Gerta Karageorgi from the LSE Project Management Office writes about attending an LSE NetworkED seminar earlier this week.

On Wednesday 5th February 2014, Karine Le Joly, Director of Innovation and Academic Coordination for Executive programmes at HEC Paris (Hautes études commerciales de Paris), made a day trip on the Eurostar to LSE to present the 8th NetworkED: Technology in Education session. It was a topic I was keen to learn more about, having spent a day the previous week attending 7 brief seminars on mobile technology at the Learning technologies exhibition at Kensington Olympia, London.

Despite travel disruption caused by the tube strike, there was a good turnout, and Karine did not disappoint us. She described how she set about implementing an electronic schoolbag pilot scheme on a zero budget at HEC. The only resource available was a batch of iPads given to the teachers and delegates.

Firstly, why iPads and not any other tablet? The iPad is currently the tablet of choice for mobile technology, encompassing both personal and work usages on the one device. That said, the delegates to the HEC Executive programmes are mature professionals, who have not grown up with the fast moving IT innovations we are now experiencing, and to whom using tablets does not necessarily come as second nature.

Along with funding, a lack of digital literacy skills was one of the first hurdles Karine had to get over. To counteract this, her team designed a concise and simple how-to guide, showing the delegates how to get started on their iPads. Workshops, iPad surgeries and knowledge-sharing sessions were also organised so that the delegates could share ideas and useful tips. (I think this is an excellent idea, as it also helps the delegates to network and bond.)

She then showed us

apps such as Socrative, Nearpod and ExplainEverything, which allowed delegates to

  • get organised and access agenda and emails on the move
  • access information and educational media
  • study and take notes
  • capture ideas
  • make presentations
    • synchronise and share ideas

all on their  iPad!Karine also added that“ the future of mobile apps must be cloud-based and responsive to different mobile devices”.

The most interesting aspect of this for me was the fact that information and knowledge can be verified or challenged on the go during class, and the teacher-delegate relationship becomes more a partnership rather than a master-pupil one.

I would like to thank Karine for sharing her experiences with us, and wish her success in her new projects. Perhaps she can come again next year to give us an update on her progress? If you would like to watch her video, and any of the other NetworkED seminars, they are available on the CLT website, but now available on You Tube.