Snaps of Apps - The GEMS App Journey...

Snaps of Apps: The GEMS app journey…

The GEMS Education Core Values of Leading Through Innovation, Pursuing Excellence, Growing by Learning and Global Citizenship provide all our schools with the basis and indeed, mandate, to innovate for educational excellence and to develop ways in which to use digital technology to transform learning, communication and collaboration.

Beginnings

Back in the spring of 2011, GEMS Royal Dubai School was the first in the region to co-develop and launch a school smartphone app, used to communicate with parents and share students’ achievements. Children as young as 5 years old were able to contribute directly to the content of the app, giving the young learners an authentic platform for content creation and publishing.

The success of this project provided the inspiration for the GEMS ‘3aDay’ Parental Engagement App, with the original design actually drawn up by a Royal Dubai School student.

GEMS Parental Engagement App

A Digital Complement to Sound Advice - the GEMS 3aday App

GEMS Education seeks to maintain high standards in parental engagement by insisting that schools include parents in the educational process, encouraging them to take the learning journey with their children. This approach is based on research which suggests that students perform better in school and have greater overall achievement when they receive consistent positive support within the home. However, it’s not always easy for parents to get it right; most are not trained teachers and don’t know what to do or say.

This is exactly why the 3aday app was created: to give parents the ‘what to do or say’ knowledge, so they too can give their children the proven benefits of home support. On the app, select “GEMS Teachers” contribute a variety of simple yet specific, age-appropriate topics for families to talk about, activities to share, or meaningful ways of encouraging children.

The first of its kind in the digital world, the app provides engagement ideas and guidance from educational experts direct to parents and care-givers, as well as a networking platform for like-minded parents keen to support learning. Unlike an educational app parents might ‘park’ their kids in front of like a TV screen, for children to use alone, or an app that gives parenting advice, the GEMS 3aday app feeds busy parents learning-focused activities for them to do WITH their children. When parents participate in learning with their children it sends the message, “learning is important in this family.”

With the combination of simple age-appropriate activity ideas and integration of contemporary smart phones and tablets, the 3aday app responds directly to the findings and recommendations of a 2011 report, ‘Best Practices in Parental Engagement’, published by the UK Department for Education. This report found that engagement works best when parents receive clear, specific and targeted information, and recommended the use of technology wherever possible to reach modern parents. (Source: Janet Goodall and John Vorhaus (2011) Review of Best Practice in Parental Engagement. London: Department for Education)

Research-based strategies – talk, share, encourage

The 3 daily strategies integrated into the 3aday app – talk about, share, and encourage learning, are reinforced by current international research.

The “talk” option suggests specific topics or ideas for parents to discuss and provides sample or model questions for parents to ask.

The “share” option gives parents specific activity ideas – the best of which is reading (in any language) to inspire a love for learning among primary children, and other hands-on suggestions such as kitchen science, math games, real-world applications and family challenges.

The “encourage” option guides parents to praise or encourage their children with real learning objectives – the most important feature, too often missed by busy parents.

Customized features and functions

In the Settings area, parents are able to request push notification when new ideas are posted and remind busy parents to engage.

Selected age range for age-appropriate ideas

Parents select an age group in order to receive ideas appropriate to their child. Alternatively, they may choose to receive the full range of teacher-driven engagement topics with the ‘all-ages’ option, and then use what fits best.

User generated content and social networking

Unique to the app, are the social networking functions, allowing parents to comment on Teacher posts to build a network with other like-minded parents and experts, to promote learning-focused engagement globally.

Registered users can share their most successful activity ideas or tips to start a dialogue, or comment on other posts to support each other with suggestions for, “how it worked with my child…”

Likes and Hearts

Parenting and supporting learning is a demanding and often thankless role. Stars for posts we like or hearts for comments we love, give parents validation and encouragement when they do engage with their children.

Families can make learning more interesting and effective when they participate in it together, and reinforce the message that learning is important in this family. The 3aday app facilitates and supports family engagement in learning – a smart use of technology to strengthen learning and family bonds.

Free to the public, the 3aday app is available now for iOS and Android phones, and will be available soon for iPads.

A School app – created by the students

At GEMS Winchester School, Jebel Ali, students were challenged to create an official app for the school, through which parents could access a wide range of services and information, including details of curriculum, homework, newsletters and even school bus services.  

The winning entry in the competition has been submitted to the App Store and Google Play for approval, where it will be available for download by parents very soon.

Sanjeera Siddiqui, Head of ICT/Digital Learning Leader, said:

“This competition turned out to be a huge success in terms of students’ creativity, motivation, ownership and general self-esteem. We are very proud of the young children who participated in the competition and challenged themselves in the field of technology and authentic innovation. The project also complemented the school’s focus on skills development and employability.”

Serious Competition

In September 2014, GEMS Education and Mashreq  teamed up to launch a mobile app development competition. Students from nineteen schools were charged with creating a mobile app focused on educating corporate and investment banking clients on the benefits of online banking. Participants worked in multidisciplinary teams ensuring a balance of technical functionality, aesthetics, and business viability. Participants were given a two hour user experience and innovation workshop along with information on the Mashreq Matrix, Mashreq’s online banking platform, and had one and a half months to develop a working app. Winners of this challenge will be announced the Global Entrepreneurship Week Awards at Wellington International School in December 2014. (Christine Nasserghodsi, Director of Innovation at GEMS Wellington International School and Ritesh Dhanak, Senior Supervisor, Digital Learning at GEMS Modern Academy).

Teachers develop for their students

Not satisfied with generally available digital resources, the teachers at GEMS Our Own English High School Sharjah decided they wanted to offer a much more personalized digital learning experience for their students. A group of IT, English and mathematics teachers got together to create two high quality web apps for their students, both of which provide a personalized pathway for every student. Sheeba Ansar, Digital Learning Leader at the school, said, “We thought that we could give our students a better experience by creating a system and content that would better suit their needs. If the people creating the digital products actually know the children who will be using them, the learning outcomes are greatly improved.” The apps, ‘MathCafe’ and ‘LitGalore’ are accessed through the secure GEMS learning platform and have proved to be a great hit with students, who appreciate that their teachers have taken the time and made the effort to innovate in order to address their personal needs in such an engaging way.

Radio on the Go

The days of the school public address system look to be long gone at GEMS Winchester School in Oud Metha.  Digital Learning Leader, Mario Ross, has led a team of teachers and students to create the school’s own streaming radio station, which can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on all platforms and devices. A native app has been built for iOS, Android and Windows, making it even easier to connect with all members of the community. Students broadcast live during the school day and parents are able to listen live or playback the day’s show in the evening.  This is true innovation - technological creativity with a real purpose - as students discuss and debate real life, current issues on air, embedding the learning within a greatly enhanced curriculum. By providing mobile, digital access to the whole community, the school is bringing parents, students and teachers together, with greater shared purpose, as parental engagement in learning reaches new heights.

Phil Redhead

Senior Advisor, IT: Education Technology

GEMS Education