The current policy about mobile phones in many schools is, quite rightly, about making sure that they do not become a distraction in a learning environment. OnePoint has turned that problem upside down by harnessing the technology to embrace learning.

Why you should consider mobile technology – it’s not just about truancy

Through successive Education Acts, since the birth of the National Curriculum twenty years ago, Head teachers have been asked to report many more types of often complex or difficult to obtain data. Truancy, CVAs (Contextual Value Add), behaviour and so on. And in 2005, the government also made schools accountable for the well-being of children. Occupying a great deal of senior management time, all this accountability has never been an easy task for schools.

With OnePoint there is no need to invest in more technology to lighten this burden. Its unique mobile technology solution makes data gathering faster, easier and more inclusive. All schools have to do is take advantage of what is already available to them. With the huge investments made recently in schools ICT, data is now easier to aggregate and analyse. Most schools now have behaviour management systems, progression tracking and CVA data, and are obliged to keep accurate contact details of parents and carers. Add mobile technology to this mix, and data gathering and consultation is immediately, and literally, in the hands of parents and carers, pupils and staff, and back with management within hours, not days or weeks.

Mobile technology and Assessment for Learning (AfL)

Hodgson School, a designated Technology College is a mixed comprehensive for students aged 11-16. Stephen Cooke, Lead Teacher for ELearning, wanted to carry out an evaluation into the effectiveness of ICT and Elearning in the school. Traditionally research among students is carried out using the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), but Stephen wanted to find out the effectiveness of mobile technology as a teaching aid, as well as its suitability as a survey technology. What he also needed was data to validate the impact of the schools spend on ICT, and he wanted to try mobile technology as a means of connecting with students.

OnePoint’s advantage over other types of mobile technologies is its ability to route questions according to responses, to reply to particular prompts and to aggregate free-text responses. The data is available in real-time via a secure web site, and is substantially quicker to analyse than a traditional VLE based survey. The flexibility of the solution meant that Stephen could tailor the survey to his exact needs and audience, without any complicated software programming, and without the need for students to be tied to a computer.

The survey asked three questions:
1. Does using mobile technology make you feel included in the lesson?
2. Do you think mobile technology helps you learn?
3. What comments do you have about the use of mobile technology? 

OnePoint is ready enabled with a variety of different survey techniques, allowing you to mix qualitative with quantitative style questionnaires at your whim.  Stephen chose yes/no/maybe for the first two questions to give him a fast picture of student views, and free text for question three. Free text gave Stephen much deeper insight that will help him to develop plans to use mobile technology in Elearning in the future.

Pupils love it

The students were immediately engaged with the technology itself. This is not surprising. Mobile phones are highly personal, and young people often consider it as their primary form of communication. The students were positive about mobile technology as an aid to learning, with the majority agreeing that it helped them to feel included and that it would help them to learn. Feedback about inclusion is especially useful, as often children can feel disengaged from lessons, so any mechanism that brings them back to task is helpful.

Free text replies included comments about the ease of use of mobile technology coupled with the element of fun, plus valuable feedback that gave greater insight into modes of learning and engagement that meant more to them.

“It needs to be used more interactively with the class. The teacher always writes on the interactive white board but the students never do.”

“I think mobile technology helps us to be more involved with other people and helps us to be more technological and modern.”

“Its great fun whilst learning. [it’s] educational and it’s guaranteed that all kids will enjoy it! It will keep their attention as well.”

Stephen said: “The students loved the technology and had been excited about it in the run up to the lesson. Their participation was much better than I first imagined. Some didn’t want to take part at first but when they heard the responses coming through they wanted to take part in the survey.”

The message is clear. Mobile technology in schools can be inclusive, engaging for students and, vitally from their perspective, it is “modern.”

From start to finish in one day: Parent Consultation, and no paperwork!

Another use of the OnePoint mobile survey technology comes from Kingswood College of Arts, a specialist college in the Visual and Performing Arts. A mixed comprehensive in Hull, for students aged 11-16, this school wanted to improve its consultation process with parents. Going up to ‘big school’ and joining Year 7 is an exciting and sometimes nerve wracking time for parents and pupils. As every Head knows, getting the transition from junior to senior school right has an enormous impact on the happiness and well-being of the child, and sets the tone for their time in school.

In previous years Kingswood used paper based surveys, and had very little response. Even whole school parent consultations rarely get more than a few responses. This is not necessarily a reflection on parents’ lack of interest, but can be affected by constraints of time, complexity of returning the forms and myriad other reasons why parents seem to be reluctant participants. 

Dramatic improvement on responses

Nicole Swallow, Headteacher at Kingswood, wanted to try a different mechanism and felt that the flexibility of OnePoint’s mobile surveys might inspire parents to engage with its consultation process. Free for parents to send and receive messages, and set up so that responses were anonymous, 159 surveys were sent out to year 7 parents to their mobile phone. 54 responded on the same day (34% response rate) which was a massive increase on previous paper based consultations. Using a five question survey, parents were asked to give feedback on a range of areas including the quality of information they received prior to their child joining the College, how well they had settled, and the quality of the communication they receive about their child’s progression at College. Answers were given using a scoring scale from 0-10, with the final question inviting open comments using free text.

Nicole is delighted, and said, “OnePoint mobile surveys are the ideal feedback mechanism for the College. The nature of mobile surveys allows us to engage with our various stakeholders in a cost effective and convenient manner.”

Both schools illustrate just some of the ways that mobile survey technology can be used in an educational setting. Neil Jessop, Managing Director, OnePoint Surveys is excited by the prospects of the education sector saying that, “mobile phones have the unique advantage of being personal, and immediate. Education is a highly monitored and often emotive environment, and the mobile phone allows people to feel safe about having their say. It is vital that head teachers really do know what pupils, parents and staff think. Without real information it is hard for them to manage schools effectively. Mobile surveys give people the freedom to speak out, and gives head teachers the information they need.”

Try it now

To find out now how effective OnePoint mobile surveys could be in your school, text TRIAL to 85001. 

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