Sarah Parsons has been working with colleagues from The University of Birmingham, the Institute of Education, and Cardiff Metropolitan University on the ESRC-funded Shape project: ‘Shaping the future of educational technologies today: from prototypes to practice’. The project drew upon four Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) projects to explore and disseminate creative ways in which these learning environments could support the development of children’s social communication skills and understanding, focusing on children on the autism spectrum . Shape used a collaborative approach in which the project team worked with teachers and children in six special, specialist and mainstream schools, to create a series of digital stories about how the technologies were used and embedded in the curriculum.
The first digital stories are now available from the project website, highlighting the work carried out at Radlett Lodge School in Hertfordshire. Radlett Lodge is a National Autistic Society (NAS) school focusing on educational and residential provision for children on the autism spectrum. Sarah and Kaska Porayska-Pomsta (London Knowledge Lab) from the project team worked closely with Rachael Lee – Radlett’s speech and language therapist – to develop the stories, exploring the use of COSPATIAL and ECHOES technologies. The stories reveal interesting insights from the teachers and the students about their use of the technologies. In particular, the stories highlight the valuable role that reviewing video footage of technology use can play in understanding and reflecting on the strengths and limitations of innovative technologies in the classroom. The team intend to make more digital stories from different schools available on the project website very soon, and will be writing more about their experiences on the project in due course. In the meantime, huge thanks are due to Radlett Lodge School, and Rachael Lee in particular, for their willingness to work with us on this project. It is testament to their commitment and and creativity that such valuable work was achieved and is the first to appear on the project website – thank you!
