Company Blog

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

To mark the biennial Taoiseach’s Public Service Excellence Awards, The Irish Times produced an excellent supplement on July 13th which featured the NCCA FÓN project.

Learnosity has partnered with the NCCA to deliver the FÓN project and the two other projects that were part of the same initiative. On July 8th, the NCCA were honoured with a prestigious Taoiseach’s Excellence in Public Service Award at a ceremony in Dublin Castle.

The Irish Times article remarks that mobile phones are normally seem as the enemy of traditional classroom learning but in the case of FÓN they became very much an ally.

The junior certificate level students on the FÓN project used Learnosity Voice to do spoken homework, build their vocabulary by getting new words by text message and chat directly to other students in Irish. With all of their work being recorded, teachers and students could review the work online, identify any weaknesses and address them together.

Learnosity Voice is the solution behind all 3 phases of the initiative: MALL in 2007, FÓN in 2008 to 2009 and most recently in a project that focused on a more formal spoken assessment environment.

The benefits of FÓN are many, and some in particular were recounted by John Hammond, deputy CEO of the NCCA, when he referred to improvements in autonomous learning, opportunities for students from different schools to chat in Irish on the phone using Learnosity Voice and the way in which the project brought Irish to life for students.

We congratulate the NCCA on their recent award and look forward to many more successful partnerships together.

At the recent Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Awards, Judith Ní Mhurchú and Anne Looney of the NCCA gave an excellent presentation about the FÓN Project.

Since the slides from the presentation are available on the awards website, I thought I'd link to them here.

If you're interested in hearing more, check out the FÓN Project case study on the Learnosity website.

Dublin Castle played host to the 2010 Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Awards ceremony on July 8th. We were proud to see our Irish government customers, the NCCA, receive this prestigious accolade for their work on the FÓN Project. Learnosity were delighted to partner with the NCCA for all phases of the project.

The evolution of the Public Service is high on the agenda of the current Irish government. The Taoiseach has gone as far as appointing a Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Public Service Transformation. The strategic emphasis on innovation, improved efficiencies and cost savings were all key themes recognised in this year's awards.

Learnosity CEO, Gavin Cooney, with Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Brian Cowan at the Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Awards 2010.

The Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Awards take place every two years. This year attracted 208 entries that were reviewed by a judging panel chaired by well known broadcaster and successful businessman David Harvey. There were 20 eventual winners from the sizeable original entry. The winners were diverse and ranged from the FÓN project to improvements in process for jobseekers, cost savings for local authorities in the Midlands, systems that have reduced youth crime levels, improvements in communication processes for families with disabled children and many more worthy recipients.

The awards Project Summaries Booklet included a nice write up on the FÓN project.

Our heartiest congratulations to the FÓN project team who are most deserved winners of a 2010 Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Award.

Learnosity was the solutions partner for the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment's MALL and FÓN projects in Ireland. These projects gave us some great information on the real and quantifiable benefits Learnosity Voice delivers for both students and teachers.

Katrina Keogh, Education Officer at the NCCA, speaks in depth to John Hurley from TeachNet about the FÓN project. Katrina shares some fascinating insights and findings from the project. It’s a must hear for anyone interested in language learning and assessment.

The pod cast is available from the NCCA Podcasts website or from iTunes.

"Can mobile phones help in the teaching, learning and assessment of Irish?
'Yes they can!' according to the experiences of teachers and students"

The National Centre Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) February 2010 Newsletter features the FÓN Project

Learnosity was delighted to team up with the NCCA to deliver the FÓN project. The project focused solely teaching the Irish language using Learnosity Voice. The Irish language (Gaeilge) is widely taught in schools throughout Ireland.

The latest NCCA newsletter (info@NCCA February 2010) reports on the findings of the project, addresses the facts and figures in terms of impact, as well as some really interesting feedback and insights from the teachers and students involved.

The scale of the project was large; in total 16 teachers and 368 students from six post-primary schools took part.

Student Usage - The Facts:

• Students listened to and spoke Irish for a phenomenal 882 hours.
• 15,374 calls were made by students to the Learnosity Voice system.
• On average Learnosity recorded 42 calls per student or 2.5 hours of Irish talk time during the 11 week period per student.
• Phone calls were made by students as late as 11pm and 6 am to Learnosity Voice.
• The highest user of Learnosity Voice made 272 calls on the project, totalling 4 calls per day, including usage on the weekend.
• Students continued to use Learnosity Voice after the project had finished, all at their own cost.

Improving Language Skills

Teachers reported increased competence in language skills amongst the students. The scope of the improvement was broad and is reported to include improved speaking and listening, greater vocabulary, better ability to construct sentences and greater user of tenses in Irish.

Increased Motivation and Confidence

The NCCA newsletter reports the first hand teacher insights into the increased motivation and confidence witnessed amongst the students.

Students described the experience as "fun", "interesting", and "different" and "new" and also suggested that the project improved their pronunciation of the spoken language.

The students remained fully engaged for the duration of the class and often spoke Irish for the entirety of the 40 minute session.

Advantages for the Teacher

The teachers involved in the FÓN project shared their experiences in using Learnosity Voice. They reported getting a greater sense of how the student was progressing in terms of their Irish language skills.

They found it easier to note and address any recurring mistakes with each student and importantly each student in the class was heard, even the quiet ones.

Autonomous Learning

The newsletter reports on how students took control of their own learning. They took advantage of the flexibility of Learnosity Voice and how it enabled them to speak Irish where and when it was most convenient for them.

Students felt that they spoke more Irish using their mobile phones than they would have normally.

The self assessment aspect of Learnosity Voice was reported as a positive by the students as they could listen and re-record any of their answers and gauge their level of Irish against other students.

Both teachers and students recognised one of the greatest benefits of Learnosity Voice as being the enablement of Irish language learning outside of the school building and outside of school hours.

The team involved in the FÓN project were recognised with the European Award for Languages- the Language Label in 2009. The award recognised the projects ability to motivate and engage language learners as well as being meaningful and productive project.

Read the Article

Read this and other info@NCCA issues on the NCCA website, or download the article here (2 pages, pdf, 170kb).

For more on the project see the FÓN Project page on the NCCA website or the project blog.

As part of the 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation, the Higher Education Authority and Léargas have published a booklet. The European Language Label winning FÓN Project is featured.

The relevant part of the publication is below, and the whole booklet can be downloaded from the Léargas website (pdf, 5.6mb, 32 pages).

Katrina Keogh and Judith Ní Mhurchú from the NCCA have written an article for the CIDREE yearbook about the mobile language learning projects using Learnosity technology.

The article outlines the background of the projects, along with the change in Irish language policies which changed the marks awarded for the oral component of the examination. It also outlines the excellent results of the two projects: MALL Project (2007) and FÓN Project (2008-2009).

The article is entitled: "Changing policy and an innovative response: Teaching, learning and assessing Irish using mobile phones".

CIDREE is the Consortium of Institutions for Development and Research in Education in Europe. The title of the yearbook is "Yearbook #9: MANY VOICES. Language Policy and Practice in Europe, Emerging challenges and innovative responses".

The yearbook can be downloaded in full from the CIDREE website. Alternatively, just download the relevant part of the yearbook (PDF, 456kb, 14 pages).

Last week the project we are doing with the Irish government was covered by the RTÉ News. RTÉ are the Irish national broadcaster. The segment includes a good overview of the project with contributions from Anne Looney (CEO of the NCCA), Learnosity, a representative of the teachers union (ASTI), along with students and teachers from one of the participating schools, Ratoath College.

RTÉ news story on Learnosity/ NCCA project broadcast 16th November 2009.

For more information on the project, please see the project website and the Irish language case study on the Learnosity website.

This TV coverage came about after Dr. Anne Looney from the NCCA mentioned the project on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland the previous week. A recording of that show is available to listen to below:

Anne Looney on RTÉ Morning Ireland November 2nd 2009 (MP3, 5 minutes, 3.4mb)

Read more about Dr. Looney in this glowing profile from the Irish Times, which describes her as "one of the most capable thinkers and managers in Irish education at any level". Having had the pleasure to work with Anne a number of years, I must say I agree.

The Handheld Learning Awards for Innovation & Best Practice were held during the recent Handheld Learning 2009 conference. I was proud to accept a prestigious Innovation Award in the Secondary Education category, for Learnosity Voice.

There was 200 nominees, with 36 finalists chosen from a panel of 8 Independent cross-sector judges. There was then over 4000 public votes to decide the winners. Many thanks to everyone who voted, and to the Learning Without Frontiers team who put on an excellent show and conference.

The awards were presented by well known TV presenter Jason Bradbury. The whole event was captured on video. If I had known it was being filmed, I might have said a few more words!

Gavin Cooney accepting Handheld Learning Award for Learnosity on Vimeo

Nomination Outline