Stow Heath Junior School
The first ever vPad trial in the classroom
Watch a video of the event (requires QuickTime)
Overview
One of the competitive advantages of TurningPoint is its virtual keypad option. Known as vPad, this allows you to respond to questions using a Windows based device such as a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), Smart Phone, laptop computer or desktop PC. With vPad you get a virtual keypad on your screen allowing you to respond to full, open-ended questions as well as give multiple choice answers. vPad completely replaces any specialist response devices and is unique to TurningPoint. The ability to ask open-ended questions offers teachers new ways to enhance their lessons.
Although pocket PCs are not widespread in British classrooms, a number of forward-thinking schools, such as Stow Heath Junior School in Wolverhampton, are starting to adopt them as learning tools. The teachers at Stow Heath were keen to find out more about using TurningPoint vPad software on their PDAs, so we set up this first ever trial in the classroom, to show them its benefits.
The event
The class of thirty children from Year 7 had been using PDAs for a full academic year and already knew how they worked. Working in ten groups of three people, each with their own PDA, they set about responding to seven multiple choice questions based around the topic of World War II.
The teacher, Gavin Hawkins, based his questions on topics ranging from the Blitz, to the experiences of children during the War. Not all of Gavin’s questions had right or wrong answers; instead he gave them a chance to express their own opinions. For example, the pupils had four alternative answers to the question “If you were evacuated during the War as a child and could take just one thing with you, which of the following would you choose?” After each question the children were given a few minutes to discuss the answers before submitting them. This gave them the opportunity to use key group working and discussion skills, and Gavin kept reminding them of this, “You might not all agree on the answer but you will have to find a way to commit to one answer”.
Rather than using the tool purely as a means of testing, Gavin’s questions enabled him to gather the views of his pupils and discuss these in the lesson.
One of the most exciting new possibilities with the vPad is its virtual keyboard, which enables the pupils to answer open-ended as well as multiple-choice questions. This is one of the features that distinguishes TurningPoint from its competitors. After the multiple-choice questions, Gavin showed the class a short video about the experiences of children in evacuated towns, and then asked the open-ended question, “Why were so many children evacuated during the war?” The children were able to enter a variety of answers leading to a lively classroom discussion - an excellent way to round off the lesson. Afterwards, Gavin commented, “Simply brilliant. That was a lot easier than I could have hoped it could be.”
Following the event
Mitt Nathwani, UK Product Manager for TurningPoint, was delighted at how quickly Gavin was able to get to grips with the technology and integrate it into his lesson, “Gavin has never used TurningPoint before but everything went brilliantly, which shows just how easy the system is to use, even with PDAs. Without being prompted, Gavin exhibited some behaviour that exemplifies the way in which a system like this can be used, such as allowing time for discussion before and after each question, and not always having a correct answer.”
ICT Evangelist and author Russell Prue, who works with Wolverhampton LEA, was excited by the potential for learning, "I've been using vPad for a while and so I knew exactly what to expect. Even so, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen. Pupils were completely engaged, the technology enabled Mr. Hawkins to get on with his lesson delivery and focus his attention on teaching and learning whilst adding an extra dimension to that day’s lesson. I was reminded just how naturally pupils engage with new technology and using PDAs or handheld learning devices with vPad clearly made a difference without unnecessarily complicating the issue.
Most importantly, the children themselves were very excited by the new technology. When asked what they thought after the lesson, one of the pupils said, “That was really good fun and it made us think about our answers”. They were also very keen to carry on using TurningPoint rather than return to the old style written assessment, “This is much more fun and it makes it easier for you to mark our work.”
Dave Whylley, LEA ICT adviser and PDA champion was enthusiastic in his praise of the system, “That lesson blew me away. I know that Gavin was worried about the technology but this was unbelievably easy to use and I know he was surprised by how little technical preparation was involved. The quality of learning in that room was very high because the activity meant Gavin could get all of the children to empathise with children during the war and share their feelings about this with the class. The development of higher-order thinking skills enabled by the lesson was immediately obvious. The open-ended question slide was brilliant and really rounded the lesson off perfectly. I couldn’t believe how simple it was to link the Espresso content in with the slides and this redefined my opinion on voting systems. I know now that TurningPoint isn’t a voting system at all and I can see that it has phenomenal potential. The system was automatically giving evidence of achievement perfectly suitable for inspectors and head teachers I know that if we can get the children in the Wolverhampton trial using TurningPoint we will be astounded by the results.