So, our talk today is about the open source in educating your idea of our students.
I'm William Jones and I'm presenting with Ian Potter, who's our collaborator.
So, is that working?
Yes, it's my idea.
So, what we're going to do today is we want to talk through a program of work that we'd be doing for the last six months or so.
Maybe a bit longer.
Where we've been going into a local school and in collaboration with our local university, we've been teaching a work.
An interesting program of work to a set of our students to try and help them develop new and useful skills, particularly in maths and computing.
And today we're going to talk through, well, we're going to start with why this is so important, why it is a needful thing for us to do.
We're going to talk through what we did, and we're going to talk through the many, many, many things that we learned from it.
And of course, we're going to talk about work with the source bits and bits of this.
So, Ian is going to quickly talk about our motivation if I can do it and take this off.
Thanks, William.
But it's really good to meet you all this afternoon.
And actually this has been a project in gestation for about over a year.
And I've been in education for 40 years.
And for the second half of my career, I was a principal.
And then finished off my career for half decade, running a group of schools, similar to a sort of superintendent role.
And one of the things I always knew is we were failing a lot of youngsters.
And as that graph shows there, those who have needs, it's not their needs that it's the barrier.
It's how we operate as schools that is the barrier.
And so, I just want to absolutely commend my engagement with Embecosm.
And Jeremy Bennett, who's here as the CEO, who we had to start in having the conversations two years ago about how we might make a difference.
I suppose having failed over 40 years in schooling.
I've trying to get it right for youngsters who have incredible talents.
I'm trying to make up for lost time at the moment.
This quotation sums up exactly what I've just been saying.
And what I utterly recognize is we misunderstand very often in schools.
The genius and talents that these young people can bring.
And because what we get wrong is that we start to see that they are the issue rather than us.
And that becomes the barrier for them going on and getting employment, et cetera.
And so, I'm really grateful for this opportunity to be thinking about how we look to create new employment opportunities for these youngsters.
And giving them an approach into the computing world and particularly into the programming AI world.
And so what we have done is we've devised a program working with a school and we are now in a position where we are fine tuning that program so that then hopefully we can scale it up.
And I'll hand over to William who will tell you more about the program.
So we have done this in collaboration with one of our local schools which is a bridge school in the UK.
And the University of Southampton we've actually got someone from the University here today.
generously hosted us for one of these half day workshops that we did.
And yeah, these were just half day workshops I think we've done three of them now.
And what we've been teaching the students is we've been teaching them about artificial intelligence.
And the reason that we've been focusing on this is a topic is not just because it's sort of a common and interesting thing and it's sort of an interest for us.
Like I was speaking at the Devroom which is down there somewhere few hours ago about this.
But because it sits in this sort of really interesting and useful intersection between math skills and computing skills both of which are sort of essential skills for the kids to be developing at the moment.
And it's a nice interesting vehicle where the students can sort of get their hands dirty doing real interesting stuff in these fields in an interesting and useful way.
And we've tried really hard to make this something that is real and useful for the students to get them doing real coding and to get them working on these things from first principles.
We've been particularly very keen the students did this in Python to not have the students just important Python module that does everything for them and they just play with it.
But to have them build these things up from first principles so they understand how they work.
And we've been doing all of this in with free and open source software and when we've done we will obviously free and open source and some of the last that at the end.
But always something I was only going to make to mention in the last slide is as a useful detail these students are sort of 13 to 14 years old.
Yeah.
So give you context of how we've done this.
So in terms of the sessions we've done so far the first session we did with the students was on human computer interfaces and computer vision.
We will try and play this video in a second unfortunately for like the GDPR reasons we obviously can't show that show the students faces so I've had to blow out the students face which is most of the picture here.
You can still see Ian in the background.
Just and essentially the goal of the day was to build the students up to interacting with their computers by using gestures to be able to do things like just volume by increasing the distance between say index finger and thumb.
And we worked through this through the whole day we started really simple we had a sort of skeleton of code that the students built up through the whole day and at the end we asked the students to go away and and do their own thing with it.
And this was actually sort of a really useful deep learning moment for us in terms of getting something out of how we can make this better for the kids because the kids engaged really well when we set the way to do their own thing.
Some things for example that they noticed very early on is the skeleton code that I'd had been built meant that the most recent hand on the screen was the one that controlled the screen.
And this meant that the students could go to each other screens, stick their hands with it and make the volume go to max instantaneously and play with each other.
And this was both hilarious for the students and for us but it was also really good teaching moment as well because we could go in and we could help the students understand why this was happening.
And sort of learn in detail about the code so that was good that was nice learning thing.
Second day we tried to teach in a little bit more detail about neural networks sort of going from the understanding the brain point of view.
We learned a little bit about neurons and both in the brain and the neurons that we put in the computer.
We learned about how we can put these together to sort of how simple units of neurons working together can solve really quite complicated problems and we learned about how learning happens so that we don't have to program all these solutions.
And then once again we sent the students away and this time not just at the end of our session with us but then after our session in their own time we asked them to go away and create their own neural networks to solve their own problems.
And the third session that we did with them when we came back was all about that.
We asked the students to present what they'd done to us and which was I think slightly unwillingly in some cases but they did a very good job.
And what we originally expected was that the students would go away as individuals develop their projects on different things then come back to us and we'd sort of have a whole day of iterating on together.
But actually what happened is all the students ended up working together on this to make a football school predictors.
It's, you know, we're on the UK and the UK very topical for us.
And we actually ended up having, again, something we learned.
We had a really sort of interesting and useful ad hoc coding session where me and the teacher from Redbridge who was supervising this.
And sort of just ad hoc helped these students all together code this up.
We had some lovely moments where me and the teacher made some.
We agreed just errors encoding that we didn't notice and then the students had the real authentic experience of all of us collectively scratching our heads for 10 minutes while we tried to figure out what the actual problem was and then laughing at us when they realised the syllabus thing that we made.
Yeah, and so yeah, that those are the three days that we've done so far and without spoiling Ian's next bit which is going to be to talk about the impacts. I would say we had quite a lot of success.
There's been two things that have impacted on me as a professional educator.
The first thing has been that this was a project that we were working with neurodivergent students.
And we were planning it to meet their needs in the way in which I was talking about earlier.
Because what I've recognized is that that which we've devised with them and I mean with them is actually then applicable to any learner.
And so that's landed with me as a professional educator of going, hang on, why do you categorize learners in this particular way?
The second bit that's landed is my exposure to the open source community.
Because until I got involved in this project, I was unaware, I'm a professional educator, I'm not, I don't know, very little about computing.
But the philosophy of the open source makes complete sense to me in terms of code design, learning together and that's what we've been doing with these youngsters.
And that actually ought to be the way all schools work.
And moving away from this knowledge of this practice of I'm the expert.
Let me just preach to you as we're doing this afternoon. Sorry about that.
But of course the most important people are the ones we're serving the young people.
And there's an evidence of the impact that we're having that's said by the teacher.
And also the young people themselves have given us this feedback.
So clearly, as with anybody that's spent 40 years in the profession, you always have to get an evaluation of whatever you're doing.
And it's quite right that you look for feedback and those are comments that the young people have made about the work that we've been doing.
And as I'll just go back to that one.
Clearly, the point of engagement is the most important thing.
How are we engaging and so often in schooling?
We with at the moment would particularly obsessed with attendance rather than engagement.
And how are we engaging young people?
And this was their feedback of what we could do and how it could be even better if.
And as you can see there, we've still got more to learn in how we co-design and involve the young people in the process.
This is actually our final slide. So we're going to finish the learning which is I'm sure absolutely fine.
And so the last thing that I wanted to pick up here is just about where open source fits into this in maybe a little bit more detail.
Because like, it's fine, we're a positive. It sort of makes sense that we do all of this open source.
And as we said in the last presentation, if we weren't doing this being open source and everything was closed, it just wouldn't really fit it for us then.
But there's a sort of a sense to which the way that we're doing things in a free and open source way changes how the students learn.
And it's particularly, I think, this quote from the last slide.
It would have been even better if we could discuss what each procedure does and its purpose in a little bit more detail,
which is something that opens source really, really gives the students.
The students have the capability to go sort of all the way down the rabbit hole and see how everything works. There's much detail as they want.
And some of the students are very, very taken by that and can drive their own learning in a very positive way.
So sort of beyond just the freedom of the fact that the students can all ways do all of this stuff for free because everything's real open source.
I think it's, you know, it's just a nice thing that the students have full auditability for the learning.
Anyway, I think that is the lot.
Do we have any questions?
Lindsay of questions, should we start from the front?
Secret question.
I mean, go ahead.
That's a great question.
We've been working with a group of seven on this particular project and clearly I'm having to learn.
And I repeat the question for the camera.
What side groups have we been working with?
And as I said, seven, in this particular case.
And clearly we're doing a bit of R&D and working at how to scale it up and one of the things that I've been having to negotiate with the school is releasing these young people.
And we've got to gain the evidence of the impact to be able to then persuade other schools that this is a good thing to do, particularly when they're caught up with their performative environment in which they exist.
Thank you.
Next question.
We were asked what the path to scaling looks like.
Your advice on that would be fantastic.
Okay, so we're working on it.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I was asked what kind of neurodivergence do they have?
Many of them are on the autistic spectrum.
And I wanted to have ADHD with that as well.
And there was one quote earlier that you saw from the teacher.
Which you'll understand for GDPR reasons O is the name of one of the students.
And that is O tends to be an elected mute within the classroom context.
And the interaction that he had with William was just exceptional.
And actually became a little too vocal at times for what was going on.
And it clearly brought tears to the teacher's eyes.
So you know how I can be benefits as the kids essentially investigate as much as they like into code.
As you know, neurodiver students can sometimes make a purpose on things.
So what I found tonight is sometimes if you give them an interesting problem.
And they've got access to everything.
So everything is still going to be the higher level of energy.
Have you found that as a problem with this team and you think about ways to pack it down to that?
So you don't ask this benefit or you sort of really can see everything and get distracted.
You don't need to learn a bit.
I mean, yeah, I can say a little bit at the start.
I would say the students not getting distracted and hyper focusing has been a little bit of a problem already in some cases.
And you're right, right, like it is easy for the students to hyper focus on the topic.
And I think learning about this and how we can deal with this even better in the future is something that we've got to work on.
Yes, absolutely.
And we made a classic mistake in exactly that because we gave an intersectional task.
And because they just found it really hard to navigate that intersectional task on their own.
So yes, absolutely.
And because I've come to this having very little knowledge of anything, I just laid schools.
And so we do need to be increasing our understanding.
And though I said earlier that you are creating programs that would be available to all learners.
And I would like to see it scale that so that we're not just giving opportunity to a few.
But I've said that we address the equity issue.
In that, we do need to recognize different needs and differentiate accordingly.
So crafting question, thank you.
So the question was, I think we might have missed out repeating a few of these.
But the question was for the camera.
How can we make sure that we meet everybody's needs because the needs are quite wide and diverse.
What's in?
Has has probably been the question vexing me for most of my career.
And so when in a classroom of 30 and then when having responsibility for a subject for many more.
So trying to get the balance between the cost and being able to reach as many as you can within the resources that you've got.
But to personalize it is something that, as I say, I haven't got the answer to.
And it's a great question to be teasing through and thinking through.
And I will just get up my soapbox just for a quick moment.
And that is, we learned a lot of lessons during COVID.
There's a school system with completely forgotten.
And how the technology led us to personalize provision in a way that we've,
I have been, as I say, we've just thrown away all that practice that we've learned.
And so I do see this as an opportunity to champion the use of technology in a hybrid approach to schooling.
And I think this will be an important project to be contributing to that discourse.
I think it's great what you're doing here.
And I really enjoyed the fact that you started your talk with saying,
I'm trying to do right what I did wrong or wrong, not ready for all of you.
And not to with any blame.
But the, the, I feel that one part of this entire topic is to find out how to interest youngsters with or without special needs.
But the other very important part of that is how to convince the entire education system that this is actually not needed,
but mandatory to actually help everybody.
Because for my experience in the education system, there's more people that are afraid of this than the people that say,
yeah, this is something that's good I think.
And there's a lot of teachers that I personally experience with that refuse to see that they can help youngsters,
students in a lot better ways than they would just, you know, reading their ways of teaching a little bit,
not even a lot, but a little bit and like you said,
so I see that the youngsters are not the problem,
but the educational system is often the problem.
And I'm just wondering whether you're also working on that side or not just educating the youngsters,
but also educating the teachers on how to handle people that have like,
yeah, like you say, different methods or learning stuff.
So the question was how can we educate the teachers as well as the youngsters?
And I'm going to say this as a question for you here.
I think many teachers share your frustration.
And so it's how do we influence policy makers?
And so on different days that when I'm working with William,
or I am doing various things to try to lobby a way of thinking.
And but coming up against the agency of the system,
when it's just the agency of a few of us,
but I'd been hearing that theme being spoken about all we can't hear
with regard to your feelings towards big tech.
So we'll crusade us together.
I think there was, was there one question at the back?
Sorry, could you say that a bit louder?
The previous knowledge.
Yeah, so the question was what was the level of previous knowledge and coding that students had?
So we were actually exceptionally lucky in this case.
We did try and please select the students a little bit for some kind of interest in this area
because it was very difficult to do the type of teaching that we were hoping to do,
which was programming a base without any for knowledge of this.
But we were also exceptionally lucky that the school sort of really did buy into this and contribute
to the students experience of it.
And they actually took some of these students out of their lessons for an hour a week, I think.
Yeah, for one of the teachers to teach them about coding, so they could learn alongside it.
And that was exceptionally helpful for that really let us,
and that the students get a lot more out of this.
Yeah.
Two questions. You've very had a question, sir.
If I may, what is your background?
How did you create a knowing that you've had any games to kind of find something different for the students?
So the question was, how did I probably mostly made,
because I was the one actually doing the course prepared for doing this type of thing?
With Ian's help was one of the things.
One of the reasons we brought Ian on board is that I have done,
I was in the research world for a while, so I have done a bit of teaching,
but not really of youngsters this age.
So it was quite a lot of me mapping out what I would think was sensible for doing
based on my previous teaching experience than having Ian come in and be like,
have you considered that maybe these younger students might not be that good at Python, for example.
So, no, that was sort of how Ian first doing that.
Does that answer your question?
I know it's interesting one.
I'm not sure I've got much more of an answer than I've given it already.
I've been basically, we came up with a plan.
I mean, we have done a little bit of work.
I think, generally, we did a bit of work with Neward Havage.
It's previously, I think.
Oh, times up.
So, finish this question.
I'm going to have the show if you work in the schools for Neward Havage,
if you're busy boys and they can then be working with students.
So, it had some exposure to that.
I think, actually, what the time I hear was, biggest learning experience,
those kids, they're coming into a company and realising the risks,
successful welfare people are just like them.
I'm ready to go back to the men's home to the imagines, just from that one.
I'm not sure, I can.
I choose executive, some of the ways that we have, we have previously experienced
with our company going into schools for autistic boys.
So, we have sort of had some private experience doing this type of thing.
And I believe I'll time it up.
Yeah, so we've done thank you very much.