Company Blog

We send our congratulations to our customers the Open University who recently celebrated 20 years of languages.

To mark this significant milestone staff past and present got together at Walton Hall in Milton Keynes along with guests and speakers.

Contributions included that of Dr Regine Hampel whose presentation focused on the use of technology to overcome the possible isolation of the distance language learner.

Learnosity has worked with The Open University on a number of significant projects where Learnosity Voice was used by French and English language learners. This two phase project saw students’ first using mobile phones and later OU Voice, an app for iPhone/iPod.

More than 80 students took part in the projects which enabled them to submit spoken work for self assessment and tutor for review. Feedback from the project was very positive with students feeling that Learnosity Voice offers a more “realistic experience”, stretching and developing their skills in oral interaction more effectively, especially in the context of having little opportunities for real oral interaction.

He believes that because users have to give an almost immediate response to the verbal prompt as opposed to when using a DVD Learnosity Voice offers,

Read more about the projects undertaken with the Open University.

As students start to go back to school around about now, I came across a rather timely article recently in Education Week’s Digital Directions which examined the challenges that face schools when adopting new technology for education.

The article focuses on the Mooresville School District in North Carolina which rolled out an ambitious laptop initiative three years ago. The district gave over 5,000 laptops to students - everyone from 4th grade to high school. We are told that Superintendant Mark Edwards had braced himself in advance for the expected drop in grade scores as students and teachers adjusted to using the technology and the digital curricula.

Interestingly, just the opposite happened.

In just 3 years the district went from ranking 30th in the state in school performance to 4th place. There were changes in other areas of performance also, suspensions dropped by 65% at the high school and district-wide by 50%. In further reading about the programme I learned that drop-out rates deceased quite dramatically and graduation numbers increased.

Edwards tells us that the programme has been as success because students like using the relevant tools and materials, are more engaged and excited about school, and importantly, they are seeing the link between what they are doing in class and what they will do in the future.

Whilst Mooresville have fully committed to technology in schools, the article goes on to look at the challenge for schools just starting out on their journey and how they can balance introducing innovation whilst maintaining test scores.

Christopher Dede, a professor of educational technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education uses use the analogy of a hospital when he talks about achieving a balance. He proposes that if a hospital with a high death rate refused to try new, modern practices because they'd be unsure of the outcome or that there might be a learning curve, then people would be upset because they're maintaining a bad situation under the guise of being accountable.

Dede reminds us that schools are accountable to students in areas other than just test scores such as, providing high quality education and are accountable to parents and local business in producing students well prepared for college and work.

The Chappaqua Central School District, near New York City, has moved to create a model that reflects Dede's multi-dimensional accountability scale. We’re told that in 2007, the district's school board adopted a strategic question as an underlying philosophy of education. The question asks how the district can go beyond content knowledge and focus to ensuring that all students learn to think deeply, support their thinking, apply problem-solving skills and actively participate in their learning.

Darleen M. Nicolosi, the director of instructional technology for the district is quoted in the article saying, "We try to move beyond the test scores to more creative and critical thinking for our students."

Importantly, the district doesn't separate the use of new technology from that goal, as Nicolosi sets out;

I was particularly interested in this article because in developing tools for spoken language learning, Learnosity have always innovated with education goals in mind. Our solutions deliver real, measurable success for our customers and it’s not a case of technology for technology’s sake.

Similar to those examples in this article, we have seen how students improve language skills, confidence and motivation through using Learnosity Voice through computers, mobile phones, iPods etc.

To read more, check out our latest Case Studies.

A recent article by Archana Venkatraman in elearning age magazine shines the spotlight on mobile learning and leading solutions providers including Learnosity. Our CEO Gavin Cooney spoke to Venkatraman and shared his thoughts on the future of m-learning.

The article concedes that the growth opportunities for m-learning are linked to the ubiquity of attractive, user friendly and engaging mobile devices. These devices are used in times when employees or students have a few spare minutes to spend on m-learning, such as, on the bus or waiting for a class or meeting to start. These users are already so familiar with the technology and interfaces of the devices that there are no barriers or learning curves.

Gavin sets out some of the benefits of m-learning,

Content is seen as a key part of the recipe for m-learning success. Gavin maintains that in order to be effective, content should be suitable for the medium. In mobile learning, less is often more, as learners may be overwhelmed if presented with large amounts of information.

With the launch of smart phones and tablet devices m-learning has ‘best of both worlds’ vehicles to bring it forward – small, mobile devices with significant computing power.

Learnosity has leveraged the power of these smarter devices to launch a range of apps for iPhone, iPod, Android and iPads.

Experts agree that technology is an enabler to learning. Gavin has this advice for those contemplating m-learning,

Read more about how Learnosity is helping our clients achieve learning and assessment objectives, in our Case Studies section.

Learnosity Voice is ideal for pre-screening candidates in the recruitment process.

Whether it’s first round telephone interviews or language assessment, we have the tools to assist in improving your selection process.  Using Learnosity Voice will free up your Human Resource team's valuable time as we will take care of the time consuming interviews and assessments.

Candidates will be thinking on their feet so you will get a better sense of their abilities.  You get to listen to interviews online in your own time, it’s that convenient.

So how does it work?

Using Learnosity Voice you simply and easily set your interview questions from your computer.

Secure access id codes and PINs will be automatically generated by the system for each of your candidates.

The process then follows these simple steps:

• The candidates access the system using a conventional phone or Skype. 
• They enter their access id code and PIN.
• They are then guided through the interview questions that you set earlier.
• Once complete the interviews are available online for you to listen to and review

Contact Us to discuss your recruitment requirements today.

Keeping Call Centre staff up-to-date with the latest information is a constant challenge.  Training and assessing large teams can be time consuming and costly.

A Call Centre is the outward voice of the company and often the only touch point with which your customer engages.  For this reason your Call Centre needs to deliver a stand out customer experience.

Learnosity Voice helps in-house and outsourced Call Centres:

• Recruit the Best People.
• Train staff.
• Ensure full understanding of training material.
• Maintain ongoing quality and staff knowledge levels.

How can Learnosity Voice help my Call Centre?

Imagine you are a Call Centre manager in a utilities company and a high value customer calls to cancel their contract due to a service issue.  Your Call Centre staff need to ensure that this customer does not leave.

Wouldn't it be ideal if your staff had role played this and other scenarios to ensure that this unhappy high value customer is retained?

With Learnosity Voice you can do just that, and more.

So how does it work?

• We have put together a suite of effective and low cost tools to help Call Centres better manage the knowledge and skills within their teams.
• You can easily set up role play scenarios or spoken quizzes.  Your staff accesses the training or assessment materials by just making a phone call, using Skype or an ipod Touch application.
• To avoid information overload that can happen during long training sessions we enable you to set up a short burst of training that can be built into a daily schedule for your Call Centre teams.

Contact Us to discuss your Call Centre requirements today.

Our partners NCCA recently released their report on the latest phase of the FÓN project. This third phase carried out the recommendations from the previous phase - to examine the potential role of Learnosity Voice in supporting the assessment of spoken Irish in the state oral examinations.

The project took place in 2010 over 14 weeks and involved 117 students and 5 teachers during the run up to the Junior Certificate Oral Irish exams.

The students used Learnosity Voice in a structured way to enable continuous assessment models and use of e-portfolios. The participating students were given the opportunity to be involved in selecting their best pieces of recorded spoken work and submitting them as evidence of learning.

During the project the students used the following elements of Learnosity Voice that were mapped onto the existing elements of the oral exam structure:

• Voice Response – Using Learnosity TalkBack to enable students to record spoken responses to questions set by teachers.
• Picture Sequence – Using TalkBack in conjunction with five hard copy pictures, the student has a minute to review the image and then record a spoken description of what he sees.
• Role Play – Using Learnosity Connect for role play where each student is assigned to participate in any one of 8 role plays.
• Voice Chat – Using Learnosity Connect to enable student-to-student conversation on subjects guided by the teacher or for general practice by students.

Findings:

All teachers involved said that that their students had benefited from their participation in the project. They said that there were huge improvements in class behaviour, motivation for learning Irish, submission of homework and general enthusiasm for the Irish language.

All of the teachers were very happy with their students’ performance in the state exam and cited FÓN’s benefits as an exam preparation tool as well as the transferable benefits seen in terms of aural and written language.

Teachers praised FÓN for its unique ability to enable spoken homework. The report tells us of instances where students did not have a family member at home that that could help them practice oral Irish and in this case FÓN was of great benefit.

In using FÓN for continuous assessment, teachers saw the benefits in the reduction of stress and anxiety.

Read more about FÓN phase 3

Learnosity have developed a powerful new rubrics (marking) engine that will be launched by Gavin Cooney, CEO, at the ATP Conference in Phoenix this week.

We are delighted to release these new marking schemes which will allow for better, more flexible marking, some examples of which are shown below.

Marking Interface

• The solution supports single, double marking and 'n' marking. 
• Markers log on to a secure web interface to view the tests assigned to them.
• Different markers can be assigned entire tests, certain questions or sections of the tests.
• A second marker will not have access to the marks/feedback provided by the first marker. 
• Once the second marker has given a grade or some feedback the exam will no longer be available for another marker.

The table below outlines the feedback types and how they can be displayed to the candiate.

Sample Marking Options

Our marking schemes are very flexible and marking can be implemented in practically every way.  Below are some popular marking schemes that give a flavour of what is possible.  Marks can be assigned to each individual question or to a group of questions. 

Single Criteria

In the example shown here, a marker listens online to three responses, then determines which grade best reflects the student’s overall performance and just clicks the radio button to apply that grade in respect of the 3 answers.

Audio Feedback

In this example markers listen to the audio response and then give a score out of 10 (or any other number).  Written comment and/or audio feedback can also be left for the student.  This can be very useful for addressing particular issues, for example, a candidate that may tend to mis-pronounce a particular word.

Multiple Criteria

This enables the marker to listen to the response and then assign an individual grade for each of a number of elements.  For a language assignment these may be based on fluency, comprehensibility and coherence. 

Checkboxes

By using checkboxes, innovative assessments can be created where a candidate listens to a story and then retells that story as best they can.  The marker uses check boxes to indicate if key elements were included in the student’s versions.  Scores are based then on the numbers of boxes that have been checked. 

Showing the marking scheme (Rubric)

By clicking the (i) icon, markers and students can view the description of each grade and the requirements needed to achieve a particular grade.  The option to show the information to candiates can be disabled.

If you would like to talk to us about your marking requirements, please do Contact Us.

A recent article in The Journal claims that within five years, every K-12 student in America will be using a mobile handheld device as a part of learning.

This is according to Elliot Soloway a professor at the University of Michigan and founding CEO of GoKnow an education consultancy.

Soloway makes compelling points in support of the claim, which resonate with many of the findings from the Learnosity Voice customer projects.

With the falling cost of both devices and phone usage fees, he claims that it will be possible for every child, rich or poor, to have a mobile phone 24/7.

Phones are relevant to students; they themselves are already bringing the devices to school. As users they are already highly competent so the learning curve is low.

Portability is key and Soloway claims that this is a more important factor than screen size, battery life and keyboard size. Students are comfortable with using devices of this size and, as smaller people, the devices are in proportion.

Phones are the technology of today, and by using them in learning we are preparing students for 21st century life. Soloway encourages schools to adopt mobile phones into learning and teaching in order to benefit from the enormous advantages of mobile technologies.

With the kind permission of QATESOL and Leigh Williams, Independent Schools Queensland, we are delighted to share this paper as published in the QATESOL Newsletter, October 2010.

The article discusses education in the 21st century, the availability of mobile devices and the changing attitudes of teachers to the use of these devices for learning.

Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) have partnered with Learnosity on a 12 month trial using iPod devices with ESL learners. The use of these devices addresses the issue of ensuring adequate student practice coupled with one-to-one teacher guidance. The article tells us how the program has extended learning beyond the classroom in a way that is very engaging to students.

The devices allow students to be part of a supportive framework that allows them to take responsibility for their own learning with the constant and timely guidance of their teacher.

Increased motivation amongst students has been reported, a key factor in the success of any learning experience. Teachers can enjoy improved one-to-one time with students as they can better hear the spoken work of the students outside of a noisy classroom. Personalised feedback is a feature that benefits shy students who may be less confident speaking in front of the class.

The article explains that as the trial continues, the benefits and relevance of these devices are being recognised, not only in the ESL classroom but also across the mainstream curriculum.

QATESOL Article October 2010

The Queensland Times newspaper recently featured the students of Ipswich Girls Grammar School and their success in using the Learnosity Voice app for the iPod Touch.

The school has provided sixteen students who are learning English with iPod Touch devices so that they can access specially designed English speaking and listening exercises. Teacher Justine Bomm explains in the article how she has a website where she can monitor the work and feedback to students. Bomm went on to say how the lessons can be played back to the students during class.

The project which kicked off in April has already had positive affects, the paper reports.

Yasmine Wilson a year 9 student spoken to the Queensland Times about her personal experiences on the project.

Janelle Wills, Independent Schools Queensland Assistant Director, explained the unique benefits of the Learnosity Voice app as it gives 24-hour access to learning materials, results and teacher feedback.