Learning Activity Management System Specialist Schools Trust
pilot
Learning Activity Management System Specialist
Schools Trust pilot
A Review for Becta and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust by
Terry Russell,
Tünde Varga-Atkins,
Daniel Roberts,
CRIPSAT, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Liverpool
September 2005
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| Learning Activity Management System Specialist Schools Trust pilot
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................................. 1
Executive summary ................................................................................................................................ 2
Review recommendations .................................................................................................................... 11
1
The Learning Activity Management System ................................................................................ 15
2
Introduction to the LAMS pilot ...................................................................................................... 20
3
The Becta review of the SST LAMS pilot .................................................................................... 22
3.1
Aims and objectives ............................................................................................................ 22
4
The role of the Specialist Schools Trust during the pilot ............................................................. 24
5
Review methodology ................................................................................................................... 25
5.1
Initial questionnaires ........................................................................................................... 27
5.2
User statistics ...................................................................................................................... 27
5.3
Practitioner visits ................................................................................................................. 27
5.4
Secondary sources ............................................................................................................. 34
5.5
Workshops .......................................................................................................................... 34
5.6
Community forum ................................................................................................................ 34
6
Profile of pilot LAMS use up to July 2005 .................................................................................... 35
6.1
Learning sequences created using LAMS .......................................................................... 35
6.2
Learning sequences run in LAMS ....................................................................................... 39
6.3
Discussion of user statistics ................................................................................................ 47
7
LAMS pilot: Objectives and achievements of participants ........................................................... 51
7.1
Initial pathways and incentives to participation in the LAMS pilot....................................... 51
7.2
Trends in managing LAMS adoption during the pilot .......................................................... 52
7.3
Objectives of pilot schools active during the pilot ............................................................... 54
7.4
Schools discontinuing pilot – Analysis ................................................................................ 61
7.5
Original objectives - Barriers and enablers ......................................................................... 65
7.6
End of pilot – Final questionnaire assessment of achievements ........................................ 71
8
Pilot achievements: Benefits of LAMS ......................................................................................... 78
8.1
Teachers’ perceived benefits of LAMS ............................................................................... 78
8.2
Benefits to pupils – Teachers’ perceptions ......................................................................... 91
8.3
Personalisation and differentiation .................................................................................... 100
8.4
Home-school links ............................................................................................................. 102
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9
LAMS classroom practice and pedagogy .................................................................................. 104
9.1
Attaining confidence as a LAMS practitioner .................................................................... 104
9.2
Introducing LAMS to students ........................................................................................... 105
9.3
Integrating LAMS with pedagogical intentions .................................................................. 106
9.4
Classroom management support function of LAMS ......................................................... 108
9.5
Using LAMS for subject teaching: Case studies ............................................................... 111
10
Pupils' attitudes to LAMS ........................................................................................................... 137
10.1
Exposure to others' ideas .................................................................................................. 138
10.2
LAMS interface and usability ............................................................................................ 139
10.3
‘Get more done’ and ‘learning better’ with LAMS ............................................................. 140
10.4
LAMS session as ‘better than classroom’ ......................................................................... 142
10.5
Ability to express opinions in the absence of peer pressure with LAMS .......................... 143
10.6
Classroom atmosphere in a LAMS session ...................................................................... 144
10.7
LAMS and active learning ................................................................................................. 144
10.8
Miscellaneous focus group comments .............................................................................. 145
10.9
Student survey .................................................................................................................. 145
11
LAMS and attainment ................................................................................................................ 147
12
What is LAMS? Teachers’ perceptions ..................................................................................... 149
13
Technical issues and enhancements......................................................................................... 154
13.1
Technical issues ................................................................................................................ 154
13.2
Enhancements .................................................................................................................. 155
14
LAMS practitioner workshops .................................................................................................... 157
14.1
Group needs analysis ....................................................................................................... 158
15
Community forum....................................................................................................................... 161
16
The future of LAMS in pilot schools ........................................................................................... 162
16.1
Schools planning to continue – Future aims ..................................................................... 162
16.2
Schools planning to continue – LAMS needs ................................................................... 165
17
Review recommendations: Pilot and research .......................................................................... 168
17.1
Recommendations for continuing LAMS adoption ............................................................ 168
17.2
Recommendations for future research .............................................................................. 169
18
Comparison with the JISC evaluation: Cross-sector LAMS experiences .................................. 172
19
References ................................................................................................................................. 175
20
Appendices ................................................................................................................................ 176
20.1
Appendix A – LAMS tools ................................................................................................. 176
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Acknowledgments
This report was made possible by the collaborative efforts between the teachers and pupils
of the participating LAMS institutions and the Becta Review Team at the University of
Liverpool. The Team would like to thank all the organisations that took part in the review, in
particular those which made the practitioner visits possible, namely:
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Queensbridge (Birmingham),
Notre Dame Catholic High School (Sheffield),
Bishop Challoner Catholic School (Birmingham),
Kemnal Technology College (Sidcup),
Hathershaw Technology College (Oldham),
Brayton College (Selby),
Cator Park School for Girls (Beckenham),
Charles Darwin School (Westerham) and
Beaverwood School for Girls (Chislehurst).
Each visit brought something new to the review and to the report including teachers’ and
pupils’ perspectives on the current and potential use of LAMS. Several schools offered
comments to the effect that participating in the review was an active learning process, the
review dialogue serving to focus attention and encourage articulation around issues that
needed to be discussed. In this sense, we feel that the review has been able to give
something back to the informants, as well as to receive their information and insights.
Thanks to Simon Harrison (Project Manager, Pedagogy Models) at Becta and Beverley
Johnston (Director Bromley 14-19) for their support with the LAMS workshops. Thanks must
also go to the UK LAMS team, Andrew Logue and Dave Caygill for their excellent and timely
technical support given throughout the review.
Thanks to the Australian team, James Dalziel, Robyn Philip and Donna Gibbs for LAMS
reading materials and advice and to the JISC LAMS evaluation team for sharing information.
The LAMS review team
Project Director
Project Manager/Researcher
Researcher
Design support
Administrative support
September 2005
© Becta 2005
Professor Terry Russell
Tünde Varga-Atkins
Daniel B. Roberts
Rachel Walker
Nga Nguyen, Diana Benford
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Executive summary
1. Review remit
Becta commissioned a review team from CRIPSAT to:
 examine the impact of LAMS use in the pilot schools;
 offer workshop support for the use of LAMS in pilot schools;
 provide pedagogical support to pilot schools via the LAMS community forum.
The more specific aims and objectives of the review were:
 to reveal the objectives of individual pilot schools in implementing LAMS and report
on the success of the implementation against these objectives;
 to identify emerging models of subject-specific e-learning (and the effectiveness of
such models in raising learner achievement), support for personalised learning and
providing links between the learners’ experiences in the institution and the home;
 to identify future opportunities for robust research into the use of learning design
software to support emerging models of subject-specific e-learning (and the
effectiveness of such models in raising learner achievement), supporting personalised
learning and links between the learners’ experiences in the institution and the home;
 to make feedback from practitioners on the usability of learning sequence design
tools such as LAMS available to the LAMS Foundation.
2. Review methodology
A range of methods was used to collect data:
 initial and final LAMS questionnaires;
 semi-structured interviews (27 management staff and teachers);
 structured observation (12 LAMS sessions);
 focus group interviews (12 pupil groups, sampled from LAMS sessions);
 LAMS sequence pupil survey (3 classes);
 interrogation of SST LAMS server system statistics for activity sequence construction
and use.
All interviews were audio recorded and transcripts analysed and classified to identify
emerging themes. Additionally, some sessions were recorded using high quality equipment
to offer the possibility of re-usable illustrative material.
Pilot schools were identified by SST in January 2005 and review activities ran through to the
end of July 2005.
3. Profile of pilot LAMS use (up to July 2005)
a) Participating schools
Forty-one schools registered to participate in the SST LAMS pilot and the scale of their
activities defined the evidence available to the review.
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Six schools (15%) informed the Review Team that they had withdrawn from the pilot.
Twelve schools (29%) did not respond or had no practical LAMS activity to report
though some had plans for such activity.
Seventeen schools (42%) described as in an ‘exploratory’ mode appeared to be
seriously exploring the potential uses and benefits of LAMS.
Six schools (15%) referred to as in an ‘incubatory’ mode suggested significant
strategic engagement with LAMS.
b) Evidence base - LAMS sequence construction
Interrogation of the LAMS database using server data for the period October 2004 to July
2005 – most of one school year – provided a quantitative guide to schools’ LAMS sequence
construction. This server data needed interpretation by the Review Team from its original raw
state and so the results here should be regarded as cautious estimates as opposed to predesigned system statistics. It is also important to note that server data was available for 40 of
the 41 schools surveyed by the Review Team, as one school ran LAMS from their own
server.
 It is estimated that 224 uniquely titled sequences were created by pilot schools. Of
the 40 pilot schools using the pilot servers, 26 created at least one sequence, 14
created none.
 23 schools (58%) scheduled at least one LAMS sequence for either a staff or student
group, 17 scheduled no sequences.
 11 schools (28%) scheduled at least one sequence for a student group.
 Of the 324 non-unique sequences, nearly one third were adaptations of another
sequence by the same person; 36 sequences were re-used by people other than the
original author from a pool of 46 users. These data suggest that, albeit on a small
scale, users have confirmed the re-usability of LAMS sequences.
N.B. These statistics represent the scheduling of sequences and not the actual running and
delivery of sequences in classrooms. Before the Preview function was available (Feb 2005)
authors had to schedule a sequence to test it. Therefore, some sequences were tests rather
than real classroom sessions run with students. Those respondents who completed the Final
Questionnaire and who had created and/or run sequences (n = 17) had, on average, created
about three sequences.
The above confirms that the review team had access to relatively limited data from early
adopters of some novel software over a limited time scale. It is clear that training does not
automatically trigger implementation. However, it seems that LAMS training sessions and
review visits were associated with ‘spikes’ in the frequency of LAMS activity in schools.
These usage statistics are illuminated by review data collected directly from practitioners and
pupils which present the quality of teaching and learning activities made possible with the
introduction of LAMS.
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4. Objectives and achievements of participants
Initial pathways to the LAMS pilot
Routes by which schools came to the LAMS Pilot have been examined for their significance
in determining the success of objectives, and for indicating a management strategy. A range
of routes were found, falling into three broad categories, often combining in different ways in
each school:
 High-level management initiative such as an LEA project available to schools and
offering an easily accessible, low-risk route.
 Interest in LAMS either from a management or staff individual enthusiast or
‘champion’ prompting a school to seek out and ‘buy-in’ to the pilot to explore the
benefits of investment.
 LAMS pilot/training found to be in some way convenient to a school’s immediate
needs.
It was observed that, where a school had at least one management or staff
enthusiast/champion to engage with and support LAMS development, then positive
achievements would generally be made in that school. There was a high-level of crossover
between the first two categories, often combining very successfully, albeit currently on a
small-scale.
Pilot objectives of LAMS pilot schools – Trends
Once schools joined the LAMS pilot, their aims and objectives were either:
 small scale and experimental (an exploratory approach). Here schools were looking
at LAMS to find out its real applications, how useful it would be as a teaching tool to
the staff and what further investment would need to be made for the wide-scale
adoption of LAMS;
 or the institution embarked on more comprehensive, long-term plans (an incubatory
approach). Here schools had already committed to the idea of LAMS and its potential
value in a school, and had formed a long-term strategy (often extending beyond the
LAMS pilot).
23 schools can be categorised from the data available with 6 having an incubatory and 17 an
exploratory approach. Of the remaining institutions, 12 did not report any activity and 6 were
known to have discontinued the pilot.
Pilot objectives of LAMS pilot schools – Some findings
A number of factors are identified as being consistently associated with the successful
achievement of a school’s aims and objectives for the LAMS pilot. Briefly, the most
significant were found to be: sufficiency of school ICT provision; staff skills – levels of staff
ICT confidence and literacy in a school influence whether there is a broad-based uptake of
LAMS or it remains the specialism of enthusiasts; time – staff have cited available time as
being critical to their LAMS activity, yet all recognise that reuse is the payoff for this time
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investment; management strategy –models of management at pilot schools might act as
replicable models for other schools to achieve success; networks – formal networks between
schools can be a very powerful means of driving success and also embryonic networks of
LAMS pioneers are emerging and need support and direction; cascading LAMS within school
– crucial to the success of a strategy within the school is the positive example of staff using
LAMS successfully in their teaching and so putting them in a position to create demand and
influence management.
End of pilot – Final questionnaire assessment of achievements
95 final questionnaires were emailed and there were 16 respondents from 14 schools (return
rate under 20%). The data from this low return rate, although not necessarily representative
of the whole pilot population, may not be misleading in the context of the server usage
statistics which show that only 12 schools delivered LAMS sessions in the first year of the
pilot. School staff were asked to quantify their sense of achievement in the pilot period as
compared with anticipated benefits that LAMS would bring to their institution, the staff, pupils
and other groups (e.g. parents). The reported achievements of the LAMS pilot were wideranging and comments are listed in tables in the main body of the report. Opportunities for
differentiation, revision, self-paced and collaborative learning received high ratings in terms
of materialised achievements. A comparatively large number of teachers indicated that
LAMS not only had the potential to promote independent learning, including guidance and
structure to help students along, but also thought that this achievement materialised during
the pilot period. A few teachers felt that LAMS supported the development of metacognitive
skills and those few that did, thought that these benefits materialised at a high level. Few
achievements actually materialised over the review period with respect to reusing and
sharing sequences amongst staff but this remains an objective for schools.
5. Pilot achievements
a) Teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of LAMS
 LAMS offers teachers a structure with which to build their lessons, allowing them to
guide students to achieve lesson objectives and keep students focused and on task.
 Teachers reported greater levels of pupil motivation as compared with traditional
lessons, this being acknowledged as at least in part attributable to the use of ICT as a
delivery medium. More significantly, it was felt that LAMS allows coherent, structured
and integrated use of ICT for teaching.
 LAMS was found to increase the likelihood of every member of a class contributing,
all students having a voice in a non-threatening environment – anonymity often
means harder-to-engage pupils or those lacking confidence or fearing failure or peer
censure would be more likely to contribute.
 LAMS was valued for its potential to promote the development of metacognitive skills
through independent learning, peer and self-assessment and reflective work. The
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self-paced nature of LAMS sequences contributes to the development of the skills of
autonomous learning.
The monitoring function of LAMS offers a powerful mode for keeping track of pupils’
progress and contributions and is an excellent formative assessment tool. The online
monitoring provides a quick snapshot of pupil classroom progress at the whole class
and/or individual pupil level. The immediacy of feedback was appreciated as
beneficial both from a teaching management point of view as well as for offering
students instant results. The effective exploitation of LAMS’ monitoring mode tended
to be practised by more experienced users.
LAMS’ administration facility gives teachers a 24/7 point of access to students’
contributions online, the ‘Submit’ activity gathers pupils’ work in one place and
digitally produced LAMS work is easier to mark and return.
Teachers commented that LAMS is an excellent tool for non-ICT subjects to adopt
integrated use of ICT in lessons in a seamless, meaningful way, in contrast to
previous obligatory but unmotivated ‘bolted-on’ ICT use.
Teachers confirmed LAMS’ potential for re-using learning designs by sharing and/or
reusing subject sequences. Some departments had planned a strategy to develop
and share subject sequences within the department.
b) Teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of LAMS for pupils
 LAMS offers the opportunity to prepare a guided structure for pupils to progress
through learning materials.
 There is the capability for students to have access to the ideas of every other
individual in the class, offering the potential for collaborative and constructivist
approaches to learning.
 The anonymous contributions as well as the neutral computer-student interaction
prevent opportunities for mockery and bullying, thus promoting greater student
engagement.
 Students can work through sequences at their own pace, benefiting both low- and
high-achieving students.
 LAMS was felt to foster confidence in students, this being attributed to several
aspects including the motivating nature of computers, self-pacing, access to whole
class contributions etc..
 Student productivity and efficiency is enhanced by the fact that students are
continuously working when using LAMS. For instance, if teacher time is taken up by
classroom management issues, other students can still continue to work through the
materials.
 The ‘Share Resources’ activity type allows teachers to give students a quick point-ofaccess to relevant materials (whether Internet sites or other digital files), eliminating
time that might otherwise be wasted on searching and locating digital resources via
the web.
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Students benefit from instant feedback whether it is automated via the multiple choice
tool or the result of seeing the ideas of all the other students in the class.
LAMS promotes active and independent learning, nurturing study skills through the
use of its in-built activities. It also lends itself well to exploratory and discovery
learning where students have to carry out research using digital resources. LAMS
enhances students’ appreciation of the metacognitive process of learning, giving them
directed experience of how to manage their own learning.
LAMS moves pupils into the foreground of learning. The teacher’s support is implicit
rather than explicit in the LAMS sequence.
LAMS can support different learning styles and differentiated ability and experience
and sequences can be customised easily (although it is not yet possible to include
images).
LAMS offers the prospect and opportunity for out of school learning, stated by a
number of teachers, and received also as welcome news by a number of students,
although this model of use has not yet been attempted.
6. LAMS classroom practice and pedagogy
The review examined in detail any emerging pedagogy associated with LAMS (see Section
9).
 Experimenting, rehearsing, technical preparation and networking with other
professionals were consistently pointed to as important elements of building
confidence as a LAMS practitioner.
 It was apparent that where students had had prior instruction in what LAMS was, how
to negotiate some key activities such as chat and what standards of behaviour were
expected (‘netiquette’ and the presence of monitoring) then these particular sessions
were focussed on the tasks rather than the processes of LAMS activity.
 LAMS was demonstrated to be useful both as a whole lesson activity or as
components of a lesson.
 A highly valued aspect of LAMS was its positive impact on classroom management,
especially with teachers’ using the online monitoring function.
(Seven subject-specific case studies are presented in Section 0.)
7. Pupils’ attitudes towards LAMS
Pupil focus group comments confirmed teachers’ perceptions of benefits to students of using
LAMS:
 One of the most often cited benefits of LAMS was that of ‘seeing what other people
have done’. This means viewing other people’s opinions, answers, voting reactions
and so on, and comparing their own responses in the light of these.
 Students found using LAMS ‘fun’.
 That LAMS was ‘better than the classroom’ was often remarked, usually meaning the
opportunity afforded to work with computers as opposed to ‘pen-and-paper’ writing.
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Some student focus groups, for non-ICT subject lessons, reported that their LAMS
sessions were the best ICT lessons for that subject that they had experienced.
Knowing where one was up to in the sequence was also found very helpful by the
students, referring to the sequence monitoring in the left-hand side of the screen.
Instant access to directed resources meant that students found LAMS made it easier
for them to access web sites and other materials quickly without the need to make or
type in addresses and URLs.
Students attending the focus groups often asked about, or were surprised and
enthused to discover, the possibility that they were able to carry on with LAMS at
home using their home computer.
Students also suggested utilising LAMS in other ways to that of the observed lesson,
e.g. in a class where LAMS was used as a revision tool, they could see that LAMS
would be useful for doing their coursework.
Students welcomed the fact that they were able to move through LAMS at their own
speed, not having to wait for others nor being left behind, off the unison pace.
Interestingly, students sometimes did not imagine that it was their teacher who had
made the sequence they had just followed. It is surely an empowering notion for
teachers that they can create professional-looking ICT learning materials with LAMS.
The LAMS interface drew mixed opinions, some suggesting it be made more vibrant
and aimed at young people, whilst some appreciated the bland look of LAMS, which
was felt to have a more ‘grown-up’ look and feel, being ‘well spaced out’ and not
busy with multimedia distractions.
8. LAMS and attainment
Links between attainment and using LAMS were explored from staff perspectives; the short
scale of the pilot did not allow the examination of longitudinal data or other quantitative
methods.
 Most staff reported that LAMS could impact positively on attainment.
 Some were unwilling to commit an opinion, citing the small scale and duration of their
LAMS use.
 Areas of impact (envisaged by staff offering an opinion) where LAMS might contribute
positively to attainment included:
o Opportunities for a whole class to acquire, practise and improve metacognitive
skills.
o Getting more work done in a LAMS session than in a normal classroom.
o LAMS is a valuable vehicle for revision and recall.
o LAMS increases self-confidence and autonomy.
o Learners keep on task and cope with manageable chunks.
o LAMS is particularly suited to rapid cycles of formative assessment, the latter
having a well-established correlation with enhanced pupil achievements.
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9. What does the ‘Learning Activity Management System’ offer?
Even following a period of initial exposure, some teachers found difficulty in identifying the
unique (but seemingly elusive to apprehend) qualities of LAMS.
LAMS is an early representative of a new generation of ‘learning design’ educational
software having an underlying ‘work-flow’ structure. It attends to the process of e-learning
rather than content, in the manner of an ‘online lesson planning tool’. The uncluttered
interface may tend to mask its power and unique qualities, the more so since many other
software solutions offer separately many of the elements of its functionality. It is in its
capability to orchestrate a range of functionality to serve the pedagogical inclinations of
teachers that LAMS offers a unique contribution to e-learning developments. This overall
management of the process of learning is a holistic feature of LAMS that must be borne in
mind in reviewing the evidence presented in this report, much of which necessarily considers
elements of LAMS functionality rather than its quintessential integrating quality. Some views
of LAMS as a tool were:
 Teachers tended to compare similarities and differences between LAMS and VLEs,
with some finding that LAMS offers ‘something nothing else can offer’. It offers a
structure for learning activities, e.g. a structured chat room embedded into a particular
learning sequence.
 LAMS is just a tool within a package of tools available to teachers, it will never
replace other ways of teaching. Keeping a variety of tools is important.
 LAMS is good ICT for non-ICT subjects, i.e. cross-curricular ICT skills can be
integrated into lessons in meaningful and subject-relevant ways.
10. Technical issues and enhancements
a) Technical issues
 Teachers frequently found the administration of classes and student logins to be
awkward, mainly due to their lack of control over these. Class groups and passwords
were created and administered by UK LAMS over the pilot so that related and
potential technical problems could be quickly resolved. This offered advantages at the
centre but some disadvantages at the classroom level.
 The fact of having a closed network port on some schools’ systems prevented the
chat activity being run.
 LAMS was not always reliable. For instance, during sequence authoring, activities
could be lost due to ‘save’ errors. Another significant problem was that when running
sequences LAMS would crash if two classes accessed LAMS at the same time.
b) Enhancements
The advent of the Preview facility in February 2005 was welcomed by all users. The following
list briefly identifies some of the enhancements suggested during the review:
 More class grouping options beyond the current random pupil grouping;
 Allow pupils to go back over activities and change contributions;
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Allow modifiable font type/size in all activity types;
Expand capacity for seamless inclusion of images and other multimedia;
Improve management of sequences making it easy to find subject sequences in the
public area as well as ability to manage own and institution’s sequence library.
Allow authors to copy and paste a single activity (or more) from one sequence to
another.
Allow team-teaching i.e. allow more than one monitor for a class when running a
LAMS sequence.
Allow classes in different schools to access the same sequence as if they were one
class synchronously or asynchronously.
On occasions, a user would state the desire for an enhancement to LAMS which in fact was
an existing feature of the system. This highlights the importance of continued training and
support, particularly as the system develops through later versions.
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Review recommendations
The recommendations that follow are based on the assumption that the evidence assembled
in this review confirms the desirability of supporting LAMS use and warrants attempts to
promote and expand its further deployment. The recommendations below address firstly
areas in which an extended pilot might be enhanced in order to achieve a more effective
adoption of LAMS in schools. Secondly, potential areas of future research based on a more
comprehensive and directed adoption of LAMS in schools are suggested. Combined, these
recommendations encompass a strategy for consolidation and expansion.
Recommendations for continuing LAMS adoption
1. Continue the highly-valued technical support. Evidence for differentiated hosting and
technical support requirements is given in the review, i.e. some schools are confident using
their own technical support staff and hosting LAMS on their own network, while others will
need support in all areas of LAMS adoption.
2. Make more public subject sequences available. The integrated LAMS Community Forum
that is currently being launched could be an important vehicle for sharing sequences. Ways
of efficiently increasing the number of sequences should be looked at, for instance by
working with individual or groups of teachers to develop case studies.
3. A LAMS community e-mail bulletin is likely to offer a direct communication with users and
potential users, to sustain interest and maintain the momentum of sequence development
and sharing. The web-based forum, to which people need to make the effort regularly to log
in, has not been successful in galvanising action. A more pro-active means of keeping LAMS
in practitioners’ sights and making important LAMS-related information available to
communities is necessary in the form of a mail bulletin. Likewise, a similarly prominent
medium for disseminating practitioner contributions would be constructive. As the LAMS
software develops, people who have been trained in earlier versions should receive
comprehensive information on how these new features may be utilised, backed by
appropriate support materials such as web-based multimedia training, examples of
applications and case-studies.
4. Produce support materials to promote understanding of what LAMS is and what it can
offer for management and for school staff. Confusion as to what exactly it is that LAMS
offers that is new or unique is not uncommon and may have left some managers at the brink
of commitment to explore further. This information needs to aim at sharing strategic thinking
in managers’ own words, complemented by concrete examples in the form of illustrated case
studies. Such material could be realised by a CD-ROM, a web site and hard copy materials,
or some combination of these. Such materials would also be welcomed for the dissemination
of information about LAMS throughout a school, as well as LAMS trainees cascading their
knowledge to colleagues in their schools during staff training.
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5. Enhance the support materials available to bridge initial LAMS training and in-school
implementation. The review team became aware of a ‘support gap’ between a teacher
receiving initial training and the processes leading to deployment of LAMS with pupils.
Addressing technical and practical inconveniences will smooth some of these processes, but
some ready-made support solutions for roll-out to pupils are necessary. Additionally, a
supported self-study reprise of the one-off training to review their appreciation of some of the
less immediately used functionality of the software would seem to be essential; this would
include exploring the full functionality of the monitoring system, for example. CD-ROM, web
site and/or hard copy materials, or some combination of these could help to realise this
recommendation. A ‘LAMS clinic’, either visiting schools or set up on a drop-in or workshop
model, could be an alternative or complementary means of disseminating information and for
recommending to teachers new models of delivering LAMS sequences for their subject.
6. Further encourage networks of support, communication and good practice both crosscurricular and subject-specific. This recommendation can be realised by bringing groups of
professionals to work together. The review team’s practitioner workshops proved an effective
means of promoting and energising such networks and have the potential to provide a
valuable means of disseminating and discovering excellent LAMS practice in subject-specific
groups. The model could be emulated at the local level through school networks.
7. Introduce LAMS to teachers at pre-qualifying level and trainers of teachers. LAMS
appears to be a useful tool for integrating ICT in subject curricula, so extending such
awareness at teacher training level would expand a teacher’s toolkit at an early stage of their
career.
Recommendations for further research
8. Conduct further research into general subject-specific pedagogical strengths of LAMS.
The review observed only a limited range of practice in the applications of LAMS and
teaching approaches to LAMS sessions over the review period. While effective ‘purely online’ and ‘blended’ sessions were observed, there was not sufficient evidence to define
emergent or replicable models of subject-specific e-learning pedagogy, therefore a period of
further observation is required. Practice across all subjects and for all teachers was mostly
tentative and experimental rather than habitual, established and embedded. At this early
stage in implementation, teachers tend still to be concentrating on the ‘big concepts’ of LAMS
and how these relate to their current practice. Once the coverage of LAMS adoption is wider
(that is, more subjects using LAMS and more comprehensive usage, so that LAMS is part of
habitual practice rather than a ‘special event’) then it should be possible to discern more
securely those emerging models of e-learning that LAMS supports in each subject area.
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9. Sequence re-use and adaptation, both subject-specific and general, should be monitored
and analysed to determine means of optimising further exploitation of LAMS as a re-usable
resource. The integrated LAMS Community Forum that is currently being launched could be
an important vehicle here for information exchange both centre to periphery and vice versa.
Furthermore, a better understanding of subject-specific functionality coupled with
development work which makes sequences available for re-use is likely to accelerate uptake:
enhanced supply might reasonably be expected to stimulate demand as well as the impetus
to generate more re-usable sequences by extending the user base.
10. Study the use of LAMS to support formative assessment. While closely linked to more
general pedagogical concerns, formative assessment techniques are worthy of specific
attention because of the established associations with enhanced pupil achievements and
because LAMS offers a particularly strong capability for making pupils’ ideas available to a
teacher in a manner far beyond the scope of traditional classrooms. There is also scope to
explore the potential of the system for summative assessment, using cumulative records
through the monitoring function.
11. Conduct controlled studies to examine the impact of LAMS on achievement in key areas,
cross-curricular and subject-specific. Small-scale qualitative studies offer one possibility of
exploring the impact of LAMS on pupil achievements. Another route would be large-scale
studies of learning outcomes.
12. Further research and development into personalisation and differentiation with LAMS,
including uses with pupils having special needs or not attending school. LAMS offers a
limited although improving level of personalisation at the interface level and the highly textual
nature of the system may pose new challenges (not excluding the possibility of new
solutions, also) for those students having problems with literacy. There is limited evidence of
extensive personalisation of LAMS (with the exception of a hearing impaired unit) the chief
findings being that teachers modify the language and complexity of activities to suit the
immediate needs of the group. Extension activities and differentiated learning routes were
not observed and may not yet exist in any practice.
13. LAMS and home-school links. There is no evidence of any model or practice of homeschool learning revealed by the review. Schools that have thought about this issue cite
inequalities between households in the level of ICT provision available as an obstacle.
However, there is plenty of evidence to confirm that a vision of the possibilities is in teachers’
thoughts, including distance learning, homework, revision, access to and for out-of-school
pupils, and enlisting parental or community support. The anecdotal evidence available from
interviews and questionnaires indicates that there are several applications of LAMS
envisioned by schools that would merit further research: parent discussion communities;
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setting homework for students and offering education to ill or excluded students, were
examples cited.
14. Other research possibilities. There are other research opportunities identified as the
result of the review activities that do not necessarily sit under any of the categories above.
For example:
 LAMS implementation and school management and strategy, including the
relationship between LAMS adoption and effective management of innovation.
 Examining the impact of the integration of LAMS with other VLEs, e.g. Moodle, and/or
school management systems.
 JISC Reload and the European UNFOLD project on learning design suggest the
opportunity for comparative studies that would place LAMS use in the wider context of
learning design and relevant standards (e.g. IMS Learning Design).
 Investigation of the potential for using LAMS as a collaborative or team-teaching tool,
both locally and internationally.
 Future activity should include monitoring of usage, including for example, time
sampling and event sampling of LAMS sessions. The manner in which LAMS
sessions are managed in real time, with blended ‘real-world’ activities related to
subject-specific considerations, needs to be better understood.
 Monitoring of server usage data will continue to provide a measure of usage, but
coupled with subject classification of sequences, identification of ‘LAMS-active’
schools and teachers would be a possibility. This would enable research, evaluation
and development collaborations to be deployed more efficiently, for example, by
reference to active curricular subject groups.
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1 The Learning Activity Management System
The Learning Activity Management System (LAMS), written in Java, is part of a new
generation of educational software which moves e-learning from a content-centric approach
to an activity-sequence based approach. The Learning Activity Management System is a
web-based learning design tool – or ‘online lesson planning tool’ as this review’s teachers
called it – created at McQuarie University, Sydney, Australia. Given a hosted LAMS service,
LAMS users only need access to a Flash-enabled browser.
LAMS allows teachers or tutors to author and deliver learning sequences. Each learning
sequence contains one or more activities which students complete in a sequential order. The
activities are chosen from a list of activity templates as defined in LAMS and can be both
offline/online or self-paced and collaborative activities. Example activities include Question
and Answer, Share Resources, Voting, Chat and Forum. (For a description of these, see
page 176).
There are three LAMS modes: ‘author’, ‘learner’ and ‘monitor’.
1) The author mode allows teachers to create and preview their sequences through a
visual interface in which each activity is represented by a box and the transitions from
activity to activity by lines connecting the boxes. Figure 1 shows a sequence in author
mode with activity boxes and transition lines.
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Figure 1 The LAMS authoring screen: example ICT lesson sequence
2) Students log in to the learner mode and select the activity from the left-hand pane of the
browser window. They complete the sequence step-by-step with their progress being
shown in the left pane. Figure 2 shows the ‘learner’ view of the sequence from Figure 1.
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Figure 2 The LAMS learner screen
3) The monitor mode allows teachers to schedule their sequences with a class and monitor
the progress of the class as well as individual students’ contributions. Four main views
are possible in this mode, accessed by the tabs at the top of the screen (Figure 3). The
view shown in Figure 3 is the progress of each learner in the class. Each line represents
a student and their progress: a green box indicates uncompleted activity, a red the
current activity and the blue a completed activity. Every box can be clicked to find out the
particular student’s contribution in detail, e.g. the student’s answer to the multiple choice
test. The bottom image in Figure 3 shows this detailed view.
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Figure 3 The LAMS monitor screen, “Learners” view tab and (inset) individual learner activity
contribution
Clicking in the
orange circle, the
teacher can see the
student’s individual
response
Organisations with administrator rights have a further administration mode which allows
them to set up usernames, passwords and classes.
Useful LAMS links:
LAMS Foundation – www.lamsfoundation.org
LAMS International – www.lamsinternational.com
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SST LAMS Pilot website – http://uklams.net
Becta LAMS Review – www.cripsat.org.uk under e-learning projects
JISC LAMS Evaluation – http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=elp_lams
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2 Introduction to the LAMS pilot
The Specialist Schools Trust (SST) ran a pilot implementation of LAMS in secondary schools
in the UK in the 2004/2005 school year. Schools were informed by the SST of the opportunity
to join the LAMS pilot with information also available on the SST-LAMS website
(http://www.uklams.net/. Representatives of secondary schools that joined the pilot attended
a training session at Kemnal Technology College in July 2004. Repeated training sessions
were offered by Kemnal between July 2004 and May 2005. (For more details on the training
see Evaluation of LAMS Training by Andy Parry, 2005.) A number of pilot schools were
based in the Bromley area, supported by Bromley 14-19.
LAMS was hosted on servers based at the Specialist Schools Trust (SST schools:
http://apps1.uklams.net and http://apps2.uklams.net with Kemnal Technology College
running its own LAMS server), technical support being provided by UK LAMS support team
based at Millbank, SST. Table 1 shows the major technical milestones in LAMS software
development during the period of the pilot. February 2005 was an important event for schools
when the much awaited ‘Preview’ facility of LAMS became available, making it easy to test
sequences during authoring development. At the time of writing this report, a new version of
LAMS is imminent which will integrate the LAMS site with its own community forum to share
sequences. LAMS integration with virtual learning environments such as Bodington or
Blackboard or the open source Moodle is also under way.
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Table 1 Major technical milestones of LAMS during the pilot
Date
Milestones
7th Oct 2004
LAMS version Beta 5.0 becomes available at ‘apps1.uklams.net’
IE 6 and Flash version 6.47 supported
Other browsers will be supported in the future
9th Dec 2004
LAMS upgrade to version Beta 6.1
Optimised sequencing engine allowing larger numbers of learners
Visual improvements to authoring environment
All tools now have help link pointing to the learner guide
Forum tool able to display instructions at top of learners page
27th Jan 2005
LAMS server ‘apps2.uklams.net’ is deployed for additional schools
due to increased demand
2nd Feb 2005
LAMS upgraded to first release version 1.0
Preview facility available
New tool “Survey” is added
Most browsers are now supported (Safari, IE, Netscape, Firefox)
24th May 2005
LAMS upgraded to version 1.0.1
Noticeboard tool enhanced with Rich Text Editor
Accessibility enhancements
All major browsers supported
Plans (at the time of writing the report)
July 2005
LAMS version 1.0.2
Integration with LAMS Community forum
Beta testing for integration with Moodle 1.6 Virtual Learning Environment
Aug 2005
Beta testing for integration with Blackboard 6.2.3 VLE
Sept 2005
Integration with Bodington VLE
Oct 2005
LAMS version 1.1 release
Support for IMS Learning Design standard Level A
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3 The Becta review of the SST LAMS pilot
Becta commissioned the CRIPSAT team at the University of Liverpool to:
 undertake a review of the impact of LAMS use in the pilot schools;
 support the use of LAMS in pilot schools through practitioner workshops;
 provide limited pedagogical support to pilot schools via the LAMS community forum.
3.1 Aims and objectives
The review aimed at gathering information:
 to reveal the objectives individual member schools hoped to achieve by implementing
LAMS and to provide a report to the SST on the success of the implementation
against these objectives;
 to identify emerging models of subject-specific e-learning (and the effectiveness of
such models in raising learner achievement), support for personalised learning and
providing links between the learners’ experiences in the institution and the home;
 to identify future opportunities for robust research into the use of learning design
software to support emerging models of subject-specific e-learning (and the
effectiveness of such models in raising learner achievement), supporting
personalised learning and links between the learners’ experiences in the institution
and the home;
 and to make feedback from practitioners on the usability of learning sequence design
tools such as LAMS available to the LAMS Foundation.
Becta and the Review Team were represented at the LAMS Steering Group meeting at SST,
London in November 2004. In January 2005, SST identified the 41 participating pilot schools
(see Table 2) with at least one LAMS contact person per school and provided this
information to the Review Team. Schools either opted to participate in the pilot via Bromley
LEA or via SST links, hence the separation into two categories in the table below (see
Section 7 for more details). The team subsequently contacted the schools to introduce the
review in order to find out the institutions’ objectives in taking part in the pilot. The resulting
information was reported in the Becta LAMS Interim Report (March 2005).1
1
http://www.cripsat.org.uk/current/elearn/bectalam.htm
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Table 2 Institutions contacted as part of Becta LAMS Review
Bromley Schools
Specialist Trust Schools*
1.
All Saints Catholic School
* specialism Technology unless otherwise stated
2.
Beaverwood School for Girls
22.
Bartley Green TC
3.
Bromley College of Further Education
23.
Bishop Challoner Catholic School (Sports)
4.
Burwood
24.
Blake Valley TC
5.
Cator Park School for Girls
25.
Brayton College
6.
Charles Darwin School
26.
Brownhills Community TC
7.
Coopers Technology College
27.
Compton School
8.
Darrick Wood School
28.
Edmonton County School
9.
Glebe
29.
Frome Community College (Media Arts)
10.
Hayes School
30.
Hamilton Community College
11.
Kelsey Park School
31.
Hathershaw Technology College
12.
Kemnal Technology College
32.
Hirst High School
13.
Kingswood Centre
33.
Kingsheath Boys' School (Maths &
Computing)
14.
Langley Park School for Boys
34.
Morley High school
15.
Langley Park School for Girls
35.
Mortimer Comprehensive School (Science)
16.
Newstead Wood
36.
Notre Dame Catholic High School
17.
Orpington College of FE
37.
Queensbridge School (Performing Arts)
18.
Ravens Wood School
38.
St Peter's Catholic School
19.
St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar School
39.
Stantonbury Campus (Performing Arts)
20.
The Priory School
40.
Sydenham School (Science)
21.
The Ravensbourne School
41.
Wheelers Lane Technology College
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4 The role of the Specialist Schools Trust during the pilot
During the pilot the Specialist Schools Trust supported schools in a number of ways.














Sending monthly e-newsletters containing useful tips and hints; updates on latest
versions of LAMS with technical advice; news on LAMS developments; examples of good
practice and information on a buddy system; a community forum; and workshops,
Providing email and telephone support with advice on setting up new classes/sequences;
and examples of sequences.
Providing promotional material to help newly trained users explain the advantages and
benefits of LAMS to their schools.
Giving examples of ways to disseminate LAMS training to others in school.
Working with the LAMS technical team on technical issues to ensure problems were
resolved.
Providing contacts for examples of good practice and use.
Supporting LAMS Workshops.
Setting up initial training for new users and processing their training evaluations.
Supporting newly trained teachers with an introduction email with advice and tips on the
way forward.
Creating and supporting a buddy system where English LAMS users were paired with
Australian users.
Matching ‘buddies’ and providing contacts for other schools to discuss with.
Posting information to the LAMS community forum.
Providing ideas and requests for further development of the UK LAMS website.
Managing the LAMS Pilot Steering Group.
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5 Review methodology
The research aims were to:
 Identify the objectives individual member schools hoped to achieve by implementing
LAMS and report on the success of the implementation against these objectives.
 Identify future opportunities for robust research into the use of learning design software
to:
o support emerging models of subject-specific e-learning (and the effectiveness of
such models in raising learner achievement);
o support personalised learning and links between the learners' experiences in the
institution and the home.
 Provide feedback on the usability of LAMS design tools.
 Explore students’ attitudes to LAMS.
The review design had to take account of certain realities:
 The set of schools having adopted LAMS at the time of the review was relatively small.
 LAMS use, even amongst the more enthusiastic early adopters, retained a 'new frontier'
feel rather than exemplifying habitual use and embedded practice. The LAMS sessions
observed were often provided specifically for the benefit of the Review Team.
 While for review purposes it would have been desirable to complete practitioner visits in
the earlier part of the available project timescale, demands on schools' time resulted in
the bulk of visits taking place relatively late in the project.
In order to collect data as described above, the review used a combination of methods, all of
which are described in detail in this section:
 Initial questionnaires;
o LAMS contact person for the institution.
o Teachers who were LAMS users.
 User statistics;
 Final review questionnaires;
and as part of the practitioner visits:
 Semi-structured interviews;
o LAMS institutional strategic decision makers.
o Institutional LAMS contact person.
o LAMS technical support staff.
 Structured observation;
o Teachers and pupils in real-time LAMS sessions.
 Focus group interviews;
o Random samples of pupils stratified by gender drawn from each observed
LAMS session.
 Pupil survey conducted through a LAMS sequence;
o All pupils participating in observed LAMS sessions.
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The review also made use of:
o Secondary resources, such as LAMS documentation and research articles;
o The LAMS practitioner workshops;
o The LAMS community forum.
In addition to written notes, all sessions (interviews, LAMS sessions and focus groups) were
electronically recorded. Three different types and qualities of recording served different
purposes.
Type 1) All sessions were digitally audio-recorded at a quality sufficient for transcription and
checking the reliability of written records.
Type 2) Most LAMS sessions were video-recorded using a stationary camera on a tripod to
provide a visual record of location, resources and the general manner of use of
LAMS.
Type 3) A minority of LAMS sessions, interviews and focus groups were video-recorded
using professional video equipment and two pairs of radio microphones to provide
the possibility of high-quality illustrative material.
Table 3 shows the timeline of the review.
Table 3 Review timeline
2004
Nov 9
2005
Jan - Feb
Jan 11
SST LAMS Steering Group Meeting
Feb
Practitioner visit 1
March 11
Becta LAMS Workshop, Coventry
March 30
Interim Review Report
April 12
SST LAMS Steering Group Meeting
May – June
Practitioner visits 2-15
June 6
Becta LAMS Workshop, Bromley
June
Final review questionnaires sent to schools
July 19
DfES LAMS meeting
July 31
Final Review Report
Initial contacts established and review questionnaires sent to schools
JISC LAMS Workshop attendance
Due to the relatively small scale and span of the pilot, it was not possible to use a
quantitative study with a random or stratified sample of institutions, practitioners and
students. The research design therefore relied on qualitative methods with that data
quantified where it proved possible and useful to do so.
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5.1 Initial questionnaires
To start the review process, the Review Team received a list of all participating pilot schools
from SST with named LAMS contacts. Altogether 41 schools were contacted for the review.
An introductory letter together with an initial LAMS Contact Person Questionnaire and
Teacher Questionnaire were sent out to these schools in January 2005.
a) Initial LAMS Contact Person Questionnaire
The aim of the Contact Person Questionnaire was to find out, at this early point in uptake,
schools’ objectives in participating in the pilot and the anticipated benefits LAMS might bring
to the school, the teachers and students. In order to encourage responses, repeated
contacts were made with schools via mail, email and telephone during the January-March
period.
b) Initial LAMS Teacher Questionnaire
Each teacher involved in the LAMS pilot was asked to complete an initial Teacher
Questionnaire about their plans for using LAMS, their LAMS progress and potential review
visit dates.
A detailed initial analysis of these questionnaires was presented in the Becta LAMS Interim
Report (see References); findings from these questionnaire returns are drawn together with
information gained through practitioner visits in Section 7 ‘LAMS Pilot - Objectives and
achievements of participants.’
5.2 User statistics
Using system statistics from the pilot schools’ LAMS servers (http://apps1.uklams.net and
http://apps2.uklams.net), it was possible to identify the extent of LAMS use over the course
of the pilot. The two main areas of interest were the number of LAMS sequences created and
the number of sequences run by the participating institutions. The UK LAMS support team
was able to assist with assembling the raw data from the LAMS database. These data have
been compiled and summarised in Section 6.
5.3 Practitioner visits
The aim of practitioner visits was to:
 observe the use of LAMS in a real classroom scenario;
 offer teachers and pupils the opportunity to reveal their perspectives on and attitudes
towards LAMS;
 explore LAMS’ potential in raising pupil attainment;
 gather information about subject-specific pedagogical use of LAMS;
 gather information on the usability of LAMS as a software tool;
 explore the potential of LAMS for personalisation and home-school links.
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The original review schedule included 7-8 visits in the Spring and Summer terms of 2005.
Most of the visits, however, were conducted in the Summer term. The uptake of LAMS was
slower than expected due to either the busy Spring/Summer period near the exams or other
institutional commitments. It was noted that the collaborative workshops (March and June
2005) and LAMS training days had given some boost and confidence to LAMS activities (see
system usage data, Figure 4, page 43). Researchers contacted potential LAMS users via
email, letter and telephone and negotiated visit days with school management and teachers.
The original intention was to look for a stratified sample of visits according to subject
coverage and key stages. In practice, visits were selected on the basis of what was made
available to researchers (e.g. where contact was made with schools via questionnaires or
phone calls and where LAMS sessions were being conducted and where schools offered the
possibility of a visit). There were perhaps fewer observations with the above Year-10 classes
because most of the visits were conducted in the summer term when GCSE and A-level
examinations were in progress or students had already left the school.
The Review Team was extremely grateful for the welcome and co-operation they
encountered from institutions over the course of their visits. It was a positive advantage that
the review personnel could offer support to sometimes apprehensive staff in the form of
technical and pedagogical advice, information on the state-of-play in other similar institutions
and contact details for practitioners in the same subject areas. Working in isolation, these
early-adopting LAMS practitioners assumed that other pilot schools would have achieved
much more than their own efforts. This supportive, collaborative aspect of the review often
worked as a spur to LAMS development in a school.
Altogether fifteen practitioner visits were made to nine institutions (with Hathershaw
Technology College hosting four, Queensbridge, Cator Park and Beaverwood Schools
hosting two visits each). It was possible to observe LAMS sessions on 12 occasions. One
visit was cancelled due to staff illness, two were not possible as LAMS sessions had already
been completed and no further sessions were planned by the time researchers were able to
make contact with the school. The attempt at covering a range of subject areas was
successful and the results are generalisable across the key stages.
Table 4 summarises the practitioner visits made during February and July 2005
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Table 4 LAMS Practitioner visits (February – July 2005)
Observation
Visit
no.
Institution
Dates
(2005)
Subject
Teacher
Year
LAMS
sequence
ICT access
Monitoring
(F2F,
online or
both)
First LAMS
session for
teacher?
First LAMS
session for
student?
Queensbridg
e
Notre Dame
28 Feb
Geography
Kate Squires
Year 9
PC room
F2F
No
Yes
28 Apr
French
Year 9
PC room
Both
No
No
Queensbridg
e
Bishop
Challoner
Kemnal TC
Hathershaw
TC
Hathershaw
TC
12 May
History
Year 9
D-day
PC room
F2F
No
No
12 May
ICT
Christine
Bodin
Kate
Fanshawe
Carmen Wint
Comparing
countries
Metro 3 Module 3
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
24 May
9 June
History
Maths
Chris Metz
Stuart Beech
Year 7
Year 9
Setting up the
computer system
Bubonic Plague
Theme Parks
Both
Both
No
No
Yes
No
9 June
Melody
Dark/Christine
Burnett
Year 11
Digestive System
– hearing impaired
group
F2F
No
No
8
Hathershaw
TC
10 June
Biology
(Hearing
Impaired
Unit)
Science
PC room
Laptops in
class room
Laptops in
PC room
Dennis
McDaid/Martin
Wadworth
Year 9
PC room
Both
Yes
No
9
Hathershaw
TC
Brayton
College
10 June
ICT
Year 8
PC room
F2F
Yes
Yes
15 June
History
Gabby
Williamson
Neil McDonald
Evaluation Thinking skills Self -evaluation
Peer-evaluation
Evaluating
websites
Elizabeth I
PC room
with extra
laptops
Both with
online
contribution
No
For some
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
10
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Observation
Visit
no.
Institution
Dates
(2005)
Subject
Teacher
Year
LAMS
sequence
ICT access
Monitoring
(F2F,
online or
both)
First LAMS
session for
teacher?
First LAMS
session for
student?
s
11
12
Cator Park
Cator Park
16 June
16 June
Politics
English
Rachel Hunter
Carol Upson
Year 12
Year 9
US Resources
Happy Prince
PC room
n/a
Both
n/a
No
n/a
No
n/a
13
17 June
RE
Both
No
Yes
Science
Science &
Religion
Energy Resources
PC room
20 June
PC room
F2F
No
Yes
15
Beaverwood
20 June
Business
Ewan
McKenzie
Sean
Coomber
Kevin Davis
Year 9
14
Charles
Darwin
Beaverwood
Accounts &
Finance
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Year 11
Year 12
*F2F: face-to-face, n/a: not applicable as session was not observed
September 2005
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Before each practitioner visit, and in order to make the review process as transparent as
possible to schools, a schedule was sent to the teacher or management personnel
concerned. Table 5 summarises the schedule and data gathered. Most visits were made by a
team of 2 or 3 researchers in order to ensure rich data being collected and to facilitate video
data collection.
Table 5 LAMS practitioner visit schedule and outcomes
Research
Activity
Aims
Outcomes or data gathered
Pre-visit
Questionnaire
The questionnaire aimed at recording the
details, aims and objectives of the LAMS
lesson to be observed, and was collected
from teachers before the LAMS visit.
7 pre-visit questionnaires collected.
Observation
Researchers observed the classroom LAMS
session to record the educational and ICT
contexts of the session, and where possible,
followed the LAMS activities online. Video
recordings were made during lessons where
permitted.
12 classroom sessions were observed.
Interviews
Researchers conducted interviews with
teachers after the classroom session on their
LAMS experiences and how the session
went.
Staff with strategic involvement in the LAMS
pilot were also interviewed. Interviews were
video and sound recorded.
27 interviews including staff members
e.g.:
 teachers,
 heads of departments,
 strategic/management personnel,
 e-learning specialists in a support
role (e.g. ICT co-ordinator).
Focus Group
A focus group was conducted with six
randomly selected pupils, stratified by
gender, drawn from the observed lesson.
Focus groups were video and sound
recorded where possible.
14 focus groups were conducted
(including one pilot group; visits
number 2 and 8 included two focus
groups each)
Sequence
The observed session’s LAMS sequence
was collected from teachers to identify
subject-specific uses of LAMS.
9 LAMS sequences collected.
Student Survey
A pupil feedback questionnaire was created
in the form of a LAMS sequence using the
Survey tool. All teachers of observed
lessons were asked to have their pupils
complete the sequence.
Three classes completed the student
survey.
Consent Forms
Teachers and institutions were sent or
handed consent forms for pupils’ guardians
to complete to allow video recordings to be
made.
These were either retained by the
institution or collected by the
researchers.
10 video recorded.
As the focus of the pilot was the adoption of a new software tool, the intention was to keep
the research instruments open to accommodate novel uses of LAMS as they might emerge
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throughout the project. The first school visit was used as a pilot after which the research
instruments and schedule were refined and modified. The Pre-visit Questionnaire aimed to
elicit teachers’ objectives for their LAMS lesson; researchers observed sessions to record
ways of classroom delivery and to observe how the objectives might have been achieved.
Where possible, LAMS sessions were followed online. (One shortcoming of the LAMS
system surfaced when researchers attempted to monitor sessions that were scheduled by
the teachers. LAMS currently allows only one staff member to monitor sessions and
contributions online, so dual monitoring was not possible. Researchers therefore logged on
as learners. This dual monitoring idea was recorded as a possible enhancement as teamteaching with LAMS was a practice that teachers had employed.) Altogether, seven pre-visit
questionnaires were collected and 12 sessions were observed.
For the teacher and staff interviews, semi-structured interview schedules were prepared to
elicit details of LAMS adoption at the institution, the institution’s LAMS objectives, teachers’
LAMS experiences and their perception of LAMS suitability for their subject teaching as well
as their views on how students perceived LAMS. Eighteen teacher, five strategic personnel
and two specialist e-learning staff interviews were conducted. There were three joint
interviews so altogether twenty-eight staff members took part in the interviews. Interviews
were based around the topic guides, in certain cases being adapted to suit the context or the
time available for the interview, e.g. staff who were not involved in teaching were not asked
about experiences of LAMS delivery. Each interview was audio recorded and interview
transcripts were analysed with the identification of emerging themes and sub-themes (these
being given alphanumeric codes, the classification being cross-checked by two researchers).
Once the transcripts were coded, all responses in the same sub-theme were grouped
together to prepare the review, analysis and interpretation of findings using this grounded
perspective.
A similar process was repeated with the student focus group data. The focus groups were
usually led by two researchers to maintain the group dynamic. Six pupils were selected at
random by the researchers (e.g. every 5th or 6th pupil in the classlist with an equal number of
boys and girls – except in single sex schools). Discussions took place either in the classroom
or in a different room, e.g. library or board room. For practical reasons, pupils were
sometimes selected on the basis of what their next lesson was, albeit still in a random way
(so only one teacher had to be notified about the pupil missing part of the next lesson). The
feedback collected from students is therefore considered to be representative of the student
population of the observed lessons and offers a range of student views on LAMS. (See
analysis in Sections 8.2 and 9.) Fourteen focus groups were conducted following the twelve
observed LAMS sessions, with two sessions allowing for one extra focus group each.
September 2005
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Table 6 Focus group participants*
Year
Girls
Boys
Total
7
4
8
12
8
2
1
3
9
17
21
38
11
8
8
12
6
6
Total
37
30
67
* some schools were single sex, hence the gender difference
The Review Team, using the newly available Survey activity, created a student survey
sequence in LAMS for students to complete. These sequences were made available to all
the classes after the observed lesson. Teachers were asked to encourage their students to
complete the feedback sequence outside the observed lesson so as not to compromise
lesson objectives. It was hoped that these surveys would provide quantitative results of
student feedback. Only three classes had completed the survey up to the end of June 2005.
The fact that only a small number of classes completed the survey after repeated requests
by the researchers may be symptomatic of the fact that perhaps booking the ICT room again
may have been difficult. One teacher conducted her evaluations through LAMS and made
the data available to the Review Team.
The Final Review Questionnaire was compiled to identify the extent of LAMS use and
adoption by the end of the summer term of 2005 and to identify to what extent schools’
objectives were met by the pilot. Respondents were asked to identify any benefits that
introducing LAMS had brought to various stakeholders (e.g. staff and students) and rate
each benefit on a scale of 1 to 7, where 7 was ‘completely materialised’.
Questionnaires were sent out to all LAMS participants in the researchers’ database both via
email and by post. The questionnaires were also mailed to the heads of the institutions
concerned. Tailored questionnaires were sent to those participants who had completed the
Initial LAMS questionnaire – their original responses (the LAMS benefits) were pre-filled in
order for them to rate to what extent the benefit was achieved. An incentive was offered for
the timely completion of the questionnaires, in the form of entry into a prize draw for a USB
memory stick.
Those institutions which were known to have opted out of the pilot by the time of the Interim
Report (March 2005) were also mailed a shorter version of the questionnaire soliciting their
reasons for opting out. Altogether, 16 questionnaires were received from 14 institutions.
Three people responded via email rather than by using the questionnaires explaining their
progress with LAMS.
September 2005
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An analysis of the questionnaires is presented in Section 7.5.
5.4 Secondary sources
Various LAMS-related secondary sources also informed the review including:
 Published and unpublished literature on learning design and LAMS (e.g. JISC elearning models, JISC LAMS evaluation literature etc.);
 LAMS presentations by James Dalziel;
 The www.lamsinternational.com site as well as resources on the SST LAMS website
(http://uklams.net).
The Review Team also attended the JISC LAMS workshop on 11th January 2005, benefiting
from a cross-sector view of LAMS use.
5.5 Workshops
As a part of Becta’s strategy for introducing LAMS into schools, supporting and encouraging
ongoing uptake and development within ‘early-adopter’ institutions, the Review Team (with
much appreciated help from Simon Harrison) prepared and ran two LAMS workshops. The
stated aims of the workshop were: getting teachers started with using LAMS; establishing
mutual support with other teachers; bringing together fellow subject-specialists; gaining more
experience and confidence in creating and delivering LAMS sequences. For further details
about the workshop, see Section 14.
5.6 Community forum
A password-protected Community Forum was set up by the SST in order to stimulate LAMS
practitioner discussions and to offer opportunities to share experiences online. The site was
linked to the SST LAMS site at http://www.uklams.net/community/. The Review Team
provided some pedagogical support to the forum site. For more details, see Section 15.
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6 Profile of pilot LAMS use up to July 2005
As outlined in the review methodology section, it was possible to provide a snapshot of
LAMS use over the course of the pilot using system statistics from the pilot schools’ LAMS
servers (http://apps1.uklams.net and http://apps2.uklams.net)2. The two main areas of
interest were the number of LAMS sequences created and the number of sequences run by
the participating institutions.
6.1 Learning sequences created using LAMS
Table 7 below provides a summary of all the sequences that were created and saved on the
two LAMS servers to which the Review Team managed to gain access. Whilst it was not
possible to ascertain with total confidence whether a sequence was for test or practice
purposes, or a genuine subject sequence for classroom use, the data presented should
reliably represent the scale of LAMS use at the participating institutions during the period
under review.
A large number of sequences and test-sequences were created and run by the Review Team
as it took on a supporting role during the pilot, for instance for the LAMS practitioner
workshops (see Section 14 for more details). The LAMS technical team also needed to
create test classes to support practitioners. These two sources are represented in the data
but have been separated from the core of the pilot institutions’ data.
N.B. data from the Kemnal Technology College server were not available due to a hardware
changeover at that institution, therefore the following discussion of usage statistics does not
include this major user of LAMS.
Altogether 26 institutions developed 565 LAMS sequences between July 2004 and July
2005. The mean number of sequences per institution was 22, with Hathershaw Technology
College creating the highest number of sequences (227). Sequences created by the Review
Team numbered 185 for the purposes of LAMS support and 60 for testing or other purposes.
The mean number of sequences created per institution was 21.7 but given that almost half of
these sequences were produced by Hathershaw Technology College, it is more revealing to
look at the median, which is 12. Ninety six staff members were involved in the pilot at the 26
institutions and the mean number of sequences produced per staff was 5.9. Excluding
Hathershaw staff and sequences, this mean falls to 4.9. Given that the total number of pilot
schools was 40 (excluding Kemnal College) it can be inferred that 14 schools have not used
LAMS to save sequences outside the training sessions. The interim LAMS report in March
2005 reported details of eight schools which responded to the Review Team with details as
to why they had discontinued with the pilot. The above statistics reveal that the number of
2
A demo server has also been used for training purposes and for an e-mentoring programme, the data from
which was not included in this report as it was not closely associated with the activities examined in the review.
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schools not making use of LAMS was 14, about one-third of the total schools which joined
the pilot initially. (See Section 7 for more details.)
Table 7 Number of LAMS sequences created during the pilot (Data as of 7/7/05)
Institutions
(n=26)
Number of
staff involved
Number of
sequences
created
11
28
Bishop Challoner
4
13
Brayton College
1
12
Bromley College of Further Education
1
12
Burwood
1
6
Cator Park School for Girls
3
20
Charles Darwin School
3
23
Darrick Wood School
9
33
Edmonton
1
1
Frome Community College
1
4
Glebe
1
1
28
227
Hayes School
2
3
Kelsey Park School
1
9
Kings Heath Boys School
2
12
Langley Park Girls School
1
16
Mortimer School
2
2
Notre Dame
3
25
Orpington College of FE
2
4
PRS (Kingswood Centre)
1
6
Queensbridge
6
45
Ravens Wood School
1
1
St Olave's & St Saviour's Grammar School
1
5
Stantonbury Campus
5
34
St Peters’ Catholic School
3
16
The Ravensbourne School
2
7
96
565
Beaverwood School for Girls
Hathershaw Technology College
Total
Review Team
185
Miscellaneous use other than by pilot institutions
Total
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The above LAMS usage figures on the number of sequences created should be further
interpreted in the context of known LAMS pilot activity. Some of the sequences created were
probably created during training sessions or for practice or test sequences. Furthermore,
multiple instances or versions of the same sequence might exist for several reasons. Once a
sequence was scheduled, it could only be modified if users saved a different version of that
sequence. Before the Preview function was available (February 2005), the only way to test a
sequence was to schedule it. If, after this testing, the sequence had to be modified, users
had to save a new version of the sequence. The numbers reported in the previous paragraph
are likely to be over-estimates of the actual number of completed sequences ready for
delivery as opposed to experimental and test versions. Therefore, the data at this level of
interpretation may be said to represent the user activities of experimentation and practice
with LAMS sequence authoring (either at training or privately), previewing sequences before
February 2005, as well as delivery-ready sequences. The rest of this section attempts to
discover what evidence exists in the system data for separating out these different types of
sequence and finding out how many are ‘real’. Section 5.2, which deals with the number of
sequences delivered, may indicate more accurately still how many of these sequences were
complete and intended for delivery.
The most obvious evidence available was found in sequence titles. Table 8 shows that of the
565 sequences saved in LAMS, 451 were uniquely titled. However, this does not mean that
each of these uniquely-titled sequences was a complete and ready-to-deliver object and it is
immediately possible to filter out working-versions, previews and experiments. When
teachers work in LAMS and modify their sequences, the system prompts them to save the
sequence using a different title. The current automated prompt is to offer ‘Copy of [sequence
title]’ i.e. if the sequence is called ‘Bullying’, the system prompts the author of the sequence
to save the modified version as ‘Copy of Bullying’. Utilising this characteristic, ‘Copy of’ titles
were deleted. This yielded 324 uniquely-titled sequences saved by the 26 institutions.
It is possible to further filter out sequence duplicates by examining the remaining 324
uniquely-titled sequences for explicit versioning information. This was done by looking for
repeated sequence titles with an additional numeric version identifier, possibly signalling
working versions of the same sequence, although equally these may represent copies of
sequences indicating re-use or adaptation (see next paragraph). A count of uniquely-titled
LAMS sequences after this filtering process was 224. It is important to note that, as this
count was done purely on a basis of titles and not the content of sequences, it must be
regarded as a tentative estimate.
6.1.1
Reuse and adaptation
One of the major anticipated benefits of using LAMS was the capability to quickly and easily
re-use and adapt one’s own or other people’s subject sequences. The LAMS server data
offered an opportunity to explore the extent of use of this potential. The server data recorded
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who had authored each LAMS sequence and whether the sequence versions were created
by the same person or different staff members. By restoring the numbered versions of
sequence titles (giving a total of 324 uniquely-titled LAMS sequences) it was found that 108
sequences were adapted by the person who originally authored them yielding 298
occurrences in the database. The implication is that one-third of the total unique LAMS
sequences were further worked on and adapted by the same person.
Finally practitioners were able to access sequences created by other people through the
common areas (public or institutional). The statistical evidence shows that 36 titles were reused, i.e. saved and worked on by someone other than the original author of the sequence
itself. These 36 titles were worked on by another 46 practitioners.
Table 8 LAMS sequences created in LAMS: adaptation and re-use
Data from apps1 and apps2 LAMS servers on 7/7/05
LAMS sequences created by schools/colleges
Uniquely-titled sequences (unfiltered)
Uniquely-titled sequences ('Copy of' titles discounted)
Uniquely-titled sequences (numbered versions discounted)
LAMS sequences adapted by original author (n=324 titles)
LAMS sequences re-used (saved by person other than original author, n=324 titles)
These 36 sequences were reused by a number of people other than author
565
451
324
224
108
36
46
Practitioners were able to save their sequences to three locations within LAMS: 1) the private
area was available to the practitioner only; 2) the institutional area allowed teachers from the
same schools to share sequences; and 3) sequences saved to the public area were
accessible by anyone. Table 9 shows a breakdown of sequences and the location to which
they were saved. Out of the total 571 sequences (N.B. these data were gained from the
server a week later, on the 14/7/05, hence the slight difference in the number of total
sequences created), 352 were saved as private sequences (62%), 189 as institutional (33%)
and 30 as public sequences (5%), indicating a preference for saving sequences at the
institutional level and therefore with potential for sharing within school. Teachers were more
likely to offer their sequences to others within the same school rather than offering them as
public sequences. This could be explained by a need for confidence and in-house proofing
before releasing a sequence publicly or that the departmental links are likely to be stronger in
any future aspirations for sharing learning designs.
Table 9 Sharing sequences: private, institutional and public LAMS areas
Private
Institutional
Public
352
189
30
62%
33%
5%
Total
571
100%
*Data from apps1 and apps2 LAMS servers on 14/7/05
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There is some uncertainty about the above statistics in that versioning information was
derived from the data by visual inspection and inference rather than being captured by the
system, but it does signal that the potential of LAMS for re-using and sharing sequences is
already manifest, to some extent.
It would have been interesting to look at subject specific use, i.e. what subjects and key
stages were utilised more often or lent themselves to re-use. Such systematic data are not
currently available from the system itself. Users are prompted to give their own descriptions
for each sequence as they wish, but the only information available to the review team was
the sequence title.
6.2 Learning sequences run in LAMS
During the pilot, practitioners could ask the UK LAMS team to set up a class list for their
students. Once they received a series of student usernames and passwords, staff members
were able to schedule the sequence and make it available for students to access via the
monitor function. For brevity, this process is called 'running a LAMS sequence'. Data on
these sequences (e.g. sequence title, start date etc.) were extracted from the LAMS
database.
The availability of the Preview function may potentially have skewed these statistics. Before
the Preview function was available in LAMS (2 February 2005), practitioners had to schedule
their sequences via the monitor function to test how they would be displayed to students and
whether they were working as intended. With the Preview function available, teachers were
able to test their sequences from within the author function without the need to schedule
them. The majority of sequences scheduled before 2 February 2005 may well be ‘test’
sequences as a part of the authoring process, as opposed to genuine sequences run with
students. Sequences that were run by the Review Team during workshops or used by the
LAMS team for testing purposes have been separated from the pilot participants’ data.
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Table 10 shows the total number of sequences that were run in LAMS between November
2004 and July 2005. As the above discussion of the pre- and post- Preview schedules has
shown, this number is probably over-represents the number of actual live LAMS sessions.
The name of the class was also recorded in the server data, so it was possible to make a
judgement in most cases as to whether the class comprised students, staff members or
workshop participants (e.g. students classes were usually titled ‘[School name] year 9’, staff
sessions ‘[School name] INSET’ or ‘[School name] Staff’). So the data below give a fairly
reliable overview as to whether the sequences were part of staff training sessions or
classroom sessions. Where the type of class was not evident, the sequences were marked
as type ‘not known’.
Altogether 23 institutions scheduled 397 LAMS sessions during the one year of the pilot (see
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Table 10):
 Slightly less than a third of the LAMS sequences (118) were delivered to students.
 Slightly more than half the sequences (219) were run with staff groups; they were
either test sequences created by the author and ran before the Preview function was
available or they formed part of staff training sessions.
 14 sequences were scheduled by teachers at the LAMS practitioner workshops, in
addition to the 115 sequences that were run at the LAMS practitioner workshops in
Bromley and Coventry (either as preparatory materials or demonstration sequences
created by workshop participants).
 The delivery purpose and target of 46 sequences was not known, and could have
been either student or staff sequences.
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Table 10 Sequences run in LAMS until 7/7/05
Institutions (data source: apps1-2
servers --- 28/10/04-07/07/05)
Hathershaw Technology College
Notre Dame
Not
known
Staff
2
19
Students
Total
86
35
123
19
18
56
Darrick Wood School
26
Charles Darwin School
18
Queensbridge
2
4
Beaverwood School for Girls
1
7
Stantonbury Campus
2
14
Workshop
26
1
14
21
9
17
15
7
Kings Heath Boys School
1
Brayton College
1
Bromley College of Further Education
1
2
Bishop Challoner
5
Burwood
5
Kelsey Park School
2
12
12
11
4
3
15
14
7
11
Orpington College of FE
Cator Park School for Girls
21
16
St Peter's Catholic School
Langley Park Girls School
3
1
10
11
7
11
5
11
1
6
5
4
2
St Olave's & St Saviour's Grammar
School
3
Frome Community College
1
4
3
3
PRS (Kingswood Centre)
2
1
3
The Ravensbourne School
1
2
3
Mortimer School
2
Edmonton
Total for 23 institutions
Percentage of total sequences run
2
1
1
46
219
14
118
397
11.6
55.2
3.5
29.7
100
Miscellaneous
10
Review Team (e.g. run at workshops)
115
TOTAL
522
The mean number of LAMS sessions run per institution was 17.3 (n=23, total=397). As
almost a third of the sequences (123) were run by Hathershaw Technology College, it is
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worth examining the median value, which is 11. Excluding Hathershaw from these data
(n=22, total 274) the mean is 13 LAMS sessions run per institution.
Figure 4 shows the distribution of LAMS sessions during the year of the pilot, including
classroom delivery as well as staff training sessions. The busiest months were November
2004 and June 2005. Possible reasons for the uneven distribution could be:

LAMS training sessions and workshops boosted LAMS activities. (Some LAMS
training took place in November.)
The school calendar affected space and time for LAMS activities: e.g. exam period in
April and May resulted in very low volume of LAMS activities.
The Becta LAMS Review Team visits stimulated LAMS activities. Most of the visits
(10 out of 15) were conducted in the month of June, which was the busiest of month
after the availability of the Preview function.


Figure 4 Timeline of scheduled LAMS sequences
Number of LAMS sequences run
Before availability of Preview function
96
100
After availability of Preview function
95
90
Number of LAMS sequences run
80
70
60
50
46
47
40
30
25
24
20
20
20
12
11
10
1
0
Date not
known
Oct-04
Nov-04
Dec-04
Jan-05
Feb-05
Mar-05
Apr-05
May-05
Jun-05
Jul-05
Month
Table 11 shows the number of staff involved in running LAMS sequences at each institution.
Hathershaw Technology College had 24 staff who ran LAMS sequences, followed by 12
other institutions which had between two and seven staff engaged in LAMS. Ten institutions
had one staff member who delivered LAMS sessions either to school staff or students. Given
that the number of staff involved at Hathershaw is much higher than the second most-
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represented institution in the table, the median value again is more telling than the mean.
About half of the institutions had the same or more staff involved compared to the median
value which is two, and half of the institutions the same or lower than two.
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Each school taking part in the pilot was asked to identify two members of staff who then
attended the Kemnal College LAMS training course. Table 11 thus suggests that the year of
the pilot was sufficient time for an average of two staff members to become confident in
using LAMS to the point of delivering sessions either to their own staff members or to classes
of students. It might be inferred that further cascading of LAMS use within a school, getting
more members of staff using LAMS, would take more time than was available in the one year
of the pilot.
That Hathershaw had a total of 24 staff who ran LAMS sequences between October 2004
and July 2005 was a result of their institutional adoption strategy which is further discussed in
Section 7.2. Looking at other examples where more than two staff members were involved, it
was learnt through communication with the individual schools concerned that Charles
Darwin, Beaverwood and Bishop Challoner were all schools where a departmental cascading
strategy was planned. This is the likely explanation of why more than two members of staff
were involved in running LAMS sequences. Orpington College did not deliver LAMS sessions
to students as they attended one of the Becta LAMS workshops in June. Stantonbury
Campus, although having had LAMS as a long-term plan on their teaching and learning
agenda, was involved in finding an institutional VLE and had not delivered LAMS to students.
The Review Team was not able to make contact with Darrick Wood school to find out their
adoption strategy.
About 17 schools out of the 40 pilot schools are not represented in Table 11. (Kemnal
College, the 41st institution did have a number of staff involved. The exact number has not
been identified but, through a staff interview, it is known that at least five staff were involved
in delivering LAMS sessions to students). The schools not represented in the table had either
opted out of the pilot at an early stage (e.g. eight schools discontinued the pilot by March
2005) or having been trained in LAMS, and perhaps creating trial LAMS sequences, had not
got to the stage of delivering LAMS to students in the classroom or of showing the potential
of LAMS to other staff members in the school (four schools – compare with results of Table
7).
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Table 11 Number of staff involved in running LAMS sequences
Institutions (data source: apps1-2 servers --28/10/04-07/07/05)*
Number of staff who ran
LAMS sequences
Hathershaw Technology College
24
Orpington College of FE
7
Darrick Wood School
6
Charles Darwin School
4
Stantonbury Campus
4
Beaverwood School for Girls
3
Bishop Challoner
3
Cator Park School for Girls
2
Kings Heath Boys School
2
Mortimer School
2
Queensbridge
2
St Peter's Catholic School
2
The Ravensbourne School
2
Brayton College
1
Bromley College of Further Education
1
Burwood
1
Edmonton
1
Frome Community College
1
Kelsey Park School
1
Langley Park Girls School
1
Notre Dame
1
Pupil Referral Service (Kingswood Centre)
1
St Olave's & St Saviour's Grammar School
1
Total number of staff involved at 23 institutions
73
Table 12 shows the mean number of sessions (n=397) delivered per staff (n=73) which was
5.4. These sessions could have been staff, student or workshop sequences.
Table 12 Mean number of LAMS sequences run during the pilot
Data source: apps1 and apps2 servers, 7/7/05
Total number of sequences run before Preview =
Total number of sequences run after Preview =
Date of schedule not known
Total number of sequences run
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Per institution
Per staff
n=22
n=73
178
8.09
2.44
199
9.05
2.73
20
0.91
0.27
397
18.05
5.44
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Table 13 shows those institutions where LAMS sessions were run with students only if this
was directly evident from the class name given to the run of the sequence in LAMS. There
may have been more student sessions, i.e. those included as ‘not known’ in the above table.
Altogether 11 institutions ran LAMS sessions in the classroom (and 12 including Kemnal
College for which data are not available) which is about every one in four of the institutions
which joined the pilot. The mean number of sessions per institution was 10.7, median 9.
Table 13 Student LAMS sessions up until 7/7/05
Institutions (n=11)
Student sessions run*
Hathershaw Technology College
35
Notre Dame
18
St Peter's Catholic School
15
Queensbridge
14
Brayton College
10
Beaverwood School for Girls
9
Bromley College of Further Education
7
Cator Park School for Girls
5
Charles Darwin School
3
Kings Heath Boys School
1
Bishop Challoner
1
Total for 11 institutions
118
* excluding those where class type was not known.
6.3 Discussion of user statistics
This section interprets and discusses the quantitative user statistics gained from the LAMS
database using the apps1 and apps2 LAMS server data for the period of 28 October 2004 to
7 July 2005. Due to hardware changeover, no user statistics were available for Kemnal
Technology College, and although it is known that they created and delivered LAMS
sessions, it was not possible to include this major user in the data set. Data presented here
refer to 40 pilot institutions. The number of sequences created in total (565) was much higher
than those run with actual classes (397).
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Figure 5 Snapshot of LAMS activity (n=40 pilot schools)
Number of schools
35
30
29
26
23
25
20
15
17
Yes
14
11
No
10
5
0
Created LAMS
sequences
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Scheduled LAMS
sequences (e.g. staff
training and students)
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Of the 40 institutions involved in the SST pilot, 26 created LAMS sequences and 14 did not,
23 delivered LAMS sessions (including all types of sessions such as staff and student
classes) and 17 did not, and 11 ran sequences for students while 29 did not (Figure 5). This
means that approximately one in four institutions completed a whole cycle of LAMS activities
from training to delivering sessions to students. During the pilot, staff members had the
opportunity to be trained in the use of LAMS as well as experimenting with creating LAMS
sequences, but far fewer people reached the stage of running sequences in the classroom
with students. Possible explanations for this have already been posited and are further
explored in Section 7.5 ‘Original objectives - Barriers and enablers.’
At the majority of institutions which delivered LAMS, one or two staff members were involved.
This is consistent with the number of staff participating in LAMS training. The mean number
of LAMS sessions run per staff was 5.44 but it is important to note that these could have
been practice as well as real sessions. The number of staff involved also depended on the
school’s adoption strategy. For example, Hathershaw adopted a whole-school approach and
therefore had the highest number of staff involved. Other schools, by the end of the pilot,
already showed evidence of cascading LAMS expertise to other members of staff within the
school.
All these LAMS activities happened during a relatively short period of time, within a school
year, taking place amongst the usual busy periods of schools' schedules, including GCSE
and other exams. Summer and late winter seemed the busiest months for LAMS activities,
whilst the exam periods had the least volume of LAMS activity. It was also observed that the
schedule of LAMS training sessions as well as the arranged LAMS visits by the Review
Team may have boosted LAMS activities.
One of the potential benefits of LAMS, as perceived by the schools themselves (see Becta
LAMS Interim Report – March 2005) was that it allowed re-use of LAMS sequences. User
statistics were examined to explore whether and to what extent this benefit had materialised
during the pilot. Out of the 565 LAMS sequences saved, 451 were apparently uniquely-titled.
A closer match for unique titles was achieved by combining sequences which were created
using the automated versioning method of LAMS (i.e. deleting ‘Copy of’ from a sequence title
yielded its original copy) which resulted in 324 uniquely-titled sequences. A further method
combined sequence titles under one title if they had some explicit versioning in their titles
(e.g. numeric version value or ‘new version’ etc.), so the number of uniquely-titled sequences
following this process was 224.
Re-including the user-versioned sequence titles then out of the 324 titles about one-third
were saved by the person who originally authored them; 36 titles were re-used by a different
person with the involvement of 46 users who were other than the original author. These data
suggest that users evidenced a willingness and desire to exploit LAMS’ ability to allow
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sequence re-use and adaptation, albeit, at this stage, predominantly meaning re-use of
LAMS sequences by the same person. The above data were derived in manual ways as
versioning information is not currently available through LAMS. There are no data available
on re-use by subject area and this may have an impact on the searchability and re-use of
sequences. Further research in a longer scale study is suggested to gather evidence
regarding LAMS’ potential for re-use and efficient retrieval of learning activity sequences.
The above data represent the quantity of LAMS activities during the pilot in a raw estimate
form i.e. the data possibly overestimate activities as compared with actual LAMS sessions
due to the reasons mentioned above. These LAMS usage statistics would be meaningless
without the review data collected directly from practitioners which are able to present the
quality of teaching and learning activities made possible with the introduction of LAMS. The
next sections summarise these direct experiences gained from practitioners and grouped
under the themes and sub-themes that emerged from the qualitative data collected.
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7 LAMS pilot: Objectives and achievements of participants
7.1 Initial pathways and incentives to participation in the LAMS pilot
Routes by which schools came to the LAMS Pilot have been examined for their potential
significance in influencing the success of any aims and objectives over the course of the
pilot. These pathways were usually at least partly revealing of a school’s motivation for taking
up LAMS as well as indicating a management strategy and the meaningfulness of a school’s
engagement with the LAMS pilot.
A range of routes was found by analysing:
 responses to the question: ‘How was the decision reached to pilot LAMS in your
school and who was involved in the decision making?’ from ‘LAMS Pilot: Contact
Person Questionnaire 1’.
 interviews with managerial staff responsible for strategic decisions
These routes can be seen to fall into three broad categories, often combining in different
ways in each school:
1) High-level management initiative such as an LEA project available to schools and offering
an easily accessible, low-risk route.
“We needed a couple of people from…school to go along to the training, so science and business
have agreed to trial it out.” (Teacher no. 23)
“Initially it was offered to everybody across the authority so we were going to have to get in and
have a look. Because [teacher name] and [teacher name] have been so enthusiastic and taking it
on, I think where it will go is that they will now become the leaders and they will train others in the
school.” (Management Personnel no. 4)
2) Interest in LAMS either from a management or staff individual enthusiast or ‘champion’
prompting a school to seek out and ‘buy-in’ to the pilot to explore the benefits of
investment.
“We saw LAMS first of all in an SST publication and then there was quite a lot of stuff on the
website, and discussions and looked through all the stuff that was happening in Australia, and how
it was being used in various places. It seemed like a tool that we could use because we were keen
to have some sort of forums…and that was the thing that attracted us to it.” (Management
Personnel)
3) LAMS pilot/training being in some way convenient to a school’s immediate needs.
It was observed that, where a school had at least one management or staff
enthusiast/champion to engage with and support LAMS development, then positive
achievements would generally be made in that school. There was a high-level of crossover
between the first two categories – i.e. a strategic initiative coupled with an in-school
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implementing enthusiast - often combining very successfully, albeit generally on a smallscale.
7.2 Trends in managing LAMS adoption during the pilot
Two general approaches to the adoption of LAMS by a school during the pilot were identified
by analysing the following data sources:
1) Responses to the question, ‘Please describe how LAMS was/will be introduced at your
institution. (Please refer to training, phasing, number and staff involved, if relevant)’ from
‘LAMS Pilot: Contact Person Questionnaire.’
2) Information from ‘LAMS Pilot: Teacher Questionnaire.’
3) Information gained during visits from interviews with managerial staff responsible for
strategic decisions.
4) Information from telephone interviews with a contact at schools not completing
questionnaires or visited.
These approaches are described as 'exploratory' and 'incubatory'.
a) The ‘exploratory’ approach took the form of an exploration of the functionality, potential
and applicability of LAMS within a personal or departmental context (What can LAMS really
do in my school? How can I/we/the school use it? Does the school have the right
resources/skills/will to use it?) The intention of this approach is to make a judgement on any
or all of these questions and from this position, develop a more considered LAMS adoption
strategy over a longer term than the year-long pilot. This may of course have included
discontinuing any involvement with LAMS, or postponing activity until the right factors might
cohere. This category includes a range of experimental styles from ad hoc and sporadically
timed (most often encountered where a school’s route to the LAMS was via an easilyaccessible, low-risk route) to those more focused and usually encountered where an
enthusiast/ICT champion had sought out the LAMS pilot. Two schools whose stated method
of LAMS adoption placed them in the exploratory category had not created any sequences
by 07/07/05.
b) The ‘incubatory’ approach is used to describe the strategy of those institutions already
convinced of the benefits and ‘fit’ of LAMS either prior to or very early on in their involvement
with the LAMS pilot. They were likely to have developed a strategy for introducing LAMS as a
teaching tool and encouraging its uptake amongst teaching staff. Generally, the pilot period
saw most activity for such schools focusing on the introduction of LAMS to staff through
cascaded training and the lead-by-example of individual or departmental champions. It is
important to note that the actual extent of LAMS adoption in such schools might be smallscale. Generally the school strategic vision extends a number of years beyond the current
pilot phase with serious, cross-curricular, integrated adoption of LAMS as a teaching tool as
an intended outcome at a point after the end of the current pilot.
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It is with these two approaches in mind that any measurements of achievement should be
made, that is:
a) To what extent has the school utilised the pilot phase to assess to their own satisfaction
the benefits, potential and practicalities of LAMS and so formed a strategic assessment of
and future vision for the tool?
b) To what extent have schools managed to achieve their incubation strategy in the pilot year
and in what ways has this influenced their long-term aims with LAMS?
With the data available it was possible to categorise 23 schools. (The remaining 18 schools
either did not respond to any medium of data gathering on the issue of LAMS pilot plans and
objectives, or had formally withdrawn from the pilot or had not begun any LAMS activity or
made any plans beyond attempting activity in the new school year.) (Table 14.)
Table 14 LAMS adoption in the LAMS pilot institutions
Number of schools
%
Incubatory
6
15
Exploratory
17
41
No reported activity
12
29
Withdrawn from pilot
6
15
41
100
Total
This prevalence of ‘exploratory’ schools over ‘incubatory’ schools indicates that there may be
a preference for this approach to the trialling of LAMS by schools. Significantly, it was more
likely that a school which had joined the LAMS pilot as a result of management or staff
strategic/ enthusiast interest would have taken the ‘incubatory’ approach to the pilot. Schools
taking a low-risk route into the project usually adopted an ‘exploratory’ approach.
A preference for low risk and exploration may be related to other issues in piloting the LAMS
software which are more fully explored in Section 7.5, ‘Original Objectives - Barriers and
enablers’. One further important factor may be the fact that LAMS is usually a school’s first
encounter with learning design software and this conceptual step up from pre-packaged
‘content solutions’ may predispose them to a more tentative approach. Finally, it may also be
a consequence of a low-risk (and low-stakes) route into the LAMS pilot that also meant
LAMS was considered a low priority and thus managed as an incidental and perhaps isolated
school experiment.
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7.3 Objectives of pilot schools active during the pilot
The review team elicited the aims and objectives of schools partaking in the pilot by
analysing:
1) Responses to all questions in ‘LAMS Pilot: Contact Person Questionnaire 1’.
2) Information gained during review visits and interviews with managerial staff responsible
for strategic decisions.
It should be noted that the data presented in this subsection were obtained from schools at
the beginning of the review period and did not extend to asking schools to assess the extent
of their achievements. Therefore they are kept separate from Section 7.56, ‘End of pilot Final questionnaire assessment of achievements’, as this asked schools towards the end of
the review period to identify and rate the extent of achievement of their objectives in adopting
LAMS. Furthermore, a different set of schools responded to each questionnaire.
It was possible to discover the objectives of eight schools that joined the LAMS pilot and that
were active over the review period. There were three further schools that provided the review
with objectives in joining the pilot but which postponed any activity until at least the next
school year (2005-2006) and so obviously could not indicate any degree of success in
relation to these original aims. These three schools are examined in 7.4.2, ‘Schools
postponing LAMS pilot activity’. The questionnaire and interviews asked schools to state their
objectives in four key areas, namely objectives for:
a)
b)
c)
d)
the school
the staff
the students
other groups, such as parents.
‘Exploratory’ and ‘Incubatory’ schools are presented separately in order to distinguish any
similarities or differences between the two groups.
7.3.1
‘Exploratory’ schools’ objectives – for the school
LAMS was sought out by schools looking to, “use ICT as a tool to enhance teaching”, and a,
“better way to deliver our teaching across the curriculum”. Three schools shared this
objective for LAMS adoption, where management had an interest and, “Remit…to enhance
teaching and learning using ICT.” One of these schools, in parallel to a recent OFSTED
inspection, recognised that they needed to develop their ICT provision, “both ICT curriculum
and effective ICT use across the curriculum.” It is in this area that the adoption has taken the
most recognisable steps towards success, albeit on a small scale so far for this group of
schools. Only one school considered the possibility of improved attainment a factor in their
adoption of LAMS in that LAMS, “might help students develop their own study skills…this
could mean better results” although this is a very tentative objective.
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On the issue of home-school links, two schools mentioned the possibility of, “Out of school
learning”, with one of these schools anticipating, “a way of increasingly supporting
youngsters who for different reasons might be out of the curriculum and so the idea that
youngsters who because of other challenges, crises in their lives are not accessing the
mainstream classroom, might be able to use LAMS.” It cannot be said that any kind of homeschool link had got beyond the planning stage and been achieved in these or any other
schools in this group.
Three schools were interested in, “being able to reuse resources”, and anticipated that,
“resources will be shared between staff”. Again, schools did not progress sufficiently in their
LAMS adoption to be able to achieve this reusing and sharing but in the long-term, sharing of
resources within and between schools is a highly desirable outcome, “My hope would be that
we are well networked enough with others to be able use LAMS in a real variety of ways: to
use other people’s resources as well as our own”.
7.3.2
‘Exploratory’ schools’ objectives – for staff
Most schools identified that a major potential benefit and therefore objective for the school in
adopting LAMS would be the, “Time saving” aspect of having sets of shareable, adaptable
sequences. This sharing capability figures in the objectives for many schools, with one
viewpoint emphasising the personalised, creative aspect possible, “The opportunity for
teachers to develop rich resources that we share broadly and we benefit one from another is
certainly what we’ve bought into” whilst another school emphasised the convenience and
time-efficiency of being able to access a set of ready-planned lesson sequences. “Other
teachers would find beneficial an already planned lesson to deliver through the use of
LAMS.”
Schools envisaged that LAMS would liberate staff from the previous strictures of delivering
ICT as part of their curriculum from a purely content-based approach to that of allowing
teachers to be “involved in the process of learning, not just delivering content, and using
technology to improve the teaching and learning.” Schools wished to help staff improve the
quality of ICT sessions for their subjects in a way that does not make excessive demands on
their time, and LAMS is planned to fulfil this function, “enabling them to have a more enriched
lesson…and say to others, it isn’t more work, and it does enable you in the classroom rather
than hold you back.”
Finally, schools in this category planned that staff should benefit from the potential LAMS has
for, “Tracking progress of students”.
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7.3.3
‘Exploratory’ schools’ objectives – for students
All schools expressed the objective in adopting LAMS of motivating students but the vision of
how LAMS would achieve this objective differed from school to school. One school stated
that LAMS as a novel means of delivering the curriculum would in itself encourage
motivation, as for their students the, “New medium increases motivation.” Another school
planned, “Increasing learner motivation and engagement” to be achieved through,
“Personalised learning according to ability” and “Learner autonomy.” A third school identified
that LAMS would increase motivation through “Access to material outside curriculum” and by
providing the structure to use those materials in an engaging, motivating way.
Schools in this group planned that students should benefit from LAMS’ communication tools
at several levels. All schools valued and wished to harness the capacity of LAMS to promote
whole–class discussions, “the quiet ones…can now put their point of view without worrying,
or that someone’s going to laugh at them.” This communication is seen as an important
objective for ICT use in general, as a means of breaking away from the current model of
students absorbing content in isolation, delivered through pre-constructed software, “One of
the things that I like most about LAMS and some of the reasons that we’ve wanted to use it
here is the fact that its structure causes pupils to interact whilst using ICT.” Another
significant communication objective for LAMS adoption focuses on, “…students and teachers
us[ing] technology to communicate with each other.”
Schools wished to target and develop students’ learning skills through the adoption of LAMS
with many schools keen to foster, “independent learning”, and harness the potential benefits
of LAMS guiding, “students through activities at their own pace, and those activities can be
differentiated.” Schools considered the possibility of students, “extending their own learning”,
but none had made any firm plans for this. Only one school mentioned that for them LAMS
could be aimed at promoting, “Greater confidence and self-esteem,” for students and,
furthermore that this might lead to, “better results.” This, however, was a very tentative
suggestion and this school has yet to pursue and look into this objective.
7.3.4
‘Exploratory’ schools’ objectives – for other groups
Schools in this group do not seem to have objectives for any other groups, other than one
school tentatively mentioning that parents might, “…perceive the school as forward
thinking?.”
7.3.5
‘Incubatory’ schools’ objectives – for the school
One obvious difference between the ‘incubatory’ schools in this group and the ‘exploratory’
schools in the previous group is that the incubatory schools tend to express their objectives
for students in terms of overall school strategy. These schools also have more considered
vision for how LAMS will be used with groups other than staff and students than the
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exploratory schools. Perhaps this is a result of pilots at exploratory schools generally being in
the charge of enthusiast practitioners and therefore the focus was on their own teaching and
the significance for their own department and students. In contrast, incubatory schools might
have a broader roadmap, on which the school is planning and making significant changes in
teaching structures and pursuing improvement in practice and performance, with LAMS seen
as one important element of being able to achieve some of the aims envisioned on that
roadmap.
The first school in this group was interested in LAMS because, “We were interested in elearning, and how to develop a pedagogy to support new developments” and in particular to
support the restructuring of the school’s curriculum. The communication possibilities of LAMS
had interested the school at a strategic level as, “It seemed like a tool that we could use
because we were keen to have some sort of forum…and that was the thing that attracted us
to it” as the school was initially interested in the conferencing potential for students and staff
alike. The school also saw LAMS as being a means of enabling the, “Introduction of a new
technology to support our target of developing lessons that are engaging, challenging and
that involve working with others” throughout the whole school. In order to achieve this, the
school’s objectives for the pilot period were for a small-scale start-up phase broadening into
the objective for the following year that, “we should have four departments who are pretty
well geared up with the lessons planned, available on either our Intranet or Extranet…and
that LAMS will become a part of the teaching structure for some of those lessons.” The focus
of their current activity is the restructuring of their curriculum which will adopt the Accelerated
Learning method of teaching as their main teaching route. In this pilot phase, the technology
department and science department would be working on incorporating LAMS into these
Accelerated Learning structures in their lessons. This will then be cascaded to the music
technology department whose lesson structures have been identified as suitably similar. The
school’s adoption strategy is careful and controlled, with management wishing to make
LAMS appear to staff as a valuable and successful teaching tool that will help them in part
negotiate the radical changes that the restructuring policy will bring about. Therefore, LAMS
is deliberately kept small-scale at the moment so that it does not get lost in a welter of
initiatives and changes, “There’s so much going on that it needs to be structured and rather
than saying, ‘Right, everybody’s going to do it’ we need some people doing it so well that
other people are saying, ‘I want to do some of that.’” The school has achieved this aim in that
their current trialling of LAMS is highly effective and generating interest within the school, and
the school is spending the summer planning and implementing their curriculum restructuring.
The school is also investigating the integration of MOODLE3 with LAMS and considering its
potential for starting their accelerated learning programme and ultimately, sharing with other
schools as a means of pushing LAMS more quickly into other schools. This possible move is
as yet undecided and forms part of their longer-term ambitions for LAMS. Finally, another
3
www.moodle.org
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very interesting objective the school held for their LAMS adoption was looking at ways in
which LAMS could be utilised for interacting with their partner school in South Africa. This
would be of benefit to the whole school staff and students in exchanging cultural information
as well as teaching practice. Their current area of concern was how to enable their South
African partner to link up with them.
The strategic vision of the second school in this group positioned LAMS first of all as, “an
opportunity to bring excellence back” to the institution, in terms of their overall ICT strategy
and they saw a specific long-term strategic value in adopting a tool such as LAMS. “If we
were going to push on our e-learning (and I still see e-learning as being the key factor and
also the way that the curriculum of the 21st century is going to be delivered) then we require
things to do. We need software that’s been designed specifically for use in the
classroom…and I saw LAMS doing that.” The school is actively pursuing new tools and new
practice and wants to utilise their ICT resources in more productive ways. LAMS as learning
design software represents to this school an opportunity to break out of the 'passive-learnerabsorbing-content' model of ICT use, as well as the well-worn routes of students being asked
to use Word and PowerPoint as the ICT aspect of their non-ICT subjects.
This school emphasised that their commitment to and plan for LAMS was to achieve LAMS
adoption across all subjects and that LAMS should become a standard teaching tool, not
just, “a couple of enthusiasts working in one department…that that will not have the effect we
want at the school. We want these things to be totally inclusive.” In terms of the extent of the
achievement of this objective, the school reported that, “every member of staff knows,
understands what LAMS is. Every faculty has had a chance to see a LAMS sequence and
then it’s up to people to dip into it and say well I’ll have a go at that. I do know we’re at the
stage now where if somebody feels they’ve got to put on a showpiece lesson they’ll have a
go…I’d be telling you blue sky stuff if I said it was being used all the time because people are
still at the stage where they think ‘Oh that’s a lot of preparation.’”
A further long-term ambition held by this school is that they will become “…a focal point for
LAMS training allowing us to network with leading practitioners and exchange good practice.”
Again, this evidences their first objective for LAMS in that it will position the schools in
networks where excellence in practice is disseminated. This goal is yet to be acted upon
although the school has taken advantage of the networking opportunities available to them
so far, and has made valuable contributions to these.
The last school in this group had been involved with LAMS for a longer period of time than
the other two and were able to offer a more mature assessment of the degree of success of
their original objectives, as well as describing those objectives that they wished to fulfil in
future LAMS development. The school’s principal objective had been that LAMS would
“…become an integral part of teaching.” From an initial, successful pilot involving
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practitioners from five departments (Science, ICT, Geography, Maths, Design and
Technology) they decided that here was sufficient value in LAMS to extend LAMS to all
departments and train all staff so that all teachers would be familiar with and feel sufficiently
confident to see LAMS as a tool at their disposal for their everyday teaching, where
appropriate. However, over the course of the pilot year this objective has, “not worked out
quite how we intended.” Not as many staff used it as had been hoped and whilst, “All the
staff have been through a training session”, it is estimated that in this school, “about half the
staff I would say are capable of using it,” with some departments simply not interested in the
software (such as PE) or whose teaching habits are firmly entrenched and do not extend to
much ICT utilisation, although the school's advocates see a place for LAMS in every subject
area. They have reached a point where they cannot force staff to use a tool such as LAMS
and so they could look to new intakes of staff and encourage adoption of LAMS through the
school induction programme and general summer training.
The long-term objective at this school remains that LAMS should be one of a range of tools
that will be integral to the teaching strategies of the staff. They are also very interested in
using LAMS outside the classroom, “not necessarily for homework but maybe for using
especially with people who may have been excluded or who are not attending school…also
to use with people not in the same room or same place.” Holding them back currently from
this objective is the issue of home ICT access with 75-80% of their pupils having computers
at home, then only 35-40% of those having Internet access with just 20% with broadband.
They need a strategy to deal with this problem, whether it be funding Internet cafes or other
such initiatives, before LAMS can be used for home-working, particularly for poor attenders.
One final objective for LAMS is to see it integrated with their newly-developed VLE as this
will make it easier for staff to access and manage LAMS and encourage more widespread
adoption.
7.3.6
‘Incubatory’ schools’ objectives – for staff
Many staff objectives were bound up in the school’s overall objectives for LAMS adoption
although some individuals' specific objectives can be separated from these and are
presented here. Common to all three schools is the aim that staff regard LAMS as a tool for
their habitual teaching practice and not as an exclusive solution or ‘special event’ software.
In the first school’s stated objectives for staff, the general aim was expressed that staff might
develop, “New skills, new ways of working that we hope to utilise in support of both school
and community objectives in our next specialist phase.” That is, LAMS is seen as a part of
the process of changing the way that the school works and LAMS will aid staff in developing
the competencies that will be necessary to take their place in this changed school culture.
The school also sees a direct objective for staff in using LAMS as a part of their training
processes and the fact that LAMS will have a role in the way they change the delivery of
CPD. LAMS, “would be useful for staff forums…the best way of training is training each other
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and we’re thinking that there are possibilities for people creating papers on different issues
which people can read and contribute to within the forum.” This model of CPD, integrating
LAMS, had yet to be established by the end of the review period.
The second school in this group emphasised that their objectives for LAMS adoption with
their teaching staff would be that staff understand that LAMS represents a more effective
way of using ICT, that it is not a ‘magic box’ ICT solution, and that it will become one tool
amongst a range of tools available to them, suitable for certain teaching challenges. “I am
looking for it to sit with other similar initiatives so that staff have a range of these…so that
staff along with picking the resources will pick which of these is the best vehicle to deliver
their effective teaching.” The school admits that LAMS is at an early stage of adoption in their
case but that the value of sequence reuse has been recognised widely amongst staff, which
is very encouraging. “The penny has dropped that if people prepare sequences, they’re
there, and they can take them back, they can pull them out again next year, they can shift
stuff round that didn’t work well, they can improve them.”
The last school in this group also emphasised that for staff they wanted LAMS to be
perceived as, “just part of that little package of tools that will help and it becomes part of a
teacher’s whole range of things, just like the bunch of worksheets that they’ve got in the filing
cabinet and the interactive CDs that they’ve got. It’s just a part of the whole system and that’s
the way it has to be seen and then fitted in when it is appropriate,” particularly for the areas
of discussion and reflection in which LAMS has been most successful and valued in this
school. This vision has not, so far, been realised as successfully as they had hoped, but the
time that LAMS has had to bed down in the school has still been relatively short. LAMS will
continue to form a part of the CPD at the school and it is planned that teachers new to the
school will be more likely to adopt given the examples of successful use by the current
practitioners in the school.
7.3.7
‘Incubatory’ schools’ objectives – for students
A school’s aims for students with LAMS were often expressed in higher-level strategic terms
for the institution, and specific objectives were formulated by teachers involved in the pilot
and gathered in the sections in this report detailing the benefits of LAMS for pupils. However,
each of the schools had general objectives for the teaching practice of their schools that they
saw LAMS being able to encourage and improve.
In the first school, the values of LAMS for students that they wished to promote were, “New
ways of working with other people, development of new skills, enjoyment of lessons,
independent learning within a structured lesson.” As already mentioned the school would like
to use LAMS to run, “lessons involving students from [the school] and our link school in
South Africa working together,” which would greatly enrich both sets of students’ cultural
worldviews.
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The second school also cited an objective to promote LAMS as, “another useful tool for
developing independent learning.” This, “different way of learning” for students would also
allow, “everyone to take part in lesson - particularly the reluctant orator.”
The third school in the group saw the role of LAMS for students across the school as being
an ideal tool for encouraging “people to reflect on what they’re doing and…get them to
discuss it and I think that’s the key point of LAMS. It doesn’t matter what subject it is, if
you’ve got an area where you want the pupils to reflect on their work or to discuss it with
other people then LAMS is an ideal tool for that.”
7.3.8
‘Incubatory’ schools’ objectives – for other groups
It is significant that two of the schools in this group had produced LAMS objectives for groups
other than staff and students which indicated that in these incubatory schools, LAMS was
perceived as becoming a part of the cultural fabric of the institution, finding a place at many
different levels.
In the first school, as well as forums for staff training, and use of forums for students in the
curriculum, it is an objective that the school investigate whether there is any, “potential for
parent forums as well, when we want to discuss specific issues, we could ask parents to be
part of a forum,” with models of deployment for these already sketched out, such as a
discussion of the changes coming to the school day, where the parents would be able to
follow a sequence of activities that, for instance, linked them to the SST website for certain
information, that presented video clips to watch and think about, and then asked parents to
contribute their opinions to a forum. The school also would aim to look at ways in which
LAMS could be used to make links with primary schools in their area, potentially for the
master classes that they conduct, with ideas based around holding video extracts in LAMS
sequences. This is a tentative proposal at the moment.
The second school has already looked more widely at the potential applications of LAMS
with other groups and cite an existing success where, “Learning supervisors are using LAMS
to reinforce good behaviour. We have an excellent example of LAMS being used for a stop
smoking group.”
7.4 Schools discontinuing pilot – Analysis
As revealed by the usage statistics in the previous section, 14 of the 41 pilot schools created
no sequences and a further four schools that did create some sort of sequence did not then
go on to schedule a sequence during the pilot. While this might initially suggest that these 18
schools left the pilot or did not find anything of value to pursue in LAMS there were in fact a
range of reasons for this apparent lack or discontinuation of activity which has been captured
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through Initial Contact Questionnaires, telephone conversations and e-mail responses.
(Telephone interviews and e-mail correspondence took place with schools that did not feel
sufficiently confident to be able to complete questionnaires or allow visits but which wished to
indicate their situation re LAMS.) Sometimes these schools did not see a place for LAMS in
their teaching toolkit; other schools had simply not been able to find time to develop LAMS
sequences and were still interested in the software; some of the schools were planning to
renew their strategies for LAMS in the next school year (therefore outside the period of the
official pilot). This range of responses, including any original aims and objectives when
joining the pilot is explored below. It is also the case that some schools that created and
scheduled a sequence have decided to discontinue their involvement with LAMS, as LAMS
has in some way failed to meet a school’s criteria for success against their original pilot aims
and objectives, and again, these reasons are explored below.
Up to 07/07/05:
 Of the 14 schools that had not created or scheduled sequences there is
information on the reasons for this from 8.
 4 of these 8 schools have definitely left the pilot. The other 4 were not yet
organised to implement LAMS and so not ready to embark on the pilot.
 5 of the 14 schools not creating or scheduling sequences joined the LAMS pilot
via a high-level initiative/low-risk route.
 9 of the 14 schools not creating or scheduling sequences joined the LAMS pilot
via the enthusiast/management champion route.
 Of the 3 schools which created but did not schedule sequences, there is
information available for 2 and both have left pilot.
 6 schools have definitely withdrawn from the pilot, 2 of which had created
sequences.
7.4.1
Schools discontinuing LAMS pilot activity
Six schools indicated that they had definitely discontinued with the LAMS pilot; two created
sequences but did not schedule any LAMS sessions. The remainder did not create or
schedule any LAMS sequences.
One school created but did not schedule and fed back on some of the reasons for
discontinuing. It was felt that the literacy level required by LAMS for their students (as a
special needs school) was too high and so they will not take the pilot any further as their
students would need something much more visually orientated. They also raised concern
about chat activities for their students, conversations and arguments, which could cause
discipline problems. There was a further concern that staff would not be able to pick LAMS
up easily. Finally there had been technical problems during official training and a sequence
had got lost (not saved) which had been demotivating.
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Another school did not create or schedule sequences and withdrew citing circumstances
beyond their control. They maintain an interest in LAMS, however, and state that they would
be interested in future involvement in the pilot. A third school did not create or schedule
sequences and withdrew, stating that they had decided to pursue another project. They also
maintain an interest in what happens to LAMS.
The fourth school in this group cited lack of access to ICT facilities for subjects other than
ICT as the first reason for discontinuing with the pilot but more significantly, they do not
believe LAMS to be an “effective method of delivery”, for any, “practical subject” and
specifically music. The chat activities were not valued and class discussion was felt to be
more suitable and that to bring LAMS into their teaching would be to use, “ICT for the sake of
it.”
The two discontinuing schools did not give reasons for discontinuing with the pilot. None of
the schools in this category gave any aims or objectives for joining the LAMS pilot in the first
place.
7.4.2
Schools postponing LAMS pilot activity
Sometimes schools might have created and scheduled a small number of sequences (most
likely at training sessions only) and then ceased any LAMS activity in the pilot. Six such
schools responded to the review to indicate that they had found obstacles to continuing with
LAMS activity in the pilot period but were keen on LAMS and planning to resume activity in
the next school year.
The first school in this category stated that two barriers had stalled their use of LAMS,
namely 1) that ICT rooms were taken up to teach ICT and so access for other staff was
problematic and 2) LAMS demands a lot of effort on their part to set up. The science faculty
was seen as being the department most likely to take up LAMS in this school as they have
lots of IT software and are keen to use ICT. However ICT rooms are the major issue and
staff will be reluctant to make the effort if they can’t get access to these. The school plans to
increase provision over the summer (a new room or laptops) so LAMS use will be restarted
as and when this occurs in the next school year.
The second school in this category was only just getting round to introducing LAMS to the
school staff since joining the pilot late and needed more time to offer any other responses to
LAMS. They had prepared a set of aims and objectives for using LAMS but these were as
yet untested. In essence, these were, “Better sharing of teaching resources. Offering our
family of schools a virtual learning environment. Offering the wider community the chance to
become a local academy.”
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Significantly, they were keen to seek advice on what the best way to present LAMS to staff
might be and so encourage wide-scale adoption.
The third school had offered a set of comprehensive aims and objectives for involvement in
the LAMS pilot. Following a period of substantial investment in ICT resources they were
looking to, “develop more effective ways of incorporating ICT into subject-based teaching
and learning. We are also trying to promote opportunities for independent learning. LAMS
seemed to be an interesting option that may help tie together some of our aims.”
The school also had clear strategic objectives for adopting LAMS, namely, “Collaborative
planning opportunities. Use of LAMS to deliver CPD within school and beyond. Cross
curricular work. Opportunities for staff from different subject departments to share ideas and
plan activities.”
Finally, the school’s aims for their students were that students would benefit from, “On-line
group work and discussion, develop thinking and communication skills.”
These aims were frustrated firstly by late involvement in the pilot and significantly, by
technical difficulties in setting up user accounts. A further stumbling block has been that
despite these pilot objectives, the staff involved subsequently in driving LAMS in the school
were not in management positions or positions of strategic influence. This school plans to relaunch in the next school year with their ICT department on board and once their technical
difficulties have been resolved.
The fourth school postponing their involvement was concentrating its efforts on finding a
suitable VLE or content-management system. They also found that LAMS did not match
some of their original objectives and found other concerns, particularly with the maturity of
LAMS as a software product. One of their original aims was that, “Either on its own or in
conjunction with a full VLE, LAMS will give a framework for managing students’ learning.
Staff can cooperate with others in setting up and saving learning sequences. When
integrated with a MLE it will give a tool to manage individual students’ learning – managing
record keeping, assessments and other records.”
However, this set of objectives was not met as the school’s immediate concern was that
LAMS could not structure the rich tasks and testing and assessment for Y7 pupils starting in
2006 that they had envisaged. They had further discovered that LAMS is not suitable for their
students who have difficulty with reading and that LAMS lacks customisability. However,
LAMS is still envisaged as having a place in their long-term plans, sitting inside a VLE or
alongside a Content Management System, with the main benefit of LAMS in their new
curriculum structure being for cooperative working. “It will give a framework through which
students can learn. It will allow a degree of independent learning. The students will better be
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able to manage their work within the trans-disciplinary rich tasks envisaged. Particularly
when students themselves can set up and manage learning sequences – a tool to manage
cooperative tasks.”
The fifth school here cited ICT room access problems for LAMS trained staff and that LAMS
use was only envisaged for next year at best.
The last school in this category is the only one that did not create or schedule a sequence
but were planning to get involved with LAMS at the later end of the pilot phase and beyond.
Initial training had yet to be completed here.
7.5 Original objectives - Barriers and enablers
The interviews and questionnaires produced a rich body of evidence illustrating the factors
that have influenced the progress of schools with their aims and objectives. Analysis reveals
an emergent set of generic conditions under which it is most likely that schools will achieve
these. Each factor is briefly examined in the following subsections.
7.5.1
School ICT provision
The substance of this subsection is generally applicable to many educational software
applications. If a great effort must be made to get access to ICT facilities with sufficient
hardware provision for the class size, at a time and sufficient frequency to use LAMS
effectively, with adequate technical support and reliable machines, then School ICT provision
will more likely be a barrier to widespread LAMS adoption and LAMS sessions will remain a
‘special event’ for classes, if used at all. Even in the best-provisioned schools there are
issues of booking rooms and equal access for all subjects and using a computer room is a
relative novelty for some subject classes. Teachers are concerned that access to software
such as LAMS should be consistent for all students and benefit all groups in the school, not
just some privileged classes. Without this equality of access, some staff will be less willing to
make a wholehearted commitment to LAMS adoption.
In all the Review Team visits, however, the lessons observed demonstrated what could be
achieved with the resources available, and some of the exciting and innovative ways that
lessons can be run. Observed usage included dedicated computer suites, mixed use
computer rooms and classrooms operating wireless networks with laptops and interactive
whiteboards.
7.5.2
Staff skills
The levels of ICT skills and ICT confidence can be an important enabler or barrier, “It is a bit
frightening and if you are not okay with IT and think ‘Oh my God, I can’t do it’. It’s user
friendly really, isn’t it? Once you get over that hurdle or we can teach others how to do it then
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as well. Have us all do it!” (Teacher no. 13) Related to this confidence is a certain degree of
staff entrenchment where longer-serving staff see little to be gained in adopting a software
tool under development when their current teaching practice achieves the desired classroom
outcomes. To this end it is also worth highlighting that newer or younger staff are more open
to utilising a tool that will support and structure their still-developing teaching practice.
7.5.3
Time
Time is an obvious limiting factor but it should be acknowledged that LAMS requires an
investment of time for learning the software, of varying extent depending on a teacher’s prior
ICT skills and ICT confidence. Sometimes that first step requires an understanding of the
ethos of learning design software, as some teachers are liable to dismiss LAMS as being
devoid of content – their immediate need – and their ICT wish-list prioritising ready-made
content solutions. Assessing what LAMS is best for in a curriculum area, creating a first
sequence based on this, trialling, delivering and reflecting on the full effect of monitoring, plus
self-review activities can be very time-consuming. The support and time available may be
sporadic and variable across schools.
Investment of time for individual sequence development can appear onerous to the new
LAMS developer, although the repayment in reuse opportunities is usually acknowledged
and staff would welcome a bank of pre-existing sequences that they could draw on and
adapt. As has been observed in the usage statistics, development and delivery activity
appeared to be associated with peaks and troughs linked to training, workshops and review
visits.
7.5.4
Other resources
The review encountered some schools which provided exceptional resourcing for their LAMS
pilot activities, so providing a level of support to staff which boosted their levels of confidence
and saved their time in effective ways. The most striking example of this was the dedicated
development officer in post at one Technology College. “When we introduce something like
LAMS, we don’t just leave the staff to develop it themselves. We actually support
them…we’ve appointed someone we call ‘Development Officer’…and so he’s got great
talents in producing resources, so that the staff can use his services to produce the
resources that I think brings LAMS to life.” (Management Personnel no. 1) In this role basic
sequences were enhanced by the officer to include websites that had been researched on
behalf of the teachers and further enhanced and adapted with their coding skills. Other
multimedia resources were integrated into sequences and furthermore, suggestions for extra
sequence activities or how to deliver sequences differently or more effectively were also part
of the remit. This development resource officer was a powerful resource and enabler in this
school.
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Another exceptional resourcing involved the teacher piloting LAMS in one school being given
one day a week to work solely on their LAMS activities, their time being paid for and cover
lessons arranged. Coupled with the exceptional ICT facilities available to this teacher, LAMS
adoption for their pilot has been successful.
7.5.5
Management strategy
The management vision and strategic focus of a school for LAMS has been a great influence
on the success of the pilot and as a consequence, for the relative uptake and adoption of
LAMS in a school. Positive, replicable strategy has been identified in both the exploratory
and incubatory schools. In summary, it is apparent that in the exploratory approach and
where individuals were less closely supported by management, there was a greater
challenge, and so less likelihood of significant, cross-curricular LAMS activity. Schools with a
management commitment to school change and improvement in their teaching practice and
quality of learning experience offered to students are more likely to look at LAMS and
implement a strategy to assess its worth. There is a stated need by some management for
support in communicating to staff what LAMS is and can do and at the other end of the
relationship there is a stated need by staff that they need some support in persuading their
management that LAMS is something that should be widely available in the school as a
teaching tool.
7.5.6
Networks – inter-school and other
Networks are perceived by staff involved in the pilot and by management as being crucial to
the success of something as embryonic as LAMS. This includes established inter-school
strategic networks where excellence and innovation in practice is shared and can thus drive
the adoption of LAMS across schools and promote sequence sharing. It also covers the
formation of new networks of LAMS practitioners as a powerful inspirational and motivational
spur for those getting to grips with the software. When the Review Team encountered a
practitioner lacking confidence in their achievements with LAMS, this could usually be
attributed to their sense of working in isolation, particularly in schools where they might be
the only person involved in the pilot. This scenario highlighted a need for such networks.
Furthermore an outcome of the BETCA workshops was the stated desirability of school staff
who were beginning their involvement with LAMS to remain in communication, visit each
other and so contribute to the growth of each others' expertise and confidence. The formation
of new networks like these might be through email lists, dedicated websites or workshops
with new and reconvened groups. Presented below are some example models of current
networks through which schools are or will be pursuing the development of LAMS.
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Model A - LEA and Partner Schools Networks
In this model the school represented something of a flagship for ICT developments and
innovations in the LEA and the LEA would follow closely the progress of the pilot and
contribute to an assessment of how, “this project may take off beyond pilot.” (Teacher no. 4)
The school also participates in a network of partner schools where senior management meet
and there is a recognition and desire that, “that the success that happens here can be
replicated in their schools.” (Teacher no. 4)
Through these networks they will disseminate strategy and advice on the current success
with their LAMS pilot, and demonstrate with their own more widespread adoption throughout
the school that the achievements currently made in modern foreign languages, “can be
replicated to other subject areas” (Teacher no. 4)
Model B – Leading Edge partnership
In this model the school was engaged with three other local schools with the principle that,
“We all share good practice” (Teacher no. 1) LAMS was seen in this model firstly as a way of
uniting the schools and as starting point for developing and sharing good practice (alongside
other ICT developments). A long-term objective of this network is that sharing of sequences
will be driven by the fact that there will be a richer source of these made possible through the
partnership all creating sequences. LAMS will be one medium through which their goals of
team-teaching and exchange of excellent practice can take place.
Model C – Partner Schools and Link Schools
In this model the school was a leader and innovator, certainly in terms of LAMS, amongst the
schools in their partnership. The way their partnership works is that their school offers other
partner schools Master Classes and also shares curriculum teaching at other sites, and
therefore, by achieving some of this through LAMS, then they feel that LAMS will be spread
into partner schools.
Finally in the context of networks, international networks were also anticipated by
interviewees on several occasions as being of potential value, seen particularly as
advantageous to students, encouraging a deeper cultural understanding of the world and
their own place in it, as well as sharing teaching practice between countries.
7.5.7
Introducing and cascading LAMS amongst school staff
The manner in which LAMS is introduced and presented in a school to staff, how the LAMS
message is fed through the networks within a school, can be a critical enabler of LAMS
adoption within the school. The review team encountered different ways of attempting to
disseminate information and generate interest in LAMS within schools. One approach was to
hold voluntary meetings for all staff to present LAMS. These large-scale meetings
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consistently created an initial widespread interest, but where there is little further incentive or
support, LAMS adoption can be left drifting amongst competing priorities. Another approach
is to engage heads of department to explain LAMS and how it can specifically benefit their
staff. This is a more powerful strategy as a strategic imperative and commitment in individual
departments across a school encourages the provision of some of the support that the
practitioner needs to spend time developing LAMS sequences and also lends confidence to
staff in the belief that their work is valued.
The more successful strategies of disseminating information and enthusiasm for LAMS within
a school involved individual champions or champion departments leading by example, with
strategic management support and thus building up a body of expertise, experience and
practice that can then be demonstrated and replicated throughout the school.
Most schools preferred to follow this ‘small seeds’ approach in tandem with the general
management strategy of experimental LAMS adoption. This small seeds approach generally
took either the form of one or two enthusiastic individuals or a department being trained in
LAMS, introducing LAMS into their own practice and then being in some way responsible for
raising the profile of LAMS in the institution, demonstrating the benefits and improvements to
their own teaching practice and the positive achievements with their students. A selection of
comments from staff involved in both the departmental and individual champion strategies
are presented below.
Individual as champion
“I think I have had really good opportunities throughout this year using LAMS. I have been a good
person to talk to and train other people into using LAMS, because ICT is not always the way I
deliver my lessons so if I can use it effectively then other people feel that they can use it effectively
and it works well for them.”
“What’s going to happen is that my colleague and I will then pass on what we have learnt to other
people... I kind of went on planning my lessons, tend to show everyone in the staff room, so they
are aware of what it is and how easy it is to use. And we have already shown it to the Teaching
Excellence Group which is a group specially set up to look at new initiatives in teaching….I was
the first person in the school to teach it, using it, and will be able to pass information to
colleagues.”
“…if I want to up the profile of the LAMS scheme which has been made available to our school, I
need to use it more often...so I can start saying to people, I have been doing this, it’s great, look at
what I produced. If that goes well, the headmaster will say ‘That’s very good. Make everyone else
do it’.”
“…he’s quite new to the school and definitely a leader…we thought maybe because he was
younger and keen that other people would be interested in following his lead, and he would be
able to cascade it to other interested people.”
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Department as champion
“Once it’s up and running and we have ironed out the spots, and would say, ‘Look, here it is’, she
would quite happily adopt it and use it and with enthusiasm, I think. So as an IT department, we
are probably fairly into it. And as a department from across the school, we are probably having
more input into it than other departments. Because there are three or four of us that are actually
keen on it.”
“We will feed back to the school to decide whether to cascade it to other faculties or not but that
decision hasn’t been made yet…So until some of the staff has trialled it with classes until next
year probably we won’t know whether the whole school will be trained or not.”
7.5.8
LAMS Issues – functionality, interface, applicability
The interface of LAMS can be a barrier to some schools or staff adopting LAMS, in particular
those whose concern is LAMS’ heavily text-based nature. Some staff expressed concern that
their students will only respond to very multimedia-driven software. This is their expectation
for ICT lessons, and they may assume that LAMS is too plain and lacking adaptability to
cater for such students, although there is a recognition that despite, “One of the great
criticisms is that it’s pretty dull… it’s the quality of resources that you can build into LAMS
sequences that really…give it life.” (Management Personnel no. 2)
Other issues here include password management and known current software bugs that
have been listed elsewhere and which the LAMS team is working on.
Far more teachers find that the interface is suited to their teaching needs and that the
majority of their students have a sufficient ‘ICT maturity’ not to reject LAMS on the basis of it
lacking the multimedia excitement of many content-ready packages, “The majority of
students will engage with it because they’re not worried about the layout as much as what
they’re actually accessing and doing. E.g. forum - not how nice it looked but responding to
each other." (Teacher no. 19)
7.5.9
LAMS support
This factor refers to the level of support that teachers can draw on from outside the school.
All schools value the excellent technical support available over the LAMS pilot, with technical
queries and problems resolved swiftly and to the satisfaction of teachers. This has been a
great and valuable enabler for LAMS adoption. Workshops offered during the pilot were also
seen as valuable support opportunities. LAMS practitioner networks also act as support
enablers.
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7.6 End of pilot – Final questionnaire assessment of achievements
As a final review activity every pilot school was sent a questionnaire (Final LAMS Review
Questionnaire) to assess the extent to which they felt their institutional LAMS aims and
objectives had been achieved over the course of the pilot. About 95 questionnaires were
emailed as well as posted to schools participating in the pilot. An opt-out questionnaire was
sent to those who had discontinued the pilot. Altogether 16 respondents returned a
completed form from 14 schools (return rate under 20%). The data from this low return rate,
although not necessarily representative of the whole pilot population may not be misleading
in the context of the usage statistics described in Section 5.2 which showed that only 12
schools delivered LAMS sessions in the first year of the pilot.
School staff were asked to quantify their sense of achievement in the pilot period as
compared with anticipated benefits that LAMS would bring to their institution, the staff, pupils
and other groups (e.g. parents). So that unanticipated benefits of LAMS use could emerge,
the questionnaire adopted an open-ended approach and teachers were asked to write in
rather than select from a prepared list of benefits. These were then grouped under emerging
headings. Respondents were asked to rate each anticipated and emerging benefit on a
seven-point scale where 1 was ‘benefit not at all materialised’ and 7 ‘benefit completely
materialised’. The comments were anonymised, but it was considered important to record
whether the responding teacher had delivered a LAMS sequence yet (‘delivered LAMS’),
whether they had only attended a practitioner workshop (‘attended workshop’) or the LAMS
training session (‘trained on LAMS’) as these would indicate their level of LAMS activity to
date.
The reported achievements of the LAMS pilot were wide-ranging and comments have been
listed in the tables below. Each benefit has a slightly different focus, so all the comments are
quoted verbatim in the tables. Generally, those with less exposure tended to identify various
LAMS benefits but they gave a low rating as to how successful those achievements were.
E.g. those who had already delivered LAMS sequences and identified a benefit were
comfortable in rating it as 7 (‘benefit completely materialised’), while those who had taught
fewer LAMS lessons may have given it a lower rating (e.g. 3) as they did not feel there had
been enough evidence to support that the benefit materialised. Those who had only training
or attended the practitioner workshop may have given the benefit an even lower rating e.g. 1
(‘not at all materialised’) because they felt they did not have evidence to support it from
personal experience. Given this context, it was decided not to calculate mean ratings for
each group of benefits.
Table 15 shows benefits of the pilot that did not sit under any of the other major headings.
Opportunities for differentiation, revision, self-paced and collaborative learning received high
ratings in terms of materialised achievements.
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Table 15 Pilot achievements: General
LAMS progress
of teacher
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Trained on LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Attended workshop
Delivered LAMS
Delivered LAMS
Attended workshop
Attended workshop
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
7
Basic sequences could be used at a basic level mainly visual
and quizzes to check understanding.
Helping with the students' revision.
They work at their own pace and it can be just like a one to one
lesson.
Collaborative learning.
The immediate feedback which can encourage students in their
studies.
Pupils will be able to keep a better record of their progress as
they can easily identify how far they have progressed through
the lesson.
Behaviour management.
Greater confidence and self esteem, better results.
Parents to become involved if can use at home.
Possible to use at home in future i.e.: for homework etc.
School is promoting e-learning.
Use for emotional/spiritual development.
Emotional/spiritual development particularly in RE.
Gains to be had in personal and social development of pupils.
Limited effect on attainment or achievement in external
assessments in ICT.
6
6
6
5
5
4
2
1
1
1
not rated
not rated
not rated
not rated
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
Table 16 signals potential impact of LAMS in the area of assessment and raising attainment,
albeit with not much evidence.
Table 16 Pilot achievements: Assessment and attainment
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Trained on LAMS
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
Greater level of understanding.
There is clearly much scope for summative assessment in
Lams which is accessible and therefore may be useful for action
planning.
Improved examination performance.
Assessment.
5
3
1
not rated
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
Using LAMS to support different ways of teaching was reported by a number of teachers,
with two finding that they were able to create more effective and varied lessons. Naturally,
some (e.g. those attending the workshop), saw the potential but had not had the chance to
try LAMS out yet in class (Table 17).
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Table 17 Pilot achievements: Different way of teaching
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
Workshop
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
6
6
5
1
1
Creating more effective lessons
More varied classroom activities
A better way to deliver our teaching across the curriculum
Different way of teaching subject
Creativity in delivery of subject
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
The idea of LAMS promoting engagement and student motivation received high ratings (5 or
over) in a number of comments (6) (Table 18).
Table 18 Pilot achievements: Engagement and ICT as motivation
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
Workshop
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
Learning through ICT.
The students enjoy using IT and it motivates them more.
Motivating students.
I see LAMS being effective in my lessons as it will be a
motivational tool for them in lessons.
Increasing learner motivation and engagement.
Motivated students.
Providing quieter pupils with ‘a voice’ in discussion.
Engaging in material being taught.
Motivational.
7
6
6
6
5
5
3
1
not rated
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
A comparatively large number of teachers indicated that LAMS not only had the potential to
promote independent learning, including guidance and structure to help students along, but
also thought that this achievement materialised during the pilot proved. This is confirmed by
the high number of ratings of 5 or over (Table 19).
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Table 19 Pilot achievements: Guidance and independent learning opportunities
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
7
Students will be able to focus more on the subject content of
the lesson as they will be guided through the lesson using
LAMS.
Opportunity to learn ICT skills through their learning and
encouragement of independent learning.
LAMS will mean that students have more structure and
guidance in lessons so I am less likely to have to deal with ICT
problems and be able to work with students on subject
knowledge. This should therefore raise attainment in my subject
area.
Learner autonomy.
Independent learning.
Promoting independent learning.
Independent learning.
Still in the beginning phase of introducing LAMS to students.
Benefits, learning is independent and fun.
If attainment in reading rose, it would encourage more
independent working.
Independent Learning – only at a minor scale due to pilot nature
of the project.
Independent learning.
7
6
6
6
6
5
3
3
3
1
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
A few teachers felt that LAMS supported the development of metacognitive skills and those
few that did, thought that these benefits materialised at a high level (Table 20).
Table 20 Pilot achievements: Metacognitive skills
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
More interaction and readiness to make a judgement as
opposed to the normal classroom situation.
LAMS gives students more ownership over the lesson and so
far they have produced work which is far more reflective when
they have used LAMS.
[Using LAMS] as a means to gain student interaction, look at
hierarchical thinking and source analysis. The main idea would
be to get students to raise issues from it as opposed to singular
learning.
Getting pupils to reflect on the views and inputs of other and
how their inputs vary from those of others
7
6
6
not rated
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
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Table 21 shows that the LAMS 'monitor' function that helps teachers to follow students’
progress brought some benefits to teachers. Perhaps the lower number of comments in this
category may indicate that not all teachers used or were aware of this function’s full potential.
Table 21 Pilot achievements: Monitor
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
6
LAMS will ensure pupils can monitor their progress during a
lesson and therefore they can work at their own pace and I can
easily monitor this.
Excellent for finding out exactly how each pupil if performing, or
whether they have fully understood objectives set.
Provides good evidence to assist the tracking of attainment
Easily able to monitor pupils progress. Can use variety of set
tasks within a lesson, e.g.: quiz and survey.
4
3
1
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
Teachers reported that LAMS offered benefits for students with different abilities and
experiences and supported different learning styles, with various extents as to whether these
achievements had materialised (Table 22).
Table 22 Pilot achievements: Personalisation and differentiation
LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
Workshop
Trained on LAMS
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
Visual resource for deaf students.
Personalised learning according to ability.
It allows differentiation without pupils realising that they have
different materials.
It allows pupils to draw upon a range of learning styles and
allows good progression through activities.
Different way of learning and accessing.
Different presentation of learning
Different presentation of learning
7
6
4
3
1
1
not rated
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
Few achievements actually materialised over the review period with respect to reusing and
sharing sequences amongst staff but this remains an objective for schools (Table 23).
Table 23 Pilot achievements: Reuse
LAMS progress of
teacher
LAMS benefits
Delivered
Other teachers would find beneficial an already planned lesson
to deliver through the use of LAMS.
Might help students develop their own study skills, resources
will also be shared between staff, this could mean better results
Time saving
Trained on LAMS
Trained on LAMS
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LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
1
Sequences can be shared/share resources.
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
Parents were one of the stakeholders that teachers felt LAMS could benefit, e.g. being able
to help and monitor homework. One teacher commented that using an innovative tool such
as LAMS potentially enhanced the image of the school in parents’ eyes (Table 24).
Table 24 Pilot achievements: Benefits for parents
LAMS progress of
teacher
Trained on LAMS
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
Workshop
Delivered
Delivered
LAMS benefits
rating (1=7)
Parents perceive the school as forward thinking
Parents can see what their children have been working on.
If it could be used for homework parents could help at home so
they know what their students are learning and improve
communication.
Parents - but only because we have not introduced this
element.
Parents able to monitor child's progress
Not used this facility as yet.
With improved IT at the school, it could be used to collect the
views of parents about issues.
3
1
1
1
1
0
not rated
Rating: 1=not at all materialised, 7=completely materialised
The Final LAMS Questionnaire also elicited information concerning the difficulties pilot
schools and teachers encountered during the pilot (Table 25). Reported difficulties
concerned technical issues such as the chat not working within the school’s network and the
problem of accented letters in foreign languages (special characters) – these were rated as
causing very great difficulty. Lack of time was also found to cause difficulty during the pilot,
with one teacher finding it difficult to master the authoring tools. LAMS being heavily textbased and not supporting images was also a source of great difficulty to some schools due to
their learners’ characteristics (see Section 7.4 for more on the causes of some schools
opting out of the pilot).
Table 25 Difficulties encountered during the LAMS pilot
LAMS progress of
teacher
Technical issues
Delivered
Attended workshop
Delivered
Delivered
Delivered
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LAMS difficulties
rating (1=7)
7
7
The chat room facility does not work through our firewall.
Coming in late to the pilot, trying (and currently failing!) to catch
up.
Chat room – filters will not allow access
Cannot use chat rooms
Accents is a big problem
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LAMS progress of
teacher
Delivered
Time and training
Delivered
Trained on LAMS
Delivered
Attended workshop
Lack of multimedia
Delivered
Delivered
LAMS difficulties
rating (1=7)
4
Design still not as appealing as it might be
Time to do it.
Time factor involved
Mastering the authoring tools
I think school need time to properly prepare staff and to make
sequences
5
5
4
not rated
The program is not easily accessed by poor readers.
Having to get help to import pictures already made as a word
worksheet.
6
6
1= Very small difficulty, 7 = very great difficulty
This section has provided a limited quantitative overview of the pilot’s achievements as
reported by the Final LAMS Questionnaire’s respondents. The small scale feedback, coupled
with the complexity of schools being at different phases of their pilot activities did not make it
possible to offer a quantified snapshot of achievements but rather indicated the main areas
of LAMS achievements with varying rates of materialised benefits. These achievements were
in offering pupil motivation and engagement, opportunities for independent, personalised and
differentiated learning, development of metacognitive skills and for staff members, the
capability to monitor student progress and the reuse of sequences. The next section looks at
the qualitative data gained from practitioners in order to offer a more detailed analysis of
what these benefits really were and how they came about.
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8 Pilot achievements: Benefits of LAMS
Interviews with staff members collected during the LAMS practitioner visits recorded a broad
range of qualitative evidence relating to individual objectives achieved by staff for their own
practice and with students during the pilot. This was typically expressed as the benefits
anticipated and (some unanticipated) benefits achieved. This section offers a summary of
teachers’ feedback on these LAMS achievements which are grouped into two, occasionally
overlapping, views on the identified themes; firstly from the point of view of the teacher and
their teaching practice, and secondly from the point of view of the pupil and the learning
process. Section 8.1 discusses the benefits LAMS brought to teachers and their
management of teaching and section 8.2 relates benefits for pupils as perceived by teachers.
Pupils' attitudes to LAMS are discussed in Section 9. Each teacher has been allocated a
numeric identifier when quoted; where heads of departments or managers were involved in
delivering LAMS sessions, they were identified as teachers rather than as managers in the
teaching/learning context. Pupils were identified by their year group.
8.1 Teachers’ perceived benefits of LAMS
8.1.1
Structure and guidance
LAMS offers teachers a structure on which to build their lessons. LAMS, “provides you with
the first stage of planning your lesson…provides you with a structure” (Teacher no. 11). The
structured support offered by LAMS is in close harmony with the Key Stage 3 Strategy4 in
rigorous target setting, i.e. teachers guiding students to achieve lesson objectives and keep
students focused on the tasks:
“It’s a tool to enable you to completely structure the lesson when you’re using ICT, for yourself, for
the kids…and you do get at the end what you intended to do.” (Teacher no. 11)
“I think it’s quite good practice for the staff…[LAMS’] main strength is that you have got to plan a
very structured lesson.” (Teacher no. 23)
Writing a LAMS sequence means that teachers need to make their teaching explicit through
the structure of LAMS and this process requires them to think about how they build a lesson.
This can benefit all members of staff, but especially those new to the profession.
Teachers felt that LAMS, because of its step-by-step approach, was ideal for curriculum
areas in which students needed more guidance than usual, or for classes with mixed or lower
achieving groups. Instead of the one-to-many teacher guidance of the traditional class setup, the in-built learning design allowed teachers to guide students in a ‘one-to-one’ format. A
teacher, who, with the aim of developing students’ thinking skills incorporated LAMS
activities in which students were interacting, sharing and trading ideas, observed:
4
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/keystage3/aboutks3/strategyguide/
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“…when we have asked lower sets to use this type of learning, they need a lot more guidance.
And that’s where I think LAMS will be needed more. Because it’s very difficult to get round a
largish class and give them all the guidance that they need. And they can fall by the wayside, they
can become off task. Because they find it too demanding. Whereas LAMS will give them that
framework.” (Teacher no. 15)
The sequence structure in LAMS can also facilitate the design and delivery of the lesson by
different people. The person delivering the lesson does not necessarily need to be a subject
expert thus making a case for using LAMS for cover lessons. The LAMS sequence is the
online lesson plan in this case, left behind for the cover teacher to implement:
“You could still run the sequence … without knowing what was on the lesson plan. You could look
at it as you went through.” (Teacher no. 21)
8.1.2
Pupil engagement
The majority of teachers found that LAMS played a part in increasing pupils’ level of
engagement in the classroom. Working at the monitor focussed students, even those who in
normal classroom sessions might have become bored and inattentive as the lesson
progressed. LAMS encouraged them to concentrate. There was a sense that the closed
learning sequence with a clearly defined and visible set of learning activities deterred
students from wandering off and searching for other websites, which would be a normal
occurrence in other ICT-based lessons. In some cases the teacher pointed out that students
did not realise they were able to open another browser window should they be tempted to
wander off task; in other cases, teachers knew that although students were savvy enough to
know they can open a new browser window, students were somehow deterred from this
extra click, and instead stayed on task:
“One of the good sides of LAMS is that when students are working, they do feel trapped into it,
they don’t feel they can go onto other websites.” (Teacher no. 1)
One teacher reported that, as they used LAMS, students had been the, “most…focussed all
year” (Teacher no. 11).
This case was an example when engagement seemed to be closely linked to motivation,
which in turn was related to the pedagogy used by the teacher. This maths lesson, was
about selecting the best theme park on the basis of various numerical data. After the lesson
finished, the teacher overheard students as they continued discussing their choices on the
corridor: “‘Well what did you choose?’, ’Oh it was White Water Valley because it was
cheaper.’, ’And what did you choose?’” (Teacher no. 11 quoting students), so the teacher
knew that the students went away with his lesson objectives achieved.
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At the other end of the scale, one or two teachers talked of certain students for whom LAMS
would not be necessarily more engaging than another classroom lesson would: “… it just
depends on the actual kids, if they’re not turned on to anything then it doesn’t matter if it’s
that [LAMS] or not.” (Teacher no. 22)
LAMS also provides mechanisms that get, “every child to come up with an answer” (Final
LAMS questionnaire) thereby promoting engagement for the whole class. That through
LAMS all students can have a voice in a “private”, unthreatening environment (e.g. through
anonymous contributions) often means harder-to-engage pupils or those lacking confidence
in normal classroom contexts are more likely to make contributions. One teacher observed
that he used LAMS to, “level the playing field slightly more” (Teacher no. 10), encouraging
students to be involved in discussions, e.g. by using chat activities to freely express their
ideas.
Teachers also welcomed the possibility of being able to engage the quieter and more
reserved students who, in turn, gained confidence in seeing that they were not, “worse than
anyone else”. (Teacher no. 19)
8.1.3
ICT as motivation
Teachers generally reported greater levels of pupil motivation than in traditional classroom
lessons. This was partly due to LAMS’ ICT delivery medium.
“They are quite motivated in the ICT room. That’s a change to what they normally do in science.
Yes, they are motivated just due to the fact that they’re going to an ICT room.” (Teacher no. 23)
An abundance of research has reported that using ICT in subject lessons can itself be a
motivating tool for students; ICT can motivate disaffected students and increase
self-confidence.5 A teacher contrasted pupils’ behaviour in normal lessons with a LAMS
lesson:
“[Pupils] tend to get very loud when they’re in a classroom and they are asked to do a lot of
writing.” (Teacher no. 5)
Another observation was:
“They are a lot quieter in the computer room, so they get through more work, simply because
they’re there and they’re focussed, and they’re working individually, it’s just all there at their
fingertips.” (Teacher no. 5)
See e.g. ‘What the research says about ICT and motivation’ published by Becta ICT Research, 2005, at
http://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/wtrs_motivation.pdf
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The teacher also linked the speed of getting through a computer lesson with students only
having to work at the keyboard as opposed to writing into books, which her lower ability
groups found more difficult:
“And I think that’s the reason they get through much more…they’re tapping away and tapping
away, confidently, rather than having to figure out the title and the date and how many numbers do
they need down the side of their page.” (Teacher no. 5)
The teacher capitalised on students being motivated in the ICT room and combined LAMS
lessons with writing tasks because she found that:
“[when pupils] have to do a writing task after every LAMS sequence … they never complain. You
ask them to write in the classroom and they complain. So if I want to get some good writing out of
them, I give it to them in the computer room.” (Teacher no. 5)
LAMS was motivating not just because it was a technological tool used in lessons but, more
significantly, because it allowed coherent, structured and integrated use of ICT for teaching.
Teachers found that the way LAMS sequences were delivered to students motivated them.
Students were able to see on the left hand side (see Figure 8) where they were up to in the
sequence. What motivated them was that they knew that, “they should be able to finish it by
the end of the lesson. So that there is a need to go through quickly.” (Teacher no. 1)
This contrasted with traditional lessons when there are no visual clues for individual students
as to their progress. If the teacher is able to show the outline of the lesson, by using a
PowerPoint slide for instance, there is no tracking attached to it. Whole class progress can
be tracked, but not at the level of the individual student. LAMS was supportive in helping
students to control their own attention to the task and monitor their progress both in relation
to lesson time and the educational objectives set by the teacher.
8.1.4
Developing cognitive and metacognitive skills
The activity-focussed nature of LAMS, as teachers found, not only offered a more meaningful
ICT-based lesson but also contributed to the development of various cognitive and
metacognitive skills. In the first instance, teachers contrasted previously implemented ICT
lessons with LAMS lessons. What they found was that when they typically asked students to
produce PowerPoint slides on some topic during ordinary ICT lessons, pupils were just
“copying and pasting from the Internet”, while, “LAMS stops them doing that, and makes
[students] actually work for themselves”. (Teacher no. 1) The explanation for that difference
is to be found in LAMS’ activity focus. When teachers created a sequence in LAMS, they
were explicitly asking students to do work through a set of well-defined activities with learning
objectives. This process, “shouldn’t be about getting kids to produce a poster of ‘Support
Henry and His Actions’ or whatever. It should be about getting kids to develop good
analytical skills, which is what LAMS does and that’s the joy of it really.” (Teacher no. 19)
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As another teacher affirmed:
“the opportunity to group-work and share opinions [in LAMS] encourages students to develop
essential subject skills such as analysis, evaluation and synthesis.” (Final LAMS Questionnaire)
Metacognitive skills include students’ ability to plan their learning, being able to monitor
where they are up to and conduct self-evaluations to measure how well they have done
against a set goal. Teachers approached the development of such skills in different ways
using LAMS (see Section 9). Activities that support the development of metacognitive skills
include modelling, group interaction, reflective and peer-assessment activities. Such
activities were well promoted in LAMS as teachers revealed in their reflections on their LAMS
experiences.




Modelling – The step-by-step nature of LAMS sequences allowed teachers to model,
for instance, the steps comprising the process of evaluation, deconstructing it into
manageable chunks: “all the different steps that they have actually gone through to
get to the evaluation point and on the way through the sequence using voting, them
able to see other pupils’ voting, make them use the notebook, writing down just
simple points of things that they managed to achieve well.” (Teacher no. 15)
Group interaction – LAMS activities such as Chat and Forum are based on students
communicating with one another online and these interactions are essential in
constructing and checking meanings and developing skills for argument: “If I was to
get thirty students in a classroom and ask them to argue a point, they couldn’t…it
would take a great deal of coaching to get them to realise yes, you can have a fullblown argument with somebody in the classroom regarding history. But because we
are talking about an environment where they’re responding to each other but within
the confines of a computer, they’re happy as Larry to argue over things.” (Teacher
no. 19)
Peer- and self-assessment – The Question and Answer activity is particularly
versatile. It includes two steps: students are asked a question and they have to
respond by making a written contribution. Once this contribution has been made, the
students are shown one another’s answers. This two-step approach gets students to
reflect on their own learning experience and then compare it with their peers’
contributions.
Reflection – Peer- and self-assessment can be further formalised using reflective
activities. In LAMS this can be achieved with the individual activity types or a
combination of the activity with the Notebook.
The advantage of using LAMS was that all students completed the sequences individually so
every one of them was involved in learning. They did not have to wait to be called by the
teacher as they would have done in a normal classroom setting. Teachers felt that pupils with
different levels of achievement were able make their contributions when they got to the
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activity in the sequence at the time it suited them, and were not put on the spot. Typing their
answers gave students some extra time to think and amend their responses if required.
Class size was not an issue either, as LAMS accommodated and displayed everyone’s
response – something that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in a normal
classroom setting.
The sequence of activities involving questions and answers in the classroom would typically
be:
1) Listening to the teacher’s question, student has an idea.
2) If called by the teacher, student expresses and formulates idea verbally. (If not called
by the teacher, student may not formulate an idea.) Teacher may or may not
immediately comment upon or judge the idea.
3) Teacher calls other students who in turn give their ideas. Only a limited number of
students are able to respond in the classroom setting.
4) Teacher may focus on key ideas or misconceptions or ask further questions.
Students may reformulate and compare their ideas in the light of peer and teacher
comments.
In LAMS, there are similarities and differences to classroom delivery, enhanced by some
advantages that are brought about by the delivery medium itself. This is especially true when
using the Question and Answer activity. LAMS deconstructs the thinking and reflection
process:
1) Student has an idea after reading the teacher’s question and thinking about it.
2) Expressing the idea – formulating the idea in writing by typing it at the keyboard.
3) Sees own idea expressed – reading the Noticeboard with the list of responses from
the whole class.
4) Compares ideas – reading and comparing ideas from the list. Teacher can use offline
and online ways of contributing to and managing the activity.
The new ingredient that LAMS adds is the capability of having an overview of everyone’s
ideas at the same time, which is a tangible benefit both for the teacher and the students. (A
more detailed comparison between the traditional classroom and LAMS strategies in the use
of question and answer activities is provided in Gibbs and O’Sullivan, 2005). A more subtle
effect is that the visual presentation, listing all pupil responses, in itself suggests that all
contributions are equally valued, letting the teacher and pupils make their own minds up
about the quality of contributions. This empowers and engages both parties in the process of
reflection, self- and peer-assessment.
The arguments above can also be used to show how LAMS promotes the development of
analytical and thinking skills in a “student-friendly” way (Final LAMS questionnaire). LAMS
supports teachers in getting pupils to, “think for themselves” (Teacher no. 15). One teacher
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commented how LAMS was ideal in supporting pupils’ coursework. The flow of activities in a
sequence spells out the steps of the thinking process, thereby unobtrusively guiding the
students:
“Coursework is having to do research, having to work it out, having to understand it, having to
explain themselves and having to prove what they think by producing results.” (Teacher no. 15)
Given LAMS’ support for developing cognitive and metacognitive skills and the fact that
pupils are guided through a LAMS sequence at their own pace, teachers can use the system
to encourage students’ independent learning.
8.1.5
Monitoring pupil progress and contributions
One of the most frequently cited benefits of LAMS from the teachers’ perspective was the
capability of monitoring and tracking students’ progress and contributions. Teachers have
access to the monitor function in LAMS and once they have scheduled a LAMS sequence
with a class, the following four views (accessed through tabs) of sessions are available live
and following the session:
A. Session information – gives the details of the name of the class, start and duration of
LAMS session, number of students who started the sequence and enables
administrative functions such as deleting or archiving the session;
B. Sequence – quick class overview screen showing the flow of activities with green
dots representing each student’s location within the sequence.
C. Learners – each learner is represented by a line bisecting a series of boxes, each box
representing an activity, the colour of the box telling the teacher whether the activity
has been completed by the student or not. Teachers can click within each box to
reveal the student’s contribution for the given activity.
D. Contributions – whole class contributions are compiled for each activity and
presented in one unit with student names. Similar activity types are grouped together.
These different views assist teachers with various aspects of teaching. During observed
lessons, some teachers used the online monitoring function and some did not. In most
cases, teachers who did not use the monitoring function admitted that this was due to their
lack of training, experience and confidence in LAMS whilst admitting that they would like to
learn how to use it as they appreciated its application. Only one teacher said that he
preferred walking around and watching over pupils’ shoulders to offer help and support.
If they had access to interactive whiteboards, teachers frequently projected the monitoring
screen for the whole class. This use of the interactive whiteboard served as a classroom
management tool, letting pupils know that the teacher was aware of what they were doing,
which kept pupils on task.
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“[students] know that I can see what they are doing. Which is a really good thing. Very similar to
language labs in the past.” (Teacher no. 2)
Another cited positive strength associated with this class/individual surveillance is that
struggling students can be picked up using Monitor by a teacher without the student having
to ask for help publicly, and students know this.
The Sequence view was used by teachers to check class progress against the time schedule
of the lesson, i.e. whether students were progressing through activities as predicted and
planned. The advantage of this visual tracking was that teachers were able to assess quickly
whole-class progress and amend the flow of events as required. Teachers could also call
attention to pupils who were either rushing ahead in the sequence or lagging behind and
guide them to the appropriate action:
"Some children will just run through the activities, finish them really quickly and not really think
about them." (Teacher no. 20)
Many VLEs claim to offer student tracking functionality. Normally, this consists of recording
whether students have logged on or not, what pages they have accessed and what
contributions they have read. LAMS builds on these basic administrative indicators to offer
the ability to track contributions from two perspectives, a) that of the sequenced activities and
b) that of the individual student. With teachers being able to monitor the content of
contributions, LAMS quickly transforms into a tool that is able to support the formative
assessment of pupils. Teachers commented that they were able to see quantitative results
such as scores for multiple choice tests and results of voting exercises and make
assessments as to how much students had learnt:
“and I think then it’s useful, you can assess what they have learnt by looking how they did in the
multiple choice quiz. And you also get them to vote and see what they also thought as the most
popular [site]. So I think it went quite well.” (Teacher no. 20)
By checking the individual contributions that presented students’ ideas (such as Chat
transcripts and student responses) teachers were able to offer formative feedback, e.g. by
calling the individual’s name in class and saying to them, “‘Look, you forgot an accent’ or
‘That was not quite what I wanted’” (Teacher no. 2). Teachers are also able to view the
contributions after the session and reflect on the extent to which lesson objectives were
achieved as well as individual students’ progress:
“You can actually see how well they did, what their responses are. You can take it away, you can
build on their lack of knowledge, or what they do and don’t know.” (Teacher no. 21)
"Each individual has got a specific, tailor-made answers and feedback to their work. [Students]
find that very good, and I myself can know every single one of them of what progress they are
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making. That immediate monitoring and afterwards is good as LAMS does it for me." (Teacher
no. 2)
An added bonus was that the contributions were digital so teachers were able to copy and
paste student feedback and comment on this electronically, therefore saving time as
compared with taking home workbooks and marking them by hand:
”What I do when I am at home I collect all the information I have got in the monitoring thing, and
then give them a piece of paper saying that was wrong and why, so you get immediate feedback.”
(Teacher no. 2)
Another advantage was that teachers were able to log on to LAMS at any time and anywhere
and check students’ progress: “it’s there I can see it wherever I am.” (Teacher no. 2)
With LAMS’ sequence structure helping students to keep on task and offering ready access
to resources, teachers could concentrate on teaching their subject area and be less occupied
with monitoring and managing classroom behaviour. Keeping track of pupil progress is taken
on by the online monitoring aspect of LAMS which can provide a quick snapshot of where
individual students are in their sequence as well as providing a visual image of the whole
class’s progress.
“… you also have the back up of the monitoring…it’s very clearly stated who’s where, who’s doing
what, who’s typing what, so in terms of discipline you’ve got instant backup. And that’s what you
need…the backup…that give[s] you the freedom to go round everybody and focus specifically on
the technical information of the lesson rather than behaviour.” (Teacher no. 11)
8.1.6
Immediate feedback
Teachers found the immediate feedback offered to students beneficial from a teaching
management point of view. Activity types such as Multiple Choice include feedback that
automatically appears to the student, telling them whether their answer was right or wrong,
and optionally prompting the correct response. Students can also retake the assessment.
LAMS offers the option to display the best scoring students’ names at the end of this activity,
which can be used to motivate and praise students if used judiciously:
“Everybody loves doing multiple choice … [Students] get kind of absorbed in that. It appeals to
the[ir] competitive side ...” (Teacher no. 22)
Indirectly, other LAMS activity types can act as automated feedback tools in the sense that
feedback is provided by peers or the teacher online. These include the Question and
Answer, the Chat, the Forum and the Survey activities:
“What I wanted to do was give them the ability to chat about these points, so they could have
immediate feedback. So I used the forum format and grouped it together. So that you have a
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group of five or six kids in a forum putting down their views on the various topics.” (Teacher
no. 22)
At one observed lesson, the teacher asked students to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on a controversial
historical issue and the summary of results was then displayed on the interactive whiteboard
using the monitoring function so the whole class was able to see the outcome of their vote
directly.
Immediate feedback helped teachers. “I don’t have to think about going away assessing it,
it’s instant.” (Teacher no. 21)
8.1.7
Administrative support for pupils’ work
The fact that all activities done online in LAMS were available in electronic format offered
some administrative support for teachers as well as providing a 24/7 point of access to
students’ contributions online.
Section 8.1.5 on monitoring discussed the facilities available to teachers to retrieve whole
class and individual responses online. Teachers commented that the digitally produced
LAMS work was easier to mark and return to students. One teacher copied and pasted
students’ responses into Word at home, then, “cut little bits of paper and say that’s what [the
student] did wrong and why.” (Teacher no. 2)
The Submit activity was considered by teachers to be a feature that provided administrative
support by gathering pupils’ work in one place. For instance, one teacher asked students to
submit a PowerPoint and she was surprised to find out that the submitted mails came directly
to her email and she was able to, “look at them … it was so fantastic” (Teacher no. 2)
8.1.8
Allows subject ICT-skill integration
Teachers commented that LAMS is an excellent tool by which non-ICT subjects can integrate
the use of ICT in a seamless, meaningful way. Teachers are required to integrate ICT within
their own subject area, “as much as possible … [using LAMS] is one very easy way for me to
do that.” (Teacher no. 10)
A teacher expressed the view that LAMS, because it offers a variety of teaching tools and
teaching strategies, “taught me a great deal about how to make more creative subject
specific ICT lessons” (Final LAMS questionnaire).
This sentiment was shared by other teachers:
“…when I go to the computer room [and use LAMS], I teach my subject, I teach geography in the
computer room, as opposed to typing up some geography work in the computer room that you did
in the classroom.” (Teacher no. 1)
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“I think one of the problems regarding History and ICT, or quite a lot of subjects, is that your ICT
co-ordinator basically has this thing where he wants ICT skills taught in your lesson. I’m a
historian, and if you’ve got ICT skills you’re lucky. It’s all about using the technology to enhance
student learning. Whereas nine times out of ten in an ICT lesson in history we might be using a
PowerPoint or looking at a webpage or making some kind of Word document or Publisher
document, here [with LAMS] it’s about cognitive learning. That, for me, is what it should be about.”
(Teacher no. 19)
The consensus expressed by these teachers was that LAMS allowed the teaching of their
own subject area with the development of subject skills and knowledge moving to the
foreground, whilst the more purely ICT skills moved to the background. LAMS lessons,
therefore, were less about using and enhancing skills in Microsoft packages such as
PowerPoint and more about curricular development e.g. nurturing pupils’ analytical skills.
One teacher pointed out that this shift of emphasis needed to be explicitly recognised both by
teachers and pupils, but that LAMS was supportive in this process:
“[Students] are used to seeing typically Office applications. When they see something like LAMS,
it’s just totally different. ... But once you can get over that, you can see the benefit of it.” (Teacher
no. 24)
The idea implicit in the above quote was that the benefits of LAMS may need to be spelt out
for those to whom it was not evident at first glance. But perhaps more importantly, it pointed
to the power of LAMS in facilitating the change in individuals' own teaching practices.
A teacher trainee at pre-qualifying level observed that her students really appreciated that
the LAMS lesson she taught was very well structured, and after delivering lessons with
LAMS, she commented that she, “can’t imagine how better to structure an ICT lesson. I don’t
know any other way. I have never been taught, ‘This is how you teach history in an ICT
room.’” (Teacher no. 20) To this teacher, of the available strategies for integrating ICT in
subject lessons, LAMS seemed to offer a structure on which she could confidently build her
lessons. The teacher’s comments suggest that considering LAMS to be included at training
level e.g. for PGCE teachers may make sense, widening the horizon of approaches available
to trainee teachers.
8.1.9
Re-use and adaptation
Section 6.1 indicated the extent of sequence reuse derived from system usage statistics.
There was evidence of teachers adapting their own work as well as teachers re-using other
people’s work, with the former being much more frequent. Teacher interviews also confirmed
that they saw the potential of re-using LAMS sequences. During the pilot, teachers were able
to access sequences created in the public area, in their institutional area and those put on
the SST LAMS pilot website or some created by LAMS workshop participants. (Sequences
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not visible to anyone else were stored in individuals' private LAMS space). Teachers found
merit in the fact that LAMS sequences could be saved electronically and then used and used
again. As one teacher commented, “you’ve got it for life once you’ve saved it.” (Teacher
no. 11) Teachers found that adapting a previously written LAMS sequence was very easy. A
LAMS sequence can be imported or exported into an individual's private LAMS space.
Efficiency gains through re-use were recognised by schools that, in turn, had planned a
strategy for developing and sharing subject sequences within departments. Teachers had
varying attitudes to LAMS and time saving. Some had thought that creating a sequence in
LAMS did not take longer than creating a normal lesson plan. Some thought it was faster and
some found it took an inordinate time to create a sequence. Attitudes depended on the
nature of activities involved, the resources readily available to them, teachers’ ICT skills and
their access to the Internet out of hours.
“Yes, we share them. Because that was my concern … You could spend at least half an hour up
to an hour writing your sequence and that’s not practical to do that on a regular basis.” (Teacher
no. 23)
What teachers understood was that having sequences shared by departments would reduce
their workload in the longer term:
“Once you have done the sequences, anybody can use them, of course, and adapt them if they
want to, then make a copy and just change a few things for different level of abilities because that’
s possible.” (Teacher no. 2)
The above quote concisely summarises the power of LAMS for re-use of lesson plans: LAMS
facilitates both the re-use and the adaptation of sequences seamlessly. It is easy to import or
copy an existing sequence, or to change a few instructions, re-order activities or adjust the
content of the actual activities within LAMS.
Various approaches were adopted with regard to storing these sequences for shared use.
Some individuals used the institutional shared space within LAMS, others stored sequences
within the school network outside LAMS. One teacher pointed out that they adopted the latter
strategy because they were able to store sequences by subject area, while LAMS only
offered a limited way of storing sequences, in a long unsorted list, which made it difficult to
find sequences.
One school which decided to take on a departmental approach identified that if they were to
create ten LAMS sequences across the department with all staff contributing, those ten
sequences would serve as the basis for future re-use. An added benefit of sharing was that
delivering the same sequence across the department would ensure a consistent teaching
approach:
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“You make a collection of sequences, you make everyone aware of them, you put them in the
schemes of work so even new staff then, when involved with the training, will know how to access
them and know where they’re going to be used. And then we use those.” (Teacher no. 23)
The above approach encapsulates the whole intention of introducing learning design
systems, namely shared, adaptable and reusable pedagogies and resources.
Another benefit of sharing surfaced in a Special Needs Unit in one of the pilot schools. A
communicator for hearing impaired students mentioned the importance of providing access
to the same kind of teaching for hearing impaired students as is provided in mainstream
classes. The unit developed various hard-copy and electronic resources for the hearing
impaired students based on the lesson plans of the relevant teachers e.g. in mathematics
and biology. These resources were adapted to suit the needs of hearing impaired students.
“If they’ve used LAMS in Maths and we have got the sequence from [the Maths teacher] and we
want to do the same topic… to reinforce it, then we could modify any sort of LAMS sequence”
(Teacher no. 12)
Personnel in the unit appreciated that they would be able to make these adaptations in
LAMS relatively effortlessly and, for instance, they could, “cut [the LAMS sequence] down a
bit” or, “pick up the main point” (Teacher no. 12), thereby building up a bank of LAMS
resources that could be used by other special needs children:
“It’s just going to save a lot of work, I think…we will all have a good bank of sequences like that.
That will be really good.” (Teacher no. 13)
Most literature on re-using e-learning resources has raised the issue of institutional and
professional cultures which may demonstrate reluctance to share between practitioners.
Evidence of this reluctance was indicated in the JISC LAMS evaluation study (Masterman
and Lee, 2005). A trace of this attitude was mentioned by one teacher, although she did not
experience this at their own school:
“You get odd teachers in schools who are very protective of what they have made… But we have
not encountered that here really…" (Teacher no. 12)
Some pilot schools were working together as part of a network and participation in the LAMS
pilot was one element in this new way of working together. Two schools used LAMS for
team-teaching a personal and social education activity between their schools in which
students learnt about setting up a cyber-café. Another school had plans for linking with
schools outside the UK with two classes of children accessing the same sequence. Clearly,
teachers realised the benefits of using LAMS for collaborative teaching across geographical
boundaries.
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Teachers were aware that there would be differences between schools in the student
characteristics as well as the way subjects were taught (e.g. different schools might use
different text books for French): “I don’t think sequences will be used wholesale because they
will be particular to the school.” (Teacher no. 4)
Another teacher saw that, in such scenarios, LAMS sequences would require to be adapted
to some extent:
“In the future that’s what we are hoping to do, is create sequences jointly and then run the two
together, so that both schools use the same sequence, although we appreciate that there might be
little bits to change because obviously, the two schools are slightly different.” (Teacher no. 1)
The LAMS community site (being launched at the time of report writing) aims to provide a
public forum for the LAMS community to promote re-use. Further investigations, e.g. in the
form of longitudinal studies, examining the impact of the community site as well as schoolbased practices, are suggested.
8.1.10 Cross-curricular advantages
LAMS is “inclusive”. This point was made at the Coventry LAMS workshop by one of the pilot
school's staff. LAMS does not divide teachers but can foster inclusiveness, irrespective of
what subject they teach. The sense was that in the past, certain staff members were put off
by software that was available to teachers teaching a different subject whilst unavailable to
them. Teacher interviews confirmed this more inclusive view of LAMS with teachers
frequently commenting, “this can be done in any subject”.
LAMS is able to offer support for various teaching strategies and permits the individual
teacher to decide how they are best utilised in their own subject area – ample examples are
given in Section 9. Further, there are generic, cross-curricular skills that teachers can
promote through LAMS, such as analytical, critical thinking skills.
8.2 Benefits to pupils – Teachers’ perceptions
The LAMS practitioner visits recorded a broad range of qualitative evidence relating to
individual objectives achieved by staff. This section offers a summary of teachers’ feedback
on these anticipated and unanticipated LAMS benefits for pupils as perceived by teachers.
Some of the benefits were confirmed by students themselves in the course of focus group
interviews. Before reviewing the sub-themes in the next sections, here is one teacher’s
summary of why he thought LAMS benefited pupils:
“I think that what makes [LAMS] work well is that, first of all, it’s different. It’s different than the way
they normally learn in a classroom. It keeps them engaged, it gives the pupils focus on what they
are doing, on the task that they’re doing. There’s nothing to take them away from that… there’s no
bright colours, no interactive things, no fancy Flash things that actually can distract people. It is
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laying it straight to the point and they know exactly what it is that they’re trying to achieve. I think
as well that pupils also see what their outcome is. They can actually see what they’re achieving
themselves so…that’s why it works, that’s why it’s successful.” (Teacher no. 9)
8.2.1
Guided structure to progress
Section 8.1.1 described how LAMS supported teaching by offering teachers a lesson
structure. The same benefit was observed by teachers from the point of view of students.
They had found that LAMS offered a guided structure for students to progress through
learning materials.
“They could see what they were doing, they could actually see the progression through their
lesson which maybe is not so clear in normal classroom lessons.” (Teacher no. 9)
“Year 9 said ‘This is very well structured, I knew what I was doing, went through it bit by bit’,
…Children like to know what they are doing.” (Teacher no. 20)
The presence of guidance was linked to motivation, as one teacher pointed out:
“they can see down on one side, what activities they have got to do, they can see how far they are
with a sequence and it is motivation.” (Teacher no. 1)
Pupils confirmed that they welcomed the step-by-step approach in LAMS:
“It’s good as well ‘cos it’s all set out for you and when you finish one thing you just go straight on
to the next thing.” “You don’t have to ask the teacher what to do next.” (Year 7 pupil)
Not only was it easier to go through the lesson from one activity to another, learning in
different steps but this way of scaffolding learning increased recall and confidence:
“And LAMS helped us …we thought that we didn’t know too much about evaluations but the LAMS
programme helped us like to see that we did know quite a bit.” (Year 9 pupil)
Students also connected the sequence with some unspecified attribute that kept them on
task as opposed to normal lessons when such shepherding was not present:
”It’s not as set. With [LAMS] you have to do what it tells you to do. But you can get diverted in the
[normal] lesson and diverted in the lesson and go off and talk about it one thing.” (Year 12 pupil)
8.2.2
Seeing whole class ideas
Teachers used a variety of approaches in LAMS, such as collaborative and constructivist
learning activities. Tasks that presented students with ideas and responses from the whole
class (such as the Question and Answer, Chat, Voting and Forum activities) were particularly
valued. These tasks ensured that all pupils participated in discussion and, “not just the usual
‘leaders’ within the group.” (Final LAMS questionnaire) One teacher, who was considering
the involvement of pupils from other schools accessing the same forum as his students,
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envisaged that it would create a competitive atmosphere and, “might make my kids work
harder…they want to have a bit of one-upmanship.” (Teacher no. 19).
More generally, these activities on the one hand valued each student’s view by presenting it
to the whole class, and on the other hand, offered students a range of different views:
“It is excellent in that [students] can instantly see their work being recognised and that they can
absorb views that they may not have been party to before.” (Final LAMS questionnaire)
“So actually, by sharing, they are in a sense coming up with best practice because they can share
all their ideas and then see that maybe someone else has got a different perspective on it which is
actually more appropriate and relevant than they had themselves.” (Teacher no. 24)
One impact of using such LAMS activities was that students came to value the chance to
contribute ideas as well as seeing each other’s ideas:
“I like the forums because you can actually talk to people over the Internet…and link up to people
rather than having to talk to the teacher who‘s then gonna have to pass on to other people, you
can just speak directly to them.” (Year 7 pupil)
“I liked seeing who put what and how many people said 'no' and how many people said 'yes'.”
(Year 7 pupil)
Students were able to make judgements as to how their response compared with other
people’s responses (self-assessment), compare other pupils’ responses against the learning
goal (peer-assessment) and evaluate how they could improve their own responses
(reflection). This whole-class view of responses might have been particularly helpful to lower
achieving pupils who were able to see what their problems may have been. In the traditional
classroom, the teacher may ask a question and students respond by putting their hands up.
As teachers and students pointed out, LAMS offered extras to this face-to-face scenario in
terms of the number and volume of contributions that were handled and managed by LAMS.
Students found that they were all able to contribute in LAMS without, “the teacher to pick you
to say something” (Year 7 pupil), and in the case of forums, respond to anyone they want to,
“not by shouting out but writing on the computer.” (Year 7 pupil) In normal classroom
situations, there were obviously occasions when students had a really good idea but were
not able to tell anyone when they were not picked, while in LAMS, “you can just say it any
time without being asked.” (Year 7 pupil)
Had all students been invited to contribute to traditional classroom tasks, there could have
been a logistical issue in managing the volume of feedback (i.e. avoiding students talking at
the same time, or recording all contributions on the board). LAMS allowed the volume of
feedback to be registered, while at the same time managing it in a way that did not
overwhelm students or the teacher, separating and putting them together in a virtual space.
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LAMS allowed not just ideas and views to be shared but digital resources as well. One
teacher used the Share Resources activity. Students were able to upload websites which
were then discussed with their peers. This upload facility kept resources controlled within that
activity, although in this case the teacher saw it more beneficial to have this task as a small
group activity rather than allowing 30 websites to be listed. But the benefit of digitally
managing this process was much appreciated, as having to write 30 website addresses on
the board would have been too lengthy a task as well as one prone to errors.
8.2.3
Anonymous contributions – mockery and bullying
The Question and Answer tool is unique to LAMS. Depending on the teacher’s choice, it
allowed anonymous or named contributions, with the majority of teachers opting for the
former, bringing with it numerous benefits. From one perspective, LAMS was able to provide
a window onto other people’s contributions in a neutral way:
“The question and answer tools are very, very useful. I find those more useful than probably any of
the other tools because I think that, by getting them to look back at what everybody’s said without
actually knowing who’s said it, I think that’s the crucial part of it.” (Teacher no. 9)
“And it’s kind of voyeuristic, you are looking into someone else’s mind without fear of being
caught. [Students] quite enjoyed that.” (Teacher no. 22)
“ … you can poke your nose into someone else’s stuff, but in a sharing way so that all the
information was there for each of them to see. But again, it was discreet sharing so it wasn’t able
to point fingers at anybody who put something daft or silly. Or even the ones who are very bright
are able then to actually help the ones that are struggling with the ideas.” (Teacher no. 15)
Both teachers and pupils found that the anonymous contributions as well as the neutral
computer-student interaction obviated the possibility of overt mockery and bullying that might
be associated with exchanges in traditional lessons. One teacher talked of a particular pupil
who was very bright and who used to contribute to classroom discussions until he started to
get bullied:
“If you are in classroom situation, he tends to now sit back and not get involved quite so much,
because he is actually quite embarrassed of being quite a lot more intelligent verbally than the
other kids.” (Teacher no. 1)
With LAMS, the teacher commented, the pupil was able to make contributions even if his
answers could have been attributable to him. In a focus group interview, students discussed
the fact that they liked the Question and Answer activity as it didn’t give away who was
saying what:
Pupil 1: “And then they won’t know, it’s you saying it, [you won’t] get beaten up [laughs]…”
Interviewer: “How would that happen? …”
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Pupil 1: “Because sometimes, if you, like, say something in class then other people will disagree
with you and start an argument. If you say it, it might cause and argument or cause a fight.”
Pupil 2: “And sometimes if you act too clever…”
Pupil 1 [in background]: “you get bullied”
Pupil 2: “…or if you just speak too much, or ask too many questions, you get bullied and called a
swot.” (Year 9 pupils)
Using LAMS was recognised to benefit another student group, those who were naturally shy
or reserved when it came to classroom discussions. A teacher commented that LAMS
allowed: “even the shyest and most timid pupils to compare what their thoughts are with the
rest of the group in a … discreet way.” (Teacher no. 15)
Pupils also cited examples of other shy students whom LAMS benefited. One said LAMS
made quieter people work: “There’s a quiet person in our class and she was replying to
everyone today. She won’t usually talk but she’s been quite good.” (Year 7 pupil)
The anonymous contributions had the potential to prevent students, e.g. lower achieving
students or indeed students at any level of performance, feeling embarrassment should they,
“say something wrong” (Year 7 pupil) or make, “a silly question”: “it’s not as if everyone will
start laughing at you” (Year 9 pupil)
Through increasing the engagement of a range of students groups (lower as well as higher
achieving pupils), teachers felt that one great advantage of LAMS was that it created a nonjudgemental environment in which the negative potential to ‘make mistakes’ was turned into
a positive. Students felt that their contributions, whatever they might be, were valued: they
were all part of the learning process.
8.2.4
LAMS nurtures confidence
Teachers held the view that LAMS nurtured the confidence of students and this benefit had
various facets, e.g. that students would become confident in sharing ideas:
“Indirectly will boost their confidence, make them feel ‘my opinions were just as good as other
people’s’.” (Teacher no. 15)
Using ICT for writing also boosted confidence as compared with hand-writing skills. One
teacher talked of a student who was more confident when typing on the computer possibly
because it looked neater. With computers students didn’t need to commit to an answer, e.g.
they were able to change or edit their writing or the options they chose:
“Generally, and it’s not just LAMS, the computers take away the scariness of having to commit to
an answer or to writing on the page.” (Teacher no. 12):
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Answers could be constructed in private and this was particularly useful with hearing
impaired children who had confidence issues:
“…and if you have got one [student] that’s particularly shy, not bothered because you don’t have
to put your hand up and sign it, maybe getting it wrong and being embarrassed. So they can do it
on their own and nobody has to know if it’s right or wrong. So again, that’s more of self-esteem
and getting the confidence up and working more independently.” (Teacher no. 13):
With LAMS, students were not being put on the spot:
“You are trying to draw their information out of them and make them think for themselves a little
bit, but it is a form of bullying to some extent. Because they are sitting in a classroom, they want to
learn but they feel like they are under pressure. So with LAMS, none of that exists.” (Teacher
no. 15)
Lack of peer pressure eliminated inhibitions:
“The kids that I’ve used it with, they’re enjoying much more because it’s a new technology for
them, but also because they’re able to respond without feeling peer pressure about it, which is one
of the big issues, big inhibitors to learning.” (Teacher no. 19)
8.2.5
Self-paced
Students were able to go at their own pace, benefiting both low- and high-ability students:
“… sequences guide students through activities at their own pace, and those activities can be
differentiated. I think that’s motivating to students. The tracking definitely is motivating, because it
becomes, in the gentlest possible way, a race.” (Teacher no. 4)
“I felt very much that they can work at their own pace. It increases their ability to work
independently.” (Teacher no. 20)
This advantage was also confirmed by pupils:
“You can work at your own pace. You can do as much as you want or as little as you want.”
(Year 9 pupil)
Pupil: “We can work at our own pace, don’t have to wait for anybody else.”
Interviewer: “Why is that good?”
Pupil: “Because I am pretty fast on the computer but some people might be slow.” (Year 8 pupil)
8.2.6
Continuously working
Students were continuously working when using LAMS, it kept them on task:
“Normally, the class, when you do traditional methods, a lot of the students lose attention, quick,
because some parts are due to the special needs, and sometimes the kids just don’t want to be
there. But today the kids were really on task and at the end of it we saw figures coming out…kids
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were saying, ‘Why’s that your best theme park?’ ‘Because we’ve got it’s only 60.6 miles away’,
that’s what you like to see as a teacher, whereas…if you give them handouts and things, they
wouldn’t have been on task as they could have got disturbed…but the fact that they’re on a laptop
and it’s structured, that really does help.” (Teacher no. 11)
This advantage also emerged from a different perspective. Students also found that using
LAMS helped them concentrate:
Pupil 1: “It’s better than the teacher sitting there and talking and everyone listening because you
could start daydreaming but…”
Pupil 2: “Yeah, you lose concentration.”
Pupil 1: “But you always do something on the Internet with this [referring to LAMS].”
Interviewer: “So you lose concentration normally. Why is it different with this LAMS?”
Pupil 1: “Because everyone always enjoys the computers.”
Pupil 3: “It’s more fun than listening to the teacher.” (Year 11 pupils)
8.2.7
Immediate resource
The ‘Share Resources’ activity allowed teachers to give a rapid point-of-access to the
materials whether Internet sites or other digital files. It also eliminated students’ needing to
spend time searching and locating digital resources via the web:
“It’s just all there at their fingertips.” (Teacher no. 5)
“On the actual LAMS you can set your objectives out and then you direct them straight into the
website.” (Teacher no. 11)
“You can direct the girls to work that has been downloaded for them to read or direct them to an
Internet site; [GCSE] Bitesize for example. Because they are not involved with surfing, they are
more likely to reach their destination.” (Final LAMS questionnaire Teacher no. 21)
An added advantage of LAMS is that Internet research can be very controlled and guided,
therefore more efficient:
“Whereas if I give them a task sheet and get them to do their own research, especially with the
lower ability group, they find it difficult to search on the Internet, they find it difficult to filter through
the information that they get. So if I ask them to search about tropical rainforests, because of the
phenomenal amount of stuff that they’ll get up there, they can’t actually work out which website is
going to be best and which information is best and they’ll just randomly copy everything. Whereas
with LAMS, I can take them to a specific website and I can also, as the instruction tells them,
which pieces to read, which pieces to select, so they know what actually they are looking at. It’s
much more guided for students.” (Teacher no. 1)
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Instant feedback
Students benefited from instant feedback whether it was the automated feedback e.g. in the
multiple choice tool or seeing the whole class ideas of other students:
“That feedback, either the spontaneous or in the next lesson, has an impact on their learning,
because if they know straight away that there is something wrong with their answers or they
haven’t constructed a sentence properly, they will make progress from that point and saying 'Yes, I
can see what’s wrong with their answer', so it has an impact on their learning in a better way.”
(Teacher no. 2)
“And the multiple choice I think is great because…at the end of it they come back with the
answers and we can write comments specific to that particular question ….” (Teacher no. 11)
From the students’ perspective, instant feedback was also reported to be beneficial since as
one student pointed out, bad answers didn’t stick in one’s head as on the computer these
could be corrected, whilst in an exercise book there was no immediate feedback:
“When you’re working out of an exercise book and you’re answering questions and writing them
down, well, as soon as you write them down it doesn’t tell you whether you’re right or wrong so
that answer that you wrote it stays in your head and you think that’s right, but if you’re on the
computer you can click the answers and correct them.” (Year 9 pupil)
Students added another advantage to teachers’ comments, i.e. that they were able to try
their answers again:
“It’s just good, because you can see what you have done wrong and they tell you why or they tell
you or they go on to explain why you have got it wrong. Give you a chance to go back and do the
ones that you got wrong again.” (Year 12 pupil)
8.2.9
ICT as motivation
The fact that LAMS allows teachers to use ICT as motivator was confirmed through teacher
and pupil interviews and observations:
“They are quite motivated in the ICT room. That’s a change to what they normally do in science.
Yes, they are motivated just due to the fact that they’re going to an ICT room.” (Teacher no. 23)
Certain pupil groups, as teachers commented, were attracted to computers more. For
instance, boys or pupils with attention deficit problems or hearing impaired students “who
actually like going on the computers.” (Teacher no. 12)
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8.2.10 Active and independent learning
Teachers found that LAMS promoted active and independent learning, nurturing study skills
through the use of its in-built activities. It also lent itself well to exploratory and discovery
learning where students had to do research using digital resources, whilst eliminating the
‘copy-and-paste’ culture of previous ICT subject lessons:
“If I was doing an ordinary lesson, it would be a PowerPoint presentation or it would be a word
document. And again, you’d always tend to find that at least two or three [students] would just be
copying and pasting from the Internet and LAMS stops them doing that, and makes them actually
work for themselves.” (Teacher no. 1)
“The pupils are active in learning, because they are doing things on the computer” (Teacher no. 2)
At times teachers incorporated interactive resources in their sequences to enhance active
learning opportunities:
“They liked the grammar exercise which I embedded from another link to another site which they
quite liked this because it’s interactive.” (Teacher no. 2)
LAMS supporting independent learning was a particular benefit for hearing impaired
students:
“When you are actually supporting a hearing impaired child, they are completely dependent on
you all the time to make sure they have understood the questions, make sure that they have got
the right answers. They can be quite under-confident, can’t they, saying, ‘Is that right?’, checking
all the time, ‘Am I right? Am I right?’. And LAMS, we are hoping that LAMS will stop some of that.
You do part of it and say ‘You do this on your own, you work independently’. And I think that was
shown today, that they can actually work independently without constant checking. There is more
scope for it, because you can leave them to it more.” (Teacher no. 12)
8.2.11 Teacher control, with pupil autonomy
Teachers believed that LAMS allowed them an unobtrusive authority during the session.
From the teacher’s perspective, this benefit was evidenced in a way that, in contrast with the
traditional classroom scenario where the teacher is at the front directing the students, the
teachers’ parading authority in front of the class is unnecessary, yet at the same time, LAMS
allows teachers to stay in charge:
“… although [students] don’t feel that I am in control, I am actually in control of how the lesson is
going, because they are working through it in the way that I want them to.” (Teacher no. 1).
For the student, the benefit of LAMS was that the teacher’s support was implicitly present in
the LAMS sequence (i.e. through the learning design), guiding them through their learning. In
complementary fashion, students felt a sense of control as active, autonomous learners. This
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may be particularly important in an age cohort that is examining adult authority in relation to
personal identity, control and independence.
“Because they felt, because it’s sequenced, they are actually following an order of doing it…
Although they don’t feel that I am in control, I am actually in control of how the lesson is going,
because they are working through it in the way that I want them to.” (Teacher no. 1)
Not only teachers but pupils believed that LAMS moved them into the foreground of teaching
and learning interactions which they described as:
“You’re actually doing it for yourself and figuring answers out for yourself instead of the teacher
actually telling you them and you having to learn them. You’re learning as you think about the
questions and answers.” (Year 9 pupil)
“I think you concentrate a bit more on it ‘cos when you’re sat for ages just listening to the teacher it
gets kind of boring but…you can take your time on computers, you can just like have a little break
and then carry on with what you’re doing.” (Year 7 pupil)
8.3 Personalisation and differentiation
One of the review’s aims was to explore LAMS’ potential in offering support for
personalisation. Personalisation was interpreted in different ways by practitioners:
1) Personalisation features at the technical level e.g. ability to change font size and colour
(accessibility options).
2) LAMS supporting different learning styles.
3) LAMS supporting differentiated pupil ability, experience, and achievement levels
including special needs.
These different aspects of personalisation are discussed below.
1) LAMS offers a limited although improving level of personalisation at the interface level
and the highly textual nature of the system rules it out of teachers’ consideration for
certain groups of learners (e.g. for those with literacy problems). Some students would
have liked a bigger font size, an option which was not available in LAMS.
2) Teachers have supported pupils with (assumed) different learning styles by building
appropriate resources into learning sequences. LAMS is not yet friendly to auditory or
visual modalities as it has a manifest lack of integrated multimedia capabilities. Teachers
tended to use interactive websites or multimedia files to overcome this limitation.
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"At [our school] …they do learn a lot better with visual stimulus. Whereas at [another local school],
because they might have been [in the studied foreign country] themselves, they don’t need that
extra bit of support and guidance," (Teacher no. 1)
During focus group interviews, students also indicated certain preferences for different
learning styles:
“I liked the roller coaster ‘cos it’s a lot better and easier to understand than a load of writing and it
had pictures and just the simple explanation of who he was and why they were there.” (Year 7
pupil)
One student commented that she favoured a combination of online and offline
discussions:
“But then people that are loud like me and [pupil name] think it’s better to talk and write at the
same time so it’s kind of good in the way that you can all chat to people by writing but I need some
talking in it.” (Year 7 pupil)
3) Teachers saw the potential of LAMS to offer differentiated experiences. Teachers
believed that LAMS sequences were easily adaptable for different academic achievement
levels as the following two quotes demonstrate:
Simplifying sequences for lower attaining pupils:
“But then weaker students that I used it with, because the way you can phrase the questions,
because they are shorter, much more kind of focussed questions, they feel more successful …
And for more able students, I don’t have to give that much guidance, I can just say, go to the
search engine. There is a lot of flexibility, it depends on the ability of kids you’re teaching.”
(Teacher no. 1)
“You can create a sequence as a basic sequence. But once it’s there and it’s typed up, you can
just change bits out of the sequence and create a second one that obviously incorporates the
differentiation. You could have rephrased a question or swapped the question with a multiple
choice.” (Teacher no. 1)
or setting extension tasks for high ability students:
“So we had to catch these youngsters who are coming without any knowledge and these other
people who are clearly well ahead so they come under the maybe 'able and talented' children, so
they may need some extension tasks. So you ...foresee how you might design another lesson to
follow on.” (Teacher no. 21)
One teacher was not convinced that differentiation with LAMS was necessarily a good idea,
as pupils would lose out on collaboration, the learning from peers in a mixed ability setting.
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One teacher viewed LAMS as not suitable for those with literacy problems e.g. one dyslexic
student insisted on typing his answers in Word first, as he did not want to be seen making
mistakes in LAMS. Personnel supporting a hearing impaired unit found that it benefited their
students provided sequences had lots of visual resources in them:
“If you are not hearing information, you might not necessarily then form a picture in your mind
about it. Like we hear things all the time, so we pick up incidentally grammar and form pictures of
things because we can relate it to a particular thing. Whereas the deaf children can’t. So we might
be introducing a new topic, and talk about a mountain, but they might not know what a mountain
is. Because they haven’t seen the word before, they haven’t heard about it, and they won’t know
the spelling of it. And they might not know that there are different mountains and where they are.
So, that’s why it’s so important to have pictures because they miss so much.” (Teacher no. 13)
The review showed that there was evidence, albeit limited, for the personalisation and
differentiation of sequence structures. Awareness of the potential was in greater evidence
than its realisation.
8.4 Home-school links
Teachers saw the capability of LAMS in offering opportunities for out of school learning
although there is no evidence of any model of home-school learning revealed in the course
of the review. Schools considering this issue cited inequalities between households in the
level of ICT provision available (lack of broadband access being the most consistent
problem) with the implication that not all students would be able to complete out of school
tasks.
Although the practical application was not yet in evidence, respondents revealed their vision
of LAMS potential:
“That’s a fantastic aspect of it that they can continue with it [at home] because it’s open. They can
go and finish it if they want. We would always encourage them to finish something. The fact they
wanted to go home … may be a novelty aspect to begin with. But on the other hand, it may be that
they are doing some research and setting some work over the holiday, two week-period. And they
could actually submit it to you. I haven’t done that yet. … Again, that’s something for the future
which I might try.” (Teacher no. 21)
“…we do have difficulty setting homework that they can work on independently. And we think that
it would be quite a good tool because it would be like a reinforcement on what they have already
learnt. They could go home and use it at home on their own and we could monitor what they have
done.” (Teacher no. 12)
Another teacher pondered whether giving homework tasks on the computer may mean that
pupils would be more motivated to complete it:
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“They are more likely to do it if it’s on the computer. And they know that it will be monitored and
marked. And hopefully it will give them more enthusiasm to work as well.” (Teacher no. 13)
Home-school links emerged from the pupils’ perspective as well. Students were pleasantly
surprised at focus groups to find out that they could use LAMS at home:
Pupil 1: “Can we go on it at home? … Miss can probably set us some homework on it and things
like that.”
Pupil 2: “Yeah, we haven’t done that, it would be quite interesting to do that.”
Pupil 3: “Yeah, that would be good.” (Year 12 pupils)
One student commented:
“I suppose, it would be like having a teacher at home using the system. But just quite a limited
teacher.” (Year 12 pupil)
From the context, it is possible to elaborate this student's observation. What the student
meant was that the LAMS sequence set out for their independent work had guidance that
would help her complete at home, whilst she also appreciated that the possibility of
completing the sequence at home would not replace the teacher.
Other reasons for using LAMS for out of school learning included coping with absence,
illness and excluded pupils. LAMS, with its focus on collaboration, would eliminate the feeling
of isolation which is normally associated with self-paced computer learning:
“We would see [LAMS] as a way of increasingly supporting youngsters who, for different reasons,
might be out of the curriculum and so … [those] not accessing the mainstream classroom, might
be able to use LAMS. One of the things that I like most about LAMS … I think for too many
youngsters working at a computer … using web-based…the idea [is] that LAMS can have a
youngster working in isolation but still working in relationship to others through the chatroom idea
or the extent to which pupils interact. That’s quite powerful for me.” (Teacher no. 6)
Staff were also encouraged to find out that, “they can write their sequences at home”
(Teacher no. 23).
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9 LAMS classroom practice and pedagogy
In this section observations and data relating to emerging pedagogy with LAMS are
examined. Firstly there are practical issues that arise when actually running LAMS
sequences and these apply generally across all subjects, from introducing LAMS to students
to effective means of using some LAMS features such as the monitoring function and chat
activities. The second group of data presents the review findings on emerging pedagogies
specific to the curricular subjects observed in LAMS sessions during visits and reported by
practitioners during interviews. The presentation of this practice and pedagogy represents a
tentative step towards the building of a best practice guide for using LAMS.
9.1 Attaining confidence as a LAMS practitioner
The review identified a number of common strategies (and relevant advice) that teachers
deployed in stepping from initial LAMS training on to developing confidence beyond that
basic technical knowledge. Experimenting, rehearsing, technical preparation and networking
with other professionals were consistently pointed to as important elements of building
confidence as a LAMS practitioner.
Experimentation, playing around with the system to understand its limits and idiosyncrasies,
is generally seen as a major step in attaining LAMS confidence, although this may be a timeconsuming process, “It takes a lot of playing around with to realise what you can do with it,
and what sort of things you can produce to use in a lesson and use effectively in a lesson.”
(Teacher no. 15)
Having the opportunity to look at sequences that have been delivered from the public area
and examining them at the activity level is cited as inspiring confidence as well as helping the
creation of further sequences, “Look at the sequences that are there – look through and see
what options they have used.” (Teacher no. 20)
Interestingly, one teacher explained that part of their route to attaining confidence to use the
system was to get other professionals to look over the sequences that they had created and
delivered, suggesting that this is a valuable two-way process that would form an element of
collaboration within networks of LAMS practitioners:
“So that’s really helped me in terms of building up my confidence, talking about it and using it
effectively. And then, because people have seen my lessons and seen sequences that I have
created, it’s helped me with my planning, so I know that actually, I am planning it well, because I
know the kids are going do it and I am planning it well, because other staff are going to look at it
and they are going to criticise it or pick things out of it that are good and bad.” (Teacher no. 1)
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This observation of LAMS in action, placing the sequence in the context of the classroom for
people new to LAMS, and the need for human networks of support, is highlighted by other
practitioners as good, rewarding practice,
“People need to meet with people that are beginner learners, perhaps with somebody running a
session. Because they need to feel that they are not the only ones out on a limb. They need to
hear other people’s experiences.” (Teacher no. 21)
Other, common-sense, strategies include the advice that one should, “Preview the sequence
and make sure it’s working.” (Teacher no. 2) It is important that, “the links work[ed]” (Teacher
no. 17) and that, “the wording [is] self-explanatory.” There are great benefits to be had from
rehearsing the first sequences that are made as, “…once you practise one and have done
one, and you have seen it up and running, it all becomes clear… It’s so different; you can’t
think how it’s going to work.” (Teacher no. 13) Ideally, the rehearsal should be in the room
that the sequence will be delivered as this will unearth any logistical or technical problems at
the point of delivery such as discovered by one teacher after a last-minute room change,
“…problem number one, [was] finding that my room didn’t have Flash” (Teacher no. 17)
Finally, picking a class with which to pilot the first few ‘real’ LAMS sessions can help to build
confidence with using LAMS in the classroom, whether a class is picked for its general
amenability to new teaching styles or experimentation, or, as with this teacher,
“I deliberately piloted it with my Year 12 because I have never taken that class in an ICT room
before, and I felt, this is a new system that I wanted to be confident with so I want to make sure
there is no behavioural management issues.” (Teacher no. 20)
Giving careful consideration to each of these issues when moving from creating sequences
to their first delivery was consistently indicated as contributing to the confidence of staff in
using LAMS.
9.2 Introducing LAMS to students
A picture emerged from observations and interviews of effective ways of introducing LAMS to
students. It was apparent that where students had had prior instruction in what LAMS was,
how to negotiate some key activities such as chat and what standards of behaviour were
expected (‘netiquette’ and the presence of monitoring) then these particular sessions were
focussed on the tasks rather than the processes of LAMS activity and so this area of
potential disruption was avoided.
A major benefit of LAMS is that students, generally, find LAMS very easy to use, and that
once logged-in they can start using a sequence without much trouble. However, whilst this is
true of high-level interactions (such as navigating through a sequence, knowing the minimum
necessary to click through an activity) meaningful engagement with a complex activity (such
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as Chat or Forum) requires clear guidance and purpose and this may include an element of
coaching, “Go through a training session with them, with your students, so that they get used
to the format of it before they actually try and access actual lessons.” (Teacher no. 19)
It should be added that if a teacher is unsure of how a particular complex activity should best
be deployed in a session and relies on students to understand what to do and how to
behave, then a certain degree of jeopardy is built into the session and their uncertainties and
fears might well be borne out. In an unregulated chat session, for example, with no guidance
or an explicit set of behavioural rules, the results can be chaotic.
In some cases, depending on the age and ability of classes, staff found that introducing and
explaining LAMS activities sequence by sequence allowed the students to become
comfortable with the LAMS environment at their own pace and level, “At first…I won’t
introduce everything just yet. We will make sure they know something before they use it. So
everyone likes it and everyone is happy.” (Teacher no. 13)
For a younger or lower achieving class, more complex LAMS activities might, with
advantage, be introduced on a stepped basis. For example, one history teacher with a lower
achieving class explained that the first LAMS sessions had been very simple, with the activity
interactions being Question and Answer and Multiple Choice. Once happy with those, she
had moved onto more complicated interactions such as accessing the Internet, in
subsequent sessions. The same history teacher also described how the school was
establishing a routine for the way it wanted pupils to behave in a LAMS session, from finding
passwords and logging in, to integrating other materials with the session, to the demands of
each type of activity, “The routine of having the photocopy, and having the written resource,
and logging straight in is now embedded so they’ll have to get into the routine of using
perhaps a web link, and then after that perhaps a chat forum. We’ll just build it up slowly with
them.” (Teacher no. 5)
Finally, part of the training of students should include an explanation of the monitor function
and the fact that activities such as chat are not unregulated as they might be in other
contexts, “Train them up on it…make sure they know you’re watching. There’s nothing better
than being able to go on the monitor screen and say, ‘I can see where every one of you are
and I can see what you’re doing.” (Teacher no. 19)
9.3 Integrating LAMS with pedagogical intentions
Another area of practical concern is when to use LAMS, what modes of use are possible in a
lesson and what the timing implications are. Whilst often these questions find subject-specific
answers, there are some generally applicable starting-points that can inform initial thinking
and are observable as emergent practice across subjects.
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The mode of use of LAMS in a session is a fundamental issue to consider for staff building
their LAMS confidence and expertise. Staff who have delivered several sessions and
experimented with when and for what they use LAMS, report that they can use LAMS with
some flexibility, “You can use it half the lesson, part of the lesson, introduction, plenary, I
don’t find it a problem at all.” (Teacher no. 11)
Thus on first encountering LAMS, it can be natural to think that if LAMS is used for a lesson
then that entire session must be LAMS-based. Thinking in this way will restrict the range of
possibilities described by experienced LAMS practitioners. “Initially, when we got LAMS,
people weren’t too sure of how it would work. They thought ‘Oh this…the whole lesson is
LAMS’ and if you noticed it isn’t, the whole lesson isn’t LAMS now, it’s just a tool, it’s part of a
lesson, an activity…[teachers A&B’s] lessons weren’t purely LAMS…[Teacher A]’s it was just
the introduction to the lesson…in [Teacher B]’s it was the evaluation.” (Teacher no. 18)
LAMS can be used for component parts of lessons as much as a whole session and some of
the most effective uses of LAMS by teachers observed by the review team offered the
students a mix during the lesson, “…I’ve tried to incorporate the new technology of LAMS but
also traditional teaching techniques, getting everyone back around the tables, going through
what people have put down, developing the next point and letting them back on” (Teacher
no. 19)
Experienced LAMS practitioners advise others to think carefully about when and what might
be the most suitable and rewarding use of LAMS for one’s own teaching and subject area
and to approach this thinking with flexibility, “I think the main thing is not to just do LAMS, but
to look at which lessons could be improved by using LAMS. You don’t have to be in the IT
room all the time. You can use your LAMS things and then you can go back to the classroom
with the results.” (Management Personnel no. 3)
This flexibility in thinking can also be applied during the running of LAMS sequences in a
lesson and it is important not to feel locked in to a sequence so that every activity must be
followed doggedly, and instead be prepared to miss out some LAMS activities in a sequence.
Sometimes this is related to timing issues. LAMS being a new tool means there will be some
necessary experimentation with how long activities take for the students to complete
satisfactorily, and things may take more or less time than expected, “Try and think about how
the activities that you have will work time-related, and don’t be afraid to say just because
you’ve got these sequences, or activities, you’re going to be able to do every one of
them…The first few times you might get it horribly wrong.” (Teacher no. 19)
Again, the message is that LAMS is a flexible teaching tool, not an inviolable content
sequence that must be delivered in a predetermined and mechanical manner.
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The frequency of using LAMS as a part of habitual teaching practice is also an issue that
teachers are keen to describe. Frequency of LAMS use is as much a matter of individual
choice as of the demands of any subject-specific curriculum. The review team encountered a
range of deployments, from LAMS being used at the end of every half term: “You don’t use
LAMS every lesson…LAMS is a tool…I use it, for example, to conclude schemes of work…to
round up in a multimedia sense everything that we’ve studied here in the classroom”,
(Teacher no 10) to LAMS being a weekly session building on work done in the classroom
earlier in the week.
9.4 Classroom management support function of LAMS
Another highly-valued aspect of LAMS was identified in the impact it can have on classroom
management. In part this is due to the fact that LAMS harnesses some of the motivational
aspects currently inherent in ICT and channels these energies into meaningful activities,
particularly for non-ICT subjects. Partly it is because LAMS allows teachers to tailor activities
to precisely the level and needs of their student groups but it is also because of the class
management capabilities that the teacher is given by the monitor function. The following two
sections explore firstly those aspects of the monitoring function that teachers report as most
useful and some of the emerging strategies deployed in classrooms for the most effective
utilisation of this function, and secondly, how LAMS was reported as being used to contribute
to the management of classroom behaviour.
9.4.1
Using the monitoring functions
In none of the LAMS sessions observed by the review team was the full functionality of the
monitor role exploited, although awareness of its potential was frequently reported by
interviewees, and individual aspects of monitoring were utilised extremely effectively. This
may suggest both that utilising the monitoring facility belongs to a higher (likely to be lateracquired) set of LAMS skills and also that different teaching styles currently determine only
certain functionalities as useful to immediate needs. It also suggests that different
applications of LAMS require only a limited use of the monitoring role. Some sessions
observed were run without the teacher using the monitoring function as at their early stage in
LAMS adoption, they preferred to ‘patrol’ classes and see what was being written over the
shoulder of students and engage with difficulties and problems as they found them. Teachers
who had delivered several sessions were very keen on being able to monitor student
progress from their own machine and thus target more effectively such problems, “Yes, the
monitor functions are partly the more successful sides of [LAMS]…you can see who is racing
ahead, and clearly it doesn’t always mean that they are answering in depth…you can also
pick up the strugglers in the monitor function. You can say, either 'Move on now, don’t worry
too much. Press finish and go to the next piece.' Whereas normally, you wouldn’t see who
was doing that.” (Teacher no. 21)
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Quite often, if a teacher was using the monitoring function and there was an interactive
whiteboard in the room, they would use it to display the monitoring screen so that pupils
could see that their progress was being followed and that the teacher could examine the
detail of their answers. Pupils in the relevant focus groups reported that they were aware of
this ‘power’ of the teacher and showed appreciation that it had positive aspects as well,
namely that if they were struggling, then the teacher would come and find them without them
having to put their hand up and draw the attention of the rest of the class to their problems.
Teachers reported that they felt the dynamic of the teaching room, the relationship between
teacher and students, was positively altered when they used the monitoring facility in a
session. As they would have set up each activity, they knew what exactly should be seen on
each screen. They would be secure with the sequence content, purpose and structure. When
that security is coupled with monitoring of progress and individual responses, then that
teacher feels some of the burdens of managing an ICT classroom are relieved (who is doing
what? what progress are they making? what is the quality of their answers?) and they can
enjoy a greater freedom to focus on teaching, “The way the management is taken off you
…it’s very clearly stated who’s where, who’s doing what, who’s typing what, so in terms of
discipline, you’ve got instant backup. And that’s what you need…the backup…that give[s]
you the freedom to go round everybody and focus specifically on the technical information of
the lesson rather than behaviour.”
(Teacher no. 11)
9.4.2
Behaviour management
Another interesting review finding is that some staff report improvements are possible in
classroom management of student behaviour both as a result of the structured nature of
LAMS and the effective use of monitoring functions. This covers matters such as dealing with
low-level disruption to lessons, ensuring that students are on task and engaging meaningfully
with the materials and sometimes getting work done that might not always get done in the
non-ICT classroom, particularly written work, as this history teacher explained, concerning a
lower attaining class, “They tend to get very loud when they’re in a classroom and they’re
asked to do a lot of writing” (Teacher no. 5) and that in the observed LAMS session the class
had been quiet, focussed and completed a writing exercise. The predisposition of most
students to engage with ICT materials partly underlies this change in behaviour. The visible
LAMS monitor screen at the front of the class can also contribute quite powerfully, “The
sheer presence of a computer monitor in front of you is quite a pacifying experience, I find,
because from a behaviour management point of view…I don’t have to do eye contact with all
these kids to get them to behave, it’s now…been taken over by the role of the monitor…”
(Teacher no. 10)
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LAMS encourages new ways of teaching
Teacher interviews reported various benefits which LAMS brought to their teaching practice.
The natural question that arose was whether LAMS was inspiring new ways of teaching, or
whether these benefits could have been experienced with no exposure to LAMS. One
teacher tentatively reflected that, using LAMS once a month on average, she thought LAMS
did not transform her overall teaching but, “has shown me a different way of doing
reinforcement sessions…” (Teacher no. 2)
What was also telling was what teachers did not say during the interviews: they did not
mention any other e-learning products that would have competed with what LAMS was trying
to do. (The uniqueness of LAMS is further explored in Section 12.) One teacher thought that
he could provide web links and other resources without LAMS, but what LAMS added was
involvement of all pupils in responding to questions, and the capability for him to monitor their
progress.
Other teachers appreciated that LAMS would operate as part of their teaching repertoire
rather than replacing all their teaching tools. They saw the potential of LAMS in particular
curriculum areas. In this case the important process is the selection of the topic, i.e. choosing
LAMS for lessons in which it would really enhance their teaching. This use was more about
enhancement and integration within normal teaching practice. As one manager observed:
“You don’t have to be in the IT room all the time. You can use your LAMS things and then you can
go back to the classroom with the results.” (Management Personnel no. 3)
For other teachers, LAMS did offer the possibility of different ways of teaching, whether it
was to do with the subject area, ICT skills integration or behaviour management:
“But I try now to make the emphasis much, much more on their work …because if you give them a
blank canvas first, they think that the presentation side of things counts more than the actual
content.” (Teacher no. 1)
“Definitely, yes. I didn’t have to shout. I didn’t have to discipline anybody. The kids were focussed.
My time was solely spent on helping the children to understand. ... whereas in normal classroom
you are constantly trying to manage the behaviour or the talking levels…there was none of that.”
(Teacher no. 11)
Evidence of the potential of LAMS to modify or transform the teaching/learning interaction
was also indicated. More than one teacher commented on LAMS promoting a more
collaborative learning atmosphere which was replacing the ‘chalk-and-talk’ type of delivery:
“Yeah, it’s something for the future definitely, working away from the teacher working at the front
and learning from each other. I am trying to do that a lot with them.” (Teacher no. 2)
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LAMS acted as a catalyst for change within certain school practices. One school piloted
LAMS within a local network of schools, looking at innovations, and found that through using
LAMS, they picked up new ideas for their teaching practice and developed new ideas in
tandem:
“And planning it between the two schools kind of pulled in loads of different resources, and it gave
us a different way of thinking, because you don’t necessarily appreciate ideas that are successful
in another school, you might not have thought of them here, so we picked up lots of ideas from
each other, so it’s been very useful.” (Teacher no. 1)
Another example showed that the online work with LAMS stimulated other ideas, such as not
only having teachers from different schools working together, but having children offering
instruction and support to their peers and communicating with other children through LAMS:
“.. leading learners … could be student teachers, but they could be students as well. They could
be year 11 students working in a forum with year 7 students.” (Management Personnel no. 3)
9.5 Using LAMS for subject teaching: Case studies
This section describes the pedagogical practice surrounding LAMS use in the individual
subject areas. Due to the relatively small scale of LAMS activity available to the review team,
the sample was purposively selected, based on the available LAMS practice at the time and
schools which were ready to be visited by researchers. The case studies cover a range of
subjects, year groups (year 7 to year 12) and student achievement levels.6 Table 26 shows
the foci of the observed lessons with regards to their LAMS use grouped by subject areas. It
can be seen that although sequences were subject-specific, there was also considerable
common ground in terms of pedagogy.
6
Year 7 = 11-12 year olds and Year 12= 17-18 year old students.
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Table 26 Range of LAMS uses
Humanities including Geography
Visit
Subject
Year
Key LAMS lesson focus
03
History
9
Developing confidence in historical research – using Internet sources to
learn about D-day in World War II.
05
History
7
Revising the bubonic plague using multimedia and discussions.
10
History
7
Developing analytical historians and decision makers – using a forum to
discuss how Elizabeth I resolved problems of her reign and voting to
decide whether Elizabeth I should execute Mary, Queen of Scots.
11
Politics
12
Doing independent research – getting to know Internet resources on the
US presidential election 2004 to be used at AS2 level for US Politics.
01
Geography
9
Integrating ICT within geography: promoting self-directed discoveries –
comparing countries using different web resources.
13
Religious
Education
9
Challenging beliefs – using the forum to share ideas about what beliefs
we have and where our beliefs come from.
02
Modern
Foreign
Languages
9
Revising French language – directions and grammar using question and
answer and existing language resources,
Other options for using LAMS for MFL included using forum/chat and
resources for acquiring cultural skills.
12
English
9
Opportunities for instant and individualised formative assessment –
eliciting students’ ideas on literary texts.
Science, Maths and ICT
07
Science
11
Promoting confidence of hearing impaired students – using LAMS with
visual resources for revision.
08
Science
9
Evaluating a scientific experiment – guided self- and peer-assessment
of team contributions in the hydrogen fuel mixture rocket project.
14
Science
11
Ethical issues in science – experimenting with a range of strategies to
achieve lesson objectives (using chat, multiple choice and Internet
research and presentation)
06
Maths
9
Decision making using Maths – analysing theme park statistics
04
ICT
-
Applying knowledge to a real life situation – discussing and
demonstrating the safe setting-up of a PC for a night club.
09
ICT
8
Cover ICT lesson – guided website evaluation.
15
Business
12
Seeing different perspectives, sharing ideas and learning to support
arguments – the purpose and uses of balance sheets as a management
tool.
Of the fifteen practitioner visits, seven are discussed below in more detail: five Humanities,
one Science and one Maths session. Each observed lesson is grouped under a subject area
including the rationale for using LAMS, the aims and objectives of the lesson, the pupil
characteristics, summary of the LAMS sequence and the pedagogical fit of using LAMS for
the given subject as seen from the teacher’s point of view. The quotes used in each case
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study are from the teachers whose classroom session was observed unless otherwise noted.
Where possible, a snapshot of the LAMS sequence has been included.
9.5.1
Using LAMS for teaching History: developing confidence in historical research
Rationale for using LAMS
 The teacher in this lesson was not a history specialist and was delivering a cover
session. She was looking for something well-structured for her low attaining group so
it, “seemed the next logical step to give LAMS a go”. LAMS helped her focus on the
lesson.
 LAMS’ step-by-step structure allowed the teacher to develop more advanced skills in
history for low attaining groups, such as interrogating and analysing online and offline
evidence, making connections between causes and events relating to D-day.
Aims and Objectives
To learn what happened on D-day and how it helped win the Second World War.
Pupil characteristics
Lower set (4 out of 5) year 9 pupils at an inner city mixed-sex comprehensive (Birmingham)
with a high proportion of pupils for whom English was not their first language.
The LAMS sequence
The LAMS sequence contained a number of short activities. Activities combined interrogation
of online as well as offline resources. For instance, students had to find out from a web
resource what D-day stood for then share it with their group using a Question and Answer
task, or they had to find answers to a question using handouts from the text book, e.g. who
the Allies were by 1942.
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Hard copy materials were used
alongside LAMS.
Short Multiple Choice questions and the Notebook exercise checked pupils' understanding of
the resources read.
At the end of the lesson, students were asked to complete a task sheet in writing,
summarising what they had found out during their online research.
LAMS pedagogical fit
Teachers could support pupils
remotely and directly.

The teacher was able to balance collaborative classroom work on Tuesdays and
individual computer work using LAMS on Thursdays, with the LAMS session being a
continuation or a round-up of the previous classroom session.
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Through the LAMS activities, students engaged in independent historical research. They,
“have got to look at sources, they’ve got to extract information from the sources, decide
how valuable that information is, and … they’re doing that in front of the computer…”
The LAMS session offered a structure, leading students step-by-step through the lesson
activities. They conducted historical research, looked at information resources, located
relevant information and summarised the evidence, “What they’re doing is actually, I
suppose, it’s quite complex. They’re reading a question over on the computer screen.
They’ve got to find their answer on a piece of paper, so they’ve got to read through
everything, and they’ve got to take that and type it back up so picking it apart that’s quite
a complex skill for a lower ability year 9 group.”
The teacher found that this group responded better to writing tasks when in the computer
room, “I think they’ve just got this ‘Oh, we’re writing in a classroom therefore we must be
learning’; ‘Oh, we’re writing in a computer room, it must be fun.’” Students were more
motivated working on LAMS than in classroom sessions.
Typing on the computer was also a confidence booster for students, some of whom had
low literacy levels or English as a second language. Students also typed faster than when
handwriting so produced more work.
LAMS also offered a time-saver in the form of the Share Resources activity: students did
not need to type in the URL of the resource, sites were just, “one click away”, preselected by the teacher.
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Using LAMS for teaching History: revising using multimedia and discussions
Rationale for using LAMS
LAMS provides good opportunities for revision supported by a sequence of activities that
contains multimedia resources and collaborative activities (e.g. chat) used to consolidate
historical knowledge.
Aims and objectives
 To revise what was learnt about the bubonic plague.
 To prepare a PowerPoint presentation for the public to recognise the symptoms of the
bubonic plague.
Pupil characteristics
Year 7 mixed-ability pupils in an all boys’ Technology College in Bromley.
Sequence description
Students were asked to look at various resources, including images portraying people
suffering from bubonic plague. Pupils created PowerPoint presentations in which they had to
inform the public of how to recognise the symptoms of the bubonic plague, searching
independently for images on the web. Although this particular sequence did not contain a
Chat activity, Chat is an activity frequently used by this History teacher to promote discussion
for revision purposes.
LAMS Pedagogical fit
 The teacher of History uses LAMS for concluding schemes of work every half term. Prior
to the observed session, students were learning about life in the Middle Ages and the
causes and symptoms of the bubonic plague.
 The LAMS session reinforced students’ knowledge by using visual resources depicting
people infected by the bubonic plague. The session fitted the statutory ICT requirements
for Key Stage 3 historical enquiry in that students used a range of appropriate sources of
information including artefacts, pictures and photographs as a basis for independent
historical enquiries. The teacher found that visual reinforcement was effective with this
group of students.
 Following the guided resource discovery, students had to use the Internet to search and
locate images for a poster, which was to call the attention of the public to the symptoms
of the plague. This LAMS activity promoted students’ skills in presenting and
communicating ideas in different formats.
 With LAMS, existing resources were easily incorporated into the lesson. LAMS is like a,
“coat hanger…the master structure programme and from that you can link onto it all sorts
of other little things…for example in my bubonic plague LAMS session there I had linked
it to a website that runs little animations on how you actually get pneumonic and bubonic
plague”.
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Using a chat activity at the end of a LAMS lesson helped consolidate pupils’ knowledge
through interactions. For instance, children learning about Richard III putting the princes
in the tower have, “obviously got to find what the reasons for it was, the reason why he
did that. What were his real intentions? What kind of a guy was Richard III? That sort of
thing. And the kids kind of pull in all this evidence, all the things that they’ve learnt for the
last couple of lessons into this one chat room, and they can start hammering out
opinions, and it really gets quite animated and enthusiastic.”
The model of LAMS being, “1 on 1 instead of 1 on 30”, that is, 1 pupil working in front of a
monitor, instead of 1 teacher talking to 30 pupils, helps the teacher to manage classroom
behaviour effectively. This is especially relevant to history which is about, “interactions
between people, events, and situations of the past”, and so classroom communication is
important for learning. With the chat activity being online classroom noise can be kept to
the minimum, the teacher can monitor the online discussions, “and I don’t have to break
them up, it’s all in cyberspace.”
The teacher found that LAMS and working on the computer enhanced the engagement of
boys; pupils contributed more to the lesson than in normal lessons.
9.5.3
Using LAMS for teaching History: Developing analytical historians and decision-makers
Rationale for using LAMS
LAMS offers a range of tools that allow the teacher to foster the development of analytical
historians as well as good decision makers.
Aims and objectives
To discuss whether Elizabeth I successfully solved the problems that beset her during her
reign.
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LAMS was used to
complement more traditional
text book methods.
The LAMS sequence
1. Share resources: students complete an online lesson that highlights the religious turmoil in
Tudor times represented by a rollercoaster using an interactive Flash animation.
2. Q&A: Students read a page of the text book and imagine that they are a member of the
Privy Council. They need to write a response telling Elizabeth I what to do regarding any
marriage to Philip II of Spain, including their reasoning. Students’ responses are then shared
with the whole class online.
3. Forum: students are asked to contribute to one or more threads of the forum:
a) Did Elizabeth’s actions work? Elizabeth’s response of keeping the peace could be
said to have worked yet religious terrorism continued. Therefore can she be judged to
have succeeded or failed?
b) The impact of Bloody Mary – Mary caused a great deal of problems to Elizabeth. If
you read pages 58 to 59, you can see the reasons why but is it really Mary’s fault or
is she just someone pinned with the title and the blame for the religious problems of
England?
c) A country cannot be safe until there are two countries – William Cecil. What do you
think William Cecil meant by this statement? “Those who differ in their service of God,
can never agree in the service of their country.” Was he right or was he stirring up
more religious hatred?
4. Survey: based on a text book question, students vote whether Elizabeth should execute
Mary, Queen of Scots or not.
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Although working
individually, pupils
were aware of the
teacher's presence and
the Monitor overview
on the interactive
whiteboard.
5. Notebook: students are asked, as an optional activity, to record their reasons in choosing
their answer in the survey.
Before each LAMS activity, the teacher assembled the students in a horseshoe shape in the
middle of the classroom, away from the computers, to summarise the previous task and
introduce the next activity and what was expected of students and how the LAMS activity
would work:
“I’ve tried to incorporate the new technology of LAMS but also traditional teaching techniques,
getting everyone back around the tables, going through what people have put down, developing
the next point and letting them back on. I think if it was totally isolation, in the computers and
away, some students would still struggle with it…” (Teacher no. 19)
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LAMS activity was often
blended with traditional
class discussions.
LAMS Pedagogical fit
 The teacher had already used the interactive online resource on the religious turmoil of
the Tudor period. The resource was easily and efficiently reused by linking it within the
LAMS sequence. The drag-oriented nature of the resource (students dragging a
rollercoaster along its up-and-down path to reveal the Protestant-Catholic shifts)
complemented the click-oriented nature of LAMS and suited those with an appreciation of
a visual or action-focused learning style.
 Students were asked to formulate arguments and reasoning to historical questions and
learn from one another’s responses. Pupils' answers to the question, ‘Should Elizabeth I
marry Philip II of Spain?' are shown in Figure 6. The quality of responses ranged from a
simple “don’t marry” to more advanced arguments that highlight and connect historical
events and actions in Elizabeth’s reign.
Figure 6 Pupil responses to “Should Elizabeth I marry Philip II of Spain?”
(Year 7 History lesson)
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Online forums seem to offer a productive mode to support the development of analytical
historians. Students may be more likely to argue a point online than in the face-to-face in
the classroom. The teacher found that it was easier for students to say that someone
else’s opinion was wrong to the computer than in face-to-face discussions:
“With History being an analytical subject, it’s good to get argument, discussion…The students are
getting involved with that. Nine times out of ten, if I was to get thirty students in a classroom and
ask them to argue a point, they couldn’t…it would take a great deal of coaching to get them to
realise, yes, you can have a full-blown argument with somebody in the classroom regarding
history. But because we are talking about an environment where they’re responding to each other
but within the confines of a computer, they’re happy as Larry to argue over things, and I can see
these students developing these skills and really being able to become much more analytical
historians by the end of Key Stage 3.”

The teacher made online contributions to the forum, eliciting and guiding students in their
responses and this guidance remained there for others to see. Figure 7 below
demonstrates how such a forum was used to discuss the impact of Bloody Mary. Each
student’s response is represented by a colour; the teacher’s comment is signalled with
red. The forum was used for discussion in this case as it allowed a much more directed
use and greater teacher control than the chat. Forum contributions were also picked up
by the teacher in subsequent discussions, sustaining dialogue and continuing with
building pupil confidence e.g. by valuing individual contributions, “That’s a nice point”.
Figure 8 Historical arguments: using a forum activity (Year 7 History lesson)*
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*teacher’s comments marked by red rectangle, the rest are student contributions

LAMS offered tools to enable students to acquire skills in decision making on the basis of
historical evidence. In this case, the Survey activity was used and students were asked
whether Elizabeth I should execute Mary, Queen of Scots. The even-split result (in this
case) was displayed by the teacher on the whiteboard. The teacher was impressed that
ten people chose NOT to execute Mary even though historically it happened, they saw
that there was no evidence. The teacher liked to use the voting and survey tools for
teaching history, “because it enables historians to become critical decision-makers. For
these students, if all they do is write down the narrative and don’t explain what the most
interesting point was, or the most important point, they don’t really get to score high
levels; high levels where you can explain every point and make a critical decision at the
end.”
9.5.4
Similarities and differences in LAMS use in the 3 History case studies
The three case studies described above show three different approaches that worked well
with the observed student groups. The table below summarises similarities and differences in
the approaches.
Table 27 Using LAMS to teach History: similarities and differences of the three observed
sessions
1
Year 9 – low attaining
Case study
2
Year 7 - mixed
3
Year 7 - mixed
Key lesson focus of the
observed session
To enhance
confidence in
individual research
work in history.
To revise evidence
and communicate
historical arguments
to peers.
To develop analytical skills
using a forum and
supporting decisionmaking skills.
Frequency and role of
LAMS in curriculum
Once a week,
complementing
classroom session.
Once a month,
consolidating and
revising current topic.
Some regularity e.g. once
every two weeks.
LAMS integration in
lesson
Work on PCs
combined with offline
resources e.g.
handouts and
worksheets.
Work on PCs,
including PowerPoint
presentation.
Repeats of two-stepped
cycles:
a) work on PC with some
students having laptops,
then b) summary in a
plenary discussion away
from PCs.
Offline resources used
within the session (e.g. text
book).
Year Group
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Rationale for using
LAMS includes
behaviour
management?
Yes
Yes
Rationale for using
LAMS includes
increase in pupil
engagement?
On-line and off-line
teacher support and
contribution.
9.5.5
Yes
Offline – teacher
walks around to help.
Offline – teacher
present at whiteboard
and walks around.
Online – teacher
contributes to chat.
Offline – teacher
summarises at whiteboard
and leads class
discussions in between
LAMS activities.
Online – teacher adds
forum entries online.
Using LAMS for teaching Politics: doing independent research
Rationale for using LAMS
The teacher wanted to increase opportunities for students to carry out independent Internet
research but in a directed, controlled manner. LAMS also offered a structure for a politics
lesson using ICT:
“I can’t imagine how better to structure an ICT lesson. I don’t know any other way. I have never
been taught, ‘This is how you teach history in an ICT room.’ So, to me, [LAMS] makes sense
because it is well structured.”
Aims and Objectives
To introduce the key Internet resources that will be used during an A2 course on US Politics.
Pupil characteristics
High achieving Year 12 students from an all-girls school in Beckenham. It was felt by the
teacher that this group was suitable for trialling LAMS as they respond maturely to the
teacher trying out new approaches and would offer constructive criticism.
The LAMS sequence
The sequence started off with a voting exercise, students deciding which resources they
found most useful to research UK politics. The majority of the LAMS lesson was spent with
directed research set by the teacher. The five resources included the websites of CNN, The
Sunday Times, The White House, tutor2u, and the US Census Bureau. Students reported
their findings and evaluated the resources using a forum. A knowledge quiz assessed how
much students had learnt about the 2004 US election from the sites. The last question asked
students to vote for the resource they were likely to use again.
LAMS Pedagogical fit
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Having learnt about the different types of resources available on UK politics, students
were exposed to sources on current US politics which they were asked to explore,
evaluate and compare. Using LAMS, students were increasing their ability to carry out
research independently and learning how to manage their time on the sequence of
activities. The teacher was assured that the direction built within the activities provided
sufficient structure for students to work with:
“The thing about LAMS that I like [that] with the step-by-step instructions when you go into a
website, you can say: ‘Go to this bit, go to this bit and now look at this bit, what do you think?’ So
you can really direct [students’] use of the Internet quite extensively.”


(See Figure 9.)
LAMS provided opportunities for assessing learning. With the Knowledge Test, both the
teacher and the students were able to check how much was learnt during the discovery
activity on the US elections: “it’s useful [that] you can assess what they have learnt by
looking how they did in the multiple choice quiz.”
Given that students were working independently on the computer, the monitor function of
LAMS provided the teacher with the ability to view students’ progress, both whole-class
and at an individual level. The classroom session was therefore effectively managed.
Students were moved on to the next activity when necessary, depending on timing and
the lesson objectives.
Figure 9 'Share Resources' activity: directed research of US politics resources
Step-by-step instruction built
in the activity by the teacher

Online discussions encouraged the whole class to contribute to the lesson and not just
the, “more dominant, outgoing members of the class”. This was a particularly important
benefit of LAMS given the, “discussion-based nature of the subject”. The teacher found
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that LAMS enabled certain types of students to do better, especially those who tend not
to take part in class discussion or those who have particularly good ICT skills.
LAMS enabled the teacher to build a professional-looking lesson on the computer without
advanced ICT skills. “I am not any ICT whiz-kid…I am purely manipulating a system
which already exists and I [can] do so much more than I could do independently because
of the system.” It was a confidence booster for the teacher to hear that students did not
realise that the lesson was designed by the teacher. The teacher proudly commented
that one student revealed in her evaluation that she, “didn’t realise that I created the
lesson and this system existed and her teacher had gone on and manipulated it to do
what she wanted it to do.”
Using LAMS, teachers are empowered to create effective subject lessons using ICT. One
pupil who was normally dominating and chatty in normal classroom sessions completed
the LAMS sequence with great focus and said, “Miss, this is the best lesson I have ever
had in an ICT room!”
9.5.6
Using LAMS for teaching English: opportunities for instant and individualised
formative assessment
Rationale for using LAMS
The capability to observe students’ progress and contributions via the LAMS monitor function
allows teachers to use formative assessment when it comes to literary knowledge and
eliciting students’ ideas which can then be used to tailor the lesson effectively to match
students’ achievements and further needs.
Aims and Objectives
To read The Happy Prince short story by Oscar Wilde, answer some questions related to the
story, discuss the idea of morality and evaluate the use of LAMS for the lesson. The
curriculum context was short stories and genre conventions.
Pupil characteristics
Year 9 pupils at an all-girls’ school in Beckenham, Bromley.
The LAMS sequence
After reading the lesson objectives, students were asked which of the two genres, romance
and horror, they would choose as a text to read, and to justify or explain this choice. The next
activity introduced Oscar Wilde in the form of a multiple choice question. The Share
Resources activity linked the Oscar Wilde short story so that students were able to read
through it online step-by-step with questions defined by the teacher during the authoring
time. Figure 10 shows Step 3 in which students needed to find the answer to the question as
to why the swallow landed on the prince. The next activity asked students to vote on the
moral of the story, either choosing from the pre-selected answers or generating and typing in
their own. The final Survey activity asked students to evaluate their use of LAMS for the
lesson.
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Figure 10 Directed reading with LAMS
LAMS Pedagogical fit
 LAMS and exploration with sharing ideas. LAMS enabled students to discuss literature
e.g. a poem in a way that each student contributes individually but they also get to share
one another’s ideas through the Question and Answer activity. “I would like to go in there
and do some more poetry appreciation. There is a lot of scope for that [in English]
because it’s an interpretative, exploratory subject. And I think [students] could really help
each other with that. I think I could really get them to ... do some critical analysis, share it
with each other and then move on … to perhaps look at other people’s interpretations
about the poem, see how it’s added to their interpretation so you can scaffold it that way
… which sometimes you can’t get in a mixed ability lesson.”
 The teacher found that, in traditional lessons, students found it difficult to focus on the
interpretation of a poem but, “unless they make their own interpretations, they never quite
feel that they have ownership of it.” The way LAMS helps is by making sure each student
gives their own contribution so they feel committed to their own ideas.
 LAMS, “gave you some excellent opportunity” to carry out some formative assessment.
The teacher was able to ask an opening question at the start of the class and from the
answers she, “can immediately find out, rather than by a show of hands what they
actually bring to the session.” She was consequently able to build on what students did
and did not know and responses were also shared by the whole class. In the above
sequence, students had to give reasons for why they liked a certain genre in preference
to another one so the teacher was able to glean how much they knew about the genres.
 The use of formative assessment was not just limited to the Question and Answer activity
but extended beyond it to include a whole range of LAMS activities, such as Voting and
Multiple Choice tests.
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Using the monitoring function, the teacher was able to observe students’ progress, who
was “racing ahead” or who was struggling. The teacher would not normally spot these
students because physically walking round the class room is “actually hard work”.
Furthermore, the advantage of LAMS was that strugglers could be picked up
anonymously by the teacher, whilst in normal classrooms, “the struggler doesn’t want to
say, excuse me, I am the struggler. Some will but very few will say, ‘I need one to one
help’ because it points them out, it shows them up”.
The Monitoring function in LAMS gave the teacher a continuous way of assessing not just
students’ progress within a sequence but the contributions they were making to the
lesson, e.g. who was “not answering in depth”. This identified any students who, “might
need more help. So as soon as you know that there is somebody needs more help… you
can help raise their attainment by tailoring the lesson or the outcome. And once you have
seen the outcome, you can tailor the lesson to suit the next outcome.” So the monitoring
facility was linked to formative assessment and in turn, raising attainment. This point was
confirmed by another teacher, “Any technology providing formative feedback is proven
that it’ll impact positively on achievement” (Teacher no. 4)
Bringing LAMS responses back to the classroom. Students’ LAMS responses on the
texts they were reading could be looked at again post the LAMS lesson, “I don’t see why
you can’t print off some of those things, take them back to the lesson in the normal
classroom environment, and discuss some of those aspects that were brought up in the
LAMS session. I think there is lots of scope to be had there, especially in English.”
For the teaching of grammar and language, existing resources such as GCSE BiteSize,
could be linked to easily from within LAMS sequences.
Global sharing of good practice. Teachers of English could save time by having access to
sequences put in the public area of LAMS which they can quickly tailor to their needs
rather than redesigning a whole lesson, “If you wanted to teach an English lesson, you
could actually have a look what’s in the public sphere. … And see if there is anything that
might be suitable for my lesson. … and perhaps not spend two hours designing it but
spend half an hour changing it to my needs.”
9.5.7
Using LAMS for teaching Science: evaluating a scientific experiment
Rationale for using LAMS
Students generally find evaluations to be difficult. The structured LAMS sequence was used
to guide them through the steps of the evaluation process so that students could come up
with their own evaluations which they were then able to compare with those offered by their
peers. LAMS helps them reflect and self-assess their strategies, ideas and results.
Aims and Objectives
To evaluate students’ own contributions to the team experiment with researching, preparing
and launching a hydrogen fuel mix rocket.
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Pupil characteristics
Year 9 – top set class at a Technology College in Oldham.
The LAMS sequence
The session was team-taught between a teacher of science and the Gifted and Talented coordinator. Figure 11 shows the sequence in the authoring mode. The stop signs show
synchronisation points which were managed by the teacher, i.e. students were not able to
progress to the next activity until the teacher released the stop.
Figure 11 Evaluation of an experiment: the LAMS sequence (Year 9)
The sequence started with five voting questions, students were asked to select methods they
used for steps of their experiment from a list of options i.e.:
1) all the methods used to gather the information to start the task; 2) the main method used
to gather the information to start the task; 3) the best method for gathering information; 4) the
method that should have been used more to gather information you needed to start the task
(see Figure 12 for results); 5) the method students would use the most with the next project.
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Figure 12 Question 4: Result of the voting task - the method that pupils thought should have
been used more to gather information at the start of the experiment
After all students had completed the five-step review of their information gathering process,
they were asked to list five things they did to help their team to complete the project. Once
students submitted their answers they were able to see one another’s replies. The next
activity asked them to identify the best contribution they made out of the five things they had
chosen and explain why it was the best (see Figure 13 for sample responses to this Q&A
activity). Then students were asked to reflect on how they could have improved one of their
contributions. The final LAMS activity asked them to judge whether they found the best
hydrogen fuel mixture to launch their team’s rocket using a voting exercise.
Figure 13 Students’ responses to the Question and Answer activity on what their best
contribution was in the rocket experiment group work*
* student’s name obscured
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The session closed with the students summarising their findings in a Word document to
share with each other.
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LAMS Pedagogical fit
 The Science department was introducing a new type of 'thinking skills' learning to the
class involving independent, autonomous learning with lots of social interactions between
students trading and sharing ideas. The students worked in teams, researched, planned
and launched their rockets at the previous lesson. In the course of the LAMS session
students were asked to evaluate their contributions to the rocket project.
Teachers used various
styles of interacting with
pupils at machines.



The teachers, knowing that students often find evaluations difficult to complete and that,
“it’s very difficult to get round a largish class and give them all the guidance that they
need”, decided to use a LAMS sequence for the evaluation part of the project. The
advantage of LAMS was that it led students through the evaluation step-by-step and this
structure gave them the guidance they needed. “Because it took them through slowly and
gradually, and you as a teacher didn’t have to be with that individual pupil to do that, you
could literally do the whole class in one go.” (Teacher no. 14)
The result of the LAMS approach was that the teacher was surprised, “that it wasn’t the
usual ‘Yes, I did it well.’ Or ‘No, I couldn’t improve it any more.’ [Students] were actually
coming up with the full explanations, they were putting in more detail, they were going
further than making it a closed answer and they were actually trying to express
themselves.” (Teacher no. 15) LAMS not only allowed students to improve the quality of
their contributions but, “the number of kids that actually managed to get valued work by
the end of the lesson was nearly 90-odd per cent of the class.” LAMS was effective in
that the result was achieved in one lesson; the teacher added that, “normally, it would
have taken 3-4 lessons possibly to have got the same value of work for that number of
kids” (Teacher no. 15) due to not getting round to the whole class to offer individual
support.
Peer- and self-assessment – Both the Voting and Question & Answer activities used in
the science sequence offered students the opportunity to see other people’s ideas and
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compare and share them via the monitor. Students, “could see where they stood with the
rest of the class”, their confidence being boosted by seeing that, “my opinions were just
as good as other people’s”.
With LAMS, students did not feel 'on the spot' as in normal classrooms when the teacher
called them and it was also more suitable for those who found it more difficult to
communicate verbally than in writing. “You are trying to draw their information out of them
and make them think for themselves a little bit, but it is a form of bullying to some extent.
Because they are sitting in a classroom, they want to learn but they feel like they are
under pressure. So with LAMS, none of that exists.” (Teacher no. 15)
The use of LAMS can be extended to other areas within a scientific investigation beyond
evaluation and self-assessment, e.g. for the initial or middle steps of investigations or for
coursework requiring individual work.
Pupils particularly
appreciated being able
to view their peers'
contributions.
Using LAMS for teaching Maths: decision making – analysing theme park statistics
Rationale for using LAMS
 LAMS structures the lesson perfectly, with the help in the decision phase of the lesson.
 LAMS focuses all resources in one place, rather than students having to spend time
searching for resources that may be of no use.
Aims and Objectives
 To develop thinking skills through data analysis.
 To encourage independent learning and research.
 To decide upon a solution to the question “What and why is the best theme park to go
to?”
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Pupil characteristics
Year 9 lower attaining pupils including some children with special needs, who were
supported by classroom assistants or communicators, at a Technology College in Oldham.
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The LAMS sequence
 The LAMS sequence is introduced, after which students play a video on theme parks as
a starting activity.
 In preparation to decide which might be the best theme park to go and visit, students vote
on what they think is the most important feature of a theme park: a) the price of the
tickets, b) how long it will take to get there, c) how many people visit the Theme Park or
d) the number of rides. Student can see the result of their votes (as below).



Students then research on five popular theme parks in the UK (Share Resources), using
the Notebook to record important information.
Student vote for best theme park out of the five on the basis of information gathered
(Voting).
Students are asked to explain what influenced their decision in choosing the best theme
park (Question and Answer). (See image below.)
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The sequence closes with another video as a fun activity and students are asked to tell
the teacher when they have finished the LAMS sequence.
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LAMS pedagogical fit
 LAMS allowed the incorporation of decision mathematics into real life situations using a
sequence of activities, such as voting and share resource, which led students through the
decision making process step-by-step, “You could use [LAMS] anywhere, to gather and
organise the information.”
 LAMS kept students motivated and on task, “I didn’t have to shout, I didn’t have to
discipline anybody, the kids were focussed, my time was solely spent on helping the
children to understand.”
 LAMS helped the teacher structure the lesson, “It gives you the opportunity to provide as
you would on a standard lesson plan where you won’t have time to do a normal full
lesson plan it provides you with the key elements…of the starter, the introduction, the
lesson objectives, main body, then at the end you got the review, in terms of multiple
choice or a voting system, or a chat session…It focuses your mind as a teacher.”
 The sequence collected all resources that students needed in one place. This reduced
the time needed by pupils to search for information as well as helping the teacher to
manage the class and concentrate on the learning rather than the behaviour, “they’re on
a structured laptop session, they can’t veer off onto a different internet site …You also
have the back up of the monitoring…it’s very clearly stated who’s where, who’s doing
what, who’s typing what, so in terms of discipline you’ve got instant backup.”
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10 Pupils' attitudes to LAMS
Focus group interviews were conducted with 67 pupils (37 girls and 30 boys) drawn from
Year 7-9 and Year 11-12 (see Section 5.3 for more details on the process of conducting
focus groups) to elicit their experiences and attitudes towards LAMS use. In general, pupils’
focus group comments confirmed teachers’ perceptions of the benefits to students. The
focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed; subsequently emergent themes and subthemes were defined with each comment coded accordingly. This qualitative evidence was
analysed for the rate of occurrence of identified sub-themes in order to give a summative,
indicative overview of pupils’ attitudes to LAMS. Table 28 presents this overview (single
occurrences of sub-themes are not listed).
Table 28 Themes referred to by students in the course of focus group interviews
Occurrence in transcripts
39
Exposure to others’ ideas (collaborative learning/sharing ideas/seeing
whole class ideas)
LAMS interface and usability
25
‘Getting more done’ and ‘learning better’ with LAMS
22
LAMS sequence description
16
LAMS session as ‘better than classroom’
16
LAMS’ ‘fun’ element
11
A guided structure to progress with LAMS
42
9
Ability to express opinion in the absence of peer pressure with LAMS
8
Independent learning and LAMS
8
Instant feedback availability
7
General miscellaneous comments
7
Extending LAMS use
6
Novelty, variety
6
Enhancement suggestions
6
ICT generally as motivation
5
Classroom atmosphere in a LAMS session
5
Comparisons with other software
3
School/pupil characteristics
3
Differentiation and personalization
3
Self-paced
3
Classroom dynamic no longer pupil versus teacher
5
LAMS and active learning
2
‘it's all there'
The theme under which the greatest number of student comments fell was that of ‘Exposure
to others ideas’ (42 comments) with groups consistently describing the fact that LAMS
enabled the sharing and viewing of whole class ideas. The next most populous category was
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comments concerning the LAMS interface (39) and its usability, covering a range of opinions.
The third highest incidence of comments was categorised under students describing that
they “get more done” in a LAMS session compared to a conventional session in the
classroom (25 comments) and that they feel they are working better in some way with LAMS.
The next highest number of comments categorised were those which described the LAMS
sequence and session (22), evidencing that the LAMS lesson had left a vivid impression in
students’ minds or that they remembered well what they had learnt. Similarly, a significant
number of comments related to learning with LAMS being “better than the classroom” (16)
and being “fun” (16). Students also appreciated that LAMS was guiding them through their
learning (11).
The rest of this section picks out some of the more interesting themes from the table above
and describes and analyses pupils’ comments in greater detail. Frequent and extensive use
of direct quotation is made in this section in an attempt to convey the students' own voices.
Where more than one pupil is cited within a quotation, pupils are numbered. (These numbers
are not unique identifiers across all the groups but refer only to numbered pupils within each
focus group.)
10.1 Exposure to others' ideas
(42 comments) The most frequently cited LAMS benefit by students was that of ‘seeing what
other people have done’. This means viewing other people’s opinions, answers, voting
reactions and so on, and comparing their own responses in the light of these. The Question
and Answer and Voting activities were usually the ones referred to by students when talking
about the advantages of seeing other people’s ideas.
The pupil quotes below demonstrate various effects of seeing one another’s ideas, including:
 Capability to compare their own answer with the rest of the group (self-assessment):
“Like when people were voting, a lot of people used text books and my team didn’t. So my team
partner said we should use it [textbooks] next time.” (Year 9 pupil)
“And we could learn like what each person did to contribute to their team.” (Year 9 pupil)

Making decisions on correctness or quality of others’ ideas (peer-assessment):
“Just to remind yourself of how to do it and then just to see if they’ve got it right as well.” “It also
means that you don’t have to talk to the person, you can just ask them and check on their
answers, so it’s less disruption.” (Year 9 pupil)

Reflecting e.g. how their own answer could have been improved:
“I just think it’s good because, if you are unsure, it’s like, looking at other people’s, might give you
a better idea of what you’re supposed to be doing.” (Year 9 pupil)
“Because, we are doing the rocket project, and like, we had one opinion on it, and then we got to
see other opinions on it [LAMS]. And we could think, yeah, actually, I think, that’s it.” (Year 9 pupil)

Getting confidence in general or in seeing that one’s own answer is as good (or bad) as
everyone else’s;
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“It was good. We learnt a bit about what everyone else thought about it. And how everyone else
used the computers to get the information and that. How they collected it all, and who worked in a
group and who did most work and that” (Year 9 pupil)

Accepting own and others’ mistakes:
Pupil: “You could find out if everyone made the mistake on the same thing or it was just you. You
can see if you are left out, if you are lonely.”
Interviewer: “Did that happen?”
Pupil: “No, I made the same mistake as everyone else.” (Year 9 pupil)

Appreciating different opinions:
“[It] make[s] you feel like everyone else is like you.” (Year 9 pupil)

Collaborative learning – valuing learning from peers.
“You’re not learning from just the teacher but from people around you who are doing the same
things and at the same level.” (Year 9 pupil)
“In the textbook it’s just one person’s opinion, the author of it, but then where you can talk about
everyone’s opinion and whether they believe in God.” (Year 9 pupil)
10.2 LAMS interface and usability
(39 comments) The LAMS interface drew mixed opinions, some suggesting it be made more
vibrant and aimed at young people, whilst some appreciated the bland or neutral look of
LAMS, which was felt to be a more ‘grown-up’ look and feel, ‘well spaced out’ and not busy
with multimedia distractions, “It’s not got loads of icons which you can press. It’s just got the
ones you know you can press” (Year 9 pupil)
The Review Team observed some sessions where students were logging-on to LAMS for the
first time. They appreciated that they had to get used to a new environment, but were keen to
get to know it and get on with it:
“When you do it a lot it starts to get easier and you start to learn your way around and it won’t be
too complicated” (Year 7 pupil)
At times, depending on the manner in which teachers introduced LAMS, pupils struggled with
a few more complex activities such as Share Resources, in which they see a split window,
with instructions at the top and a website or file at the bottom. This at times seemed difficult,
especially so without further explanation or practice:
“It was hard actually…confusing with lots of things on it.” (Year 7 pupil)
“It’s a bit complicated when there are loads of different things and you have to press like ‘Finish’”
(Year 7 pupil)
Pupil 1: “I personally didn’t like it. I liked the websites, but assisted with LAMS, I really didn’t like it.
It just made it confusing to go on what you had to do. Maybe if it’s just been the website I would
have liked it a bit better.”
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Pupil 2: “I like it but I kept forgetting about the instructions that come up at the top. I kept thinking
what am I doing next? And kept forgetting to click to complete and you’re kind of lost, you forget to
remember to look up at the top of the screen for the instructions…I didn’t find that very helpful.”
Pupil 3: “I thought it was good to have it there. Because if you didn’t know what to do, you had it
as a guideline.” (Year 12 pupils)
Other pupils found that the language of LAMS activities was aimed at their age group (not
realising that it was the teacher who created the tasks):
Pupil 1: “And [LAMS is for] our age. And all the stuff we need to be doing.”
Pupil 2: “And it’s not too hard to use, either.”
Pupil 3: “It’s easy to use, sit forward.” (Year 11 pupils)
Others commented that LAMS was easy to use:
“It’s helpful, it’s useful. It’s fun.” “Easy to understand.” (Year 11 pupil)
“It’s not complicated to get to the things you wanna get to.” “You just go step-by-step.” (Year 11
pupil)
“It’s quite a cool little set-out though…blue.”
“It’s quite an easy programme to use as well.” (Year 9 pupils)
Interface suggestions included:
“[Make] the writing a bit bigger because it’s a bit small” (Year 7 pupil)
“Bit more colour - make it stand out more” (Year 7 pupil)
10.3 ‘Get more done’ and ‘learning better’ with LAMS
(25 comments) Students had the view that they got more done with LAMS than in normal
classroom lessons or that learning with LAMS somehow enhanced their learning:
“ I like LAMS because it gives you the same information as a book but it narrows it down and it
leaves out the boring bits…in a simple way so it’s better.” (Year 9 pupil)
“We learn more stuff off that than you would normally in a lesson.” (Year 11 pupil)
“You have to quickly think...it sticks in your head.” (Year 9 pupil)
Unbeknownst to the students, it was often the quality of the teacher’s learning design in
constructing the LAMS sequence that contributed to a positive learning experience:
“And LAMS helped us like…we thought that we didn’t know too much about evaluations but the
LAMS programme helped us like to see that we did know quite a bit.” (Year 9 pupil)
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“We did an evaluation which helps us to see how much we have helped and we have improved in
our groups and whether we have worked well. Which helps us, that if we do another project like
this, then we know what to do next time; whether it’s been good or not.” (Year 9 pupil)
“We were worked how to, like, work in a way that we haven’t really done it before. We were trying
to use LAMS to kind of say how, say like what we have learnt from it.” (Year 9 pupil)
Interviewer: “What did you learn today about the plague that you didn’t know before?”
Pupil 1: “What colour it was”
Pupil 2: “Purple on the neck”
Pupil 3: “How big it is [the lump]”
[more vivid discussion of the plague]
Pupil 4: “If we do a test on it at least we know what colour it is…”
Pupil 2: “At the end of each subject that we’ve done, the Romans and the Plague…we have to do
a test and another kid they might not know about them and we do so it might be a bit easier for us”
(Year 7 pupils)
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Students also welcomed the fact that they were able to move through LAMS at their own
speed, not having to wait for others nor being left behind, off the unison pace or when the
teacher had to deal with behavioural problems:
“You can work at your own pace. You can do as much as you want or as little as you want.” (Year
9 pupil)
“I learnt more than I do in lessons because [the teacher] is always arguing with someone else or
something like that and then he goes out of the room and talks to them so you’re just sitting there
like…[exasperated sigh]” (Year 9 pupil)
10.4 LAMS session as ‘better than classroom’
(16 comments) That LAMS was ‘better than the classroom’ was often remarked upon,
usually meaning the opportunity afforded to work with computers as opposed to ‘pen-andpaper’ writing or that it was a different way of learning from the teacher standing in front of
the classroom. Students also found using LAMS ‘fun’. Whilst the argument can be made that
this attitude is generally observed with any ICT session, it is important to consider that
students are highly ICT literate in general and LAMS is being measured against other ICT
experiences (including rich, interactive multimedia) as well as the classroom experience:
“I think it’s good because it’s an alternative way of learning. Nowadays you get bored reading from
text books … and kids are more interested in the computer and internet. So I think that’s a good
way of learning.” (Year 12 pupil)
“Nice and easy and helpful. A different way of learning instead of being sat in a classroom”
(Year 9 pupil)
“Say you’re in lesson and he gives you a textbook and he goes ‘Do the questions’ so you write
them out and do the answers, I don’t know nothing, but on the Internet [LAMS] you click on it and
it’s like information, questions, do it and then you like talk to your friends about it. It’s a lot better.”
(Year 9 pupil)
“It’s doing history but it’s better ‘cos your doing it on the computers and its a bit different from a
normal lesson” (Year 7 pupil)
“Using LAMS is a good thing because when people just want to do work on paper they won’t do it
but when they want to do it on computer it’s more interesting.” (Year 9 pupil)
“It also means that you don’t have to talk to the person, you can just ask them and check on their
answers, so it’s less disruption.” (Year 9 pupil)
“It’s fun, it’s better than writing and than like to listen to the teacher all the time.” (Year 9 pupil)
“It’s a more fun way of learning rather than listening to the teacher.” (Year 11 pupil)
Pupil: “It’s more fun than just reading from a text book.”
Interviewer:” Why?”
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Pupil: “Because you are doing, it’s more active and just like sitting down from a text book and
revise.” (Year 9 pupil)
“Told my little brother abut it – he thinks it sounds ace.” (Year 7 pupil)
Only one student from all the focus groups commented that:
“Personally, I don’t like researching that much on the computer. I like books or newspaper or
television. I think that’s why probably I didn’t like it that much. But otherwise, it’s good for
research.” (Year 12 pupil)
The format of how ideas or activities were presented to students seemed important. Some
students commented on the fact that they preferred working on the computer to pen-andpaper writing. Possible explanations were:
 Students find typing is neater than handwriting and spellings or ideas can be corrected
on-the-fly;
 There may be more time to formulate ideas, especially given the self-paced nature of
LAMS sequences;
 All students are able to contribute to written tasks. They don’t need to wait to be called by
the teacher;
 LAMS presents all class responses in a neutral list unlike the situation where the teacher
might have several ‘most-favoured’ pupils that they would ask for answers in a
classroom;
 Writing up ideas may have suited 'visual' learners who like seeing ideas in graphical form;
 Off-task contributions could be easily ignored or skipped.
“Good. It was better than writing” (Year 9 pupil)
“Prefer going on the computer than writing.” (Year 9 pupil)
Pupil: “It’s good going on the computers. It’s better doing it on computers.”
Interviewer: “Why?”
Pupil: “Better than writing.”
Interviewer: “Why? [silence] So if you had to write down how you thought about it on paper…”
Pupil: “It wouldn’t have been as fun. But you do learn on computers…” (Year 9 pupils)
10.5 Ability to express opinions in the absence of peer pressure with LAMS
(9 comments) Another advantage described by students was that they were able to express
opinions without peer pressure or disruptions in the classroom. There was a sense that
pupils prefer not to be told by their peers or the teacher that they are wrong and LAMS muted
such possibilities:
Pupil 1: “No one is telling you that you are wrong.”
Pupil 2: “Yeah, they give you different opinions.”
Interviewer: “Does that happen in class?”
All: “Yeah.”
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Pupil 3: “You will have an argument over whether it’s right or wrong. And it turns out, you are
right." (Year 9 pupil)
“… when you try and give your opinions in class, then other people speak over you. [in LAMS] you
can see [people’s ideas] well spaced like. You can see your views and you can see other people’s
views and you can compare it easily, and go back and have a look.” (Year 9 pupil)
“There’s no restrictions on what you can say, you can say your own opinion, doesn’t have to be
the right or wrong answer, it’s your opinion.” (Year 9 pupil)
“And sometimes when you want to give an opinion to the teacher…and if you’re saying, 'I don’t
agree with you', in case he says something back to you a bit, so you can just send it to him.” (Year
9 pupil)
“I liked it when we’d done the questions because there it was anonymous. If you’d done a silly
question, it’s not as if everyone will start laughing at you.” (Year 9 pupil)
10.6 Classroom atmosphere in a LAMS session
(5 comments) Students experienced a better classroom atmosphere in LAMS sessions due
to, for instance, fewer disruptions, with students working away at their workstation and
discussions concentrating on the learning:
“You can ask your friends if you don’t understand something… and they can help you through it,
especially if they’ve done it before.” (Year 9 pupil)
“Yes, because if someone gets asked in the classroom and someone else gets asked, it ends up
like everyone is talking at once and you can’t really distinguish who is saying what.” (Year 9 pupil)
“Because we are not having a social chat. You can share information with the class and it doesn’t
disturb the atmosphere, the concentrated atmosphere, so it’s good.” (Year 12 pupil)
“You can actually talk to people in the class without …shouting.” (Year 12 pupil)
“When somebody says something stupid you don’t get distracted by them, so you just carry on
with your work ‘cos you don’t have to read what they’ve said.” (Year 7 pupil)
“I think it’s more enjoyable than lessons ‘cos people like interrupt the lesson and stuff – that
doesn’t happen [in LAMS] ‘cos they’re all concentrated on the computer as well..” (Year 7 pupil)
10.7 LAMS and active learning
(5 comments) Some students compared learning via LAMS with learning from text books,
appreciating LAMS activities in which active learning was involved:
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“[LAMS is] really simple so it helps us revise things...makes things a lot easier to
remember…we’re not getting bored, it’s keeping our minds active… it’s games and fun things to
do” (Year 9 pupil)
“In class, we don’t do questions like that. We just copy from the board and do stuff from text
books. But we don’t do hard questions like that. …it challenges you to get it right.” (Year 11 pupil)
“You’re actually doing it for yourself and figuring answers out for yourself instead of the teacher
actually telling you them and you having to learn them. You’re learning as you think about the
questions and answers.” (Year 9 pupil)
“It’s really good fun…rather than just having plain old boring lesson, you get a really good
interactive lesson.” (Year 7 pupil)
“Some computer things it’s just a load of reading…and you just get loads of questions but on
LAMS you’ve got little activities you can do and it’s not just all reading…” (Year 7 pupil)
10.8 Miscellaneous focus group comments
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
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Extending LAMS use – Students contributing to the focus groups often asked about (or
were positively surprised to find out about) the possibility that they were able to carry on
with LAMS at home using their home computer. Students also suggested extending
LAMS in other ways than were used in the observed lesson, e.g. in a class where LAMS
was used as a revision tool, they could see that LAMS would be useful for doing their
coursework (“Yeah! To have it in more lessons” (Year 9 pupil) or “It would work in
English” (Year 9 pupil)).
Some student focus groups, for non-ICT subject lessons, reported that their LAMS
sessions were the best ICT lessons for that subject that they had experienced.
Knowing where one was up to in the sequence was found very helpful by the students.
(They referred to the sequence monitoring in the left-hand side of the screen.)
Instant access to directed resources meant that students found LAMS made it easier for
them to access web sites and other materials quickly without the need to make or type in
addresses and URLs. Many comments were made by staff and pupils alike along the
lines of ‘It’s all there’, referring to this facet of LAMS.
Interestingly, students sometimes were often not clear that it was their teacher who made
their learning activity and not the software program itself – an empowering thought for the
teachers to be able to do something that looks professional for their students.
10.9 Student survey
The Review team attempted to carry out a student survey with all the observed classes. A
LAMS sequence was prepared using the Survey activity. Students were asked to rate their
ease of use with LAMS, compare their classroom contributions with LAMS contributions and
note down aspects of LAMS they liked and didn’t like. Survey presents and orders results
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electronically in an easily comprehensible format. The ‘Student Survey’ LAMS sequence was
made available to all teachers via email and also uploaded to the public area of LAMS for
public access.
To date, only three classes out of the twelve observed attempted to complete the survey.
One contributory reason for this low return may be that it was not possible to copy and paste
the Survey activity into teachers’ pre-existing sequence as a final add-on exercise (LAMS
does not have this capability at the time of writing) so the sequence had to be separately
scheduled for the class. Although the review team attempted to do this for each class, there
was usually no time put aside to complete this activity at the end of observed lessons. It was
also deemed more appropriate to let the lessons carry on in as real a context as possible so
reviewers only asked teachers to complete the Student Survey at a different session. This
meant that teachers had to book ICT rooms at another time, which could have been another
factor contributing to the low return.
Two out of the three classes that completed Surveys are incomplete (not filled out by each
student) – so it was decided that rather than to attempt presenting an incomplete study, it
would be more appropriate if student attitudinal data could be built in to any further LAMS
research activities. Some teachers carried out their own evaluations and kindly made these
available to the Review Team.
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11 LAMS and attainment
Links between attainment and using LAMS were explored from staff perspectives. The short
scale of the pilot, however, did not allow the examination of longitudinal data or other
quantitative methods.
Most staff reported that LAMS could impact positively on attainment:
“Ultimately, it will [impact on attainment]. It’s more motivating, I think, because in a lesson, they
can see down on one side, what activities they have got to do, they can see how far they are with
a sequence and it is motivation.” (Teacher no. 1)
“I think it will [impact on attainment] because just the amount of work they get through in a LAMS
lesson is a lot more than in a classroom lesson” (Teacher no. 5)
“So when the exams come through I’ve noticed … that the things that we’ve taught on LAMS have
certainly been well-remembered and well-developed.” (Teacher no. 10)
Some teachers were unwilling to commit an opinion, citing the small scale and duration of
their LAMS use:
“I couldn’t really comment on that until further down the line I think.” (Teacher no. 20)
“Attainment, it’s too soon to gauge how effective it’s going to be. I’ve used it twice, three times with
that group, couple of times with a year nine class, couple of times with a year eight class. They
enjoy it. It certainly engages them. How it’s going to affect assessments, that’s the next step. What
I’ll be looking towards doing is creating a series of LAMS sequences that lead to an assessment,
so for instance, the year nine group looking at…the origins of the cold war, it might be a couple of
LAMS sequences, and then hopefully they can build on that to create a piece of assessed work.
That might be where we can gauge it.” (Teacher no. 19)
“At this stage, it’s difficult to have hard evidence whether there has been an improvement or
understanding through exam results. We are not that far yet. The limited amount of use that I have
done in the lessons, … I have only done two lessons with LAMS as part of the lesson.” (Teacher
no. 24)
Areas of potential impact envisaged by staff offering an opinion included:
 Opportunities for a whole class to acquire, practise and improve metacognitive skills.
 Getting more work done in a LAMS session than in a normal classroom - students
motivated by ICT and being able to monitor their own progress;
 LAMS is a valuable vehicle for revision and recall.
 LAMS increases self-confidence and autonomy.
 Learners keep on task and cope with manageable chunks of learning.
 LAMS is well-suited to rapid cycles of formative assessment, the latter having a wellestablished correlation with enhanced pupil achievements, “I think the attainment
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from the child’s point of view is that they possibly want to do more because they know
they are being monitored, therefore they are more likely to try and I am more likely to
have a better idea of how well they are doing so that I can tailor the lesson to focus
on a better outcome.” (Teacher no. 21)
Anecdotal evidence suggests that LAMS is not seen primarily as a vehicle for boosting
attainment in terms of results or numbers of achieved GCSEs and that, in fact, a main
objective in adopting LAMS is that of encouraging and developing those less measurable
skills which are critical to the development of independent learning and reflective processes,
as expressed below:
“For most of my young people, if you could give me the choice between whether or not they pick
up more qualifications or whether or not they become better learners, I know which one I would
choose. I would much rather have better learners with independence and transferable skills in the
way that they’re managing and progressing their own learning.” (Teacher no. 6)
That said, it is anticipated that these metacognitive skills, once cultivated, will contribute to
meaningful improvements in the students’ lifelong learning skills and, ultimately, examination
performance:
“Because, as I say [business studies] is not about being right or wrong, it’s having the ability to
substantiate an opinion and … unless [students] can support those with some reasonable
arguments, it’s no good. So the idea of sharing that pool of arguments together enables them to
actually support their answer in a much better way, which will hopefully translate into exam marks
and performance later on.” (Teacher no. 24)
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12 What is LAMS? Teachers’ perceptions
As the review progressed, researchers came to appreciate the different perceptions teachers
and other school personnel had when talking about LAMS. This section looks at teachers’
perceptions of LAMS as a software tool based on workshop observations, telephone/email
conversations with teachers and the evidence of interview data with teachers. (After piloting
the interview instruments, the question ‘What is LAMS?’ was added to the interview
schedule).
The LAMS pilot advertised LAMS as a learning design software tool which was also the
focus of the JISC LAMS evaluation (Masterman, Lee 2005). The introduction of LAMS into
teaching practice was radical as it represented the first serious attempt to harness learning
design software for use by teachers, so it was a conceptual step up from pre-packaged
content-focussed solutions. Not all teachers who came in contact with the pilot may have
made this conceptual leap. This could either be put down to the fact that they did not engage
with LAMS in great depth (i.e. left the pilot) or may have thought LAMS was more difficult
than it really was. One teacher, who discontinued the pilot, commented that LAMS required
‘high-level programming’ which was clearly not the case but it may have been a logical
conclusion for someone who was less ICT-aware.
Those who did engage with LAMS found different features of the tools arresting, so the word
‘LAMS’ evoked different ideas from one teacher to another. There seemed to be a
consensus about LAMS as an e-learning tool having unique features and being ahead of its
time, as well as an appreciation that it was a tool in development that needs to be made
more robust, reliable and user-friendly:
“I do think LAMS is a little bit before its time in some respects because it’s got all those key
elements that are really good, these ideas that are very unique, but there’s all the other bits that
need to be incorporated to make into a really usable and user-friendly system.” (Teacher no. 9)
“It’s a tool for the future when every kid has got a computer.” (Teacher no. 2)
So what is special about LAMS? What does it offer, according to teachers, that is unique?
Learning design
The major unique feature about LAMS is that it is a learning design software tool. Teachers
did not call it that however, and instead they talked about a tool that gives structure and
guides students through a pre-built lesson plan. LAMS is distilled down to the level of
activities and while these e-learning activities are not necessarily revolutionary or innovative
(e.g. chat, forum, voting, multiple choice tests, weblinks) what is new is that teachers can
customise and tailor-make each and link them all together in a sequence.
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One teacher said, “what particularly caught my eye … was the design for learning side of it,
rather than just being a VLE for delivering content” (Teacher no. 4), LAMS addresses the
process of learning, the learning design:
“Because it’s something that nothing else can offer. It’s a structured chat room…something no
other IT package can really offer.” (Teacher no. 18)
“It gives you the opportunity to provide as you would on a standard lesson plan where you won’t
have time to do a normal full lesson plan, it provides you with the key elements…of the starter, the
introduction, the lesson objectives, main body, then at the end you got the review, in terms of
multiple choice or a voting system, or a chat session…It focuses your mind as a teacher.”
(Teacher no. 11)
One teacher thought that unique feature of LAMS was:
“The actual sequence. Because you can either just have a worksheet or a PowerPoint
presentation in the same format. There is not much that you can manoeuvre within it. Yet [with
LAMS] you can have the questions, the polls, a noticeboard to a discussion and chatrooms. And
that the whole concept was brilliant. But how d’you do it? How you link it all together? And how the
children see it, what happens on their screen?” (Teacher no. 13)
The above view suggested another advantage of LAMS, i.e. the learner having a view of
their own progress.
The control of the flow of the sequence of activities was considered positive in the school
context as this process reflected how teachers normally manage their traditional classroom
lessons.
LAMS was often compared to VLEs, with some making a distinction between the two, while
others did not see any difference e.g., one support staff member thought that their school
bought LAMS and Moodle because the former had pre-written sequences with it. Some
teachers found that LAMS offered ‘something nothing else can offer’, a structure for learning
activities, e.g. a structured chat room embedded into a particular learning sequence.
Visual authoring interface
The authoring interface in LAMS is not visual/diagrammatic just for the purpose of usability. It
also acts as a tool that makes learning designs explicit. This was also considered to be a
unique feature as it gave teachers the ability to share and talk about their teaching practice in
a visual form: “The way it’s set out. The menu, it’s just really clear. You just drag it and if you
don’t want it, you bin it. I mean, that is really easy, isn’t it? So making those questions up,
just typing it in, aren’t you? It’s really good.” (Teacher no. 13)
Empowering teachers
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One management interviewee expressed the view that LAMS acknowledges the fact that it is
the teacher who knows the students, the curriculum, the teacher being the expert. The big
advantage of LAMS was that it, “put that expertise to the forefront.” (Teacher no. 4) It,
“allowed the teacher to be so creative” (Teacher no. 21) to be able to tailor their sequences
to their own teaching style and to their students' needs. The added advantage of LAMS was
that teachers had a choice as to whether to use their own creativity and fully author their
design in LAMS or draw on technical/e-learning support (if available at their school) to
develop interactive e-learning content that could be easily integrated within a Share
Resource activity in LAMS.
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Support for different teaching approaches
LAMS not only empowered teachers to construct their own designs but gave them the
flexibility to adapt those processes to suit their teaching strategy:
“It’s a computer package that allows independent learning through different sequences that allow
all kinds of learning.” (Teacher no. 13)
Powerful ICT for non-ICT subjects
It could be said that LAMS is less suitable for teaching ICT itself and is more suited to nonICT subject specialists. Teachers who claimed not to have high ICT confidence found LAMS
easy to use, producing professional-looking online lessons. It was also found to be an
excellent tool to satisfy the cross-curricular ICT needs in the subjects observed:
“It’s good ICT for non-ICT subjects. It’s that idea that it’s cognitive learning rather than having to
create a Word document to fill an ICT link within a school. It’s about being able to develop a
different environment for learning using the best of ICT.” (Teacher no. 19)
Re-use of existing electronic resources
Some teachers were pleased to find that using LAMS did not mean that they had to redesign
their existing resources, but that they could plug in their existing resources within a
sequence:
“LAMS is like the master structure programme and from that you can link onto it all sorts of other
little things…” (Teacher no. 10)
Live monitoring
Teachers who used the online monitoring function in class commented that it allowed them to
manage the classroom session in ways they had not done before. The Monitor function
offered them a snapshot of the whole class progress as well as that of the individual
students, helping them with the management of the classroom. Compared to traditional
classroom methods, this online feature was considered as a distinctive LAMS feature.
“And you know that, because you can see on the monitoring, that they’ve covered all the aspects
that you wanted.” (Teacher no. 11)
Whole class involvement
Taken individually, most of the LAMS activity types cannot claim to be uniquely innovative.
Each has a presence in some form in other e-learning tools. There is one activity that could
be considered unique to LAMS, the Question and Answer which asks students to submit an
answer, then the whole-class contributions are shown in a list. Facilitating and promoting
whole class involvement was further enhanced by the optional function with which
contributions could be made anonymous. For some teachers, this activity was the essence of
LAMS, some even considering LAMS synonymous with this activity.
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Combining a range of classroom arrangements
LAMS combined various classroom grouping options as opposed to some e-learning tools
that required individuals to work with the computer at their own pace, its activities offering
alternatives such as:
 Individual work – student working alone ‘with the monitor’;
 1-to-many – student responding to a collaborative task e.g. in the chat;
 many-to-many – students reading responses to a Q&A activity;
 1-to-group – same as 1-to-many when teacher has used grouping function;
 group-to-group.
Easy adaptability and reuse
LAMS, partly due to its nature of being activity rather than content-focussed, was considered
very easy to modify, change and adapt by teachers, thus inviting opportunities for reuse and
sharing.
LAMS as a component rather than a total solution
Teachers saw LAMS as one tool within a package of tools available to teachers; they felt that
it would never replace other ways of teaching, or would never become the only e-learning
tool in their classroom. The key to successful teaching and learning was employing a variety
of tools and approaches:
“ [LAMS] is a tool that is part of a whole teaching…it isn’t just something that will replace a part of
teaching I don’t think you can do that, but it is a tool that will help. I think it is very easy to get
confused between the computers and using technology as opposed to just having a tool that can
help you with your learning and I think that LAMS is just part of that little package of tools that will
help and it becomes part of a teachers whole range of things just like the bunch of worksheets that
they’ve got in the filing cabinet and the interactive CDs that they’ve got.” (Teacher no. 9)
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13 Technical issues and enhancements
Technical issues including bugs and enhancements as reported by teachers or observed
during practitioner visits were recorded.
13.1 Technical issues
The main technical issues noted by teachers are listed below. A general observation was
that LAMS was not always reliable e.g. activities were lost due to save errors or system
crashes would occur when two classes accessed LAMS at the same time. It was perceived
as a product-in-development rather than a finished piece of software, which was indeed the
case as up until February 2005, the LAMS pilot operated a Beta version of LAMS.
The technical issues reported are listed below, grouped under the relevant LAMS mode:
Learner
 Login – teachers found the class set-up and the login procedure to be difficult and
unsympathetic to their logistical needs when using LAMS. The UK LAMS technical
support had control over passwords as due to the nature of the pilot and expected
technical issues, they felt the need to control pilot passwords to be able to investigate
potential problems. This has meant that passwords were different from school password
systems, resulting in local complications to do with students remembering their password.
Logins not being integrated with the school’s management system was also an issue for
students: students were sometimes juggling five different logins.
 Usernames sometimes did not work – login had to be repeated to take effect.
 Chat port – a closed network port on some schools’ systems prevented the chat activity
being run.
 The learner screen does not indicate which sequence is currently being followed so the
learner is not able to tell whether s/he is in the right sequence or not, especially when
more versions of the same sequence are present in the list.
 Accented characters e.g. ‘é’ sometimes displayed differently depending on the machine
used. One teacher keyed in with ASCII codes using NumLock, which then displayed
some substitute code instead of the required symbol on the learner screen.
 Voting results are in random order and not in the order of ascending or descending total
scores.
 The voting screen crashed on several occasions.
Author
 There is no logical management of the storage of sequences in that there are no fields by
which sequences can be sorted within the list of sequences in one’s private or public
LAMS area.
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If the sequence has a synchronisation point, it cannot be previewed in full as the preview
stops at the synchronisation point and cannot be released as it is not tied to a monitoring
function.
Sequences containing external resources or files cannot be imported into LAMS,
preventing sharing.
Monitor function
 The Learners tab in the monitor function, displaying individual students’ progress, had a
colour-coded system which was inaccessible to the colour-blind, i.e. uncompleted
activities were coded green and the current activity red. The suggestion was to add
another visual clue independent of colour (as in the Learner view).
 If the LAMS sequence is long, the learner tab displaying each student on a horizontal line
needs to be scrolled across the monitor. However, the students’ names are only
displayed at the left hand side of the screen and are not visible when the teacher scrolls
to the right (to the end of the sequence).
 The synchronisation points are not displayed in the Sequence tab of the Monitor mode so
teachers, especially if using someone else’s sequence, are not aware of how or where
they can release them.
13.2 Enhancements
The Review team is aware that future releases of LAMS are planned and so most of the
enhancements suggested during the Becta LAMS Review may have already been
incorporated in these planned future releases. The JISC evaluation study also includes a
detailed list of suggested enhancements (Masterman and Lee 2005).
The Preview facility was welcomed by all users. Practitioners suggested a number of
enhancements (see also Section 13.1 for bugs):

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More sophisticated grouping options (e.g. teacher to set groups and not just random
allocation);
Ability to go back and change contributions (e.g. in Question and Answer);
Allow modifiable font type/size in all activity types;
Expand capacity for seamless inclusion of images and other multimedia (e.g. adding an
image to Q&A);
Improved management of sequences so that it is easy to find subject sequences in the
public area as well as the ability to manage the user's own and the institution’s sequence
library:
“it’s very difficult to organise your work and the sequences. If you put sequences in the public area
we end up with absolutely loads of sequences and it’s another issue about management…As a
way of trying to counter that what we’ve done is we’ve created an area on our shared drive here
and made it so that it’s subject specific for LAMS sequences, so they’re actually going into a
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proper folder system and exporting them out…which is fine but a lot of people don’t like doing that
because of the time that it takes.” (Teacher no. 9)
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Allow copy and paste a single activity (or more) from one sequence to another.
Ability to team-teach, i.e. allow more than one monitor for a class when running a LAMS
sequence.
Allow classes in different schools to access the same sequence as if they were one class
synchronously or asynchronously. (This may be a potential issue if each school hosts
their own LAMS server).
Ability to preview when sequence has synchronisation points.
Ability to have branching sequences, not just optional activities (e.g. depending on the
completion of an activity, one branch is chosen over another one).
Spell-checker (both author/learner).
Email notification – when someone is responded to in a forum, they would get a
notification ”You have been responded to by…”
Have an ‘Alert’ button for pupils to call the teacher if they need help but don’t want to put
their hand up.
Incorporate mathematical symbols e.g. to use algebra, and possibly a calculator.
Include a drawing tool to add colour and text.
The sequence is a .las file which is unique to LAMS, so can only be re-used within the LAMS
environment. Although LAMS is very open to re-usability, there is an issue about continuing
the hosting of the LAMS environment by the school, i.e. if the school decided to discontinue
using LAMS or LAMS becomes unsupported, the sequences will not be usable outside
LAMS. There are new developments in making LAMS conform to the relevant IMS Learning
Design standard (by October 2005) which may mean that LAMS sequences could be
imported into other learning design systems conforming to that standard.
At times, users listed enhancements which suggested that they were not aware of the full
system potential (e.g. use of survey tool for questions with no right/wrong answers or group
submission) – calling attention to the importance of continuous training and support,
especially when new functions are added in later LAMS versions.
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14 LAMS practitioner workshops
As a part of Becta’s strategy for introducing LAMS into schools and supporting and
encouraging ongoing uptake and development within ‘early-adopter’ institutions, the review
team prepared and ran two LAMS workshops. The stated aims of the workshops were:
 getting teachers started with using LAMS;
 establishing mutual support with other teachers;
 bringing together fellow subject-specialists;
 gaining more experience and confidence in creating and delivering LAMS sequences.
The first workshop took place in Coventry on 11th March 2005, the second in Bromley at the
Bromley Education Centre on 6th June 2005. ICT, Geography, Science, Mathematics,
Religious Studies, PE, History and English were the main subject areas represented by the
workshop delegates.
The agenda of the second workshop was slightly amended based on the feedback from the
first workshop and incorporated more hands-on sessions and subject-based group work.
These were both found very useful by the attendees.
The overall feeling from both workshops was very positive. There was a general consensus
that people felt motivated to create and trial LAMS sequences for their teaching. They felt
inspired to take LAMS back to their schools and drive its adoption across subjects and year
groups. Knowledge of the potential of LAMS was gained and people could see the broader
applications such as homeworking, extension activities and lesson management. The review
team was delighted with the enthusiasm of the workshop participants and the creativity they
brought to creating LAMS sequences in a few short hours. It was felt that this kind of support,
complementing the LAMS training and focussed around the functionalities of LAMS, creating
a space where LAMS users can explore and experiment with the system, as well as share
and communicate their experiences, should be a very productive way of continuing to
encourage the uptake of LAMS across UK schools.
The review team found (via practitioner visits and telephone/email contact with teachers)
that:
 Some activity types and the online monitoring function were underutilised (e.g. chat &
scribe). Most teachers tended to use the more basic activity types while they were getting
more confidence in their LAMS delivery;
 Some teachers would have liked more practice with the running of the chat and forum,
especially as some felt that there was a gap between students’ and their own skills in
using this medium. Teachers did not have an idea how students used chat in their day-today life. It was felt that teachers would benefit from finding out or observing a chat in
action as used by youngsters in order to relate this experience to an educational setting.
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Some teachers, even though new LAMS releases happened, were not aware of some of
the new functions or how they worked – even though there was a circular sent round to
LAMS practitioners.
The biggest hurdle to wider implementation appeared to be teachers’ confidence in
running their first LAMS session. The hands-on workshop gave them a chance to have a
go with a ‘dummy’ run of their class.
It is suggested that these outcomes are evidence of the need to continue to support
practitioners in some form, beyond the initial training.
14.1 Group needs analysis
One of the outcomes of the first workshop was a LAMS needs-analysis, looking at the ways
in which teachers would wish their use of LAMS to be supported. At the end of the workshop
session, all participants were invited to identify outstanding needs and to suggest ways in
which they might be assisted, individually and institutionally, to make progress with LAMS
implementation.
The following issues were identified and are presented verbatim:
Staff Support
 Access to a pre-built presentation – such as some PowerPoint slides/video presentation
of LAMS in use - that ‘sells’ LAMS to other staff members, would be found useful. The
presentation would emphasise the benefits and potential of the system.
 Include an example sequence (short) as part of the above presentation. This should
demonstrate the pedagogical elements that are LAMS’ major strengths.
Technical Issues
The group discussed the available avenues for resolving technical issues/bugs:
 There is an automatic form for technical issues/bugs which go to SST (this is at
http://www.uklams.net/support/techSupportForm.html )
 The community forum is for discussing pedagogical issues.
 Kemnal College, the institution responsible for the LAMS training, is a point of support.
 Peer-to-peer support is encouraged.
 The SST contact person is always willing to help point people in the right direction if they
are not quite sure of where to take a particular problem.
Running Sequences - Classroom Management
It would be useful to have:
 Technical support for point-of-delivery.
 Evidence of pupils actually using the LAMS system. This could be in the form of excerpts
from monitor mode, videos/DVD of LAMS sessions and feedback from children etc.
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Exchange visits between teachers in order to see real-life LAMS sessions. The
community forum might be used to arrange such visits.
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Subject-Specific Sharing
The group agreed on the benefits of sharing and re-using sequences which can be achieved:
 By saving sequences to the public area to release to the LAMS world at large.
 Posting sequences to the forum. Some of the sequences will be available on the
www.uklams.net site.
The issue of quality assurance was discussed, i.e. how does one know whether a sequence
is valid and of reliable quality? Would practitioners need sequences as starting points and
ideas OR fully-proofed instantly usable resources? It was agreed that the SST LAMS site
might reference proofed resources whilst the public LAMS area can be used for instantly
usable sequences.
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15 Community forum
A web-based community was set up at http://www.uklams.net/community/ by the UK LAMS
team. Its aim was to bring together the LAMS community and offer a space to discuss
teachers’ experiences and thoughts on LAMS, including pedagogical issues, suggestions
and enhancements. The community forum was released on the 17th December 2004.
By July 2005, the forum had 39 members. The community site was promoted at the
practitioner workshop, with people signing up to it on the day. Questions that were collected
during the workshop by the review team were posted to the site with feedback from SST and
LAMS. The two main areas of the forum were a) technical support b) pedagogical forum. The
former had 18 messages and these 18 messages were viewed on 80 occasions in total
(mean = 4 views per message); the pedagogical forum had 9 posts all of which were viewed
130 times in total (mean = 8 views per message not counting the welcome message which
was viewed by 54 in total). There was only one post that was made by a practitioner, the rest
were made by the review team, the UK LAMS team or SST.
It can be seen from the above figures that the volume of access and contributions by
practitioners to the forum was minimal during the seven months of the pilot. The JISC LAMS
evaluation used a mailing list (EPED-LAMS) that came directly to users’ inbox rather than
requiring users to log on to a different forum. Altogether this mailing list received 72
contributions by 18 practitioners and a further 77 messages were sent by people with an
administrative function, either review team members or a LAMS technical announcement
(Masterman, Lee 2005). The higher rate of contributions, albeit still modest, suggests that a
LAMS community mailing list may provide a more direct ‘reach’ into people’s LAMS
awareness than a web-based forum. Busy practitioners currently need to make the effort
regularly to log in and seek important LAMS-related information and contribute to the
development of LAMS communities.
The planned ‘LAMS Community Forum’ (which is a forum that is being brought out by LAMS
itself at the time of writing and which will be integrated into LAMS) is planning to take on a
similar role to that was envisaged by the review’s community forum. It will be interesting to
revisit how it is being used in the future.
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16 The future of LAMS in pilot schools
16.1 Schools planning to continue – Future aims
Section 7 summarised the ratio of those who discontinued the pilot and those who embarked
on adopting LAMS at their institution together with the reasons influencing the success of
adoption. This section examines the plans of institutions that intend to continue to use LAMS
beyond the pilot (source: Final LAMS Review Questionnaire).
The quantitative data gained from the final questionnaires presented below offers a picture of
immediate short term plans of practitioners (Figure 14).
Figure 15 Future plans (Source: Final LAMS questionnaire, n=16 staff)*
Future plans: staff perspectives
14
13
12
12
12
10
7
8
7
5
6
4
4
2
0
Training
other staff
Making more
sequences
Delivering
LAMS
lessons
Collaborating Reusing seq- Reusing seq- Getting more
outside
s - other
s - created
training
school
school staff elsew here
* seq-s = LAMS sequences
Of the 16 staff who responded to the final LAMS Review questionnaire, 13 plan to train other
staff, 12 to make more sequences, 12 to deliver more LAMS lessons.
Seven staff members plan to collaborate using LAMS outside the school, seven plan to reuse
sequences created by staff within the school, five to reuse sequences created elsewhere e.g.
in the public area of LAMS. Four staff are planning to get more training in LAMS.
Interviews elicited future LAMS plans of practitioners at school as well as individual level.
These related to the models of LAMS adoption as described above illustrative of long-term
LAMS visions. Teachers and managers had a range of plans for LAMS in their institutions
and these are listed below with some illustrative quotes.
At the institutional level, individual teachers or schools had one or more of the plans below:
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Extending the range of LAMS sequences – by developing further elements of the
curriculum for LAMS delivery. One school had plans to deliver the new DiDA (Diploma in
Digital Applications) qualification through LAMS.
“We would develop quite tight banks of LAMS-based resources that support particular areas of the
curriculum, so it might be that GCSE science or that applied ICT or the new DIDA is taught
exclusively through LAMS or largely through LAMS;” (Teacher no. 6)



Exploring further LAMS functions – most teachers acknowledged that, in the first
instance, they did not necessarily make use of the full LAMS functionality as they first
needed to gain confidence in being able to author and run a LAMS session. In the next
round, they were looking forward to exploring the more sophisticated functions offered.
Training other members of staff within the same department – LAMS practitioners had
various roles within their department. Some were either the heads of department
themselves or had a special co-ordinator role or were teachers, sometimes newly
qualified teachers (NQT). Their brief was usually similar, i.e. having tried LAMS with
students, they were to disseminate that knowledge to other members of staff within the
same subject areas. At times, training others was dependent on teachers’ developing
their LAMS confidence further, after, “spots have been ironed out” (Teacher no. 17)
Training other departments – some departments piloting LAMS had plans to cascade
LAMS training to other departments in the school. Sometimes the other department was
one closely linked with the pilot department (e.g. Science and Technology). Sometimes,
roll-out plans were irrespective of the subject and included the whole school.
“At the end of this, we will do a formal review because it’s an innovation we have tried, using the
questionnaires that they have used with the students …and it will then become part of our CPD
programme and in twilight sessions…hopefully with one person from every faculty so we can
spread the word that way. You know it’s going to be slow but that’s probably the best way to do it,
slowly drip-feed. So you’ve got one person in each faculty, who can take it on and say to the
others, actually, it isn’t more work, and it does enable you in the classroom rather than hold you
back. So that’s hopefully what will happen.” (Management Personnel no. 4)
o


At times, whole school roll-out was dependent on the successful experience of the
department piloting LAMS.
o The roll-out in one school was envisaged to be piecemeal : “we will teach it in
small cohorts to school, maybe subject-related” (Teacher no. 21)
o A time scale was indicated by one school which took a year to pilot LAMS with
one teacher in one department and envisaged that it would take altogether two
years to involve other departments across the school
Using LAMS for CPD – a few schools saw the potential for using LAMS for staff training
sessions (INSET).
Networking with other schools within UK and abroad – schools had various plans and
ideas for team-teaching with LAMS or developing resources than could be shared. The
attraction of using LAMS was that networks would work across geographical boundaries
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so schools were enthused by the idea of linking up with schools abroad to see what
LAMS can bring to enhance international school links.
Institutional reuse of sequences – one school plans to combine training and extension of
LAMS use through the development of a bank of sequences to be trialled within their
department:
“My plan for the moment is that in the next couple of weeks, each member of my faculty will have
written a sequence. Plus the couple that I have written already. That gives us about 12
sequences. We’ll fit those into different schemes of work for next year, and I think that’ll probably
be enough. You know, we will use those 12 sequences. If people, with the knowledge of how to
use the software, then want to write other ones for the lessons they are planning, we can just add
that to the collection. But initially, we’ll just use those 12 [sequences] and see how those 12 work.”
(Teacher no. 23)
Some schools which did not make much progress with LAMS during the 2004/5 year were
planning to carry on or start their LAMS pilot in September 2005. One head of department
expressed the view that, given he had to focus on developing five new courses in the year of
the pilot, LAMS was pushed to a lower priority activity:
“So I am behind where I thought I would be at this stage but certainly by September, October time
in that first half term of the next academic year, I want to be at that stage where I actually have
done two or three INSET sessions with my staff and got them actually familiar enough to create
sequences [for] key stage 3 and key stage 4 … And then we can pool our results then and see
how it is across the school.” (Teacher no. 24)
Plans at professional level:
 Getting more confidence in using LAMS – e.g. by running more sequences with students
in general.
 Establishing practice as opposed to having experimental lessons, i.e. running LAMS
sessions with the same group of students, “I am planning to keep using LAMS with this
particular group for maybe until the end of term just to see how that goes with them” or,
as another teacher said, “My hope is that it won’t be something that people use for
showpiece lessons, that they will have it on a day-to-day basis, they will use LAMS
sequences to produce effective lessons.” (Management Personnel)
 Planning and delivering LAMS lessons for other classes than those in the pilot – teachers
tended to select the class that they trialled LAMS with on the basis of various
considerations or their own ideas of what LAMS was capable. For instance, one teacher
selected a group that she knew would not have behavioural problems so she did not
have to think in her first LAMS lesson, “‘Oh, I have got behaviour management AND be
confident about the system’.” (Teacher no. 20) her next plans involved trialling it with
other, perhaps more challenging groups.
 Trying LAMS with other abilities and/or year groups. Some teachers who trialled LAMS
with high ability pupils wanted to experiment with how LAMS would work with low ability
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pupils, and vice versa, “at the minute I have used quite able pupils and I would like to see
how low ability respond.” (Teacher no. 20) Teachers who tried LAMS with Key Stage 3,
wanted to try it with KS4 and 5.
One teacher talked of plans to extend LAMS use to master classes running at primary
level with pupils (Year 6 and 7) working remotely.
A generalisation about LAMS plans of schools, departments and individual teachers is that
no one planned for LAMS to take over their whole teaching. Rather, they planned to integrate
it within their day-to-day schedule:
“I am looking for it to sit with other similar initiatives so that staff have a range of these. I cannot
believe that it will be the only part of our toolbox…that will sit with others so that staff, along with
picking the resources, will pick which of these is the best vehicle to deliver their effective
teaching.” (Management Personnel no. 1)
16.2 Schools planning to continue – LAMS needs
The final LAMS questionnaire asked school staff for their views on what needs they may
have with regards to continuing their use of LAMS. The possible needs were categorised in
the questionnaire, so teachers only had to tick the relevant need. Responses were available
from 16 staff members. The responses are therefore not necessarily representative of the
whole pilot population but can provide a likely picture of pilot schools’ needs in order to
continue with their use of LAMS. Figure 16 shows a summary of these needs.
Figure 16 Future LAMS needs (Source: Final LAMS questionnaire, n=16 staff)
Number of staff reported
12
11
10
8
8
7
6
6
5
5
4
4
4
2
0
A1
A2
B1
B2
C1
C2
D1
D2
Explanation of the above figure:
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LAMS hosting
LAMS technical training
A1= 6 able to install LAMS on own server
C1= 11 able to train other staff
A2= 4 need centrally hosted server
C2 = 4 need external training support
LAMS technical support
LAMS pedagogical support
B1= 5 able to do without technical support
D1= 8 able to make effective use of LAMS
B2= 7 need outside technical support
D2 = 5 need pedagogical support
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LAMS needs were grouped under four categories:
 LAMS hosting – elicited whether schools would need the support of a centrally hosted
server as was provided during the pilot by SST or they would be able to install LAMS on
their own server. Six staff thought their school would manage without support, while four
thought they would need server hosting.
 LAMS technical support – seven staff would require outside technical support as had
been provided during the pilot by the UK LAMS team. Five teachers thought they would
manage with no external technical support (presumably using their own school-based
support networks).
 LAMS technical training – eleven staff felt able to train other staff members in the use of
LAMS while four felt that that they would need to rely on an external training facility to be
able to train further staff members in LAMS.
 LAMS pedagogical support – eight teachers believed that they were able to make
effective use of LAMS for teaching their subject area, while five thought they would need
pedagogical support.
The most frequently identified needs seemed to be in the area of technical support with more
than 30 per cent of respondents thinking that they would need external support. The above
figures showed that there were no clear messages as to the LAMS needs of institutions (at
least those who responded to the questionnaire). LAMS requirements need to be considered
on a case-by-case basis. The above picture tells us that clearly, if LAMS adoption was
extended at these institutions, various forms of support structures (technical and
pedagogical) need to be in place.
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17 Review recommendations: Pilot and research
The evidence available to the Review Team for the investigation of subject-specific LAMS
pedagogies is currently too limited to identify any emerging models. Amongst LAMS
enthusiasts there was a recognition that, although its components all looked familiar, LAMS
offered something unique – its learning design ethos being new to the secondary school
context – and this was something that engendered excitement.
Practice across all subjects and for all practitioners was mostly tentative and experimental
rather than habitual and established. Over the review period, most practitioners, at such an
early stage of LAMS adoption, tended to be trialling the ‘big concepts’ of LAMS to check how
they related to their current practice. Some potential aspects of LAMS pedagogy that may
eventually contribute to subject-specific models have been identified. There is also limited
evidence for extensive personalisation (with the main exception being a hearing impaired
unit) the chief findings being that teachers obviously target the language and complexity of
activities to the immediate needs of the group, but that extension activities and differentiated
routes for learning do not yet exist in any practice. Finally, there is no evidence at all (beyond
the reported aspirations of schools) for models of home-school links.
As the evidence base is currently circumscribed it is important that further information should
be collected through the extension and expansion of the LAMS pilot phase. If LAMS adoption
is further supported and propagated in a focussed way then it will be possible to revisit these
areas of research and examine the development of the initial pedagogical discoveries
presented in this report. Therefore, the recommendations here cover firstly areas in which an
extended pilot might be enhanced in order to achieve a more effective adoption of LAMS in
schools, and secondly potential areas of future research based on a more comprehensive
and directed adoption of LAMS in schools are suggested.
17.1 Recommendations for continuing LAMS adoption
The Review Team discern that an encouraging level of momentum has been achieved by the
pilot but that the majority of early adopters are still at an early stage in this dynamic. There
are sufficient positive signs to recommend that the pilot period be extended or enter a
second phase. Over the course of the review’s practitioner visits and workshops the team
identified elements of the current pilot which future pilots should maintain and enhance and
some undeveloped areas of support that would benefit schools and practitioners by being
offered. These include:
 Continuation of the highly-valued technical support.
 Further encouragement for networks of support, communication and good practice, both
cross-curricular and subject-specific.
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Bringing groups of professionals to work together at the LAMS practitioner
workshops proved an effective means of promoting and energising such
networks.
Practitioner workshops offer a valuable means of disseminating and discovering excellent
LAMS practice in subject-specific groups.
Enhance the support materials available for promoting the uptake of LAMS in schools,
subject-specific and general. (Sometimes there is an initial confusion as to what exactly it
is that LAMS offers that is new or unique: the capability of orchestrating e-learning.) The
review has assembled some elements that could contribute to, for example, a support
CD-ROM offering multimedia-supported case histories with exemplar LAMS sequences.
Strengthen the support available to sustain LAMS activity from training into development,
implementation and training.
o Following initial training, teachers are more likely to use basic LAMS activities and
monitor functions and defer the exploration of more advanced tools until they feel
more confident. Follow-up training sessions/workshops could encourage
practitioners to step up their skills more rapidly.
o A ‘LAMS clinic’, either visiting schools or set up on a drop-in or workshop model,
could be an alternative means of disseminating the information in the above point
and for recommending to teachers new models of delivering LAMS sequences
e.g. try this activity or this monitor function to achieve goals for their subject.
o A LAMS community e-mail bulletin might provide a more direct ‘reach’ into
people’s LAMS awareness than a web-based forum to which people need to
make the effort regularly to log in.
o As the LAMS software grows and becomes more sophisticated, it is important that
people who have been trained in previous versions receive comprehensive
information on how these new features may be utilised e.g. web-based
multimedia training materials, examples of applications and case-studies.
o The review team provided some phone-based support to teachers, evidencing a
potential need for the provision of a similar, personalised support facility.
Make more subject sequences publicly available.
Introduce LAMS to teachers at pre-qualifying level and trainers of teachers by providing
support materials adapted from those recommended for INSET use.
17.2 Recommendations for future research
Once the coverage of LAMS adoption is more widespread across subjects using LAMS and
being used more comprehensively (LAMS is becoming habitual practice rather than a
‘special event’) then it should be possible to discern more securely those emerging models of
e-learning that LAMS supports in each subject area.
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17.2.1 LAMS and Emerging Models of Subject-Specific e-learning
Over the review period, there has been only a limited range of practice in the applications of
LAMS and teaching approaches to LAMS sessions. Whilst effective ‘purely on-line’ and
‘blended’ sessions were observed, there is not sufficient evidence to support the assertion
that these are replicable models of subject-specific e-learning enabled or emergent through
LAMS. It is recommended that future server usage data should be monitored carefully to
identify and focus upon active schools. With more data available, future research might:
 Investigate sequence re-use and adaptation, both subject-specific and general instances.
The integrated LAMS Community Forum that is currently being brought out by LAMS is
likely to play a relevant role in any future research.
 Investigate LAMS as a tool for formative assessment in its various forms and across
subjects. This could include teacher driven formative assessment, pupil self-assessment
and peer-to-peer, both in the classroom and school-to-home.
 Investigate the potential for using LAMS as a collaborative or team-teaching tool, both
locally and internationally.
 Conduct controlled studies to examine the impact of LAMS on achievement in key areas,
cross-curricular and subject-specific.
17.2.2 LAMS and Personalisation
LAMS offers a limited although improving level of personalisation at the interface level and
the highly textual nature of the system rules it out of teachers’ consideration for certain
groups of learners e.g. for those with literacy problems. Additionally the review found limited
evidence for the personalisation of sequence structures in current LAMS practice. It is
recommended that this area needs further research and development.
17.2.3 LAMS and Home-School Links
Whilst there was no evidence of any model of home-school learning revealed by the review,
the potential excited considerable interest amongst teachers and pupils. Schools that have
thought about this issue cite inequalities between households in the level of ICT provision
available (lack of broadband access being the most consistent problem) implying that not all
students would be able to complete out of school tasks. Consideration of LAMS and learning
design software tends then to be visionary, “There are many aspects of LAMS yet to be
explored. The use of distance learning; the idea that work can be completed at home;
perhaps even parents could become involved in some way” (Teacher no. 21), (Final LAMS
questionnaire)
The anecdotal evidence available from interviews and questionnaires indicates that there are
several applications of LAMS envisioned by schools that would merit further research.
 Parent discussion communities – one school proposed the idea that LAMS could be
utilised in some way to involve a greater number of parents in forum discussions of
school issues, rather than continue to rely on the alternative distribution of paper or calls
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to attendance at evening meetings. This could be a very powerful means of strengthening
links between the home and the school. Models of organisation and effectiveness of such
forums might be investigated.
Setting homework for students – schools are interested in the idea of being able to
extend classroom activities and experiences into the home using LAMS. Two areas of
research would be useful here. Firstly, drawing on established BECTA research to offer
solutions to the issue of ICT access and the extent of ‘digital divide’ between students’
homes, which is the most frequently cited barrier to LAMS home use; secondly,
investigating models of extending classroom activities into the home, whether these be
separate homework sequences (any subject-specific issues) or classroom sequence
extension activities, and issues of electronic submission (security and organisation) and
teacher feedback.
Students who need to access their learning outside the classroom for whatever reason
(illness or exclusion for instance) could have some of their learning needs supplied by
LAMS. Subject-specific models of offering out-of-school curriculum opportunities to such
learners would be a useful area of research.
17.2.4 LAMS – Other Research Recommendations
The review has also identified research opportunities that do not necessarily sit under any of
the categories above. These research activities focus on LAMS at the level of school
management and strategy and at the standards level of learning design:
 Research into the relationship between LAMS adoption and effective management of
innovation.
 Integration with Moodle (or other VLEs and school management systems) – examine how
schools that adopt the Moodle VLE deploy and manage LAMS.
 IMS Learning Design – investigate the practical impact of LAMS becoming IMS Learning
Design compatible.
 JISC Reload and the European UNFOLD project on learning design – new learning
design tools are being created and released in parallel of the Becta LAMS Review –
suggesting the need for comparative studies that would place LAMS use in the greater
context of learning design. 7
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RELOAD: http://www.reload.ac.uk/
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18 Comparison with the JISC evaluation: Cross-sector LAMS
experiences
The JISC LAMS evaluation, published in June 2005, was carried out in the higher, further
and adult community learning sectors, and the current Becta report examined the use of
LAMS in UK secondary schools. The two reports had different aims in that the JISC study
focused on LAMS as learning design software and whether tools such as LAMS support
effective practice in designing for learning whilst the Becta review examined the objectives
and achievements of institutions adopting LAMS and consequent subject-specific uses of
LAMS in secondary schools. Despite these differences a comparison of the findings of both
studies reveals significant cross-sector parallels. These parallels are briefly summarised
below:
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Retention rate – In terms of the institutional involvement in the pilots, both studies found
that the LAMS pilot had a low retention rate with a high number of institutions and
practitioners who had not engaged with the pilot. Both studies explored reasons for this,
including time and resource commitments and the limitations of LAMS for the target
student groups etc. (See Section 3.5.8-JISC and Section 7 for the Becta study for further
details.)
Pilot participants’ e-learning experience – Although not explored in detail in the Becta
study, it was felt that the participants who took part in the pilot were similar to those in the
JISC study, i.e. ICT/e-learning champions, more experienced users and those less ICTliterate but still keen enthusiasts with some ICT knowledge or experience.
Sequences – In both studies students appreciated the independent learning and selfpaced nature of LAMS sequences. The learners in the JISC study (HE/FE and adult
learners) found the linearity of sequences was potentially limiting their learning styles,
whilst this not an issue with secondary school pupils, possibly because of the nature of
classroom teaching.
Benefits of LAMS for students – The anticipated and achieved benefits were very
similar between the two studies. These were that LAMS: motivates and engages
students; supports students partaking in group discussions and collaborative learning;
encourages the development of meta-cognitive and reflective skills; caters for a degree of
differentiation; allows self-paced working. However, the potential for ‘anytime, anywhere’
learning, whilst recognised by staff in the Becta study, was not realised in practice as was
achieved by practitioners in the JISC study.
Benefits of LAMS for teachers – LAMS showed effectiveness in both studies in offering
structuring support of learning activities for teachers and also the provision of a common
repository of resources. The evaluations found that LAMS was capable of supporting a
range of pedagogical approaches be it for teachers of secondary students, higher
education tutors or adult and community trainers.
Designing for learning – The JISC study found that using LAMS made practitioners
reflect on their own practice. This is parallel to the Becta study in which teachers found
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that LAMS helped them with lesson planning and structuring learning activities. (See
further details on learning design and LAMS in the JISC study.)
Sharing learning designs – Both studies found that practitioners felt it to be a distinct
advantage that LAMS offered opportunities for sharing learning designs with other
practitioners.
Shortcomings of LAMS – Practitioners involved with special needs students with
literacy problems across the different sectors found that LAMS was not suitable for their
student group, resulting with some discontinuing with the pilot.
Risks – The JISC study pointed to barriers to LAMS use, including technological
problems with LAMS, tutors’ and learners’ ICT skills; the Becta study explored
institutional contexts with regards to barriers and enablers to LAMS use. One such
example involved ICT room-access by teachers. If teachers were not able to book ICT
rooms easily for their subject, access became a barrier.
Online tutor-student interactions – The JISC study found that LAMS was not
supporting online tutor-student interactions whilst in the Becta study there was one
example of a teacher using the forum and making contributions to a discussion. This may
be a useful area to explore for potential future requirements, uses and scenarios for
online tutor-student interactions.
Workload efficiency – Both studies reported that practitioners felt that the adoption of
LAMS would increase their workload in the short term but would potentially lessen it in
future. Creating LAMS sequences was seen as an investment.
The uniqueness of LAMS – Both reviews attempted to explore what made LAMS stand
out from other software tools as both had come to the conclusion that the activities LAMS
allowed were not new in themselves, but there was still something unique about LAMS,
sometimes elusive to practitioners, which could be discerned from practitioners’
comments. Some of these were (see Section 4.1.4-JISC and Section 12-Becta study):
o LAMS could bring together online research and discussion activities in an
ordered, ‘orchestrated’ manner, the activity (and not content) being the focus.
o Teachers were able to monitor students and their contributions from the
classroom or from a distance.
o Activities are not new but added some extra dimensions, as for example,
anonymous student contributions.
o The visual representation of a learning sequence lent itself to a useful overview or
abstraction of learning design, even though practitioners may not have been
consciously aware of the concept of learning design itself.
LAMS and VLEs – Both reviews found practitioners comparing LAMS to VLEs, as
perhaps the closest tools available at the time of the studies being undertaken8. LAMS
was found to have more sophisticated administration facilities and less rigid structure to
Britain (2004) provided a review of learning design tools – these were either not offering functions on the scale
of LAMS, or were not yet widely available to practitioners or were just being developed (e.g. Coppercore, EduBox,
Eduplone, Lobster and Reload).
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support differentiation than VLEs, the JISC study reported. Although there was no explicit
focus on this comparison in the Becta study, both studies’ participants called for the
integration of VLEs and LAMS to provide a simpler logon and in appreciation of the fact
that the two should be complementary.
LAMS usage and training needs – the JISC study provided a detailed analysis of 14
learning sequences including the type of activities and concluded that the Noticeboard,
Share Resources and Question and Answer were the most used activities, while some
activity types were not used at all. The Becta study also found that certain activity types,
especially the ones needing more advanced knowledge or that appeared in later LAMS
versions, were less used, pointing to the need for and importance of continuous LAMS
training. (see Section 3.6-JISC and Section 14-Becta)
Sequence management – Practitioners across all sectors found that the management of
LAMS sequences was difficult, calling for a more organised structure which was recorded
as an enhancement.
Recommendations for LAMS hosting – The JISC study recommends that LAMS be
hosted for another 2 years for the pilot to further develop as there will be some
institutions lacking the expertise to host and support the open source LAMS software.
This recommendation is also confirmed in the Becta study, calling attention to the caseby-case needs institutions may have with regard to their continuing with (or embarking
on) their LAMS adoption.
In terms of the context of LAMS use, practitioners in both studies delivered LAMS sessions
which contained asynchronous and synchronous LAMS activities. The difference lay in the
delivery location in that, whereas the secondary school context was exclusively classroom
use of LAMS, students of LAMS at higher and further education institutions might have
logged on to LAMS from anywhere to complete their sequence.
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19 References
Becta ICT Research (2005) What the research says about ICT and motivation at
http://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/wtrs_motivation.pdf
Becta LAMS Interim Report (2005) Commissioned by Becta and written by the LAMS
Review Team , CRIPSAT, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Liverpool.
http://www.cripsat.org.uk
Britain, S (2004) A review of learning design: concept, specifications and tools: a report for
the JISC e-learning Pedagogy Programme, May. Available at
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/ACF1ABB.doc
Gibbs, D; O’Sullivan, K (2005 in press) Thinking outside the square: using LAMS to teach a
concept. Curriculum and Teaching
Masterman, E; Lee, S (2005) Evaluation of the practitioner trial of LAMS: Final Report.
Learning Technologies Group, Oxford University Computing Services. Report commissioned
by JISC.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/LAMS%20Final%20Report.pdf
Parry, Andy. (2005) Evaluation of LAMS Training. Kemnal Technology College, Sidcup,
Kent.
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20 Appendices
20.1 Appendix A – LAMS Tools
LAMS tools –
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LAMS tools continued –
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