White Paper

Contact: Charles Fadel [email protected]

Prepared by FutureLab, UK

Best Practices
in Education
Technology

Executive Summary

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Production of this report, Best Practices in Education Technology, started

with identifying innovative projects and initiatives from around the world, where
technology is or was used to support learning. These projects were compiled into
a long list from which 22 were selected and developed into the case studies that
form the web-based section of this publication. The projects that were turned into
case studies were selected in part to ensure that the critical areas identified in
commissioning the report were addressed, including:
Curriculum/Assessment
Assessment
Curriculum redesign
Pedagogy/Instruction
Games and learning
Student voice, learner voice, and co-design of educational practice
Communities/Networks
Teacher-directed innovation and professional learning networks
Social networks and informal learning
User-generated content and applications
Personal learning networks, e-portfolios, and virtual learning environments
Technology/Infrastructure
Visualization technologies and learning
Mobile learning, including location plus and moves toward contextual

learning
Pervasive and ubiquitous computing
Social inclusion, safety, and digital divides
The form of the case studies is standardized in order to help make sense of the
information and to aid identification of their important technological components
and their potential effectiveness within education both now and in the future. It is
at that junction when technology, pedagogy, and leadership meet that the greatest
opportunities for positive change appear to lie.
Reflection on the case studies led to the information summarized and reported in
the section Trends and Challenges Arising from Case Studies. These trends are
gathered in five groups:
New structures and funding models
The relationships among teachers, pupils, and parents
The relationships among education, technology, and innovation
More sophisticated blended approaches to learning
More sophisticated forms of assessment and evaluation

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Executive Summary

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

An additional outcome of the review of case studies is the realization that simply looking
at the outcomes or endpoints of exciting and successful initiatives is not enough. It is
critical also to look at the underlying conditions that provide the foundations of success,
including culture, relationships, and approach. A culture of responsibility and trust can
act as a powerful support for innovative development, good relationships underpin
the collaboration required in so many excellent projects, and a design approach that
engages and works with all stakeholders in education can ensure initiatives do not
become detached from addressing the hopes and fears of all the years.
Few case studies provide direct correlation between a particular practice or use of
technology and improvements in student achievement. Where they do, some caution
is required in assuming causation. For example, NotSchool demonstrates extraordinary
success with reengaging young people who have been excluded from school with
learning. Ninety-eight percent of the learners return to learning. However, NotSchool
has guidelines for eligibility to become a NotSchool.net learner that help ensure a high
success rate, so it might reasonably be concluded that success is not contingent on
the model alone. The success of the model is contingent on the context, culture, and
circumstances in which the model is applied. This reality seems true for all case studies.
An additional trend that appears in some of the case studies may be summarized as
a growing democratization of education. Several case studies point to an approach
where education is done with and by learners rather than done to them. If it is true that
learners more readily adopt and adapt technology, perhaps technology has an important
role to play in encouraging that agency and increasing motivation. The future may hold
less fitting technology to existing systems of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment,
and more transforming education.

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Trends and Challenges Arising from

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Trend 1: New Structures and Funding Models

Use of leading-edge technology in education often focuses on simple amplification
of existing learning and teaching activities. However, the case studies indicate that
the use of technology in education is broadening its scope and developing a wider
effectiveness. Leading developments are challenging traditional school structures,
both in terms of where and when learning takes place and also how it is supported
and funded. Many of the case studies brought together in this report are making it
possible for students and teachers to work beyond the common boundaries and
constraints of formal and traditional education. They are allowing new groups to
form around learner interest or educational philosophy, rather than traditional
structures associated with proximity, location, and age. For example, Rafi.ki is
a global community with members based in more than 1700 schools in more than
120 countries and across multiple time zones, exploring important concepts of global
education from global community citizenship to human rights and climate change.
Technology is bringing together global and local concerns (glocalization), with many
of the case study initiativesincluding Rafi.ki and Kennisnet Ambassadorsplacing
emphasis on the value of local knowledge and sensitivity to local concerns, while
working on a national or global scale.
Alternative funding models are supporting experiences that engage with new
partners and can provide new models of funding for learning. InSafe supports
collaboration between widely diverse organizations ranging from public broadcast
and media institutions to humanitarian organizations and private enterprise. This
collaboration brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the global concern of
Internet safety awareness, while providing participating organizations with valuable
insights and market edge. The Magellan project illustrates how a partnership between
the Portuguese government and Cisco, Intel, telecommunications operators (Optimus,
TMN, Vodafone, and Zon), Microsoft, and local organizations and businesses provides
new streams of income that can benefit education, society, and the commercial
technology sector. And Rafi.ki offers a model in which those schools with the means
to pay a subscription fee are able to help support participating schools from the
developing world.

Trend 2: The Relationships Among Teachers Students, and

Parents
Recent education developments in many schools and countries have seen a move
away from traditional delivery toward more student-centric, facilitated, and
constructivist models, in which the teacher is the guide. We are also beginning
to see new collaborative approaches in which teachers and pupils are colearners. Focus is increasingly on participation and negotiation rather than
direction and instruction, giving students opportunities to act as nontraditional
mentors providing support to other students and to teachers. This scenario can
give students new insights into the education system and greater independence as
learners. By helping to introduce commercially produced games into the classroom,
Consolarium can reverse the teacher/pupil relationship, offering children who may not

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Trends and Challenges Arising from

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

previously have excelled at school the opportunity to be the experts, acting as mentors
to their peers and to their teachers. At NotSchool, pupils are researchers, their
teachers mentors, with researchers involved in the shaping of their learning experience
at multiple levels, from their personal goals to participation in mentor recruitment.
Personalization of learning is also extending beyond an assumed understanding
of learner needs and interests to projects such as Fountaineers that fully engage
learners in the co-design and co-construction of their own education. Norways
YouDecide has also taken what to some cultures may seem a bold step by placing the
responsibility of Internet safety largely in the hands of its audience, with the recognition
that placing trust in children encourages engagement, reflection, and maturity.
Connectivity is supporting new learner-mentor relationships beyond the
classroom or school wall. For School of Everything, NotSchool, and many of the other
projects, education is no longer the sole responsibility of teachers and parents, but of
learners and a wider, distributed network of support. Connectivity has enabled the
formation of new communities of practice, and encouraged greater awareness and
tolerance of diversity and multiple perspectives, and it has engendered a growing sense
of citizenship on a global scale.
Children whose parents take an active interest in their education tend to do better
at school, and projects such as the Shireland Gateway succeed in encouraging
involvement through the creation of a family portal supporting two-way
communication between home and school. In addition, there is growing recognition
that these benefits do not rest with the child alone. Some innovative projects, such as
Portugals Magellan Project, start with young children but aim ultimately to engage other
family members in developing new skills and learning opportunities.

Trend 3: The Relationships Among Technology, Education, and

Innovation
Innovation in education does not necessarily require high-tech and complex
solutions. Often innovation is about an attitude of mind or culture. Many of the
most successful and forward-thinking projects that we have considered use existing,
easily accessible, and common technologies that are a familiar part of learners
everyday lives such as social networks, games, and discussion forums.
Case studies suggest that use of familiar technology can help students engage
more directly with learning, and gain confidence in their own skills. That use
of familiar technology can have particular benefits for learners who perhaps have
not excelled in more traditional classroom settings. Simple-to-use and simple-tounderstand technologies can also help give teachers the confidence to integrate them
into their existing practices in creative ways. Consolariums use of off-the-shelf, pickup-and-play games and OOKLs emphasis on simple mobile interfaces for use by the
youngest schoolchildboth supporting infinitely varied, immersive learning experiences
are good examples.

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Trends and Challenges Arising from

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

The relationship between education and technology is changing. Rather than

wondering whether it should be technology that promotes change in education or
if education should lead the way, there is growing recognition that the relationship
between the two is symbiotic; that technology and educational change (whether
curriculum, pedagogy, or teacher attitudes) happen alongside one another. At
NotSchool, rather than attempting to make incremental changes to a model that had
failed certain students, the project was designed from the beginning by looking at
education afresh. In the process, technology has played a supportive rather than
disruptive role. At the same time in developments such as that of High Tech High,
building on their three established principles of personalized learning, adult world
connection, and common intellectual mission has helped to integrate the use of
technology in teaching and learning in a particularly effective way. Equally, projects such
as Personalisation by Pieces, Rafiki, and the Danish Assessment projects that take a
grass roots approach, growing organically and constantly involving stakeholders in an
iterative development cycle, seem to be robust and sustainable.
In other words, projects that adopt the principles of good design practice seem to
show significant success. Perhaps it is simply that good design practice including
stakeholders is a necessary, but not sufficient, factor for successful innovation in
education.

Trend 4: A More Sophisticated, Blended Approach to Learning

Increasingly, efforts are being made to recognize and integrate learning that
takes place within and outside classroom settings, whether at home, within
local communities, or within the global community to which technology provides
access. Learning can be formal or informal, reflecting either standard curricula
or learning that is initiated by the interests and enthusiasms of the learners
themselves. Schome Park brings together a variety of online experiences, from group
discussions in text-based forums to role-play in virtual worlds, in order to bring together
not only the classically used learning by doing and learning through role play but
also learning by becoming to explore the potential of new contexts and alternative
learning blends.
This mode of learning presents a range of challenges, including:
Ensuring that the digital divide does not exclude some learners from participation
Ensuring Internet safety with significantly different approaches to development based
on quite separate cultural attitudes in different parts of the world
Assessing and accrediting such learning
Developing curricula that reflect these new learning opportunities
Valuing learning that does not necessarily sit comfortably within traditional curricula but
may better reflect the needs of 21st century learners.

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Trends and Challenges Arising from

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

What seems certain is that, although no ideal ratio is clear, it is important to balance
virtual and face-to-face contact, formal and informal learning, and serious and
playful learning. Devices such as the e-portfolios offered by Shirelands gateway and
Careers Wales bring coherence to the multimedia, multiworld, multifaceted experiences
that new technologies support.

Trend 5: More Sophisticated Assessment and Evaluation

Assessment plays a crucial role in learning, but perhaps too often becomes its
sole focus. Assessment often appears to serve the needs of the system while not
adequately providing information to learners to allow them to take steps to improve their
own performance.
In some instances a more sophisticated approach to assessment is developed. Greater
emphasis on formative and competency-based evaluation and improved ability to track
achievements with greater reliability, accuracy, and frequency are being developed.
And learners are being given more control over what is assessed, when it is assessed,
and how assessment results are used.
Careers Wales places a wide range of assessment tools in the hands of the learner,
including an e-portfolio, simulations, and online tests with immediate feedback. The
Personalisation-by-Pieces trust-based peer-assessment model enables primary school
children to set their own goals and plan personally meaningful projects in order to
achieve them, as well as offering valuable insight into the assessment process. These
new tools also allow schools, teachers, mentors, and students to view evaluative reports
in many different ways, providing them with deeper insight into learner achievements
and learner needs. They can offer a greater sense of continuity and future direction.
Finally, Denmarks pilot assessment project in senior secondary schools provides an
excellent example of a complete and successful rethinking of assessment. By allowing
access to the Internet during exams, it is challenging the traditional role of assessment
as a simple measurement of recall and instead opening up opportunities to evaluate the
skills associated with searching for, analyzing, and synthesizing information in response
to real-world problems.

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Trends and Challenges Arising from

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Conclusions
Table 1 summarizes the recent trends and their challenges.
Table 1 Summary of Trends and Challenges

Trends

Challenges

New structures and funding models

Acknowledging and integrating new locations for learning

Acknowledging and integrating learning that takes place outside traditional times
Acknowledging and integrating learning that goes beyond traditional curricula and schools
Supporting learners in gathering and learning around emerging areas of common interest
Developing and supporting new learning coalitions and partnerships
Identifying and engaging funding sources beyond those of government, and sharing
governments traditional responsibilities for education

The relationships among teachers,

students and parents,

Developing and supporting new roles for education professionals

Changing the balance of control of and responsibility for learning
Developing personalization beyond traditional curricula
Changing the balance of responsibility associated with access to new media and Internet use,
and providing the associated infrastructure
Extending support for education to learners, to include their families and communities

The relationships betweentechnology,

education, and innovation

Developing a culture of innovation

Providing a changing balance to scaffold learners use of the Internet, social networking, and
new media
Supporting sustainable organic growth through encouraging grass roots development
Developing excellent education design practice

A more sophisticated, blended approach

to learning

Recognizing and accrediting learning outside traditional classroom and curriculum settings
Recognizing and supporting informal learning
Adopting and adapting new technological developments for education
Providing a balanced approach to Internet safety
Recognizing and anticipating changing skills requirements
Finding an appropriate and sustainable balance for face-to-face and virtual communications in
developing successful communities and networks

More sophisticated assessment and

evaluation

Changing assessment practice to better balance support for learning and for passing tests
Tracking progress individually and collectively while minimizing intervention in learning
Minimizing unnecessary assessment load on learners and teachers
Developing balance of self, peer, and teacher assessment
Assessment of 21st century skills

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Trends and Challenges Arising from

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Perhaps an important trend reflected by a changing approach to learning, with

education being something that is done with learners rather than done to them,
is particularly important. If it is true that learners more readily adopt and adapt
technology, in a done-with-learners education system, perhaps technology will play
a greater role more readily and more rapidly. It may become less a case of fitting
technology to existing systems of curriculum and assessment, and more a case
of supporting these systems. It is apparent that using technology to support the
current aims and methods of education is a near-term recognition of the way in which
the education system needs to respond. A longer-term view is to recognize how the
sociotechnological changes challenge not only the processes, but also the curricula and
assessment systems that structure formative education.

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Table 2 shows projects in each of the target areas, from assessment to visualization technologies and learning. The projects are
classified according to the nature of their effectiveness, with the left column containing those that demonstrate weak signals of
future effectiveness and the right column for those already with a national or international scale that is already achieving or likely
to achieve effectiveness.
The process of selection started with identification of projects and initiatives that were considered by some to represent leading
practice. Opinions of experts outside the project were canvassed to confirm or add to the list of projects. The project team
then reflected on the complete list to remove any projects that were considered not to meet the criterion of reflecting leading
practice, and to identify candidates for further development.
As the case studies were developed, some adjustments were made to the overall list, again to remove some and to confirm or
promote others.
The table represents the final list of case studies, with long case studies shown in bold and short case studies shown in italics.
Table 2 Case Studies
(Note: Long case studies in bold, short case studies in italics)

Early Signals
Emerging trends in the adoption of
digital technologies to support teaching
and learning that may be seen as
signposts to further adaptation and more
widespread use

Initial or Strong Developments

Use of digital technologies to support

teaching and learning that has become
established and is having a significant,
although not necessarily widespread, effect
on educational practice

Scale and Potential Effectiveness

Adoption and adaptation of digital
technologies that have had or are likely to
have a significant widespread effect on
teaching and learning, at a multiregional,
national, or international scale

Curriculum/Assessment
Assessment
Personalisation by Pieces (England and
international)
Curriculum (re)design
Curriki.org (United States and international)
High Tech High (United States)
School of One (United States)

10

Florida Virtual School (United States)

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

National assessment system (Denmark)

Case Studies

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Early Signals

Initial or Strong Developments

Emerging trends in the adoption of

digital technologies to support teaching
and learning that may be seen as
signposts to further adaptation and more
widespread use

Use of digital technologies to support

teaching and learning that has become
established and is having a significant,
although not necessarily widespread, effect
on educational practice

Scale and Potential Effectiveness

Adoption and adaptation of digital
technologies that have had or are likely to
have a significant widespread effect on
teaching and learning, at a multiregional,
national, or international scale

Pedagogy/Instruction
Serious Games (Games and Learning)
Consolarium (Scotland)
World Without Oil (United States)
Student Voice, Learner Voice, and Co-design of Educational Practice
NotSchool (England and international)
Teacher-Directed Innovation and Professional/Personal Learning Networks
Lektion.se (Sweden)
Promethean Planet (England and
international)
Kennisnet Ambassadors Network
(Netherlands)
Students Social Networks and Informal Learning (and informal organization of learning)
Schome (England)

Rafi.ki (England and international)

School of Everything
User-Generated Content and Applications
FutureLabs Fountaineers (England)
Personal Learning Networks, E-Portfolios, and Virtual Learning Environments
Careers Wales

11

Shirelands Learning Gateway (England)

2010 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Case Studies
Early Signals

Best Practices in Education Technology

White Paper

Initial or Strong Developments

Emerging trends in the adoption of

digital technologies to support teaching
and learning that may be seen as
signposts to further adaptation and more
widespread use

Use of digital technologies to support

teaching and learning that has become
established and is having a significant,
although not necessarily widespread, effect
on educational practice

Scale and Potential Effectiveness

Adoption and adaptation of digital
technologies that have had or are likely to
have a significant widespread effect on
teaching and learning, at a multiregional,
national, or international scale

Technology/Infrastructure
Visualization Technologies and Learning
Video Conferencing Virtual Learning
Network (New Zealand)
Mobile Learning, Including Location Plus and Moves Toward Contextual Learning
Amsterdams Frequency 1550
(Netherlands)

Grameen Network Learning Programmes

OOKL (myartspace)
Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing
Magellan laptop roll-out (Portugal)
Social Inclusion, E-Safety, and Digital Divides
InSafe Programme (EU)
YouDecide (Norway)

Americas Headquarters
Cisco Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA

Asia Pacific Headquarters

Cisco Systems (USA) Pte. Ltd.
Singapore

Europe Headquarters
Cisco Systems International BV Amsterdam,
The Netherlands

Cisco has more than 200 offices worldwide. Addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers are listed on the Cisco Website at www.cisco.com/go/offices.
Cisco and the Cisco Logo are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Ciscos trademarks can be found at www.cisco.
com/go/trademarks. Third party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between
Cisco and any other company. (1005R)