The opportunities for new tools.

The gaps I’ve identified are in planning lessons, special educational needs, parental engagement and qualifications. These are the ones that I experience. However there might be an elegant solution already in existence, if so please do leave a note.

Planning lessons. (Creatively)

Lessons are what teachers do. Learning needs to be imparted but with so many lessons this can be difficult. Of course this is something that does get faster with experience. Once a repertoire and resource is set (thanks TES) planning gets straightforward. However the danger then becomes that lessons stagnate.

We could look at the design of the lesson plan document itself or the way we review our lessons but these can also stagnate without external stimuli. The opportunities in lesson planning are for tools that can motivate and accelerate the process.

Could there be a tool that suggests new ideas for teachers in built into their lesson planning routine? Could we have teacher dashboard platforms which feed in new ideas/images automatically? Could we have concept tools that could suggest successful class games, images or new videos allowing you to structure ideas within existing lesson outlines?

Quick sketch to to show how lesson planning could be improved. Taking the central concept adding to it rapidly with new ideas. Allowing for teacher control and refinement pulling in what is new.

2. Parental Engagement. (Quick, reliable and rewarding)

Engaged parents and successful students are strongly linked but being a parent is difficult and often school communication isn’t great. There are opportunities here for tools that engage parents quickly, honestly and with a good experience.

We could stick with emails or letters, tracking them and their responses, but the question remains is it a rewarding experience for anyone? Parents and schools need to be able to keep track of their students, pass on messages to each other quickly but also be encouraged throughout.

Tools to engage parents that are rewarding which remain simple and intuitive.

Wall display is one step in the right direction with examples of good student learning that could be shared with parents for a good experience.

Could/should tools gamify interactions? Could it reward parents for staying involved with the school?

3. Special educational needs. (Tailoring, automating, supplementing)

I’m still not fully decided on whether this is an area that requires new tools to deploy or for more investment in continually training staff. But discourse is good, so thinking hypothetically tools here could focus on tailoring, automation or supplementing teaching. Improvements in educational needs would also benefit every learner.

FingerReader a prototype wearable device that assists in reading printed text.

Teachers are responsible for the learning of every student in their class. This can be difficult when trying to balance out the needs of each learner. Additionally research into educational needs might highlight new practices to help learners and technology could rapidly deploy these.

For example we could have a tool for students with dyslexia that generates typographically designed printouts from slides to make for easier understanding. Another example could be a tool that alters the colors of slides automatically when presenting, taking into account needs of students.

Could we cheaply and quickly make it even easier for teachers to tailor lessons? Could we automate parts of the differentiation process that takes into account new research?

4. Qualifications. (Better for students, schools and society)

My students are working towards qualifications. They understand the need for them but also feel the restrictions faced by them often not seeing the value in their learning. These qualifications also cost the school but when students are disengaged these become even larger costs for everyone involved. For employers are these grades as relevant anymore, further what can these qualifications do to show student potential?

There are multiple gaps here in improving experiences for students, reducing costs for schools and transparency for employers.

Could we have tools that allow for greater student choice in what they study? Could tools for qualifications generate portfolios that show what students are capable of creating? Could we have automated script readers for objective marking also freeing teachers time? Could we open source qualifications for free, passing on the savings to schools? Could/should qualification tools have some psychometric profiling?