to amount to little more than integration rather than inclusion. This paper will bring these debates together by exploring pedagogical practice in relation to digital technologies and inclusion. It will draw on a wider project carried out with visually impaired children as an illustration to investigate how disabled children use and experience digital technologies to learn. In particular it will consider teachers’ inclusionary and exclusionary practices with technology to understand the implications. It will call for teachers to be supported further to develop inclusive digital pedagogy

“Laptops are better”:Medical students' perceptions of laptops versus tablets and smartphones to support their learning

In recent years there has been a shift from the expectation that students will be supporting their learning with desktop and laptop computers to the increasing use of tablet computers (Payne, Wharrad, & Watts, 2012). This move has been reflected by initiatives from universities in the US and UK that have provided medical students with tablets to support their studies (Mathis, 2011; The University of Manchester, 2013). Noting this trend and considering how tablets might better support medical students, lecturers within the medical school at Lancaster University sought to find out whether their students – who had been provided with a laptop when they began their studies – perceived that they would be better served in their medical degrees by issuing them with either a laptop or a tablet. In March-April 2013, 137 students completed an online questionnaire which included open questions in which they were also encouraged to qualify their reasons. The quantitative results showed clearly that the students wanted to retain the provision of laptops rather than receiving tablets and this view was reinforced by responses to the open questions. For example, the responses showed that the medical students had a clear preference for writing up reports on a laptop rather than on a tablet. Even so, responses to the questions suggested some limitations in how far the students understood and used the capabilities of tablet computers even amongst those who already owned a tablet and/or a smart phone. Results were surprising in light of the noted trend towards tablet provision and uptake amongst medical students and therefore warrant further consideration. Emerging findings suggest that many of the medical students do not perceive tablets as suitable devices for writing, which brings forward issues relating to the concept of affordances (Parchoma, in press) and possibly medical students’ levels of digital literacy. These and other ideas will be much further developed by the point of the conference. The paper is currently work in progress. A literature review is underway; quantitative results have been analysed and coding has just begun for the analysis of the qualitative results. The results of the study will be presented at the conference for feedback

Developing digital pedagogy through learning design: An activity theory perspective

Learning design is growing in importance but is not yet widely adopted by teachers. This paper describes the development of a scenario-led learning design process, divided into two stages, which was implemented with over 500 teachers altogether from 15 European countries. Activity theory is used to explore the contradictions that arose when such changes were introduced into the established activity system of lesson planning. Data were collected through interviews and questionnaires from a small sample of participants including national coordinators (stage 1: n=8; stage 2: n=13) and teachers (stage 1: n=13; stage 2: n=23). These participants perceived that the scenario-led learning design process, involving a wide range of stakeholders, was collaborative, supportive and innovative (compared to previous lesson planning practices). However, a number of contradictions were identifiable between: (1) the shift to collaborative learning design from teachers preparing their lessons alone; (2) the new tools and the existing rules of the national/regional education systems; (3) the time required to both understand and implement learning design, and the impact of competing demands. This paper discusses the challenges faced when attempting to scale-up European school teachers’ development of digital pedagogy. The structured (yet flexible) approach was welcomed and the tools promoted teacher reflection but, as commonly noted, the complexity and time-constraints were major issues

Simplified Models for LHC New Physics Searches

This document proposes a collection of simplified models relevant to the design of new-physics searches at the LHC and the characterization of their results. Both ATLAS and CMS have already presented some results in terms of simplified models, and we encourage them to continue and expand this effort, which supplements both signature-based results and benchmark model interpretations. A simplified model is defined by an effective Lagrangian describing the interactions of a small number of new particles. Simplified models can equally well be described by a small number of masses and cross-sections. These parameters are directly related to collider physics observables, making simplified models a particularly effective framework for evaluating searches and a useful starting point for characterizing positive signals of new physics. This document serves as an official summary of the results from the "Topologies for Early LHC Searches" workshop, held at SLAC in September of 2010, the purpose of which was to develop a set of representative models that can be used to cover all relevant phase space in experimental searches. Particular emphasis is placed on searches relevant for the first ~50-500 pb-1 of data and those motivated by supersymmetric models. This note largely summarizes material posted at http://lhcnewphysics.org/, which includes simplified model definitions, Monte Carlo material, and supporting contacts within the theory community. We also comment on future developments that may be useful as more data is gathered and analyzed by the experiments.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures. This document is the official summary of results from "Topologies for Early LHC Searches" workshop (SLAC, September 2010). Supplementary material can be found at http://lhcnewphysics.or

iTEC: conceptualising, realising and recognising pedagogical and technological innovation in European classrooms

Innovation, a complex concept, underpinned a four-year pan-European research project designed to increase the effective use of technology in school classrooms. This article revisits evaluation data collected during the project and explores the challenges of conceptualising, realising and researching ‘innovation’. The authors describe how innovation was conceptualised, highlighting key issues, not all of which could be resolved in the project. The development of an approach to support teachers to change their practices facilitated the realisation of innovation in the classroom. This approach, through which researchers and national pedagogical coordinators worked with teachers to develop their teaching and learning practices with technology in potentially innovative ways, is outlined. Case study data are then used to exemplify how teachers and other stakeholders applied this approach and how they perceived innovation in practice within their own countries. Through a discussion of these cases, the article highlights the challenge of defining innovation in different country settings and, in turn, the complexity of identifying its occurrence. It concludes by proposing the next steps for similar research endeavours

Disabled children’s digital use practices for learning in mainstream schools

There is a mixed picture of inclusion when it comes to how digital technologies can enrich the classroom experience of students with disabilit

“I personally don’t have the time to have the provisions for her":How teachers’ exclusionary practices in the classroom manifest in disabled children’s digital technology uses

Inclusion has long been a policy issue for governments globally. Within education, the Salamanca statement (1994) has been instrumental in strengthening the drive to deliver inclusion; recognised in policy in many different parts of the world. Even so, disabled young people often experience integration in schools rather than inclusion that does not support their sense of belonging to the community. An important aspect of this is how digital technologies are used in schools given that studies of disabled children’s uses of technology remain limited, particularly studies that engage with disabled children’s own views in context. In response, participatory research was carried out in England taking an interdisciplinary approach combining digital education with disability theory. It explored how disabled children use digital technologies for formal learning. Research was carried out with visually impaired children, their teachers, teaching assistants and qualified teachers of visual impairment as an illustrative case. Semi-structured interviews complemented observational data collected in classrooms. It was clear that disabled children benefited when schools had adopted 1:1 tablet computer schemes in class because often disabled children were able to use the same devices as their peers thereby reducing stigma. Moreover, analysis also showed that disabled children’s experiences of using digital technologies were qualitatively different depending on subject teacher approaches. Some teachers worked closely with teaching assistants in curriculum planning to ensure the seamless inclusion of disabled children. Others relied for the most part on teaching assistants in situ to provide just-in-time support or on children themselves to find workarounds to inaccessible provision. Teachers gave reasons for their different approaches in relation to the development of inclusive pedagogies using technology. This included time availability/constraints, provision/lack of guidance both in terms of using digital technologies for learning and in terms of implementing inclusive education policy; and technical issues when using technology. The paper will set out the main issues and offer short and longer term recommendations for improvement