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Launch January 2018E D U C AT E

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PARTNERS

EdTech Exchangewith thanks to our launch partner

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A very warm welcome to the launch of EDUCATE. Almost a year since we began our work helping Edtech entrepreneurs to develop and produce their ideas and concepts, we are thrilled to be hosting this event which marks our offcial launch.

It is entirely appropriate that we should be celebrating our work here, today, at the Bett Show 2018, because EDUCATE represents the future of EdTech development.

Based at UCL Institute of Education, this unique programme brings together the brightest and best brains in UK EdTech, in collaboration with experts in research, business and product development.

This three-year project, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and UCL with its partners BESA, Nesta and F6S, offers training, support and resources to help innovators inform the design of their products and services, using the best evidence of what works, and how teachers teach and students learn.

This ‘golden triangle’ of EdTech companies, educators, and researchers is helping the UK lead the way globally in high impact, effective and marketable technology for teaching and learning.

Thank you for being with us to mark this important occasion.

Professor Rose Luckin

Director, EDUCATE

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EDUCATE’s mission is to advance the efficacy of educational technology by making the best research evidence and practice

accessible for educators, researchers and technology developers. The project will enable developers and educators to integrate research evidence, thinking and practice into their products and services to further drive and inform learning and new research.

EDUCATE will work with over 250 EdTech companies and 100 teacher or research entrepreneurs to enable them to develop research evidence, informed educational technology products and services. The EDUCATE team will develop, promote and manage an EDUCATEd award for organisations that integrate sound research evidence and methods into their educational technology products and services.

EDUCATE provides:

• EdTech entrepreneurs with the ability to design robust research that reveals the value of their product or service, helping to communicate the technology’s effectiveness and influence its design.

• Teacher and researcher entrepreneurs with the help to develop business and product skills to commercialise their bright EdTech idea, alongside a better understanding of its values and potential impacts.

EDUCATE is doing this by:

• Providing research training for EdTech companies the the skills to design robust evaluation with trials that helps them demonstrate the effectiveness of their product or service.

• Partnering our research-trained companies with expert academic mentorship, enabling best possible outcomes for the research project.

• Developing a virtual hub of curated resources to include a database of research evidence relevant to EdTech, including research summaries on topical themes like ‘Pupil motivation, feedback and mindset’.

• Offering business mentorship to develop the skills and acumen to enhance and commercialise their products and ideas and stimulate market demand.

• Creating opportunities to work closely with educators and learners to ensure high impact, effective and marketable technology.

• Holding activities and events to leverage research findings for investment and procurement.

The EDUCATE journey

Applicants are given an initial Skype interview to assess whether they are at a stage where they can benefit from the EDUCATE programme.

Participants join the programme, based at UCL Knowledge Lab in central London, for a period of 3-6 months where they have access to the co-working space and a wide range of research and business experts. They will attend research training sessions, one-to-one clinics and networking events that all aim to support the development of a research project that will enhance their companies’ goals.

Our case studies highlight some of the impacts that the programme is having for our early participants.

The EDUCATE Project

A unique ‘golden triangle’ that connects EdTech companies, educators and researchers to result

in better outcomes for all.

EDUCATE Project

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Philipp Legner developed a love of teaching mathematics while a student at Cambridge University. As part of its outreach work,

undergraduates like Philipp would be sent out to local schools to work with small groups of pupils. “I worked with a range of different primary and secondary students. Often, they were gifted and talented students, but sometimes also those struggling with maths,” he said.

“My goal was to make maths more fun and exciting for children, using puzzles, games, and even a treasure hunt around the school.”

After graduating, Philipp worked as a software engineer for Bloomberg and for Google. He used these skills, together with his volunteering experience from university, to build a new education website in his spare time: Mathigon.

“I wanted to imagine what it would be like if every student had their own virtual tutor. Rather than simply memorising, students should be able to explore, be more creative, and discover maths concepts on their own.”

Over time, Mathigon developed and became more interactive. Using colourful illustrations, animations, stories, and real-life applications, Philipp believes he is making maths more relevant and fun for students. The content can adapt seamlessly to different students’ ability.

Last year, Philipp decided to leave Google to work on Mathigon full time. He joined EDUCATE as part of the second cohort of entrepreneurs in autumn.

“EDUCATE gave me a lot of support: from one-to-one mentoring, to meeting a large network of other people working in EdTech, and even office space to work.

“I had never worked as a teacher, so I wanted to be sure that Mathigon was offering something students and teachers would find engaging. The research training

at EDUCATE provided me access to relevant academic papers and evidence. The mentors also helped me write my own research proposal, to collect data that will be important for further developing Mathigon.”

Although the content of Mathigon is aligned to the British and American school curricula, students from all over the world are using the website – including many in developing countries who may find it hard to regularly attend school. “The content is mostly written for students to use on their own, but I also hear from many teachers who use it in classrooms”, Philipp said.

“The content is free to use, and I am committed to its remaining so, so that it is accessible to everyone.”

CASE STUDY

MATHIGONTextbooks come to life!

For more information go to https://mathigon.org

“STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO EXPLORE, BE MORE CREATIVE,

AND DISCOVER MATHS CONCEPTS ON THEIR OWN”

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With increasing workload facing the teaching profession, removing the burden on teachers in the classroom is

one of the biggest challenges facing the EdTech industry.

CENTURY Tech is already ahead of the game. The London-based company is working on ways to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reduce teacher workload while improving learning outcomes.

Priya Lakhani, chief executive of CENTURY Tech, explained: “Teachers spend 60% of their time micro-assessing, micro-marking, and tracking data and this is cited to be one of the biggest drivers of teachers leaving the profession.

“We use AI, advanced data science, cognitive neuroscience and pedagogical methods to try to ease burdens.”

CENTURY Tech’s cloud-based software provides schools with deep insights into pupil behaviour, progress, achievement and interventions data.

“Students can access our online software both at school and home to learn. Using smart technology, CENTURY provides instant insights into their progress.

“The machine can track their knowledge, skills and identify gaps based on their responses and interactions with the platform. It then immediately tailors learning on a very personalised level.

“Teachers no longer need to generate data themselves, as it is collected as students use the platform. Real-time data insights are powerful in enabling teachers to track progress immediately as well as provide timely evidence-based interventions.

“It is part teaching and part intuition. If a teacher does all the assessing themselves, by the time the data has been analysed it might be too late for a pupil. Their deficiency in a certain area of maths, for example, won’t have been picked up until after they have moved on to the next stage of learning. Interventions need to be ‘in the moment’.”

CENTURY Tech was part of EDUCATE’s first cohort of companies. Professor Rose

Luckin, EDUCATE’s director, mentored Priya and encouraged her to join the programme even though CENTURY Tech was already an established business.”

“EDUCATE offered a completely new dimension to our work,” Priya said. “One of the reasons for joining was so that we could access academic knowledge and apply that rigour to our work, in terms of data insights and methodologies.

“Our neuroscientists and data scientists have been working together with EDUCATE to identify research angles that will be beneficial to our users.

“We can use different methodologies and use our analysis for Better engagement, and create effective data analysis for different stakeholders.

“EDUCATE is a prestigious programme and has created a mutually beneficial relationship. Together we can influence how to use education technology for the benefit of students and teachers both here in the UK and globally.”

CASE STUDY

CENTURY TECHThe tried-and-tested platform that learns

how the brain learns and provides a personalised path to mastery.

For further information, go to www.century.tech

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The founders of Inspiral knew they had a great idea. Encouraging young people from different countries to discuss global topics

would not only develop their critical thinking skills, but also nurture international understanding, tolerance and cooperation.

The challenge was in creating an engaging learning experience for diverse groups of students from around the world that was pedagogically sound and supported by data.

“This is where EDUCATE’s expert guidance has really helped us,” Ameet Mehta said, Inspiral Education’s new CEO.

“We are in cohort 2, and being involved has offered us great opportunities to really fine-tune our approach to research.

“Inspiral is a social learning experience. We provide young people with the chance to directly discuss complex global topics with their international peers, while developing skills that are in demand for 21st century careers, such as critical thinking and collaboration.”

The company was incubated at the Development Education Research Centre at UCL’s Institute of Education. As Inspiral’s academic partner, they have provided pedagogical guidance and oversight, and supported two years of research and development.

Students participate in units of study such as Human Migration and the Future of Food, developed with leading research institutions such as the IOE and The Migration Observatory at Oxford.

Over a dozen schools from around the world have taken part in Inspiral’s first pilot programme on Freedom of Expression, where students discuss the rights and limits of expression and how this affects policies and the media, with local relevance and global context.

By sharing their own unique local perspectives, the young people are able to learn from each other, which enables them to examine more critically how things are done in their own communities.

“The students are really excited to study with student’s internationally,” Ameet said. “It broadens their perspectives by being exposed to diverse opinions, and through this, helps them develop a sense of connection and community.”

The Inspiral team wanted to be sure that they were offering a strong academic experience, and that what they were asking of the student was both engaging and valuable to their learning goals and thinking skills.

With the support of the EDUCATE programme, the team is continuing its research on the impact of their social

learning framework. By examining the interactions of their next cohort of students, they will assess skills development and measure progress towards greater empathy and connection.

“The support of EDUCATE has been brilliant,” he said. “The resources have been carefully designed to quickly improve our understanding of how to design a solid research approach with clearly identified and defined objectives and assumptions. The research mentors were exceptional at helping us navigate new concepts like the logic model, framing questions that can be tested and how to complete a viable research proposal.

“The ‘golden triangle’ approach enabled us to not only access important pedagogical aspects, but also connected us with valuable business mentors with specialist skills. And we found the networking and team-work with other members of the cohort extremely useful and informative. The whole process was incredibly valuable.

“As a startup CEO, EDUCATE has helped me improve and de-risk our evidence-based approach.”

INSPIRALA social learning experience, providing young people with the chance to discuss

complex global issues.

“THE INSPIRAL TEAM WANTED TO BE SURE

THEY WERE OFFERING A STRONG ACADEMIC

EXPERIENCE”

CASE STUDY

For further information, go to www.inspiraleducation.com

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As computer science undergraduates at Imperial College two years ago, Sam Green and Henry Lake volunteered at their

local programming club for kids. They observed that, while the intentions behind the club were laudable, the children were making little progress, and they responded by creating Turinglab – their own small business.

“Parents would drop off their children, who would play around with some fun or new technology for a couple of hours,” Sam explained. “This was great but quickly those students who returned were looking for something more challenging.

“We wanted to develop their skills further than the club was offering, so we started to design our own teaching resources that would allow the kids to continue learning in a more consistent, progressive way.”

With financial backing from their university as part of its outreach work, Turinglab paid university students to work with the children, rather than relying on volunteers, so adding a level of consistency to their learning.

After graduating, the business partners found other organisations to partner with them to enable them to teach programming in a creative way, using techniques such as animation, game development and the creation of basic web applications. They began with 8-10-year-olds, but now the age

range extends to secondary aged pupils up to the age of 16 (GCSE).

Recently, Turinglab began working with Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, to further develop and refine their teaching resources in a pilot programme backed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. These resources will soon be available to teachers across the country – supporting them to teach computing in the classroom, and not just in extra-curricular clubs.

More than 2,000 students and 100 teachers signed up to using the materials in the pilot, and about 30 undergraduates regularly work with the company on delivering courses and workshops to over 300 students in London, Leeds and Manchester.

“We want to help those teachers who perhaps lack the confidence to teach programming,” Sam added. “So, very early on in our work, we spoke to experts at UCL’s Knowledge Lab for pedagogical input. We would meet them on a regular basis and were particularly interested in accessing research papers on pedagogy and learning to inform our work. We wanted to build on our computing knowledge and

learn to be computing educators.

“It was around that time that EDUCATE was being set up, and the director Rose Luckin suggested we apply to be part of the first cohort because it was for small businesses and entrepreneurs like us.

“It proved invaluable in its support of what we were doing. We needed to know we were measuring the right things about how children learn so we could tweak our products and evaluate how we were evolving as a company along the way.”

Currently, about 200 children a week attend Turinglab sessions at Imperial College, and the scheme has expanded to the universities of Manchester and Leeds, where a further 100 or so youngsters are learning to code.

“It can be quite hard to get kids to come to universities. But we want to help connect universities and industry with classrooms, so that we develop aspirations for children and young people,” Sam added.

TURINGLABTackling the digital skills gap and improving

diversity in tech.

“WE NEEDED TO KNOW WE WERE MEASURING THE

RIGHT THINGS”

CASE STUDY

For further information, go to www.turinglab.co.uk

To apply to participate in the next phase of the schools’ pilot go to www.turinglab.co.uk/online

To apply to attend classes for girls and underprivileged student go to www.turinglab.co.uk/classes

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ENDORSEMENT

Professor Becky Francis,

Director UCL Institute of Education

“The promise of technological offers in education is enormous. Yet in spite of a great deal of hype, the evidence of benefits thus far has been scant. Commentators point to a lack of quality in products that often fail to speak to learner needs.

“EDUCATE puts education in the driving seat, ensuring that provision from EdTechs is fully informed by research evidence, and by the needs of teachers and students. As such, EDUCATE is an enormously important and timely project, which will support an important element of our tech industry and the education system by enabling SMEs to develop services that genuinely enhance teaching and learning.”

What our EDUCATE champions say.

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Sir Anthony Seldon,

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, and commentator on education and contemporary Britain

“Advances in Artificial Intelligence will impact heavily on many sectors, not least education. We can either fight this, or think positively and flexibly about how we’re going to make it work for us.

“The launch of EDUCATE is timely. It brings together key players in the growing EdTech industry to find solutions to the problems facing today’s schools, not least workload, and the knock-on effects on recruitment and retention. There has never been a more important time for the various strands - entrepreneurship, expertise and research - to be working together coherently.”

Lord Jim Knight,

former Education and Employment Minister

“EDUCATE is linking teachers, key research and researchers to the vibrant London and UK EdTech start-up sector, something that is long overdue.

“The UK is pioneering in the quality of both its EdTech start-ups and research communities, and by combining the two and focusing on key educational challenges, EDUCATE could increase the power of the UK to lead the world.”

Dame Alison Peacock,

Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching

“The Chartered College of Teaching supports the continuing professional development of teachers and school leaders throughout their career. Keeping up-to-date on teaching and learning strategies is not always straightforward and remains a challenge in balancing the demands of a teacher’s workload.

“Developments in technology can often aid and support the educational process in the classroom. The important work being done by EDUCATE in encouraging teacher entrepreneurs into EdTech will help to give teachers ownership of these advances, so that they are appropriate, fit for use in the classroom and, ultimately, will enhance teaching and learning.”

ENDORSEMENT

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Enhancing Learning and Teaching with Technology What the Research Says

Edited by Rosemary Luckin

‘This is a must-read for teachers…’

Professor Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive, Chartered College

of Teaching

Bringing together researchers, technologists and educators, the book explores how technology can best be designed and used for learning and teaching. It addresses what research says about:

• how and why learning happens, and how different technologies can enhance it

• engaging all learners through technology and helping them benefit from it

• how technology can support teaching.

An accessible introduction to learning and teaching with technology for teachers and other educational professionals, whatever their experience with using technology for education.

£24.99 366 pages January 2018 UCL IOE Press Paperback 978-1-78277-226-2 Kindle 978-1-78277-229-3 PDF 978-1-78277-227-9 eBook 978-1-78277-228-6

Bett18

Only

£20.00with code

at www.ucl-ioe-press.com(offer expires 28/2/18)

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Get involved

Are you a teacher entrepreneur with a flair for ICT or great idea for an EdTech product? We want to hear from you, and help you develop your concept.

Are you an innovative school at the forefront of educational change? We’d like you to pilot some of the great products being developed by our EdTech companies, to ensure they are effective and useful in the classroom.

Are you a school business, or ICT manager, considering how best to spend your school budget?Tell us what you need to know and what you look for when buying new products.

Are you an EdTech innovator or expert? We need you to come and work with EDUCATE, to help us shape the future of EdTech and make the UK a world leader in the sector.

Could you be a potential future funder or investor in UK EdTech? We can connect you with the drivers of innovation and change in EdTech, to successfully make the best research-based products and services available to our educators.

Are you a policy maker? With your support, our schools and teachers can lead the world in the use of EdTech for Better teaching and learning.

EDUCATE is a UCL led collaborative partnership, match-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, with F6S, Nesta and the British Educational Suppliers Association. Copyright © 2018 UCL

EDUCATE London As seen at Bett Futures.

www.educate.london educate@ucl.ac.uk @EDUCATEldn