Transforming Your Delivery With Video Feedback and Assessment Software (hosted by FE Tech)

James Earl:

Hi, good afternoon everybody, and thanks very much for joining us. I’m going to make sure you’re in the right place first. So this is a webinar hosted by Fetech, which is myself. We got some great guests today to cover basically a showcase what we perceive to be a really revolutionary piece of software, not only in the UK at the minute, but globally. So the title of the webinar today, Transforming your Delivery with Video Feedback and Assessment Software, that assessment software being an organization called GoReact. And what we’re going to do today is showcase that software and tell you all about it, what it is, the uses, the benefits to it, how you could potentially use it to enhance your delivery, become more efficient, innovative, and then put it to life a little bit in a case study with another one of our guests today, Stuart Allen from a national training provider.

He’s going to really put it to life in terms of how that organization has utilized it and potentially talk through how you could use it as well. So before we do some introductions, just a little bit housekeeping. You might see, I’m sure you’ve used from days of COVID and these days, this piece of software before. There’s a questions tab on the side. We welcome any questions at all if you just put them through there, I’ll be picking them up throughout. We have a time slot at the end for questions and answers, but if you just keep them coming through throughout and if your question’s relevant to the conversations we’re having at this point in time when we do the presentation, then we’ll drop those questions in. If not, we’ll save them to the end and hopefully we’ll get a lot of questions and we aim to get through as many as we can. If not, then you’ll find our contact details at the end.

So without further ado, I’m going to do some introductions. Obviously I’m James, I’m from Fetech. I’m hoping you know what we do, which is why you’re here already. But obviously we can hunt around for the best learning technology solutions for the further education, higher education market space, which is why we’ve found GoReact and want to really showcase it today. I’ll introduce you now to Jenny and Stuart. Guys, if you just want to give a quick insight into who you are, what you do and your background, that’d be great. Jenny, you’re in the middle of the picture, so off you go.

Jenny Gordon:

Thank you, James. Yeah, I’m Jenny Gordon. I head up the international part of the GoReact business based in the UK, but our business and operations are effectively in every corner of the world now serving schools, colleges, higher education institutions, training providers, all sorts of education partners around the world using GoReact. Really happy to be here today. Thank you.

James Earl:

Thanks Jenny. And Stu, do you want to introduce yourself?

Stuart Allen:

Thanks James, and thanks for inviting me on the session today. So my role at SCL Education Group is I’m the Executive Group Director for Operation, so responsible for the curriculum delivery, the quality improvement, the commercial development of most provision types that come out of SCL education including study programs, adult skills, eSports, et cetera. So that’s my role at the organization.

James Earl:

Great, thanks very much. Look, without further ado, I think we’ve structured this right, to maybe introduce GoReact as a product itself, talk about what it does, the millions of users it’s currently got, and more the introduction into how we feel as an organization. I’m sure Jenny and Stu do as well, how it should be and could be utilized within further education. And just to say we are recording this session and it will be available to everyone afterwards too. So over to Jenny, I guess, in terms of an introduction to GoReact and what it is as a bit of kit and how it can be utilized.

Jenny Gordon:

Thank you. So GoReact is a bit of software, ultimately. We don’t focus on the hardware specifically. We’re very much focused on the software, but that aside, our main focus is to support better outcomes for all types of learners through the combination of video and feedback, whether that be in a formative or a summative way. We are working in more than 800 academic institutions, like I mentioned. They’re right through from schools, mainly a little bit older learners generally because of the user video, right through to adult learning and professional environments, with over four and a half million, I think it is users worldwide now. And I think we might be nearing 30 million videos recorded and uploaded into the system. All different lengths, sizes, different disciplines focused on and we can look a little bit more at that in just a second.

Next slide please. So we are here to look at an education technology product and we all know that that market and that landscape is very busy, it’s very crowded and there’s a lot of solutions out there and the great work that Fetech are doing to surface some of the best for your particular needs and challenges is really important. This slide just shows some of the things that we’re trying to, or some of the solutions we’re trying to present within the ed tech stack if you like, that feature within our learning organizations and institutions. And we feel that GoReact is in that assessment space, although we are providing a service or a solution for formative feedback to enable assessment as learning and more the opportunity for summative assessment as well, depending on the way that you roll out and use GoReact with your learners and in your existing courses.

Next slide. The next slide just brings that together and how GoReact works with things like your existing LMS system where we can thoroughly integrate with, perhaps your portfolio system, as a way of growth, bringing content, the ability to feedback on it and then mark that and present that either internally or externally. So we feel that and we place ourselves within a very broad place of assessment, but all across the assessment journey from the practice, the deliberate practice opportunity right through to the summative assessment is possible with GoReact.

Next slide. Thank you. So there’s lots and lots of research that demonstrates the combination of video and feedback is a magic formula if you like, for skill development. Self-awareness combined with feedback by a trusted instructor or a mentor or a peer, is very important for skill development and the use of video in the process and the ability to feed back at pinpoint moments on a video increases learner awareness and improves that skill at the speed which can’t be done without it. So like I said, lots of research to underpin this process. So how easy then is it to implement?

Next slide please. We are trying to do the implementation of the use of video within assessment as easy as possible. We are, like I mentioned, a bit of browser-based software that can work on your existing infrastructure. You don’t need to buy expensive hardware to use GoReact. And a lot of the things that Stu is going to talk about today involves learners using their phone or their tablet, their existing laptop camera, wherever you can capture a video, that can be fed in to GoReact. So that makes it super easy. Uploading is simple, recording straight into the system is simple too. All of these things fundamental to make it as easy as possible for learners to use the system and get better experiences as a result of it. So no longer do we have to upload a video to Google and then pin a document to it. These things come together completely integrated, making it easier for you as teachers and instructors as well as our students who can start to be much more aware of what they’re doing within their learning.

We have really focused on the learning aspect and we’ve designed the product. We work very closely with our user base, with our partners in market all around the world. What do they need to make their learning experiences the best they can be for their learners? So everything from ease of use, of course, but things like safeguarding, GDPR, top of the list when it comes to the things that we think about when we’re building and implementing GoReact. We’ll have a look at some of these features in just a minute when we look at the product, but ultimately the ability to upload a video, record a video as an individual or as a group and feedback on that video in the most simple way possible, is the crux of GoReact.

We are working with loads and loads of different disciplines or use cases, massive variations, everything from sales presentations, soft skills, functional skill development, right through to teacher training. We’re doing a lot of international QTS work with universities in this country and with colleagues around the world. We do a lot in nurse skill development, both in a remote and hybrid delivery fashion. As Stu’s going to talk about in a minute, we are doing a lot in physical education and training. The opportunities are endless. We are talking currently to apprentices in building trades, in engineering trades. Anywhere where a student should demonstrate their skill and get feedback on it, there is a place for GoReact.

And what sort of challenges do you have or pains can we solve with it? Again, they’re infinite too. Of course we focus on learner outcomes, but in this world, the ability to have learner touchpoints more commonly but not having to go face-to-face, being able to do that remotely through video is really crucial. The ability for a student to self-reflect on their own performance ahead of assessment, that deliberate practice and the ability to self-reflect or self-critique something ahead of an assessment, ultimately ends in better assessment results as well. There’s a big case around budget and time savings too, which I think Stuart’s going to touch on in more detail in a second. But of course, if you don’t have to travel to as many places to observe at every point, there’s cost savings and time savings to be made as well.

And as we’ve said, any form of delivery in multiple subject areas. And James, you might want to add a little bit to this as well, since a lot of your partners are in this world.

James Earl:

Yeah, I guess one of the first early discussions we had, didn’t we? Is this partnership and it’s potential and I think sometimes you just find something, whether it’s a product or a service that just makes sense and you begin to question why you haven’t been utilizing it for so long, whether that’s a relatively new solution, whether it’s just a solution that hasn’t landed on the shores. And I think GoReact was certainly one of those things as a bit of a light bulb moment for us as an advisory organization of, well, why isn’t this gain utilized more across multiple subject areas, in multiple forms of delivery and solving many problems and innovating? And if you look at that list, I’m not going to go through every single one of them at all, but I’m sure a lot of you on today’s call will have certain forms of this funded training, if not all of them.

And as Jenny said before, anywhere where a learner needs to demonstrate a skill this could be utilized. And I’ll challenge anybody across any forms of those seven different areas where a learner doesn’t have to demonstrate a skill, therefore it should be and could be utilized because the evidence it brings for us in terms of uploaded evidence and visual evidence, best practice between the trainer, the student experience, the administrative experience, just the data that you gather from it. There’s benefits across everything, especially when it comes to funded training, especially when it comes to uploading evidence of training students within funding, which I know Stu will pick up a bit.

And I think if anyone’s got any questions, then fire them through about how it could be utilized in different funding forms. But we also welcome meetings and conversations afterwards if it’s something that our guests wanted to have a look at with the different funding forms, that they’ve got on. So it’s a bit more of a planting the seed for everyone today to say, actually challenge yourself to look at those funding streams and go, well, actually how could GoReact be utilized, or have I got students that need to demonstrate a skill in these areas and GoReact could really kind of innovate that experience on both sides with administrative and learner.

Jenny Gordon:

Yeah, and I think this is an important point. As we are developing our approach to different sorts of training and learning and whatever phase it might be, since COVID particularly, we are challenging the way that we deliver learning and teaching, deliver assessment, quality assess and quality assure what’s being delivered. And that can still happen in a multitude of different ways. And I think it’s really important that the technology you choose can be used in all of those different modalities so that you can get the best value from it. And of course there’s an opportunity to use GoReact while you’re in the classroom. In fact, we’ve got anecdotal evidence of some of the students engaging more with asynchronous video than they are in a synchronous Teams call for example because they’re not under so much pressure to answer there and then.

The ability to then use it in a hybrid situation where you’re doing some face to face and some through GoReact and then of course completely online as well. So I think any technology, not just necessarily this solution, but any, we should be thinking about the modalities in which it can be used so that you get that equity of learner experience, whatever your learners might be doing, wherever they might be.

James Earl:

Great. No, that’s great Jenny. Thanks very much. And I think just look, just before we move on to Stu’s live case study of how SCL have utilized the software over the course of 2022, it’d be good, it’s a question in terms of alternatives to this software. So what are people doing now? What have people done in the past and what is the alternative? Is there any rivalry stuff out there?

Jenny Gordon:

Is that a question for me?

James Earl:

Yes.

Jenny Gordon:

Well, I think there’s a few different things. First of all, traditionally in education we’ve been a little bit afraid of capturing our students on video, but since COVID we’ve all become a little bit more used to and familiar with that, and certainly our 16-year-old learners are very comfortable using video as a form of content, whether they’re creating it or feeding back on it. So I think as we’re maturing and emerging into the use of video more, not just to view content but to actually create it, will be coming more comfortable. And I know that instructional designers at higher end further ed are considering video and assessment much more commonly.

But I mean in some cases, like I mentioned right at the outset, you have colleagues that have asked students to upload a video to say a Google Drive. Great. People can view that video, but how do you feed back on something with pinpoint perfection so that that student knows exactly what they’re doing right or wrong? Really the videos that were being uploaded, you get a summative, good, bad, ugly, whatever the mark might be, but that collaboration around the content is the difference. And that’s quite unique, something that GoReact is doing that we are not seeing anywhere else very often.

James Earl:

No, great. And I think that leads us on nicely to Stuart and SCL education, and I guess put into practice what we’ve just learned about the software and how a successful large training provider has utilized that, but with regionalities as well. So how it can be used regionally but also how it could possibly be used nationally. So all size and shapes of training providers, further education colleges, higher education. Stu, across the you.

Stuart Allen:

Thanks James. So yeah, so just to echo what James, just introduce this section or introduces into this section, this is very much a case study approach of how we’ve effectively implemented this piece of software and seen some early signs of impact that have been really encouraging. So I think to start the case study, it’s just good to give you a little bit of background of who we are to set the scene on why we engaged with this piece of software. So next slide please, Molly.

So if you were to look at our current website, it looks like we basically teach football or just sports courses. And I think it’s really important to set the scene as we are ready to in the next few weeks launch our new website, is we’re a national provider of education and training across multiple provision types. So we have a large study program offer across 70 odd sites across the country where we deliver to over 3,000 16 to 18 year olds using sports, performing arts, eSports, as a vehicle of not just engaging learners into education but adding significant value to their behaviors, their attitudes, their development for future life and work.

We have a very clear focused adult skills offer that’s again not just about delivering sports qualifications, it’s delivering skills that are in demand of local regional requirements, but using sports, health, physical activity as a vehicle of allowing adults to really stand out from the crowd and develop resilience and confidence for future life, et cetera. We have a comprehensive apprenticeship offer and of course we’re now diversifying into provisions such as eSports and we’ve got a really nice offer within performing arts for example. So it’s important to set that scene because it allows me to explain why we engage with Fetech to find GoReact. So next slide.

And that’s just again an example of our spread. What you will notice is I’ve done this purposely just to keep everyone on their toes that Yorkshire Cricket and West Ham are the wrong way around, but it just gives us an idea of some testimonies from some of our centers. But again, it’s just again important to showcase the spread of our provision and why we need to engage with technology enablers, not just to drive efficiencies because that’s the secondary benefit of why we engage in technology, but more importantly develop environments for our young people, our adults, our apprentices, to demonstrate depth of skill, knowledge for our experts and our specialists to add significant value to their development over time. So it just gives you a flavor of who we are and what we do. Next slide. Thanks Molly.

This is, and it’s really, I am going to say it James, so apologies. I think this is why Fetech is game changing for our sector because what we did when we realized we wanted to engage with technology to enhance our provision for our young people and adults is we sat with Fetech and James’ team and did a real diagnostic of what are our challenges and where we needed technology to enable us to add value to what we were already doing. And through going through that diagnostic GoReact was a piece of software that was recommended to us as a result of our demands and our challenges.

So we were introduced to GoReact. As soon as we sat with Jenny and started to explore the software, it encouraged us to run a pilot project in using this software in some of our provision where we have remote delivery or we have learners in remote locations that we can’t always get physical specialists into the field all the time to deliver a high quality education and training, et cetera. So we were paired with GoReact as a piece of software that met our demands as a result of obviously the work we do with Fetech, which is again why I think this is game changing in being able to see this because of just how much technology is out there, echoing what Jenny’s already said, there’s so much out there we needed to find something that was right for us. Fetech paired us quite greatly with GoReact. I said go direct, then. GoReact. So moving on to the next slide please, Molly.

So the pilot we decided to apply this software to was the level three, our level three diploma in gym instructing and personal training. So we partner with Les Mills as a result of adding significant value to our learner’s destinations and they do Les Mills qualifications on top of the study program that our young people do with us. And our one-year level three is currently delivered to just over 250 young people across the country at 18 different sites, our satellite sites. So our delivery model is very much of a blended model where we timetable across the year weekly face-to-face or online knowledge sessions, weekly independent practical competency practice, and monthly face-to-face practical competency assessments where we have our specialists go out into the field, spend time in the gymnasium or a fitness suite with our learners, and actually do that face-to-face practical development that allows them to also not just do summative assessment but see the impact of their knowledge development and their independent development over time.

We have a real focus on employability and enterprise as well in relation to this provision because our learners may get a job in a gym and another business, but a high proportion of our learners are also interested in setting up their own business and setting up their own enterprise within this space. And of course we partner with Les Mills because also it gives them a destination onto their staffing list that allows them to actually become practicing Les Mills instructors, which again stands them out from the crowd. So we felt when we met with Jenny and looked at this software, this was the best place to trial it and the next few slides is the result of that trial.

So what were our challenges? We really worked through with James and James’ team and then laterally, Jenny when we were introduced to Jenny and GoReact and we identified this list of challenges. I’m not going to go through them line by line because you’ll have obviously access to this recording, but you can see there’s some on there that I’m sure other providers face on a day-to-day basis of any provision that they deliver remotely or blended to adults, apprentices or young people. So we have an issue at SCL with some of our young people’s confidence to engage with technology enablers. So pre GoReact, we were using Teams, we were using shared drives, we were using other forms of technology that listen, have their purpose, but was not necessarily allowing our learners or developing our learner’s confidence of engaging with a user-friendly simple piece of software that was enabling them to spend more time on actually what mattered, which was the development and the upload of content.

Because we have such a remote nature and we have monthly face-to-face practical sessions with our learners, we wanted to get more opportunity to look at what our learners were doing in those independent slots on a more regular basis through constant formative assessment. So we realized we needed a piece of software that allowed learners to record content, upload it, and our tutors remotely watch feedback, set development targets in preparation for when they were going out to visit. We want to develop our young people’s broader skills, we know where the future’s going, particularly in the fitness sector, digital, virtual, remote, blended. So we wanted to develop those broader skills for our young people. And again, there’s some other bits, let’s talk truth as well. There was an opportunity of looking at our cost base and it’s a very expensive provision when we’ve got trainers out on the road staying in a hotels, carbon footprint with how much we’re impacting the environment by the amount of travel we were obviously doing pre this piece of software.

So our challenges were very much focused on how can we improve the quality of education and our learners access to feedback through a way that was easy to use? And the side benefit of that is potentially we would offset some of the cost of that travel into investing more in this piece of software to broaden this across other provision types. So there were some of our challenges that we went through a diagnostic process at the start of that engagement.

So what was the impact? We’ve been doing this a year and pleasingly we’ve seen some really, really positive impact both in terms of our learners development and outcomes and also on cost. So again, I’m not going to go through all of them, but I think the most pertinent ones on here is if you look at the midway in terms of our first time pass rates, we’ve seen that increase by 32% and that’s only in a year of introducing this software. And obviously when you introduce a new piece of software, you have some people who adopt it very quickly and are really good at it. You have some that take a bit of time to get used to it. So to see this output in year one was really pleasing.

And what was more pleasing was when you look at some of the content, you could actually see our learners over time grow and develop and demonstrate a level of competency that they couldn’t, three, four months ago. And when you look at the feedback that was aligned to that and the targets and you spoke to the learners and when we did our own internal deep dive activity, it was clearly having a beneficial impact upon our learner development over time. So that was a really pleasing output, for saying we’ve done this for year one and we have some staff really engage in this and of course some staff who’ve taken a bit longer to adopt. But hey, that’s always first year impact of change.

But also what you’ll see is we have also started to see a clear reduction in our cost. So when we look at what our cost base was last year for this provision type versus the cost base this year, since introducing this technology, we’ve seen a circa 30% reduction in expenses, travel, hotels as a result of our trainers being able to do more at home and not sacrifice the impact on the learner’s performance and development. And again, that was really pleasing and I guess that’s the icing on the cake for us, this was never a cost saving exercise, this was about improving quality of a remote provision or a blended provision, but it has had a positive impact upon some of those costs. And also the CPD bit’s a really important benefit because we’ve actually been able to showcase some of our learner’s performance to other learners across other sites as a best practice model as well as sharing some of our teachers practice.

So we were able to record some content of our trainers delivering a technique that was then shared across the country as a best practice example of how to carry out this skill within the curriculum. So again, it’s actually become a really good teaching and learning resource tool and as we work with Jenny and the team, I’m sure there’s more we can do and get out of this that we’ve not even touched the sides on. But in terms of initial impact after year one implementation, there’s been some really nice positive shoots come out of that case study, that pilot. Moving on.

And James allowed me to have this slide in which was really good. And it’s just something again, which I think is really important to demonstrate is education is all around, isn’t it? Understanding where a learner starts, what they need to get out of an education program and individualizing an offer and an experience that allows them to make rapid progress over time to get to a place where we are confident that they’re not only going to engage in the workplace higher level study, but more importantly that they’re going to make better decisions for their life and be active citizens in their communities. And this piece of software has allowed us to enhance the experience of our learners so that they’re better prepared to leave us not just with a bit of paper that says I now can practice as a personal trainer, but they’ve got confidence, skill, breadth that’s allowing them to go and get that work and stand out. And this has been a really useful pilot to see an enabler, technology enabler, that’s helped us in our goal of developing some of the best personal trainers in the country out in the field.

So thank you James for letting me include that final slide. That’s it.

James Earl:

We’ve shared many a webinar in previous years and it just wouldn’t be the same without that car. So I think it’s a good illustration of where you’ve come with GoReact, good work. Look Stu, thanks for that. And I think, look, it’s a thought for everybody, isn’t it? In terms of, and it’s not very often that you get a piece of software in my eyes that benefits every area, one, the innovative piece, two, the learner experience, three, the administrative experience, four, the cost saving. You could even look at the costing because for us or my particular view or our view at Fetech is you can also look at the, and I know we’re talking commercials here and Stu’s all about the leaner, all about the learner experience. Now my background is also revenue related. You can look at the additional revenue potential because of the time it frees up for people to perhaps have larger cohorts without the quality going down.

So really when you look across why you take on a little bit of technology sometimes those seven, eight, nine examples that we’ve just given, two, three, four of them might give you the green light for investment. Well, it crosses all of them. So for us it’s a little bit of a no-brainer, very, very innovative solution. One of those questions that came in before about alternatives as well, really in my eyes, there’s not an alternative software that would do that, protects that learner experience, that protects that quality, that also could really innovate the way in which you are doing things.

Which is why what we’re going to do next is a little bit of a showcase. We’ve not done this on this software before so we’re going to have to throw the baton across to Jenny’s way to start controlling it. But I thought it would be very powerful to just give a quick overview showcase of the product itself. So everything that Stu’s been talking about, Jenny’s been talking about to bring it to life a little bit and show everyone on this call and anyone who’s watching the recording a visual of the product itself because a picture speaks 1,000 words or whatever the saying is. So Jenny, if we give you control, make sure this works and if you want to guide us around a little bit and then we’ve got a couple of questions that have come in, we’ll cover that off.

Jenny Gordon:

Perfect. We’ll definitely give it a go. Molly’s good at keeping me right and giving me access to the right things. So I think you should be able to see. Yeah, hopefully you can see GoReact. So look, we’re going to show a little bit, and James, can you see GoReact? Does that look familiar? And Stu, you can see.

James Earl:

Yeah.

Jenny Gordon:

Perfect. So look, we wanted to show a little bit just to contextualize what Stuart had talked about in the case study, but obviously because of GDPR and students and names and that sort of thing, we’ve going to be a little bit careful but just wanted to demonstrate some of that. I also want to look in a different use case as well and teacher training just because one of the things you mentioned there, James, about ticking lots of boxes, what we’re finding with the delivery of international QTS from a teaching perspective is we are now able to train people in completely different countries because we can observe them and feedback on them and mentor them to a point completely remotely. So I wanted to look at that just as well because I think you can then use that when you’re thinking about other disciplines and other use cases for GoReact.

Here we have one of our brilliant instructors, teachers of some of the learning that Stuart was talking about and in this case we are using GoReact to share best practice. This is how you do something. So watch this before you go into a gym, watch this video, let me know what you think about it. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Are my instructions good enough? So this video has been in this case uploaded directly into the system.

You can also record straight into the system as well depending on what you want to do. But this allows the student that might be seeing this particular technique for the first time to question what weight should I use or remind themselves to go back and have a look at what weights they should be using when they are demonstrating these techniques in the gym. And what it’s doing is bringing into context the video and the feedback pinpoint together, if you like or tied together in a perfect way.

Every comment or every piece of feedback that’s put in alongside a video is timestamped with the name of the person that leaves the feedback. If it’s yourself as part of a self-reflection, it’s your own name. If it’s a peer, it’s their name. If it’s an instructor and assessor, it’s their name and their role. Students can then go through and simply click on one of the comments and that could be an audio comment or it could be a video comment, it could be any sort of feedback or content in form of a comment that the student wants to make on this particular piece of video.

And it all falls into this very unique panel of feedback that then they can come back and reference any time. This is the case of sharing best practice. If we look quick at what it looks like when students submit something, I’m just going to log in slightly differently here. We’re going to go into an area that students have uploaded some of their own assessment. Again, this is self-reflection and the instruction that the students were given in this instance was to demonstrate something specific using a piece of equipment to upload or record in to the system and to self reflect on that demonstration.

So here we have an example of a student demonstrating something, talking it through with one of their peers in a local gym. You can see that this has been recorded on a phone. So it’s super easy for students to use their existing infrastructure to get videos into the system. And once that’s there and uploaded they can start feeding back and giving themselves some self-reflection. Now as an instructor or a mentor, you can give students rubrics or criteria that they should be looking out for. You can be adding to the sorts of things you’re asking them to feedback on all the time. But super easy to upload and again start commenting or feeding back on the types of things we’re watching here.

As an instructor, if you are marking them the system allows you to go through the order of things that have been submitted. It tells you what you’ve looked at, it tells you how many comments. It tells you whether or not there’s been a mark associated with it or if it’s simply just a formative feedback activity. There’s lots and lots of different use cases. This is obviously the gym instruction and personal training that Stu was mentioning earlier. But there’s also things like engineering, welding basics. Let’s have a look here at something that’s been submitted. As you can see this is a video that’s been brought in from YouTube, possible to do that, and there’s some comments here falling into the panel. So what I’d ask my students to do in this case was to record and upload their welding experience and then there’s some comments already fallen into the panel here.

I wanted to quickly look at the teacher training use case just for a second just to show a little bit more functionality with the system because in this case this student is being observed and what we’ve got here as well as the written comments that I just showed you, we’ve got the ability to leave these colored feedback markers that are completely customizable to the type of observational discipline that you’re working in.

So as well as the written comments that are all completely time stamped, you can also start leaving very quick feedback markers that show and start to build up criteria that’s being demonstrated by the student within that assessment. And of course these are all feeding back into the data points that you’re looking for as well.

Now James mentioned earlier how do we integrate with other parts of the ecosystem or ed tech ecosystem and with through LTI primarily we integrate with the majority learning management systems on the market. Moodle being a huge one, PalmTech and Canvas, lots and lots of different systems. When we do that, the courses that are already functioning through those systems simply bring GoReact as an external tool, but it is completely possible to use it as a standalone tool as well. If and when it’s integrated with your LMS, if you have a rubric or an observation sheet or a mark scheme attached to your activities, then they can be marked on those and the assessment criteria can be fed back into your LMS as well.

So you see here that there’s a mark been attributed to this particular piece of work, 17 out of 24. That’s the sort of mark that would go back into the LMS system. Importantly for this particular use case as well, the ability to share an entire session of content, criteria, formative and summative assessment with an external assessor or an external QA, whatever it might be outside of the system, comes through the power of this little three dotted magic button here, which allows you to share the entire session with somebody external either through a link or to their email address. So that is shareable, it can go into portfolios, it can be evidenced at whatever point it needs to within the learning journey as well.

The opportunities are endless, the ability for students to work as groups, as individuals, to look at best practice and to feedback on it. Lots and lots of different things. But I think James, I’m going to hand back to you for a second and we can go into more detail if there are any specific questions.

James Earl:

Yeah, thanks Jenny. I think that’s a great showcase really just to see. I think it’s really nice for everyone to see the actual product working through to just confirmation for Stuart’s case study and the power of the system and the software. One thing was through integration and I think that’s a really important thing to say is look, since, and it is probably post pandemic where ed tech learning technology has really exploded in terms of the utilization of software and systems and there’s some organizations with dozens, I’m not kidding you, dozens of systems.

So integration is absolutely key and we’ve seen working examples of how this can be easily integrated, which is probably heavy on people’s mind of oh hey, another bit of kit to give to our learners, another bit of kit to give to our staff, what are they going to say? So integrate and the APIs that are really, really easily done. I think you touched on it in terms of the presentation itself, Stu, probably it’s more of a question for you around your view of, I’ll let you explain your role when you look at quality and moderation in both internally, external and obviously maybe perhaps what views of Ofsted might have with this, we’ve got our exceptions on, but what do I know? Because we just like revenue and sales end efficiencies end. But quality wise, what would be your view on the evidence that it captures?

Stuart Allen:

So I think from if we’re talking internal quality assurance, quality improvement impact is the one thing that’s important with adopting technology is not about the technology you necessarily use. It’s how it is used to empower and develop an environment that allows learners to showcase and demonstrate their learning and progress over a timeframe. And teachers have easy access to viewing that progress and giving really meaningful feedback that allows learners to develop and be challenged and to be stretched over a period of time. So the reason I like this software so much from an SCL point of view is because it’s easy and if something is easy you get people to adopt it. And when I say people, that’s all stakeholders staff, learners, quality assurers, quality improvements, and all of our infrastructure of taking an approach of defining standards, testing what’s working and then improving and driving change where there’s things that are not having the impact we expect for our young people and adults.

So I think the one thing that I really liked about this software and like about this software is the easy capability of upload, assessment, feedback and seeing progress over time by capturing things over a period that allows you to constantly look back at what did they upload in October and what have they uploaded in December? I can see a remarkable difference and I can see where feedback has allowed that to happen. And then if I triangulate that by speaking to learners, looking at other evidence and I can see it’s the result of strong pedagogy, teaching practice, but using this enabler to enhance that teaching practice, happy days. And I have seen that over the year’s pilot, which is why we are looking at expanding this across our HE provision and our English and Maths provision.

If you’re talking Ofsted, the one thing that I think everyone who’s worked in this sector understands or should understand is Ofsted don’t dictate a way of doing stuff. What they test and measure is is it being used effectively to empower and develop learning? And therefore this piece of technology, as I said, what we’ve experienced internally because of its ease of use and its functionality, what we are able to see and now evidence if and when we’re inspected again in the future, is progress over time as a result of high quality assessment practice that has led to feedback that is driving change.

And I think that’s quite an important part of this software. And I know there’s a lot out there around Ofsted’s views on online technology and all of that stuff, but it’s all getting lost a little bit in translation because again, Ofsted are making comment in where technology’s being used poorly or worse, being used as a cost saver and a business efficiency driver, which yes, it will bring, but if that’s your sole motivation of using technology, you are focusing on the wrong things. And therefore that’s why I want to be perfectly clear is that it’s not around Ofsted dictating away or dictating technology or how or when to use technology. It all goes down to the question, is it being used effectively to drive improvements in learners understanding, comprehension and skill over a period of time so that when they leave the organization they are ready to become brilliant in work. So that’s probably a way, have I answered the question, James?

James Earl:

Yeah, no that’s great. No, that’s great. I think, look, there’s something else I’m trying dictate this around costs and with margins being squeezed, you might have seen in the news recently, especially around apprenticeships, apprenticeship standards and the value per learner they get for that, another system and another investment and how can people build a business case with this kind of software system? I’ve got my own views, but that’s not what I’m here for. One of you, do you want to put your hand up, take over first in terms of that kind of investment business case study to put this software in into place?

Stuart Allen:

I mean, I’m happy to give you my example and then Jenny if I miss anything you can add into that if you want. I mean, from a business case point of view, obviously I had to do a business case and I’m going to continue to do a business case because we’re looking to increase our usage of this software across provision. So listen, you’ve got the black and white evidence of where you can save non-pay costs in the form of travel, accommodation, expenses as a result of reducing the requirements of when we had trainers going out weekly and traveling across, we’ve got a site in Newcastle and then sites down in Bristol. So the level and scale of travel is phenomenal for our business. So there’s the black and white approach of being able to look at what we would normally spend on transport of a weekly visit approach versus moving and shifting that to a monthly approach.

So there’s a clear offset of cost there in terms of what we would normally spend versus what we could spend by replacing some of that travel and face-to-face stuff with this software. That’s one example of how you can show return on investment. I think that the medium to long-term return on investment is how this is improving our provision, which is going to improve our outcomes, which is a great opportunity of attracting more learners to our offer. So we are using this now as a commercial marketing learner find exact tool as a, not only are you going to gain a qualification on being a personal trainer and improve your life opportunities, you are going to develop skills that are going to stand you out in the crowd in a sector that is becoming digitally focused and therefore why would you not come to us and get this experience and go to an alternative provider and not get that experience?

So I’ve done a profile of where I see our numbers improving as a result of using this as a really good attractive tool and therefore I can put a monetary value on that as well as a return on investment. So there’s two examples we’ve done internally, whether that’s helped or not James, but that’s what we’ve done.

Jenny Gordon:

I think just building on that, the added value you get from it as well is important when you think about business case. Are my students assessment ready? We can now know that ahead of traveling to assess for example. The buildup of content that you get over time, really good best practice videos and best practice content that you can now share among your entire community is an output of using the system that you didn’t have before. The ability to self-reflect, which I think is a huge part of the learning process that is completely underplayed, but asking students to structurally reflect on what they’re doing as part of the learning process rather than just focusing on that endpoint, so that they are probably more likely to succeed more quickly.

And then I think one of the other things, I love this, Ben talked about this Stuart recently, was so many personal trainers are now delivering their services online via video. How much more ready are your students going to be to do that and to position themselves in that place because of the experience of using GoReact? So there’s lots of added value that you can get from it as well as the nuts and bolts of the commercials, I think.

Stuart Allen:

Just one more example, and Jenny’s just alluded to it, James, is also we’re getting more first time pass rates. So the cost of resits and reassessments and all of the stuff that comes with awarding body costs is also going to have a long-term impact on efficiency.

James Earl:

Yeah, and it’s probably back to the point, the various points we were looking at before in terms of you’ve got varying scenarios to get that green light. And for me personally with this tool, we’ve helped tons of organizations to integrate and bring in software of all sizes and types and scenarios to build those business cases. For me, it’s not an additional investment. It’s an investment that helps you to save money on what you’re currently doing actually. If you strip that out, then it innovates for the students and for the administrative staff, it improves quality. So that’s really how I would see it is more of it’s an investment to actually create efficiencies but also to sprinkle that innovation across your delivery and what you’re doing.

And from our point of view, it’s a bit of a no-brainer in a bit of software which why I’m sat here today talk about it, and that probably brings it to a decent close. So thank you both of you for your time today. Thank you everybody who’s listening now, who’s going to be listening to the recording. I think if you want any further information, have got any further questions, then get in touch with me direct, I guess. I think my name is about to pop up, hey, there I am with my email address on the site.

And also just a reminder that obviously we help people with software and systems like this, so I guess if you’re not a member, how have you made it on the webinar, but hey, if you’re not, then go to www.fetech.co.uk/register, [inaudible] absolutely free. And this is all part of what we do in terms of advice and guidance. Without further ado, we’ll close it down there. Thank you guys. Any closing remarks or anything like that before we let people go off and have a good afternoon.

Jenny Gordon:

Thank you very much, James.

Stuart Allen:

Thank you for letting us share our use of this software.