News

Personal Inquiry at Bridging the Gaps: Reviewing the Future Event

The Personal Inquiry project Inquiry Toolkit software was demonstrated at Nottingham University’s Bridging the Gaps: Reviewing the Future event.  This provided an opportunity to showcase recent developments to the University’s vibrant interdisciplinary research community and seek opportunities for collaborative work to use the toolkit for inquiry learning activities. (more)

Members of Milton Keynes University of the Third Age computer group visit IET

Members of Milton Keynes University of the Third Age computer group visited the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at the Open University in January 2010. The aim was for these computer enthusiasts to find out more about the types of technologies used in our research projects, and those carried out by the Pervasive Interaction Lab in the Department of Maths, Technology and Computing, and to discuss involvement in future IET research projects. Members took part in hands-on demonstrations of the Asus net books, data gathering sensors and the web-based Activity Guide developed by the Personal Inquiry project. (more)

The Open University Open Day

Cindy Kerawalla , 9th July 2009
This year is the Open University’s 40th anniversary! As part of the celebrations, the general public were invited to help us celebrate by attending an event called Open Unlimited (http://www.openunlimited.co.uk/activities.html) on 27th June 2009. It was a beautiful sunny day and thousands of people attended. There were a variety of interactive activities, demonstrations and events and one of these was run by the Personal Inquiry project. Our aims were twofold: 1) to demonstrate to the public what we are doing to engage young people with personal inquiry, and 2) to give families hands-on experience of using Sciencescope sensors to explore the new Jennie Lee building and its surroundings (more)

Congratulations - Best Poster award at CAL

Bronya Norton, 2nd June 2009
Congratulations to S. Anastopoulou, L.J. Kerawalla, K, Littleton, S. Ainsworth, A, Twiner and G, Conole for winning the Best Poster Presentation Award 2009 at the CAL Conference 2009 - Learning in Digital Worlds, held in Brighton, UK 23-25 March 2009 (more)

Exploring Urban Heat Islands with Personal Inquiry

Mark Gaved, 23rd March 2009
70 Oakgrove School students have been out and about this spring, exploring environmental conditions in Northampton and Milton Keynes, with the support of the Personal Inquiry project (PI). As a major component of their GCSE coursework, counting towards their exam results, the Year 10 students walked across the two towns with their teachers and OU researchers, measuring the environment using ScienceScope sensors and guided by the PI developed "Activity Guide" running on Asus EEE mini laptops. (more)

Personal Inquiry Enables Oakgrove Microclimates Project

Mark Gaved, 12th January 2009
150 Year 8 students from Oakgrove School have successfully completed geography projects exploring microclimates around the school grounds with the help of Personal Inquiry (PI). Students have been investigating the different local climate conditions around the school, using Sciencescope sensors to measure conditions, and guided by an Activity Guide designed by the PI team. (more)

The Open University Trials October 08

Bronya Norton, 10th Feb 2009
This trial was based around students’ GCSE coursework on urban heat islands.  The technical development focussed on supporting the fieldwork aspect of the students’ projects.Researchers worked with the whole of year 10 Key Stage 3 classes (aged 14-15 years) that were studying geography GCSE at Oakgrove School in Milton Keynes, and their 2 geography teachers. The 76 pupils were divided into 3 classes. Shared design of the project and the PI Toolkit was developed through a series of meetings with the teachers in the term leading up to the students’ coursework. Meetings were held with Sciencescope to confirm best use of sensors and validate the fieldwork methodology. (more)

The University of Nottingham's November 08 Trials at Hadden Park School

Bronya Norton, 10th Feb 2009
The goal of the November trial was to explore the use of the first version of the integrated Toolkit in supporting personal inquiry in both the school and home.

The topic of the November scenario was what it means to have a healthy diet – a topic jointly chosen by the teacher and researchers. The design of the technology and pedagogy was specified through a process of iterative co-design beginning with a scenario and ending with lessons plans and their instantiation within a Toolkit. During this process, the help of an expert dietician was sought, to help in the accuracy of the dietary information (e.g., recommended daily nutrients intake for the pupils’ age group) and she further agreed to be involved in the lessons themselves by answering students’ questions. (more)

The University of Nottingham's February Trials at Hadden Park School

Stamatina Anastopoulou, 4 May 2008
The UoN focused on the topic of fitness and investigated how an inquiry investigation could be set up within the school settings. the case study was designed across a school classroom, sports hall, and library with year 9 students of a local Nottingham school, using off the shelf technology. The main aim of the study was to incorporate inquiry learning activities within an extended school science environment in order to investigate opportunities for technological mediations and to extract guidelines for the design of personal technology to link inquiry learning across different settings. (more)

Participatory Design

Cindy Kerawalla, 15 September 2008
The PI project has adopted a learner-centred participatory design approach to the design of learning scenarios and the PI tool kit. To date, we have carried out 2 pilot studies in 2008, both of which involved teachers early in the design process. (more)

Open University Urban Heat Island Pilot Study

Cindy Kerawalla, 28 July 2008
Throughout February - April 2008 the OU undertook a large pilot study with 78 students from 3 classes studying for their geography GCSE at Oakgrove School, Milton Keynes. The focus was a fieldtrip where students gathered data from Milton Keynes and Northampton to determine whether there was evidence of an urban heat island in the centre of either town and, if so, why this was the case. The teachers chose this topic and worked closely with the OU research team to develop a location-based inquiry learning toolset. (more)