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.
With 75% of UK state secondary schools signed up to the National Theatre Collection, ten additional productions will now be available to schools, colleges and educational establishments from today in partnership with Bloomsbury Publishing and ProQuest, part of Clarivate. These ten new productions will complete the second Collection, making 50 titles available to the education sector worldwide.
Pupils at Cwmaber Infants School have proven their green credentials after being awarded a top eco award.
The school was awarded the prestigious Platinum Flag Award after previously gaining three Green Flag Awards thanks to the environmental education programme, Eco-Schools.
Eco-Schools is an international programme run in Wales by environmental charity, Keep Wales Tidy and funded by the Welsh Government.
Welcome to the 2017/18 edition of our annual IMS Guide.
Click to read the full PDF edition of the guide
“For this edition, we’ve brought you insights from 40 of the most exciting educators on the scene.Not only are we bringing you never-before-seen articles from some of education’s most innovative minds, but we’ve also included a selection of our most popular articles from across the 2016/17 year."
Michael Forshaw - Founder and CEO
We’re always on the lookout for enthusiastic education experts to join our ever-growing league of guest writers. Our daily articles are submitted by teachers and industry professionals who vary in writing experience, from beginner to veteran. If you can share awesome teaching technologies / resources or fun educational practices with us, get in touch!
Benefits of being a guest writer:
- Become a part of our friendly, thriving community, including a full author profile.
- Be recognised as an expert in your field by sharing useful tips and ideas.
- Educate our keen audience about the benefits that your field of expertise can bring them.
- Communicate with readers by responding to article comments and tagged tweets.
- Your article will be published to our Ideas page.
- Your article will be included in the popular weekly newsletter.
- We'll continually tweet about your article to our 20k+ Twitter followers.
All articles are SEO friendly (we have a Google Page Rank of 5), helping spread your name and boost your website / blog's search engine ranking.
Each article has the potential to go viral, with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+ sharing buttons added to every page.
If you’re interested, visit our 10 tips for writing a guest article.
Note: We won’t publish any articles that promote your company or services, but we will make sure that your submitted articles, as well as your reputation as an expert, are promoted throughout Innovate My School's website and social media. Full and clear credit is very important to us.
If you would like to know more about how to publish your ideas with us, get in touch on [email protected] or call 01244 312 720.
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On Saturday 16th May, educators around the world will head to teacher Graham Andre’s Twitter page for #GlobalBrewEdIsolation. Here, Graham explains where April’s #BrewEdIsolation came from, and what people can expect from this exciting sequel…
The DfE listed ten challenge areas in its EdTech Strategy, one of which was formative assessment. It’s so important, in fact, that they’re offering funding to EdTech companies who can offer innovative ideas to transform formative assessment - we’re fortunate enough to already work alongside several companies who are making a real impact in the world of assessment, and this week we’re celebrating their amazing work.
Designed by teachers for teachers, Mappix makes assessment simple. Teachers can access Mappix from anywhere on multiple devices, and see real time data on pupils’ performance in digestible, user friendly formats. This teacher team have thought of everything, from automatic reporting to gap detection - and if you think of something else Mappix could do, simply tell them!
Read more: Mappix full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 5/5 (2 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
SATs Companion’s unique bank of over 28,000 questions and 40 different question styles will save you time with instant marking and feedback - and 88% of teachers we surveyed agree. From Geometry to Fractions and Determiners to Reading Comprehension, questions are styled just like the real tests, and pupils’ progress is tracked in real time.
Read more: SATs Companion full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 4.5/5 (25 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
The award winning Pobble allows you to deliver lessons and share with other teachers. Track results and plan assessments based on the evidence at your fingertips, and improve teaching efficiency.
Read more: Pobble full profile on Edtech Impact
Turnitin’s integrated Feedback Studio saves you time by allowing you to easily check for plagiarism, give feedback, and see students’ progress at scale - all in one platform. Their predefined or custom marking rubrics ensure you give consistent grades and connect criteria to feedback.
Prepare pupils for exams with realistic exam questions, which can be self-assessed and marked against detailed marking schemes. All of their work is stored and easily accessible on the Get My Grades platform, which will give both you and the pupils an idea of expected final grades.
Read more: Get My Grades full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 4.5/5 (11 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Learning Ladders have made spreadsheets and data drops a thing of the past! Giving you an assessment framework that aligns with your curriculum and a series of “I can” statements, assessing progress is made simple. What’s more, 100% of teachers we surveyed agree that Learning Ladders improves attainment.
Read more: Learning Ladders full profile on Edtech Impact
Customer rating: 4.5/5 (4 reviews) | Edtech Impact scores:
Transform the way your school collects, interprets and acts on assessment data with askEddi. askEddi’s assessment system reduces admin by pinpointing gaps, providing instant results, and letting you see the whole school’s assessment performance.
Read more: askEddi full profile on Edtech Impact
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.
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