Writhlington School science teacher Simon Pugh Jones has been invited to present the keynote address at the fifth annual Technology Education Strategies conference in Toronto alongside Mendip Studio School partner David Crellin of ScienceScope in February 2015.
The presentation, entitled; Case Study: Writhlington School, UK: Internet of Things, will examine the future digitization of education to advance learning. It will also explore the benefits of linking to an expansive inter-connected network through devices. In what ways will embedded devices change education in the future and enable us to gain insight adaptive technology and the impact it can have on teaching and learning to redefine the traditional classroom setting? How will the Internet affect future curriculums?
The invitation stems from the partnership that has developed between the school and ScienceScope Ltd resulting from the highly successful project Distance.
Project Distance was funded by a grant of £800,000 from the Technology Strategy Board and was led by ScienceScope Ltd and partners, Intel, Xively, Explorer HQ, Stakeholder Design, University of Birmingham’s Urban Climate Laboratory, UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis and The Open University Department of Computing.
David Crellin said:
‘ We worked with more than eight schools, including Writhlington School, across the country to define how an Internet of School Things can enhance learning in science and across a range of other subjects such as technology and geography. Students and teachers participated in design activities aimed at transforming the way in which data is collected, shared and analysed across school campuses. ’
Project DISTANCE gives schools the ability to measure and share data in a way that helps to make learning fun, links directly to the curriculum, helps to inform the design of the next generation of schools, and better prepares children to work within the digital economy. DISTANCE has accomplished this by creating an information hub in the cloud using an open-source and infinitely scalable API platform (Xively). The consortium identified the mix of incentives required to encourage educators, students and business to share certain types of data openly for the first time.
Schools piloting the ecosystem focussed on four themes – transport, energy, weather and health. The key innovation is the provision of a platform and service layer to connect schools with third-party service and application providers, who can then supply internet-enabled measurement equipment and interpretation software.
A range of exciting apps and visualisations of data that can be collected by schools together with comprehensive curriculum-based activities for the schools to trial in the autumn term have been developed. Comprehensive resources using the Internet of Things that can now be used at scale across the country are now available for schools to build on and develop.
About ScienceScope Ltd
ScienceScope lead the DISTANCE consortium project. Based at Writhlington School near Bath, ScienceScope is a leading UK company providing Datalogging hardware and software for science education. With a strong focus on innovation ScienceScope provides UK and international education establishments with the tools to explore, innovate and develop Datalogging and science within their institutions. ScienceScope customers are advancing science and teaching by providing a solid education for the scientists of the future. Further information can be found at www.sciencescope.co.uk
