Teachers need AV education
Investment in technology for schools has faced criticism because schools are still under performing. But once people realise it is the deployment, not the intention, that's at fault, then benefits of audiovisual technology will gain recognition, writes Nick Booth
In a recent poll by the UK’s highest-selling national newspaper, just under 90 per cent of its readers said they believed that schools have shown no sign of improvement. This comes hot on the heels of a recent report by the Institute of Education (IoE) that was interpreted by many as being dismissive of the impact of the billions of pounds that have been invested in teaching technology.
There is a widespread feeling that we have been sold another pup. According to media commentators, the new labour motto of ‘education, education, education’ has been a con. Whether or not this is the case, people are beginning to suspect that this is an even more expensive mistake than the millions that was invested into the non-existent threat of the millennium bug.
Given that the government tends to chase headlines, especially in an election year, could all this negative publicity mark the beginning of a downturn in sales of audiovisual (AV) equipment to schools and education establishments?
Not necessarily, says Barrie Guy, public display manager at NEC Display Solutions.
“I have seen predictions at the British Education Technology and Training [BETT] show for growth in the sales of AV equipment because new ways of providing funding have been secured,” he says. “One report I read estimated that the market will be worth about £110m this year.”
Colin Messenger, senior business consultant at analyst Decision Tree Consulting (DTC), agrees that funding is unlikely to decrease. Messenger also criticises the IoE report, which was based on research carried out between October 2004 and October 2005. It analysed the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in 36 London schools, which is just nine per cent of the total schools in that area. The technology was at the very early stages of adoption in all of the classes involved.
“It was exceptionally difficult to read,” he says. “It was 180 pages long with a summary that was only 20 lines. This made it very difficult to get any details about the report and exactly what it had studied. All that has come out of it is one headline. It barely touched on the vital factors that teachers talk about, such as the ‘buzz factor’ that many say interactive technology creates in the classroom.”
David Topping, group marketing director at distributor Stejles, says the report was written at the start of the adoption curve of audiovisual technology, such as IWBs.
“When the report was written, many of the teachers using them had little or no training,” he said. “The report wasn’t an accurate reflection of the current state of affairs. We are now doing our own research into the market, which will be more recent.”
AV technology has been present in education for many years, even back to the overhead projectors and acetate sheets that teachers would write on with special pens. But today AV technology means high-specification projectors, voting systems and flat-panel display screens. Not forgetting PCs, laptops and the specialist software that runs on them.
One of the most prevalent technologies in education is IWBs. Teachers can stand at the IWB, draw and download software, web sites and other technology onto the board and give pupils a more interactive lesson.
The market for IWBs has been massive since the British Educational Communications Technology Agency (Becta) arrangement that provided government-backed funding to schools under a drive to place an IWB in every classroom. Many VARs saw this market as their cash-cow, until last year when Becta was restructured.
“Sales have only seen some marginal tailing off since the boom time of when Becta first released its funding,” Topping says.
Messenger says he doubts that this will cause funding to drop significantly.
“Schools still have a lot of money and they still decide where and what technology to buy,” he says. “For example, if one school has half of its classrooms with IWBs, it is quite likely that the teachers and pupils without them will ask for them, so the school will buy them. Most figures at the moment say that half of all schools have IWBs, so this is likely to grow, despite what the IoE report claims.”
Guy also disputes the IoE report, which in particular claimed that IWBs had done nothing to help teachers or teaching standards.
“Most schools that have had IWBs installed by professional companies see an improvement because they fit the new ‘whole class’ teaching approach used by secondary schools,” he says. “IWB effectiveness really depends on the teacher and the subject being taught.”
Science, maths and IT are particularly well suited to the whiteboard lesson, argues Guy. NEC works with a number of partners that have specific education teams, such as Reflex, Saville and the Computacenter AV Division. These companies work with the schools to ensure training and installation meets or exceeds the customer’s expectation. Once installed, it is hard to blame manufacturers or channel partners if schools do not make the most of the technology.
Topping agrees, and says that every lesson is only as good as the teacher. “No one has ever hinted that a bad teacher with an IWB is anything but a bad teacher with an IWB,” he says. “But for good teachers IWBs can add a new sphere of learning to a classroom. Resellers in the sector need to be able to sell on teacher needs, not shifting equipment.”
Besides, the curriculum today is very different to when most of us sat in a classroom. Teachers using their own or a colleague’s PC with pre-prepared content is an integral part of school life. So is the access they get from an IWB or interactive LCD screen. They can reference a web site or event and go there in front of the class live without having to wait for the next lesson and use handouts.
There is also an element of ‘crisis, what crisis?’ about AV equipment in schools. Many feel that the supposedly damning IoE report was nothing of the sort. Passages have been taken out of context to generate some sensational headlines, argues Stephen Jury, chief executive of AV distributor Promethean.
Some of the negative headlines drawn from the report do not entirely reflect the full content.
“The report highlights the great potential the technology delivers as it stimulates and excites teachers and learners alike,” Jury says. The report also includes a number of case studies describing how the technology can be used within classrooms, he points out, to produce lesson material that engages the students in the topic content.
“As BESA [the British Educational Suppliers Association] points out, we can only move forward if we invest appropriately in developing teacher potential through training,” Jury adds.
Some very positive points can be drawn from the report, as well as areas that need improvement, including the significance of providing suitable training for teachers. In fact, it appears that no examination was made into the levels of training provided to teachers prior to implementation. The report also highlights that the contribution made by IWBs to improving exam results and educational standards will be a long-term process.
The report reinforces the need for adequate teacher training and support to improve educational standards. Interactive classroom technology – including IWBs and assessment devices – are an aid to delivering an enhanced learning experience. The technology allows teachers to create, customise and integrate text, web, video and audio content so they can more easily capture students’ attention and accommodate different learning styles.
“Used to the full potential, these tools have the ability to address a range of learning styles and engaging every child in the class, encouraging participation and enriching the pedagogy,” Jury says
Topping adds: “There is also the ‘classroom ecosystem’; the fact there there is IT in use in classrooms allows teaching to develop, and if teaching develops the market for IT develops, and this is exactly where resellers fit in. The add-on opportunities such as laptops that are networked can connect directly to the whiteboard, and teachers can also share content between lessons.”
While the report states that there was ‘no impact on pupil performance in the first year in which departments were fully equipped’, this is as the market should have expected given that it was at the very early stages in the Becta policy cycle.
Judging any distinctive contribution that IWBs can make to pupil learning will be a long-term process dependent on thorough exploration of what the technology can best be used for, according to educational sources that CRN spoke to.
By and large, both pupils and teachers are very positive about the technology and often echo the claims made in the literature for the contribution IWBs can make to teaching and learning.
Alex Gouge, marketing manager at Hitachi Interactive Solutions, says: “Both teachers and pupils believe that IWBs help bring teaching up to date. Our research shows that IWBs have a positive impact on a teacher’s ability to teach effectively, and pupils’ attentiveness and ability to learn. In particular, in the fields of maths and science, where pupils’ interest has been a problem in recent years, the IWBs help to bring the subject to life and make lessons more dynamic.”
Many teachers have been using IWBs for many years. In fact, a simple blog search on Google brings up almost 150,000 teachers’ blogs on the BETT show, most of which talk incessantly about the pros and cons of IWBs. The fact that there is such an interest from teachers is in itself proof that the technology is becoming more mainstream. If the technology wasn’t working, then teachers would not advocate their schools buying it.
“Demand is stabilising, but it is not in decline,” Goudge says. “Schools have had a massive amount of [ring-fenced] funding over the course of the past few years. They are now taking stock of what they have, but they will not stop buying technology. It is just likely to be at a more natural pace than over the past few years.”
Topping says the initial IWB take up was in primary schools. “There is still a massive market for secondary and further education,” he said. “ Also, privately funded schools have been slower to adopt technology than public-funded, so there is more VAR opportunity here.”
Training and software is also a massive market, according to Goudge. There are training issues with some IWBs. This is why it is so important that they are easy to use so that the teacher does not waste time in lessons grappling with technology and gets on with the business of teaching.
“Hitachi whiteboards have been specifically designed to be easier to use and, while competitor boards can require several days’ training, our research shows that teachers get to grips with our whiteboards very quickly,” she claims.
Messenger claims that the software from vendors is getting better.
“Now it is actually pretty good software,” he says. “It has also opened up a whole new market because smaller companies have looked to write specific teaching software, such as IWB software for A-level Maths, which aims to make teaching easier and learning more fun.”
The advent of so-called Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs and wikis, should help sales of IWBs, market watchers have argued. The logic is that they help pupils take a more active approach to their learning.
However, not everyone is convinced that whiteboards are the future. Jon Sidwick, managing director of distributor Maverick, which specialised on the AV market, is disenchanted with the IWB market in the education sector.
“We are seeing a dramatic decline in standard whiteboard projector packages,” he says. He attributes this to the change in government funding, coupled with the often disappointing feedback from the client – such as IWBs not being used – which ultimately means that the big volume wave is starting to dissipate.
But, according to Sidwick, there are other technologies that have sparked the interest of the education sector, such as projectors.
“Projectors are selling into the classroom without an IWB,” he says. “My kids’ school has one in every classroom.”
Messenger adds: “There have always been projectors in classrooms, years before IWBs. IWBs last for between seven and eight years, whereas projectors only last three or four, so there is a refresh cycle for projectors. Also, projectors need lamps and other bits changing more often.
“Schools will still have to buy both projectors and IWBs. One usually accompanies the other and I can’t see this business diminishing.”
CONTACTS:
Convergent Technology (0845) 603 5355
www.convergent-technology.co.uk
Current Analysis (0141) 148 314
Decision Tree Consulting (01438) 316 240
Hitachi Interactive Solutions (020) 7246 6868
Midwich (01379) 649 200
Panasonic (01344) 853 854
Steljes (0845) 075 8758
Trimedia Harrison Cowley (020) 7025 7533