One really interesting thing that happened was to see one student gathering all of the ‘dragon’ avatars up and telling them to meet at a certain point - which they all did. I think he then said they were going to have a ‘dragon club’ and go around the island together. It’s marvellous to see students investing immediately in their new environment, developing social structure, and discerning and engaging with the inherent concepts of both their island and Teen Second Life itself.

The atmosphere in the room was amazing. They were focused for the whole lesson and were very disappointed when the lesson had ended.

It’s hard to deny the sheer learning potential of Computer Game technologies when you see first hand such high levels of engagement. The key to using Teen Second Life in education is how the technology is used, delivered and understood. The Stoke Damerel students benefitted from all three.

Twofour Learning are really looking forward to the next ten weeks and seeing how this project develops. And so, I think, are the students.

Click here to view the news coverage of the lesson.

What I am hoping is that the film we made with Buddy will also excite the students who will soon be studying the New National Diplomas.

The Diplomas will be available from September to 14–19 year olds. One of their key intentions is to bring the real world of work to life for students. And that’s where we at Twofour Learning have come in.

The Buddy film is one in a series of classroom resources for AQA that we have produced in conjunction with Nelson Thornes Publisher. These films will be ‘windows into the workplace’ for students who would not normally be able to experience the inner workings of some of the countries biggest names in Engineering, Construction, IT and Media.

In a hectic 3 weeks of planning, filming and editing we have produced the first 25 films. Our jam packed schedule has taken us to discuss top secret innovations with Dyson engineers, 2012 plans at an Olympic village, the production process of a super yacht and car maintenance on a Mini Cooper.

And that’s just for starters - in the coming months we will be producing 33 more films taking the total to 58.

Whilst making the classroom resources, the team at Twofour Learning have been following the rollercoaster ride the Diplomas have been having in the press. Controversy and teething problems aside, we are confident that a vocational, skills based qualification where young people learn what is really waiting for them outside of the classroom can only be a good thing.

As education communication specialists, these days Twofour Learning often finds itself working both directly and indirectly for the DCSF, delivering different aspects of the same policy initiative. The Department is now responsible for policy development, but only arms-length delivery of services: real supervision of programmes is undertaken by the nine non-departmental bodies, together with a range of contractors who tender on a project-by-project basis. So for example, in the case of the new secondary curriculum, we have been consortium partners with CfBT Education Trust supporting schools in curriculum redesign of the Foundation subjects; managed several related projects for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA); and continue to undertake longer-term curriculum innovation work for our partners the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust (SSAT).

Perhaps we are slightly unusually placed in having this multi-perspective vantage point. Having a finger in several pies can provide a wider view of the efficacy of some of these programmes, and it’s also sometimes easier to see the strengths and weaknesses of the system itself.
The biggest potential weakness is where responsibility for large programmes is divvyed-up between different agencies and contractors without a real understanding of what’s involved. There can be unnecessary overlaps, unnoticed gaps and omissions, and inconsistencies which are particularly frustrating for those whom the programmes are intended to support. So in the case of the secondary curriculum, the decision that support for core subjects should be contracted separately to a contract for all the other (foundation) subjects, makes very little sense.
However, it’s undeniable that an arms-length approach to delivery of services is really the only way of preventing a large government department from swelling into an unmanageable and inefficient bureaucracy. And with the odd exception (contracting the cheaper ETS for this year’s SATS marking, for example), broadly speaking, it seems to be working - although perhaps a blow for those civil servants whose jobs have been reduced to those of contract managers. Indeed, the Department is congratulated by the Capability Reviews on developing these ‘new collaborative’ relationships. Collaboration is certainly the key. Listening to those of us closer to the coal face, and most important of all, the schools, local authorities and Sure Start Childrens’ Centres who do the real delivery, is what will ensure whether or not the system is really working.

As the new secondary curriculum becomes statutory for year 7 pupils in September, Twofour has been given the opportunity to create a ground breaking set of films which will explore the reactions, feelings and aspirations of learners embarking on their secondary school career - at a time in which important changes are being made both to what children learn, and the way in which they learn.

The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust’s (SSAT) curriculum dept have created this project initially to develop an understanding about the way in which learners make the transition from primary to secondary, but with a view to continuing to map their progress annually throughout their school life, reminiscent of an education focused ‘7 up’ or ‘Child of our times’ series. It’s a really exciting prospect – and as the producer / director, I’m really looking forward to seeing the project unfold.

The ‘Big Picture’ of the new curriculum takes into consideration fresh understandings about the nature of learning, changes to the nature of work, the impact of technology, and an increased global dimension to life. Curriculum innovation embraces the futures agenda - ECM, personal development, social cohesion and enterprise. I am optimistic that our initial film will kick off what is to become an insightful and somewhat inspiring evaluation of curriculum design and the way in which learning is managed.

Having made an initial visit to ten schools across the country, I am looking forward to meeting our prospective contributors in late September, and I am keen to ensure that the chosen 20 will represent the range of young people living in England today.

After workshops with the families, we will be ready to film in November. The content of the film will be guided very much by the 20 children we follow – their favourite subjects, their own comparisons between primary and secondary school, and their current thinking about the choices they will make as they get older. Our brief is to create a 20 minute film featuring all of the children, which will appear on SSAT’s website, and will also be shown at lead practitioner events and educational conferences across England. A series of short profile films will also be created which will look at 12 – 15 individual experiences in more depth. These will also appear on the SSAT site, but I am hoping that - riding on the success of the project - we will eventually build a microsite for these mini profiles where progress can be easily and accessibly traced through the years.

So far schools have been extremely keen to get involved, and the project itself has been received with huge enthusiasm, watch this space for further updates!

“In ordinary life you go shopping and you might just happen to see a jacket you like and buy it, or the cover of a book might catch your eye. Sometimes you chat with people you just happen to run into, this kind of chance encounter could enrich people’s lives.”

So for patients that are immobilized by illness or injury, virtual life provides this random element. This impressive research into the benefits of virtual worlds to enhance the lives of these patients is very impressive.

There was a great buzz at the NCETM surrounding the launch and the feedback was extremely positive with everyone welcoming the new initatives. Sir Peter’s vision for bringing improvements and change to primary education, is rooted in best practice with a greater emphasis on play. The message is about collaborative learning and pupils being active which should make for a lively atmosphere in the classroom!

The conference also saw the official launch of Bowland Maths.

This research was focussed on HE. It would be great to see a comparative study in secondary or primary schools. I’m not sure there are many teachers currently using Bebo or MySpace as an aid to learning but this paper clearly shows that there are benefits in doing so.

The report concludes:

“What we have learnt from our ‘digital natives’ in this study is that new e-tools and technologies afford processes with an informal focus on self-direction, communities of practice, collaboration, sharing and even identity exploration.

These young, and old, adults are active constructors of knowledge and are self motivated. These are skills we desire in our graduates and this provides a compelling argument to bring these skills and supporting technologies together…”

The Bowland Initiative was set-up to help to address the drop in the rate of progress and in attitudes to Key Stage 3 mathematics (critical in the maths development of many pupils) by making maths fun. Alien Invasion contains a set of four interactive lessons about a full-scale alien attack that coincides with a class visit to a fictional city. To set the scene and support the lessons, live TV news bulletins, radio broadcasts and telephone messages help to develop the story line. The invasion leads to a series of non-routine problems for pupils to solve as the narrative unfolds. The problems are on the theme of mathematical communication and are intended to promote discussion, reasoning and creativity.

Trials, testing and evaluation took place at each main stage of development. We worked closely with maths education expert, Anita Straker, former head of the government’s national numeracy strategy, and now Education Consultant. Several teachers from schools across Devon and Cornwall acted as impartial advisers and trialled the project in their classrooms.

The case studies will be available to schools for the 2008/9 school year.

Our interest in children’s VWs stems from both the work we’re currently developing with schools, as well as Twofour’s recent launch of MyCBBC, a safe social network site aimed at 6-12year olds. The focus of the event was the research undertaken by David Gauntlett and Lizzie Jackson into Adventure Rock that was presented at the conference. The research identified the different “types” of players that they found in the trial of Adventure Rock (Click Here), 90 participants took part in five schools across Scotland and Wales.

Understanding your target audience from a development perspective is pivotal. As we begin to expand into the realms of VWs for younger audiences, this type of research is essential to the design of affective applications to engage with as many different player types as possible. Click here to view research.

Worth noting, Adventure Rock differs from the traditional definition of a VW or MMORPG, as players don’t interact, play or socialise with other players inside the environment, instead they communicate via a moderated website. For the purposes of the Adventure Rock research, a virtual world was defined as an online space where:

• You can move around
• You can have an impact on the world
• There are benefits from network effects (other online users add to the experience – it couldn’t just run off a CD)

This area of research certainly bears out my own research into Player Motivations. Gauntlett and Jackson’s work has some significant similarities to the player motivations of adult users of MMORPG’s identified by Bartle and Yee. The area that is now ripe for research is the extent to which a child’s motivations transform over time, and how dependent this change is on the particular virtual environment.

It also raises questions around these player traits: how do they translate to the real world environment? For example, Is a fighter player a fighter in real life? And can we use this technology to encourage a different player type in the classroom? For example, can we change a fighter into a nurturer? Fascinating questions!