ICT in my Classroom

Before Christmas I was lucky enough to visit the Technology-Enhanced Learning team at Durham University and learn more about their extended research into multi-touch desks and building a classroom environment that made the most of this technology.

Yesterday I returned for my second visit and caught up with their developments and also discussed my own recent experiences of using the SMART Table in my classroom.

Since I was last with them they have made some very important steps forward, including:

• Installed a 10 camera/mic ceiling rig in their main laboratory to record and document students working on the multi-touch desks. (They are building their own video review software to best review, tag and explore the resulting evidence)
• Conducted early primary pupil investigations, with the children completing some simple group tasks on the tables. As I said to the team in my first visit, once children are using the devices all of the bugs and glitches will be pointed out!
• Finalised the build of the table hardware, unfortunately they have had trouble with the first prototype and it was on its way back to Germany so I didn’t get a chance to see it.
• Completed the second build of their multi-touch software.

The most significant step for me, really illustrates the direction this project is heading – they are not just developing stand alone devices but how the environment can work together. It is about how children can work together and communicate and how the multi-touch technology can facilitate this. In this film you will see what I mean!

We talked about the potential of a mobile device for the teacher in the multi-touch classroom – perhaps adding comments and content to the children’s table on the fly. In a similar way to the iPhone contacts application Bump. Another crucial discussion was about the importance of building a framework of activity creation so that teachers would be able to quickly build appropriate tasks and make the most of this sort of environment.

I am always excited to see the work this very talented team are up to and once again I wasn’t disappointed. They have invited me to write an academic paper with them about my experiences of creating learning content for multi-touch and also to attend a steering group meeting in November. The next update about the work Durham are doing may be before then as I am hoping to get hold of their software and help them develop it over the coming months.

Since mid-April I have been working with a SMART Table in my classroom and as the term winds down I wanted to post some of my reflections about the experience so far and my conclusions to date.

I am writing this prior to any updates for firmware or for the Table Toolkit software, I am sure hope some of the issues I raise will be addressed.

Three more pieces of video footage to help illustrate to you the ways we have been using the SMART Table in my classroom. In this post I also explore some of the topics arising from what is displayed. 

Victorian Jigsaw – Media Application – SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

This is a simple little activity I created based upon our Street Child, Victorians unit. I used SMART Notebook and the line tool to lay a square grid over an image. I then copied parts using Notebook screen capture and the guidelines to help. I then pasted these into the Media application. Simple jigsaw. Unfortunately the default setting in the Media application is to have magnification or zoom and ideally for the jigsaw idea I wanted none. This is not currently possible, however I set it to the lowest I could.

It was amazing to watch this pair of children take such care over the placement and size/rotation of each part. They showed great skill and engagement with the activity, all the more interesting as there were no instructions nor have they had any sort of training in manipulating the images.

Musical Instruments – SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

In this video a small group of children are using the Hot Spots application to identify the names of different musical instruments. The application allows the user to move word labels (you see in the first part for the video) and also pictures. Once one set of hot spots have been completed it moves onto the next set if available – once finished it returns to the main screen.

In my experience four children is the maximum for junior children to work together. Ideally it would be less because you have to divide the space, the screen real estate and the number of questions by your users. Too many people around it and engagement dwindles.

These are simple activities but they take a long time to create – unfortunately the time the learners are engaged is reduced because of the multi user scenario. Four children working on a task takes less time to complete then just one child. The payoff for the teacher in this example is small. I have to generate lots of activities and examples to engage all of the learners for a significant amount of time. Currently the SMART Table Toolkit does not allow me to quickly create high quality content in Hot Spots.

Perhaps this is another unforeseen situation arising from multi user learning activities, that it is not sufficient to generate the same amount of content for a single user and then just expect it to be divided up by the children at the table. Content creation needs to be streamlined so that you can quickly make a large range, with depth, that will engage each learner adequately.

Addition Application – SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

I like how this application encourages children to work together. Even though the maths is simple, they have to rely on each other to be successful.

Interestingly what tends to happen is one person from the group takes the lead and directs others. Not something they are told to do, but some just take charge and solve the question quickly and instruct others what to do.

Such a group dynamic makes users passive or active, so it is possible that children don’t engage with the maths directly but engage with the person who tells them what to do. I have seen this application being used by lots of groups of different children from my class (ages 9 or 10) and a leader always emerges. In those instances when the group does not have a leader then two scenarios tend to play out:

1. Children look at the problem, solve it themselves and each take the lead to solve it, this conflict then leads to confusion with the input of the answer. Individuals place their fingers on the table at the same time and then without really saying much expect others to adapt to what they have inputted.
2. The group talk about the solution and then between them they each contribute something towards the answer. I believe that this scenario is clearly the best to engage all learners and comes with experience from using the application. Those who have used the activity before tend to add one or two fingers when the answer may well be small enough to answer on their own – thus drawing in other members of the group to complete the solution. 
    

Ignore the shapes on the background which I mistakenly added – this Addition Application activity is about answering the addition and subtraction sums appearing in the centre. Children need to add the correct number of fingers onto the table to answer the question.

Addition App – Set to multi-touch finger counts from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

Watching my Year 5s using it I was surprised at how engaged they were, it is after all simple addition or subtraction. The unique nature of the “finger count” setting is it causes the children to rely on their peers to help them answer the question. If we don’t work together we don’t progress. The collaboration from even just 2 or 3 kids was great to watch.

This application is not new, I have seen and used it before on the Philips Entertaible. Which allowed any object placed on the surface to count as “1″. This was a good feature of that device as it allowed more flexibility to support early counting strategies etc. Not so with the SMART Table which needs a firm finger press.

The size of integers and answers increase as the number of learners set to use it does. (this is done in the admin screen) More finger presses are needed and higher numbers correspondng to the maximum of that group.

Another setting for the Addition application is to show answers using currency – which for British currency is frankly woeful, no colour, incorrect sizes of coins. Canadian and US seems to be in colour not surprising really. Counters or counting blocks can also be used and I will look into this next week.

I was most pleased with the level of engagement from the children and although on the surface this seems to be a simple application, it definitely requires a level of teamwork that you often do not get. 

It is intriguing watching the children’s first attempts and how they realise they need to work together. As the challenge is small scale, once they have been successful they begin to refine their approach, communicate better and so get to later answers quicker.

To support our work in Literacy I have created a simple set of images and video in the SMART Table Media application. This a basic lightbox app that is often demonstrated on multi-touch products. Although it does a basic job, the job this application does is always incredible to watch. Images can be freely moved, rotated and resized. Video has the same function and the twists, turns and magnification that goes on can be done as the video is playing without any interruption.

These are some short films I took today of four children working with this application. The images and video are from the Victorian period, primary and secondary sources of information. I asked them to explore the collection and make some notes about what they find out from the media. As a final discussion point they sorted the images and video into primary and secondary sources; real photos and video or not.

Media App, Manipulating Images and Video on the SMART Table (1) from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

Media App, Manipulating Images and Video on the SMART Table (2) from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

Media App, Manipulating Images and Video on the SMART Table (3) from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

Media App, Manipulating Images and Video on the SMART Table (4) from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

Media App, Manipulating Images and Video on the SMART Table (5) from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

This activity ran for about 20 minutes and is the sort of depth that I have been looking for. I combined some pencil and paper note taking with the high tech access to the media, which worked for us. The children had room to work around the table and as I have said it is comfortable with four users.

Although there are many other applications to explore with multi-touch the Media application has my attention at the moment due the unique interaction with images and film that you experience when at the table. It is the blurring of that physical and digital space that I am intrigued with. The children passed each other video footage. If there is a way this can be done in other available computing environments then I don’t know about it. We certainly would not get the same level of intuitive connection with lots of media as you can when working in multi-touch.

It feels like this is an extremely unique and powerful feature of the multi-touch lightbox applications, whether on a SMART Table or not. One feature that provides children with amazing access to work with digital video in a unique way. The process just facilitates the learning intentions as it is so simple, hopefully you can see that from the footage. Film clips can be placed alongside each for comparisons; moved and sorted according to a custom background or even moved into a shared storyboard format. Furthermore a collection of images and video could be used in early years classrooms as a precursor to writing about an event or trip that took place.

It is the heightened sense of access and of sharing the digital imagery, combined with the fluid resize, rotate and placement controls you have that makes it a powerful learning tool.

We took delivery of our second SMART Table unit on Friday (the first was faulty) and had the afternoon to use it.

I wanted to share with you a few bits of video that I took of the children using the Table as well as a short introductory clip about the physical structure of the Table and its’ components.

Media App for SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

The children worked very naturally with this application and it was fun listening to them chat away about how they liked it. The level of interaction here is high as there are only 3-4 children working at a time, any more and in my opinion the quality and frequency of interaction with the images would reduce (in parallel to a reduction in the amount of surface available to individual users).

Quick Tour of the SMART Table from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

What do you think? I would appreciate your thoughts on the two short clips. There will be plenty of opportunity to post more videos throughout the course of the project and I hope to make a short film introducing the applications and software too.

Unfortunately we have had big problems with the first SMART Table unit we have used. Beyond waiting for keys the Table itself was faulty straight from the box.

Since the beginning of this week I have managed to get some groups of children around the Table involved with some of the activities. It has been good to speak to some of them and get their responses about using it. The children were very excited about using it and had lots of fun working together in some of the applications. Some of their first responses were:

• How much is it?
• Wow – cool, well it looks cool, I don’t know if it actually is cool yet.
• Where is it going to go?
• That thing makes an awful big racket! (The fans are very noisy)
• Headteacher: “Did you enjoy using the SMART Table?” Boy in my class: “It’s OK but it just kept crashing!”

It would be unfair to read too much into the children’s reaction to the Table at the moment as we have had a faulty unit, it has not been behaving as it should. But interesting nonetheless.

The major issue we have had is that as soon as I switched it on, the Table was registering two phantom touches in the centre of the table. This caused the menu windows to be almost inoperable and if I was able to get to an application, it disrupted the movement of objects within that activity. As you can imagine causing huge frustration.

SMART Table Phantom Touches from Tom Barrett on Vimeo.

From the (rough) film you can see the blotches or blobs that appear even when not touching the table, they clearly shouldn’t be there. Safari is selected and you can see a small blob on the selection that won’t go away – that is the phantom touch.

Steljes/SMART reacted to our problems really quickly and, even though it is clearly in their interest to give me a working device, they have worked quickly to rectify it. I was visited yesterday by James Loder, Louise Perrier and a SMART Technician called Steve. They looked at the two mirrors inside, the projector and eventually narrowed the problem to the USB camera that was tracking the touches. Cleaning it did not solve the problems and it was decided that it needed further investigation.

James and Louise said they have a brand new Table in the office, that they have tried and that works perfectly – and that we could have that. So we boxed back up the SMART Table and I am waiting for it to be collected and the other to arrive on Friday morning.

From SMART Table

I was a little surprised and disappointed to find out that the Table was not a conference unit and was in fact brand new, completely fresh from Canada. The quality of the finish of the projected image and flawed touch capability was amazing considering it was new – I was under the impression it had been in the UK and taken a bit of a hammering at BETT or other trade shows. 

A couple of things that I have learned already:

• There is a long way to go in terms of the toolkit and software development
• The table is very robust.
• There is a place in the primary classroom for this type of technology, it feels natural to have this style of technology in my classroom.
• My instincts tell me their is a future in this style of work for kids.
• Multi-touch and the behind the scenes technology that is needed to operate it, can be very temperamental.
• Children take to the medium very easily and naturally.
• They can be networked.
• 3rd party software can run on them but you would lose the 40 touch capability.
• For 9 and 10 year olds (upper junior) the optimum number for using the Table is 4. Any more and it gets a little congested, limiting the screen real estate that you can use. This is crucial, you might be able to get 6 Year 5s around it but they will not get significant enough access to the surface and so the learning activity.

Despite these teething problems I am still eager to get started properly with SMART Table in the classroom, and as it is long term project we can afford a few days ironing out the bumps. When we have a working unit we will have children working in groups on it every morning as part of the range of morning activities and I will be further exploring the use of the Table Activity Toolkit (full write up soon) that allows you to customise your own resources. 

On Friday the greatly anticipated arrival of our pilot SMART Table took place. I visited BETT back in January and met with some representatives from SMART and Steljes (UK distributor of SMART products) to organise the possibility of running a pilot in the use of the table in our school.

Unfortunately getting the device out of the packaging was as far as I could go, as the people who packed it up didn’t include a set of small keys that are crucial. A power cable was provided and this needed to be plugged into the device, the keys unlock the sides of the table allowing access to the power. The cable is then fed through a small hole in the base. But no key, no power!

Nevertheless I will be able to report back early next week as I have some time to myself to play with the applications pre-installed with the SMART Table. They are:

• Paint
• Media
• Multiple Choice
• Hot-Spots
• Addition
• Online Activities

All of these are included in the SMART Table Toolkit. A separate piece of software that runs from the small memory stick that is provided. In this toolkit you can customise the above applications in some basic ways, adding different backgrounds, help/intro text and simple activities.

I will give the SMART Table Toolkit (STT), which is incidentally the only way I can currently author Table content, a full write up when I have had opportunity to use the Table. Rob McLeod has informed me that there is a service pack and update on the way and STT will have a preview option which is an obvious omission in it’s current form.

I was joined in school (and in my frustration) on Friday by Louise Perrier an education consultant with Steljes who will be coordinating the project. We discussed our approach to the project and I was pleased that Louise shared similar views to me about the unexplored potential of multi-touch in the classroom.

We talked about how we could work with a software partner, my worry that the basic apps will only have a short shelf life and what to do beyond that. We both feel that the assessment of collaborative work and how children contribute to a task is an important issue for the project. Furthermore we shared the view that it is what you do with the technology that counts most.

There is a long way to go still, many questions and much to explore – although a disappointing false start I hope to get started properly on Monday.

It looks a possibility that I may be able to take the SMART Table to TeachMeet Midlands – so if you are attending you may get a chance to play, I promise to bring the key.

By the end of next week we will have installed a SMART Table in my classroom. We are part of a small scale (3 school) seedling pilot here in England. As you can imagine, I am excited to further explore what such a device might offer within the primary classroom, and to do so over a longer period.

In my experience there was a muted reaction to the SMART Table (and other interactive multi-touch technologies) at the recent BETT show in London. Clearly the first reactions are hugely positive, I remember using the Philips Entertaible for the first time back in July 2006 – big iPhones! However there were very important, lingering questions that soon simmered to the surface when I talked with Christian Lortz, the product manager for the SMART Table.

My approach to the IWB has been the same since we began using them in 2002, it is not about the device but about the application – it is what you do with it that counts. The IWB is a big control device for your computer. The SMART Table is much the same with the added feature of multiple users. When you work with 9 and 10 year olds you realise that such novelty very quickly wears thin.

These are some fo the ideas and questions I have in mind in the run up to working with the SMART Table.

Depth

I am looking forward to exploring the types of software that can be written that takes full advantage of multiple users. At the moment the brief applications offer little in depth learning activities. With my own year group I suppose I want children to be able to engage with an activity independently or collaboratively for between 15-20 minutes. Not all the time of course, but in my experience children will work through things quicker then anticipated. 

I hope our work with the SMART Table will help define software and applications of greater learning depth then what I have seen in the past. Beyond the initial novelty, leading to richer enhanced learning opportunities.

User Profile

How do you track what individuals contribute to an activity? This is an important question for the adolescent multi-touch table. As a child approaches the table, I want their individual contribution to be tracked and monitored as an activity progresses. Who contributes most when working in a group? Who sits back?

Enhance or dilute?

The jury is out. A ready device is on it’s way to my classroom and I hope that in time the learning activities that can be provided for my class will enhance what we already do. Let’s hope that path is swift and the quality of what already is taking place in my classroom is not diluted by the novelty of multi-touch.

Can you stack them?

This was a question I put to the team at Durham University about the design of a suitable multi-touch table for the primary classroom. Mostly serious, I was keen to point out that I want furniture to be flexible so that I can clear room for a drama session or party. A stackable table-top device would be ideal. I am interested to see how the SMART Table integrates into our busy room and what the children make of it’s design. Will they be too big to sit around it comfortably?

Collaborate

We have explored the way that children can collaborate using Google Docs and their own laptop. This also includes the difficulties they often face. So I am keen to see how well they work in a more open, physical digital space. Will the manual style of collaboration change the way they work compared to working as a team in a Google Doc? Again I hope that software is developed that provides more in depth collaboration opportunities, perhaps over a longer period of time.

Of course I will be taking the opportunity to write about our experiences with the SMART Table in blog posts and via my Twitter and Flickr feed. I may even push the boat out and start a new Twitter account for our kids to document what they think.

I have been following the progression of multi-touch technology in primary education for about 4 years now and have been fortunate enough to see and use devices such as the Philips Entertaible in our school, and the early stages of the Durham University Synergy Net project. Looking back on some of the posts that I have written on the subject, there is a refrain about how long it will be before we see these devices in our classrooms.

Well they are here, ready to go. But once again the key thing is to quickly get beyond the novelty and develop applications that go beyond what can be conventionally done and seek out true learning enhancement.

What key issues do you think need to be addressed in regard to a multi-touch device? Does the SMART Table really have the potential to further enhance what we do in the primary classroom? If you have used one, what were your first impressions and what applications do you think have a future with such a device?

If you would like to contribute further to the concept of multi-touch desk development then please consider joining my Classroom 2.0 group.