Innovate My School empowers educators to think beyond traditional boundaries, lead proactively and, most importantly, feel inspired. It now entertains an audience of 50,000 educators through its weekly content, with 1,300 guest bloggers and over 2,500 articles published to date.
Over the summer we have had a swathe of exciting EdTech startups and stalwarts join us in our mission to create a more transparent marketplace for EdTech that is driven by impact and customer feedback. We also saw a good number of EdTech companies add to their evidence base, proving their commitment to putting impact at the heart of their products. Here are a few we have handpicked for the first EdTech Guide of 2019/20.
Customer rating: 5/5 (6 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Purple Mash is a creative and inspiring tool for children aged 3 to 11. It includes a collection of essential child friendly ergonomically designed tools, games, activities and 1000s of digital resources for children and teachers across core subjects and curriculum areas. Purple Mash contains free home access for all pupils and works across a range of different devices, from tablets to interactive whiteboards. Purple Mash is known and loved by so many primary schools. But why do they love it so? What outcomes can you expect from implementing Purple Mash? Well, since being onboarded to EdTech Impact, Purple Mash have already started to add to their evidence base allowing you to answer these questions with confidence, and we are told we can expect much more in coming weeks. Exciting!
Read more: Purple Mash full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 5/5 (3 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
We’re thrilled to welcome education stalwart Britannica to EdTech Impact. Britannica School is a citable, online learning resource trusted by teachers and pupils. The information in Britannica School is aligned to the national curriculum, updated daily and spans a range of media, including video, images and audio content. Curated and checked by professional editors, it is the must-have learning and teaching digital resource. With the ability to browse by subject, look for biographies, explore the World Atlas, compare statistical information between different countries and discover interactive resources, Britannica School makes digital learning more accessible than ever.
Read more: Britannica School full profile on Edtech Impact
Do we have your attention? Because Tali Train, all the way from Australia, are officially announcing their arrival in this week’s Guide. It’s a must read! Created by Australian scientists, and backed by the Australian Government, Tali Train is a clinically validated digital game-based cognitive training that targets attention specifically, and was designed to help the millions of children that are disadvantaged by diagnosed attention difficulties, as well as those that may benefit from improved cognitive attention skills. Based on over 25 years of research, the Tali Train program has been shown to significantly improve attention and numeracy skills 3 months after completing a 25-session program delivered on an iPad or Android tablet interface. Tali Train exercises core aspects of attention during a period of peak neuroplasticity in early childhood, laying the foundation that allows a child a better opportunity to learn and grow.
Read more: Tali Train full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 5/5 (1 review) | Edtech Impact scores:
Still with the T’s, we’re so happy that award winning Tales Toolkit have joined our mission to transform EdTech procurement for schools. Tales Toolkit provides interactive, child led resources aimed at early years, all using easy to remember symbols representing story structure. Tales Toolkit's innovative resources give children independence to create and write stories around interests using anything to hand! Resources are provided with online training and support to ensure maximum impact is made across many areas of learning. Tales Toolkit is proven to impact language, literacy, creativity, social skills, problem solving and close the gender gap in Literacy, all with little or no planning involved for the teacher!
Read more: Tales Toolkit full profile on Edtech Impact
And to finish, a special shout out to the busy bee evidence gatherers. We admire your commitment to independently verified school review collation over the summer period. Doodle Maths, SchooliP, Neuron Learning and mySchoolApp, we salute you!
Nordic companies have exploded onto the global EdTech scene in recent years. The two inspiration articles accompanying this EdTech Guide seek to explore why Nordic EdTech companies are so innovative, and why Nordic schools are implementing EdTech so successfully. What is crystal clear is that there are so many Nordic EdTech stars. Here are ten that we keep hearing about for lots of exciting reasons.
Technology provides dynamic opportunities for teaching and learning of maths. It can enhance the learning process and make concepts come alive through engaging and interactive media. Edtech tools can also offer additional support to address the needs of all learners and create personalised learning experiences. Here are some edtech tools focused on raising numeracy standards in primary and secondary schools.
Purchase price varies by single class, whole school or intervention only | Customer rating: 4.5/5 (29 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
First up is Maths-Whizz, a fun, online maths tutor for 5-13 year olds. The interactive lessons can be personalised to match each student’s unique strengths and areas of improvement. Not only does Maths-Whizz offer exciting, valuable maths tuition, it also provides free resources and features that help you plan the perfect maths lesson. Its because of this in-depth functionality that 100% of teachers agree that Maths-Whizz builds student knowledge. Their passion to build the best maths resource for schools earned them the 2019 Bett Award for Best Collaboration with a School.
Read more: Maths-Whizz full profile on Edtech Impact
Purchase price: £2 per student | Customer rating: 4.5/5 (6 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Mathspace is the world’s first adaptive learning workbook for 6-18 year olds. Their lessons differ from other online maths tutors as they are built around the most important aspect of maths learning; the students reasoning process behind the final answer. Mathspace uses adaptive learning technology, which means that students get graded and given feedback on every step throughout the process of problem solving. This gives students a deeper, more robust understanding of maths. It comes as no surprise that £2 per student.
Read more: Mathspace full profile on Edtech Impact
Purchase price: £5 per user | Customer rating: 5/5 (3 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Sparx Maths Homework has an inspiring mission; to improve numeracy for over 5 million learners by 2030. It’s this ambition that lead them to develop an online platform that automatically sets one hour of personalised maths homework for every student, every week. Their platform boasts over 7’100 video tutorials and 30’500 questions, with each software is currently helping over 4’500 learners, 100% of which agree that daily use improves both student attainment and parental engagement.
Read more: Sparx Maths Homework full profile on Edtech Impact
Purchase price: Free | Customer rating: 4.5/5 (14 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Mathigon is a free, award winning online mathematics course for secondary school students. Unlike videos or conventional textbooks, students using Mathigon are encouraged to participate in engaging activities covering the whole of the curriculum. As well as an interactive textbook, Mathigon also features a virtual personal tutor that and answers direct questions and provides students with feedback. Each chapter of the Mathigon online textbook is brought to life with an interesting narrative that captivates students attention and imagination. It’s because of these features that 100% of users agree that Mathigon helps build students knowledge.
Read more: Mathigon full profile on Edtech Impact
Purchase price: £75 annual flat fee
Times tables with Emile is an impressive online resource for teaching Key Stage 2 children multiplication in a fun and engaging way. For times tables 1-12, the site offers appropriate games, activities and competitions tailored to each students ability. Students are encouraged to compete in groups or as a class to get to the top of the leaderboard and unlock new achievements. Via secure logins, teachers can pick out students that need help and students that are ready to move onto more challenging learning content. Times tables with Emile send out progress reports automatically to teachers, helping to drastically reduce teacher workload.
Read more: Times tables with Emile full profile on Edtech Impact
Purchase price: £199 flat fee
DoodleMaths is a multi-award winning online maths platform that is proven to accelerate children’s progress in Numeracy. What sets DoodleMaths apart from their competition is their powerful algorithm that identifies children’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This is the narrow band between what a learner can do without help and what he or she needs help to do. DoodleMaths harnesses this information to create a unique work program for every student that ensures continual progression and better overall student attainment.
Read more: DoodleMaths full profile on Edtech Impact
Purchase price: £15 monthly flat fee
Mathletics is one of the most popular online maths resources. Used by over 5’000 schools in the UK and Ireland, it offers online courses designed for Foundation Stage learning up to Key Stage 5. What makes Mathletics so sought after is their vast array of curriculum-aligned learning resources; activities, eBooks and videos proven to significantly increase levels of student engagement, confidence and progress in Maths. Mathletics’ success has been proven in a study conducted by Oxford University that concluded students who made regular use of their resources did significantly better on a range of measures. You can read more captivating case studies on the impact Mathletics is having on students learning here.
Read more: Mathletics full profile on Edtech Impact
Popular mathematics and coding platform, Mangahigh, is used by 100’000 teachers in over 5’000 schools globally. Mangahigh uses gamification to encourage student engagement and make learning fun. Covering a wide range of topics including algebra, geometry, probability, statistics, measurement and coding, finding an activity that fits into your lesson content has never been easier. A basic version of the platform is currently available for free.
Finally, MyMaths is a subscription based website used by approximately four million students each year. Serving age ranges from Primary School up to A- Level, MyMaths is an all-in-one solution offering content applicable to all abilities. AQA and Edexcel GCSE maths courses are powered by MyMaths with direct links to MyMaths resources. This makes MyMaths the best option when considering maths revision tools.
Trial numeracy software such as Mathspace, Sparx Maths Homework, DoodleMaths, Maths-Whizz, Mathigon, Mathletics, Times tables with Emile and many more, free of charge from Edtech Impact - a school review driven discovery engine, supporting schools to make the best edtech choices to achieve maximum impact.
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Many say that education is not yet transformed by technology. Well, not to the extent that other industries can claim. But this has a lot more to do with the complexity of schools choosing, adopting and implementing edtech, rather than there being a lack of innovative tech out there, solving problems for teachers and creating opportunities for learners.
Parents play a crucial role in supporting their children’s learning, and levels of parental engagement are consistently associated with better outcomes. Evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation's Teaching and Learning Toolkit suggests that "effective parental engagement can lead to learning gains of over 3 months over the course of a year".
However, it can be a difficult and time consuming job to get parents involved in the right way. Thankfully, edtech is shaping the future of parental engagement and is helping schools to break down barriers to communication, as well as encouraging and enabling parents to take an active role in their children’s learning journeys.
This week testing season officially begins. Edtech products can play an important role in students’ preparation for exams, as well as supporting extending learning beyond the classroom throughout the year. Here are 11 edtech products helping to ease the pressure on students and teachers at what can be a stressful time of year.
Robots are flexible learning tools that are making their mark in primary and secondary classrooms everywhere. From mechanics and electronics, to programming and even teamwork, here are seven robots loved by students and teachers alike.
Our 2018/19 Lead LIVE roadshow kicked off in Wigan, with educators sharing a wealth of ideas to address excess workload in schools. The roadshow features talks from innovative school leaders on tackling teacher's timesinks, a prize draw, and a 'speed dating' session with ten of the best edtech providers in the country. The roadshow is now heading to Wellingborough, Peterborough, Liverpool, Bradford, Hertfordshire and Hove, and these happy school leaders explain what you can expect...
‘Outstanding’? ‘Good’? ‘Less than ideal, but we’ll muddle along for another year’? How does your timetable fare? Asked to give their new school timetable an Ofsted rating, over 25% of teachers told us that they would place it in the ‘requires improvement’ category. Moreover, almost all described their timetable as less than ‘outstanding’, offering a real opportunity for SLT to make meaningful improvements before it’s too late.
If the summer term is a time of reflection, then the autumn term represents fresh starts. Improvements. New ways of working. Changes that make sense for the school. And what better place to start than the timetable? After all, it’s the most important document in the school, and key to success on every level.
With this in mind, we asked experienced headteacher and Edval consultant, Paul Phillips, how a school can improve its timetables at this stage of the year - with minimal disruption. Here’s what he said:
1. Improve your staffing
“For accountability reasons, it is vital that teachers and school leaders can maintain ownership of pupil outcomes. However, it’s equally important for students to build meaningful learning relationships with their teachers. Too many teachers resulting from split classes mean that students feel that they are not known by their teachers. They also demonstrate stress behaviours when the delivery consistency does not go smoothly.
“Teachers also rightly want planning time with their co-teacher, where split classes are a regular feature on their timetable. Without this, curriculum delivery, homework and marking can be a major issue, for teachers and students alike.”
2. Improve your lesson spreads
“With a far greater emphasis on maximising pupil progress, it is essential that the timetable supports effective learning and teaching practice. The ability to offer short but regular language lessons, double sessions for Science and Technology lessons, and avoiding two lessons on a day, allows teachers to better manage learning, marking, homework and time for reflection.
“Control of this area has for many schools been an ad-hoc affair. The power to reduce occurrences of inappropriate spreads, but also the ability to improve teacher spreads, and class spreads, means I can give teachers and students a better timetable experience.”
3. Improve your rooming
“Rooming can be a real headache in schools, and is often an afterthought in many schools’ timetables. But if you ask a part timer, or member of SLT, who has to navigate through corridors and up and down staircases with trolley and boxes of books, equipment and materials, then you will get a very blunt response to this aspect of the timetable!
“Schools with split sites, complex buildings across a campus, buildings with multiple and narrow staircases, need to put much more care into their rooming requirements. Having the tools on hand to maximise rooming quality can dramatically reduce staff and student movement across the timetable.”
4. Improve your option blocks
“Optimising option blocks is essential for all kinds of reasons. Giving students their options ensures greater satisfaction in offers, and enables students to progress more rapidly in subjects that they have chosen, and want to excel in. By focusing on optimising student preferences, I can have far greater control and understanding of student requests.
“For schools in a ‘deficit funding-led curriculum’ cycle, optimising option blocks allows for lean timetabling, the opportunity to drop classes and maintain high student satisfaction. It’s a vital tool in reducing staff costs, and it’s not too late to improve them.”
The year ahead
So why not take this opportunity to tweak your timetable with minimal disruption to the school community? Edval Improve services give SLT the opportunity to supercharge more than just the timetable, positively influencing staff morale, student learning and budget bottom lines in the process.
Challenge our experienced Edval consultants to work on your chosen timetable improvement area and refuse to settle for anything less than the best. Interested in finding out more? Say [email protected], or visit www.edval.education for more information.
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