Personalisation - introduction


This resource describes how ICT can support the drive for a more personalised learning experience for pupils in schools.

Four areas are considered:

1. What is personalisation? The nature of educational provision for personalised learning and an introduction to the main issues.

2. What is a personalised curriculum? The curriculum as experienced by teachers and learners and some consideration of the content of the curriculum.

3. What is personalised learning? When and where personalised learning takes place and how schools can organise for personalisation.

4. What is a personalised lesson? Personalised learning in the classroom and the kinds of technologies involved.

The emphasis is on how ICT does and might in the future support a learning experience in schools that is increasingly tailored to individual pupil needs. The unit will look at both ICT as a subject and also how ICT is used across the curriculum to support learning.

In using the resource, tutors should consider two important issues:

1. How ‘personalisation’ can be applied effectively in teaching ICT as a subject
2. How ICT can help with the process of personalisation in education generally.

See also the downloadable article on Personalised Learning in the Primary Issues resource on this site.

Rationale

This resource is designed to look across a number of topics and educational initiatives at the issue of personalisation. It is designed in such a way as it can be used as a unit of work with trainee teachers. Alternatively aspects of it might be included where the related issues are raised in the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) curriculum. This resource is not intended to help tutors in ITE develop a personalised curriculum for their own trainee teachers. It is rather a teaching resource for tutors in Primary or Secondary ITE who teach Information Technology or Learning Technology. Although the issues are not in any way exclusive to Information or Learning Technology as a subject, ICT it seems, will play a very significant role in a more personalised learning environment. For this reason the issue is highly pertinent to those training to teach ICT as a subject or to use it in their teaching.

author: Helena Gillespie and John Woollard


download PDF document: "Personalisation.pdf" (953K)

1. What is personalisation?


The nature of educational provision for personalised learning


1.1 The drivers for personalisation

There are many aspects to the emerging personalisation agenda in schools.
The following represents some of the areas that are most pertinent to initial teacher training.

A definition:

“Personalisation is…about putting citizens at the heart of public services and enabling them to have a say in the design and improvement of the organisations that serve them. In education this can be understood as personalised learning – the drive to tailor education to individual need, interest and aptitude so as to fulfil every young person’s potential”. DfES (2004)

This was reflected by the then Minister of State for School Standards, David Miliband,

“Decisive progress in educational standards occurs where every child matters; careful attention is paid to their individual learning styles, motivations, and needs; there is rigorous use of student target setting linked to high quality assessment; lessons are well paced and enjoyable; and students are supported by partnership with others well beyond the classroom.” (Miliband, 2004)

The personalisation agenda is part of a number of current initiatives and developments. It is not an initiative in itself, but an important driver in many of the current changes taking place in many spheres of education. It is important to begin to consider personalisation by understanding what it could mean, and what it doesn’t mean.

Personalisation DOESN’T mean: Personalisation DOES mean: Every Child Matters (ECM) is one the most important documents to be published for educators in the last few years. The ECM document and its subsequent agenda is working towards meeting children’s and families’ needs in order to help all children achieve their potential as members of society. Education is one part of this, and the aim is to help all children achieve successful outcomes in their education. A more personalised approach to their learning should help them do this. For this reason it is important for trainee teachers to understand the scope of the document and its influence on current educational thinking.

TDA Leaflet for trainee teachers

Primary Issues: ECM

1.2 Issues for reflection and consideration

Students should consider in what ways they have seen evidence of a personalised approach to learning in their placement schools. It would be useful to look at this in the context of the ECM documents and consider how schools and teachers could make progress in personalising learning.

1.3 Key documents

Every Child Matters: change for children

author: Helena Gillespie and John Woollard

2. What is a personalised curriculum?


The curriculum as experienced by teachers and learners


This page, Section 2, looks at ways in which the existing curriculum can be related to personalisation (2.3). To put this in context trainee teachers should have an understanding of how personalisation related to learning theories (2.1) and have an overview of the current debates around learner voice (2.2). Allied to all of this are developments in assessment for learning and in e-portfolios (2.4)

2.1 Personalisation and theories of learning

Learner centred modes of education have been the dominant education theories of the past 40 years. The majority of teachers currently working in schools underwent their training when teacher education was based around constructivist theories. More recently trained teachers might also be aware of the theories of metacognition and of theories of multiple intelligences. A useful and succinct overview of these learning theories in Bartlett and Burton’s Introduction to Education Studies is useful in understanding how education theories have developed. The personalisation agenda fits with these theories in a number of ways:
• Constructivist theories of education (such as those of Vygotsky and Bruner) emphasise the need to start with what the learner knows and can do and to build upon that. Crucial aspects of this pedagogical approach are that the teacher should understand the learner and be able to help move their learning forward (scaffold) in the right ways. This approach is clearly linked with a personalised approach to learning.

• Metacognition is a learning theory that emphasises the need for a learner to understand their own learning process in order to move it forward. As with constructivism, the learner and the teacher need to enter into a dialogue about the learning that is taking place. This dialogue will be personal to each learner as they engage with the teacher.

• Theories around different learning styles and different types of ‘intelligence’ have been developing apace in recent times. One of the most popular is that of Howard Gardener who theorised that there are eight different ways in which a person can be intelligent. This theory, and others, have been distilled into a theory which is commonly held by primary school teachers, that is that some learners learn best Visually, some learn best in an Auditory way, and others in a physical or Kinaesthetic way (popularly known as the VAK theory). Whether or not learners can fit neatly into such categories, most teachers know that different approaches to learning with a range of media are needed for each individual learner.
Further discussion about learner styles and approaches to teaching and learning is available on this site in Teaching and Learning and Models of Teaching - models and theories

2.2 Listening to learner’s voices

In order to personalise learning effectively, the learners need to be listened to. There have been a number of publications looking into how this might effect education. One is exemplified in the Futurelab Handbook on Learner Voice, which sets out why learner voice is important for the education system. In summary:
• Listening to learners’ voices helps develop a clearer identity and ethos in a school

• Listening to learners’ voices can and should contribute to school development

• Listening to learners’ voices encourages better student engagement with school in general

• Listening to learner’s voices improves staff/learner relationships
It seems that listening to learners and including them more thoroughly as stakeholders in their own learning can have many benefits. Digital technologies can support this where they facilitate communications within learner groups and between learners and teachers. It may be that technologies such as Virtual Learning Environments (see section 4) which provide tools for synchronous ‘chat’ and asynchronous ‘discussion forums’ may be an ideal way of facilitating teacher/learner talk in a non-threatening way. In addition, where learners are able to have an input into modes of assessment (in self assessment) they are more likely to be successful in those forms of assessment.

BECTA have recently published (2008) a study on learner perspective including recommendations and policy implications which should be considered.

2.3 Curriculum reform

2.3.1 Personalisation and the ICT Curriculum

This section looks at how curriculum and assessment reform could lead to a more personalised curriculum. The focus is mainly on curriculum reform in the secondary sector, but there are issues for the primary phase too. In addition it looks at how teachers can plan, teach and assess pupils' learning using technology to meet their needs.

The DCSF Standards site has a mini site for personalised learning linked to curriculum initiatives and reform. Trainee teachers and tutors in ITE should regard this as their first stop in looking for news and developments on the personalisation agenda.

The five components are split into three ‘inner core’ components that relate to classroom practice:
• Assessment for Learning
• Effective teaching and learning strategies
• Curriculum entitlement and choice
Two more components relate to the wider educational experience:
• Organising the school
• Beyond the classroom
A good starting point for resources and reflections upon personalisation is the TeacherNet website.


Five key components of personalised learning
Source: Personalised Learning TLRP/ESRC 2004, Editors James, A & Pollard, A

The essence of personalisation is that learning systems conform to the learner and not the learner having to conform to the system of teaching. The “Personalisation and Digital Technologies” report (Green et al, 2005) moves the personalisation debate forward by focusing specifically on the potential of digital technologies in four key areas:
• enabling learners to make informed educational choices
• diversifying and acknowledging different forms of skills and knowledge
• creating diverse learning environments
• developing learner-focused forms of assessment and feedback.
From September 2008 changes to the Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 curriculum have been phased in. These constitute both changes in the pedagogical approach to this phase of education and the curriculum content. Crucially, they also affect modes of assessment. Trainee teachers should consider the links between the aims and content of the curriculum as set out below and the issues of personalisation. Learning technologies that can be used for personalisation, specifically Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) and mobile devices, and their use, raise some interesting issues. Such issues are referred to in the ICT curriculum and have implications for both ICT as a subject and ICT in other subject areas. Trainees may need help to understand the implications for teaching and learning of these technologies. Their primary focus will be within their own practice, but they need also to be aware that those who teach ICT may be expected to support colleagues in developing the technical and pedagogical skills to use these technologies.

See also on this site:
ICT in Teaching - Learning Platforms and VLEs
Primary Issues - VLEs
ICT in Teaching - Portable Devices
Primary Issues - downloadable article on Mobile Technologies

The new aims for the curriculum, which relate directly to the outcomes of Every Child Matters, are that:

The curriculum should enable all young people to become:
• Successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
• Confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
• Responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.
Trainees teachers should consider to what extent the ICT curriculum helps pupils achieve these aims, and to what extent pupils’ experiences of the ICT curriculum need to be personalised in order to achieve these aims. It might be useful to look at specific parts of the ICT curriculum rather than at the curriculum as a whole in order to focus ideas and discussion. For example, tutors could look at the following elements:

From the Key Concepts of the Key Stage 3 Programme of Study:

1.4 Impact of technology

a. Exploring how ICT changes the way we live our lives and has significant social, ethical and cultural implications.

b. Recognising issues of risk, safety and responsibility surrounding the use of ICT.

From the Key Concepts of the Key Stage 4 Programme of Study:

1.5 Critical evaluation

a. Recognising that information must not be taken at face value, but must be analysed and evaluated to take account of its purpose, author, currency and context.

b. Reviewing and reflecting critically on what they and others produce using ICT.

In addition, the key stage 2 National Curriculum for ICT introduces some of the issues and topics raised by these elements of the secondary phase of the ICT curriculum. Specifically:

From the Key Stage 2 Statutory Content:

Exchanging and sharing information

3. Pupils should be taught:

a. how to share and exchange information in a variety of forms, including e-mail [for example, displays, posters, animations, musical compositions]

b. to be sensitive to the needs of the audience and think carefully about the content and quality when communicating information [for example, work for presentation to other pupils, writing for parents, publishing on the internet].

Curriculum documents should be considered by trainees, for example, the Review of the Primary Curriculum, KS3 changes, 14-19 reform. While the changes at Key Stage 3 are now embedded in schools, reform in the 14-19 age range as a result of the Tomlinson Report of 2004 is ongoing with a drive towards offering more flexible and diverse routes through education for those nearing the end of their schooling. In late 2008, the publication of the Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum seems destined to indicate significant curriculum and pedagogical change in the Primary phase too.

Links on TTRB to related articles on curriculum reform Primary Key Stage 3 Key Stage 4

See also on this website:Primary Issues, Teaching at KS3, Teaching at KS4, and 14 - 19 Reform

2.3.2 ICT supporting learning in other subjects

While personalisation raises issues for ICT as a subject in itself, trainee teachers should also consider how ICT is used in other subjects and how this relates to personalised learning. In 2004, as part of the KS3 curriculum reform, a guide to ICT in other subjects across the curriculum was introduced. The overview and guide for management of this initiative is available at:

ICTAC initiative on the Standards Site

Secondary school ICT teachers may be involved in helping develop whole school ICT policy and practice. In particular, teachers of ICT need to develop pupils’ transferable ICT skills, in order that they are able to apply what they learn in a variety of curriculum subjects. In considering this issue, tutors in ITE might ask the trainees to look at specific ICT tools and application and how they might be included in other subjects and in whole school pedagogical approaches. Two good examples (discussed further in section 4 of this unit) are how schools can make use of virtual learning environments and mobile technologies in this way, especially the impact that such technologies can have on pupil assessment. The following questions might be useful:
• In what ways could online testing via a VLE help secure and develop pupils’ subject knowledge in Science?
• How could mobile learning technologies such as phones or PDAs help develop pupils’ work in Geography?
• How could electronic portfolios support cross-curricular learning?
Trainees might like to refer to individual subject's ICTAC documents available at the above website to support their discussions.

Including ICT across the Curriculum in meaningful ways has long been an aspiration. Where ICT can contribute in other subjects it enhances both pupils' ICT skills and the subject itself. As far as the personalisation agenda is concerned, ICT could be used in other subject areas in two ways, firstly to support learners with tasks they would find difficult without the technologies (for example, screen readers for dyslexic students in English). However, a major aspect of personalisation across the curriculum would be the application of virtual learning evnvironments. This would be further enhanced by the ability of pupils to access the VLEs from a variety of mobile devices. They could access learning materials and support in different places and at different times both before, during and after traditional face to face teaching sessions.

The Teaching and Learning Research programme's InterActive project examined ways in which ICT could be used in primary to post-16 educational settings to enhance learning. It evaluated initiatives in a range of subjects, as well as cross-curricular learning, such as numeracy literacy and problem solving. The project reports and website provide further information: InterActive Education:Teaching and Learning in the Information Age

2.4 Assessment for learning and ICT

2.4.1 Assessing with ICT
Effective use of Assessment for Learning is one of the key components in the DCSF Personalised Learning guidance. Understanding what pupils know and can do is the first stage of any teacher’s drive to make learning more personal. The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) report contains several useful case studies that examine the impact of teachers’ working towards a more personalised approach. In one case study, which considers InterActive Education, the TLRP team looked at how advanced technologies can promote learning in classrooms. Crucially, it looked at how pupil engagement with ICT lead to a greater understanding of what they knew about subjects such as mathematics:

“However, we have found that extended individual engagement can lead students to acquire idiosyncratic knowledge which is at odds with the intended learning. For example, when a group of primary school students were investigating the properties of a parallelogram through interacting with geometry software, they recorded the following:

'It has four sides; they are like train tracks, they are parallel; it doesn’t have any right angles; it’s the colour turquoise, it can be a diamond.'

All of these statements are correct, but not all are appropriate within the context of school mathematics.”

Digital technologies offer a range of tools for assessment, and some schools are now making use of quiz tools on their VLEs. Discussion boards can also be good ways of gathering pupils’ ideas.

In a study of student empowerment, Kelvin Tan asks whether student self-assessment empowers or disciplines students (Tan, 2004). He concludes that student empowerment can only be realised if the ways in which we use self-assessment practices are first understood and it is realised that they do not necessarily become independent learners if the constraints and expectations are prescriptive or even mandatory. He explains that, even though student self-assessment is a popular practice for enhancing student empowerment in the assessment process, that some writers have even warned that students' participation in the assessment process may discipline, rather than empower, them. His paper examines the issues of power that underlie student self-assessment practices.

2.4.2 E-portfolios
The Association for Learning Technology (Roberts et al, 2005, p5) reports that e-portfolios are one means by which governments are seeking to build knowledge economies. The Department for Education and Skills assert that they seek to “Provide integrated e-portfolios [for Schools] by 2007” and to provide, “A personalised learning space, with the potential to support e-portfolios available within every college by 2007-08” (DfES, 2005). It has been suggested that the European Commission should develop a portfolio system as a method for lifelong learners to demonstrate their formal and informal qualifications and competence. Reasons given for the interest in these developments include:
• reducing contact time while also increasing the quality of contact time
• increasing learner autonomy and self-direction
• stimulating reflection and deep learning
• helping lifelong learning
• facilitating progression of learners within and between institutions and between national education systems.

2.5 Issues for reflection and consideration

This section deals with a number of important areas for discussion when considering personalisation of learning. Trainee teachers should consider the relevant parts of the curriculum, as set out in section 2.3.1 and how they could develop their own personalisation practice in planning and delivering teaching.

2.6 Key Documents

DCSF minisite on Personalisation
http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/personalisedlearning

Teachernet Website on Personalisation
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/atoz/p/personalisedlearning/

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme report on Personalised Learning, 2004.
http://www.tlrp.org/documents/personalised_learning.pdf

The Futurelab Handbook about Learner Voice, 2006
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/handbooks/Handbook132

The Futurelab Learners’ Charter, 2005
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/opening-education-reports/Op
ening-Education-Report201


author: Helena Gillespie and John Woollard

3. What is personalised learning?


When and where personalised learning takes place


3.1 Personalisation in school

Personalised learning also means making the school student-centric. Effective learning must inform classroom layout, school organisation and the overall ethos (Roberts et al 2005). One aspect of the Every Child Matters agenda is “engaging and helping parents in actively supporting their children’s learning and development”. The home-accessible learning platform is one way in which you can provide access for the parents of your pupils to your teaching materials and assessments. “For secondary schools, the core offer is similar [including study support, family learning and parental support opportunities], encouraging schools to open up facilities such as sports, arts and ICT”. (DfES, 2004, p3).

Another area of particular interest to ICT teacher trainees includes the contribution made by the use of computer hardware to personalisation. For example, a graphics tablet or remote keyboard can be given to a pupil to demonstrate to the rest of the class. Pupils can be involved in talking about and demonstrating their achievements without the emotional or physical issues of having to go and stand in front of the class. As their confidence grows they might let a pupil use the mouse and keyboard to carry out the computer operations as they give their exposition from the front of the class. This gives some pupils a sense of responsibility and the trainee greater freedom to concentrate upon their exposition or management of the class. The general approach meets with the desires of pupil centredness or personalisation in learning.

Contextualised learning has an influence upon personalisation of the individual pupil’s experience. For example, the new generation of map software enables you to provide pupils with experience of exploring their own area with high degrees of fidelity. Representations using the regular 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey notation can now be overlaid with aerial photographs and historical maps. This gives pupils a sense of their place in history and a better understanding of the overall environment. Measuring tools and the facility to change the colour tone, scale and orientation of maps enables pupils to use the maps in presentations. For example, they could exemplify environmental factors by labelling a map local to their school. The personal nature of this contextualised learning adds motivation for most students.

3.2 Learning Outside The Classroom

Personalising learning may also mean that learners engage with school in non-traditional settings. Learning outside the classroom might take place in the home, or when travelling or in the community and wider environment. Mobile digital technologies are well placed to support this, and the role of the ubiquitous mobile phone is discussed in more detail in section 4. In approaching the topic of learning outside the classroom with traineeteachers, it might be useful to look at the Futurelab Learners Charter for a personalised learning environment. This document was produced to encourage debate about what a more personalised learning environment might look like and using it could help students develop a wider understanding of what a ‘learning environment (digital and non digital) might be like. Crucially, the charter sets out the appropriate learning environments that learners can expect, including:

• Access to different teaching and learning approaches and resources that meet my needs

• Access to people who are able to extend and develop my understanding in my chosen areas

• Access to learning environments and resources that enable me to develop my understanding and experience in authentic and appropriate contexts

This meets the Professional Standard Q30; teachers in training are expected to “identify opportunities for learners to learn in out-of-school contexts”.

The Learning Outside the Classroom website offers information, guidance and resources.

3.3 Issues for reflection

Trainee teachers should consider to what extent their own practice currently allows for a personalised learning experience. It might be useful to analyse practice at the level of the lesson plan as well as teaching strategies employed.

3.4 Key documents

Extended schools are schools that are working with other agencies to provide before and after ‘normal school hours’ provision to support working parents and to provide for adult and community learning in schools.
Extended Services - extra support for you and your children

author: Helena Gillespie and John Woollard

4. What is a personalised lesson?


Personalised learning in the classroom


4.1 Existing and Future Technologies and Personalisation

Many of the ICT tools and applications that would support teachers in offering more personalised learning opportunities already exist. However at the time of writing, they are not substantially embedded in the pedagogical approaches of most schools. A report into digital technologies and personalisation is published by Futurelab. The paper can be useful to tutors in ITE to introduce the issues and encourage debate amongst students about how digital technologies might support more personalised learning. The aims for the paper are set out in the introduction:
"This paper aims to contribute to this debate by articulating a range of ways in
which we might move forward in achieving these goals, specifically by
harnessing the potential of digital technologies in four key areas central to the
goals of personalisation: enabling learners to make informed educational
choices; diversifying and acknowledging different forms of skills and knowledge; the creation of diverse learning environments; and the development of learner-focused forms of assessment and feedback. "
The paper can be downloaded at the Futurelab website - digital technologies

Trainee teachers should also look at how specific technologies can impact on personalisation and the contribution of mobile technologies and virtual learning environments (VLEs) can make to this. To find about more about these technologies themselves these links may be useful.

Some discussion of the contribution mobile devices can make is available on the Futurelab website - mobile

A more general overview of VLEs technologies is available on this website:
ICT in Teaching - Learning Platforms and VLEs
Primary Issues - VLEs

4.2 Mobile Technologies and Personalisation

Mobile technologies include phones, personal data assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers all of which can be used to create information (in text or pictures), retrieve information (through a connection to the internet) or communicate (via email, text or web based social networking). Increasingly these are devices to which children and young people have access. However, it should not be assumed that all children have and can use such devices (as the media stereotype might assert) and teachers should be aware of the ‘digital divide’, which means that for some pupils socio-economic or learning issues might mean that they do not have access to mobile technologies.

ICT in Teaching - Portable Devices
Primary Issues - downloadable article on Mobile Technologies

The Futurelab and University of Nottingham project mobimissions provides an interesting case study of how mobile devices could support personalised learning. In the project, learners used the mobile phones to create, access and respond to tasks based in particular places. Learners then rated the missions and each others' responses to them. The project explored the link between learners and places, and had many other learning outcomes, including encouraging collaborative and peer learning and peer assessment of learning. While this project is specific in its purpose and scope, the technologies used and learning outcomes for the participants could be used in other learning contexts, and would be particularly useful in engaging reluctant learners because of its non-school based and collaborative approach.

Another research project, this time carried out by BECTA, looked into the relationship between secondary schools and mobile phones. This study found that in the majority of schools, mobile phone use was actively discouraged. It goes on to explore how and why mobile phones might be of use in learning. The study identifies 15 useful things pupils can do with mobile phones:

1 Timing experiments with stopwatch
2 Photographing apparatus and results of experiments for reports
3 Photographing the development of design models for eportfolios
4 Photographing texts/whiteboards for future review
5 Bluetoothing project material between group members
6 Receiving SMS & email reminders from teachers
7 Synchronising calendar/timetable and setting reminders
8 Connecting remotely to the school learning platform
9 Recording a teacher reading a poem for revision
10 Accessing revision sites on the Internet
11 Creating short narrative movies
12 Downloading and listening to foreign language podcasts
13 Logging into the school email system
14 Using GPS to identify locations
15 Transferring files between school and home

In all of these, mobile phones can help pupils learn in ways that support their individual needs and provide a more personalised learning experience by enabling them to effectively communicate with other pupils and their teachers and make stronger links between school and out of school learning. Trainee teachers should consider how such applications could be used to help meet the learning needs of pupils in the schools in which they are placed, although they should be aware that they must, during their training period, adhere to school policies on mobile phones in the classroom.

4.3 Personalised Virtual Learning Environments

Most schools now have access to Virtual Learning Environments (or learning platforms as they are sometimes known), and some have begun to make use of them in various ways, including communication, access to additional and supplementary learning resources and e-assessment. Virtual Learning Environments are used to support face to face teaching in a number of ways, which can be divided into three levels:

• Level 1. The online filing cabinet. At this level, teachers can use the VLE to post files for learners to access and use the notice-board functionality for communications.

• Level 2. The online meeting room. At this level, teachers use the VLE to post files and announcements and make some use of the other communications tools such as email and chat facilities. At this level the wider use of communication tools supports the learners in using the teaching materials and aligning the use of the VLE with their face to face teaching sessions.

• Level 3. The online classroom. The teacher makes use of a wide range of communication tools and groups learners to target communications as well as using the assessment tools and monitoring software to assess the impact of the teaching that is taking place via the VLE.

Where the VLE is being used in schools at level 2 or 3, the VLE can support the personalisation of learning. In addition, if the VLE use is planned into teaching schemes at an early stage, its use can support personalisation in face to face teaching too, by supporting learners who need to prepare for sessions, and those that need help afterwards.

The impact of VLEs in schools is yet to be fully researched. A BECTA literature review published in 2003 found that while increasingly extensive use was being made of VLEs in Higher Education, there was little research evidence to suggest it was being used in schools. However, over the next few years this should change, with a requirement that all schools should be using a ‘comprehensive suite of learning platform technologies’ by 2010.

Link to BECTA advice on VLE

Over the next few years there is likely to be some significant work in schools to build in the use of VLEs. This should enable schools and teachers to offer an increasingly personalised learning experience to pupils. Teachers of ICT and ICT specialists in schools have an important role to play in this process.

4.4 Issues for reflection and consideration

Trainee teachers should consider their own reflections on the practical implications of the personalisation agenda.

The following diagram, which represents the thinking of a group of 14 ICT teacher trainees after the first 3 months of their training (6 weeks in school) may be a useful starting point. The areas that they did not reflect fully upon include the school structures (timetable, break times, tutorial support, before/after school arrangements) and a more comprehensive listing of classroom strategies.



4.5 Key documents

Futurelab report Personalisation and Digital Technologies

Futurelab article Fragmented treasures awaiting prospectors for personlisation

author: Helena Gillespie and John Woollard

References


References, key texts and links in personalisation


Bartlett, S and Burton, D (2007) Introduction to Education Studies London: Sage

BECTA report on Personalising Learning and the Learner perspective
http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_rp_02&rid=14551

DCSF publications on extended schools
http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFunction=productdetails&PageMode=publications&P
roductId=DCSF-00786-2008&

DfES (2004) Every Child Matters: Change for Children in Schools London, UK: Department for Education and Skills
http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/07CD1E89BFFA749324DC47F707DD5B7F.pdf

Futurelab report: Personalisation and Digital Technologies http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Personalisation_report.pdf

Futurelab article: Fragmented treasures awaiting prospectors for personlisation
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/web-articles/Web-Article1125

Futurelab: The Learners' Charter for a Personalised Learning Environment
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Learners_Charter.pdf

National Strategy website (England)http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/personalisedlearning/

National Curriculum site on personalisation at KS3/4 (England)
http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/organising-your-curriculum/personalisation/index
.aspx

Roberts, G, Aalderink, W, Windesheim, H, Cook, J, Feijen, M, Harvey, J, Lee, S and Wade, VP (2005) Effective learning, future thinking: digital repositories, e-portfolios, informal learning and ubiquitous computing Spring Conference Research Seminar Dublin, Eire: ALT/SURF/ILTA1 http://www.alt.ac.uk/docs/ALT_SURF_ILTA_white_paper_2005.pdf

Tan, K (2004) Does student self-assessment empower or discipline students? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 29 6 651-662

TLRP report: Personalised Learning
http://www.tlrp.org/documents/personalised_learning.pdf

TTRB summary and links on Personalised learning
http://www.ttrb.ac.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?ContentId=12406


author: Helena Gillespie and John Woollard