(1888PressRelease)
April 16, 2008 - Qwizdom handheld voting systems (www.qwizdom.co.uk) are now being used by Life Education, the UK’s largest children’s health education charity, (www.lifeeducation.org.uk) in schools across the country to help children make healthy choices and teach them about the effects and risks associated with drugs. To ensure impact is maximised, the charity uses the handsets to engender debate, make the sessions truly interactive and ensure that even quieter children in the group can get involved.
The instant survey generation has already highlighted interesting results – children tend to be far more tolerant of alcohol than tobacco. Most are in favour of an overall tobacco ban while disagreeing that the legal age for alcohol consumption should be raised to 21.
A recent report for the NHS revealed that in 2006, 21 per cent of pupils in England aged 11-15 reported drinking alcohol in the week prior to being interviewed. Obesity is also on the up with the number of obese or overweight children aged 2-15 rising to around 30 per cent. It is crucial that such issues are discussed pragmatically with children from an early age and Life Education brings the message right into the heart of the classroom.
Handheld electronic voting systems from Qwizdom bring new elements of interactivity and fun to Life Education’s classroom sessions. Multiple-choice questions are posed and the children use the handsets to answer or vote. Seconds later the survey is collated and results are displayed on an interactive whiteboard for all to see. This enables the tutor to see which questions are being answered incorrectly, as well as identify individual pupils that need specific tuition.
Life Education Training and Development Manager Peter Kirby has 14 years of experience as a primary school teacher, five of them as a deputy head. He runs regular educational sessions in schools about healthy living and drugs awareness. Peter’s main audience is pupils between 9 and 11 years old and his mission is to educate in a way that sheds fresh light on subjects that are often misinterpreted and not discussed.
Peter comments: “We have been running mobile classes that travel around schools for quite some time but wanted to go beyond this and bring something unique to the mix. I saw Qwizdom at the BETT show (the world’s largest educational technology event) in January and thought it was something really different to introduce. Some kids can be reticent about taking part in a regular class so this is a great tool to involve everybody.”
Qwizdom’s handsets work with similar technology to those used in the TV show ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ though in reality are far more advanced. When students participate Peter can instantly see which questions they are getting right and where there are problems. This sidesteps the marking process of traditional paper based quizzes so that discussions can be enabled immediately and misconceptions can be corrected while the subject is still fresh in students’ minds.
Peter said: “We concentrate on health education with a strong focus on drugs and have a degree of expertise in this beyond that of most primary school teachers. By going interactive we can generate a fun learning experience – it’s something kids really remember.”
Peter and his team are usually brought in as part of the Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum. They have a holistic approach to teaching and cover both physical health areas such as diet and sleep as well as emotional health areas such as bullying and self-esteem.
LEGAL DRUGS KILL MORE PEOPLE IN THE UK THAN ILLEGAL DRUGS. TRUE OR FALSE?
SMOKING SHOULD BE TOTALLY BANNED. AGREE OR DISAGREE?
HOW MANY TEENAGERS HAVE TRIED ILLEGAL DRUGS?
These are just a few of the questions that Peter asks pupils via Qwizdom to engineer classroom debate. “By using this sort of technology we can instantly talk about why they feel this way and really bring a different dimension to teaching”, he explains. “Everyone plays an equal part in these sessions and Qwizdom is an extremely useful tool for developing knowledge and exploring attitudes.”
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