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Presentation at AFMLTA 09 Conference

I've just finished my presentation at AFLMTA09 in Sydney, which has been very well attended with lots of interest and some very intelligent questions. Thanks everyone for coming along.

Here is a transcript of the CoverItLive comments from Steve Collis and Laura Lochore:

12:24   Steve Collis: @lynch_mark is presenting on Learnosity
12:24   Steve Collis: Company founded in 2007 - responsible for computer skills test so technology had to work in every situation. Simple, reliable
12:25   Steve Collis: Do work for the Learning Federation, BoS and many more. Have an office in Sydney and one in Dublin
12:25   Steve Collis: Their phone technology is just a tool, like pen and paper, they're not about telling teachers how to use it.
12:26   Steve Collis: Has so far been used with many different languages in many contexts.
12:26   [Comment From Laura] Yes steve
12:31   Steve Collis: Needed technology for assessing speaking. Had to be reliable. Computer audio is not reliable - headsets, sound cards etc not always reliable.
12:32   Steve Collis: Phone is the perfect tool - reliable, always works. Students say "Don't feel silly talking into a phone". Is culturally normal to talk into a phone!
12:33   Steve Collis: It feels normal.
12:33   Steve Collis: Mark is now ringing the phone service from his mobile & is entering his ID
12:34   Laura: Real life real time demo of learnosity is great! Technology working when it's needed
12:35   Steve Collis: He is asked questions over the phone, can speak and record himself, and can hear his answer back, and rerecord it until he's happy.
12:36   Laura: Audio cue q&a thru phone with review opp and rerecord option
12:37   Laura: Teacher and student login via net
12:38   Laura: Marking online; PDF output option
12:39   Laura: Students can get own feedback and sample answers by net
12:41   Laura: Is or will be option 4 teacher 2 record own questions
12:46   Laura: Was trialled at school in Ireland that was running from corporate box at a race course!
12:46   Steve Collis: Data - NCCA Irish Language Project (2007) - 67% significant progress, 95% enjoyed it, 93% recommended it
Learning Federation project -13 schools - 10% difference in mean scores before and after.
12:47   Steve Collis: http://foghlaim.edublogs.org/
12:48   Steve Collis: Report for Learning Federation project available here - http://www.learnosity.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/7/2/tlf-final-report
12:48   Steve Collis: Teachers comments "It's like having one on one time". "Nice hearing kids speaking that don't normally speak".
12:50   Laura: Language use improved greatly. Kids making jokes in TL
12:55   Laura: Challenges for widescale deploy: engagement of teachers telco govt
12:57   Laura: ((trying 2 remember name of proj in NY where Nikia (I think) donated hardware))
12:57   Laura: *nokia
1:01   Laura: http://bit.ly/ncca-mall

If you had a question and didn't get time to catch me after my talk please don't hesitate to email me on: mark@learnosity.com

Cheers, Mark

Posted At : July 12, 2009 5:43 AM | Posted By : Mark Lynch
Related Categories: The Le@rning Federation, NSW Board of Studies, NCCA, Mobile Applications for Language Learning, Learnosity Voice, Conferences
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NSW Board of Studies commended at Premier's Public Sector Awards

The NSW Board of Studies have received another award for the Assessment Resource Centre website. This website has previously won an Excellence in e-Government Award. Learnosity is very proud to be involved in the development of such an excellent resource, and we congratulate the Board of Studies on receiving another award.

Premier's Public Sector Award for the ARC

Published: November 26, 2008. Board of Studies News Site

The Board of Studies has received a second award for the Assessment Resource Centre (ARC), recognising the ways it has revolutionised school assessment and reporting in NSW.

At the Premier's Public Sector Awards, presented on 13 November 2008, the Board received a Commended Award in the "Delivering the Plan - Business" category for the ARC.

The awards formally recognise and reward the achievement of excellence by the New South Wales public sector, acknowledging initiatives which have produced measurable outcomes with proven results and benefits to the state.

General Manager of the Office of the Board of Studies, Dr John Bennett, said the ARC used real samples of student work graded by groups of teachers who agree on each sample's level of achievement according to the Board's Common Grade Scale (A-E or equivalent).

"This collective grading gives teachers confidence that they are marking their students' work properly," Dr Bennett said.

"Put simply, the ARC allows teachers to ensure a B grade in Bondi means the same as a B in Ballina or Bourke."

The ARC is a free online resource available to more than 85,000 teachers in over 3000 NSW schools. It currently has more than 1800 real student work samples from Kindergarten to Year 10, based on more than 350 class activities. More than 1500 of these samples have been graded A-E by teachers from every part of NSW.

The ARC also includes some 28,000 HSC work samples, previously printed in Standards Packages.

"Part of the ARC's strength lies in the fact that it is readily accessible to teachers throughout the state, providing them with consistent information on student grades," Dr Bennett said.

"It gives every NSW teacher, no matter where they live or work, unprecedented access to the professional judgements of their peers."

The ARC was this year awarded Silver (Highly Commended) at the national awards for e-Government (the 2008 Australian Government Information Management Office CeBIT awards).

Visit the ARC for more information.

Posted At : November 26, 2008 12:45 PM | Posted By : Gavin Cooney
Related Categories: NSW Board of Studies, Awards
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Excellence in e-Government Award

I recently discovered that the Office of the Board of Studies NSW has been honoured with not 1 but 2 awards in the 2008 "Excellence in e-Government Award". The AGIMO awards allows all levels of Government (Federal, State and Local) across Australia to enter their innovative IT projects.

At the international CeBIT Conference at Darling Harbour, Dr John Bennett accepted two awards for IT Innovation given by the Australian Government Chief Information Officer Ann Stewart.

The projects in question are:

Learnosity is proud to be involved with these projects and delighted that the NSW Board of Studies have been recognised for their ground breaking work.

You can read the summaries of all the projects on the AGIMO Awards website.

Posted At : May 25, 2008 12:08 AM | Posted By : Mark Lynch
Related Categories: Learnosity OnScreen, Awards, NSW Board of Studies
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