Janine’s blog

Came across this “thought piece” on Becta’s website while looking for  something else. An interesting map of national initiatives for communicating with teachers about research. Includes arguments for why action research as a model is likely to be effective for teacahers, quoting Hargreaves (personalised learning) and others.

http://www.becta.org.uk/research/research.cfm?section=6&id=4916

Found this while tracking down the term “e-mature”. Presentation to the Strategic Management Library Learning Resources Conference in the UK, in the context of the UK post 16 e-learning program. Themes of taking stock, , current prioroties, continuing opportunities, issues, moving ahead  http://www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk/Events/archive/Facing%20the%20Challenge/Sue.ppt

At the Simulations, games and learning symposium held in Melbourne in February Vanessa Pittard from Becta in the UK gave this presentation. She made extensive reference to recent research in order to explore the potential of games in education and note future research needs.

During the presentation she noted trends and developments wrt young people’s

• general use of ICT
• use of games, and
• use of ICT at home for educational purposes.

She went on to descibe the UK policy context in terms of lots of money invested towards supporting engagement of students:

• BBC online curriculum and BBC Jam - to support student-led learning in he home and elsewhere, incorporate the latest digital technologies combining video, games, audio and animation, an aim is to inspire even the most reluctant learners
• “extended school concept” – home/school/parents
• the “e-mature” learner – need “e-mature” leaders at all levels (Note: UK coined term - not yet in Wikipedia!)

The survey UK children go online concluded that students are a fairly confident generation.
Research references:

Bober and Livingstone, (2004 ) UK children go online - surveying the experiences of young people and their parents , LSE
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/bober/UKCGOsurveyreport.pdf, accessed 17-Feb-2006

DfES, (2005) Harnessing technology- Transforming learning and children’s services
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/e-strategy/docs/e-strategy.pdf, accessed 17-Feb-2006

Kirriemuir, J. and  McFarlane, (2004) A.  Literature Review in Games and Learning - A Report for NESTA Futurelab  http://www.nestafuturelab.org/research/reviews/08_01.htm  accessed 28-Feb-2006

Pratchett, R. (2005) Digital Play, Digital Lifestyles
http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/files/bbc_uk_games_research_2005.pdf  accessed 28-Feb-2006

Valentine et al, (2005) Children and Young People’s Home Use of ICT for Educational Purposes, DfES  http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR672.pdf , accessed 28-Feb-2006

UK children go online - surveying the experiences of young people and their parents (2004):

The UK Children GO Online report presents key findings on childrens and young peoples’ internet use. The report is at http://personal.lse.ac.uk/bober/UKCGOsurveyreport.pdf and a BBC news report about it titled “Parents underestimate Net risks” is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3910319.stm .The UK Children GO Online report presents key findings on childrens and young peoples’ internet use. The report is at  and a BBC news report about it titled “Parents underestimate Net risks” is at .