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Apps for Good Impact report 2011/12 Apps for Good is a course that enhances the enterprising spirit of young people in a caring, purposeful, 21st century context. Martin Nirimsloo, Senior team, St Matthew Academy The Apps for Good project blends technology, creativity, investment and talent in a way that should help inspire young people to develop apps that can make a real difference to their lives and the lives of others. Bob Schukai, AfG expert Global Head of Mobile Technology, Thomson Reuters, and Tech City Investment Organisation ambassador

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Page 1: Apps for Good: Impact report 2012

Apps for Good

Impact report 2011/12

Apps for Good is a course that enhances the enterprising spirit of young people in a caring, purposeful, 21st century context.

Martin Nirimsloo, Senior team, St Matthew Academy

The Apps for Good project blends technology, creativity, investment and talent in a way that should help inspire young people to develop apps that can make a real difference to their lives and the lives of others.

Bob Schukai, AfG expert Global Head of Mobile Technology, Thomson Reuters, and

Tech City Investment Organisation ambassador

Page 2: Apps for Good: Impact report 2012

2 www.appsforgood.org

Contents

Executive summary.............................................................................................. 3

2011/12 outcomes ..................................................................................................... 3

How AfG works .................................................................................................... 5

Theory of change ........................................................................................................ 5

Process of change ....................................................................................................... 5

The AfG five-step course methodology ....................................................................... 6

What makes AfG special ............................................................................................. 7

Stakeholder value exchange ....................................................................................... 9

Are we making an impact? ................................................................................ 10

The students ................................................................................................................................ 10

The educators .............................................................................................................................. 11

The schools .................................................................................................................................. 11

Analysing outcomes and impact ............................................................................... 12

How the Apps for Good programme produces its outcomes ...................................... 13

Student outcomes .................................................................................................... 14

Students improve their entrepreneurial and technical skills ....................................................... 14

Students increase their confidence ............................................................................................. 16

Students are clearer on their career interests ............................................................................. 16

Educator outcomes ...................................................................................................................... 18

General outcomes ........................................................................................................................ 20

The Apps for Good Awards ................................................................................ 21

A selection of 2012’s student winners ....................................................................... 23

Educator training .............................................................................................. 25

Average cost per student/school ........................................................................ 26

Achievements in 2011/12 .................................................................................. 27

Aims for 2012/3 ................................................................................................. 28

Sponsors and supporters .................................................................................... 29

Strategic sponsors .................................................................................................... 29

Apps for Good Awards sponsors ............................................................................... 30

Lessons learned and what we are doing about them .......................................... 31

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3 www.appsforgood.org

Apps for Good – Young people designing apps that change their world Apps for Good1 (AfG) aims to ignite in students a passion for technology by supporting educators to help their students design problem-solving mobile apps. AfG provides a methodology, learning resources and training to educators, who then facilitate problem-centred sessions where students design their own mobile applications which solve a real-world problem that they care about. AfG connects industry professionals to the students and educators so that they learn from experts in the field.

Executive summary Apps for Good aims to create the following outcomes:

Students more skilled and confident; clearer on their career interests

Educators more skilled, knowledgeable and confident

Greater personal engagement between students, educators and industry professionals

Communities gain from having young people with motivation and skills to solve problems using technology

2011/12 outcomes Student outcomes

1. Students improve their entrepreneurial2 and technical skills

On each of the entrepreneurial skills that students were asked to describe the effect of AfG, between 19%-35% of students said that AfG had a significant3 effect

o 35% of students said that AfG had a significant effect on their programming skills

On each of the entrepreneurial skills that educators were asked to describe the effect of AfG, between 43-74% of educators said that AfG had a significant effect on students

o 74% of educators said that AfG had a significant effect on students’ teamwork skills

1 Apps for Good is the programme run by the charity CDI Apps for Good (AfG).

2 ‘Entrepreneurial skills’ are taken here to encompass the following skills: teamwork and

collaboration, team communication, market research, making presentations, problem solving, idea generation, project management, working with adults. 3 In this report, the use of the word ‘significant’ does not have any specific statistical meaning.

Rather it is used in the layman’s sense.

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(AfG) really helps you become more creative, become a leader and an effective listener.

AfG student, 16

2. Students improve their confidence

45% of students say that they are more confident because of the course

65% of educators say that students have significantly improved their confidence because of the AfG course

In AfG we got to actually make something and be creative - I used my own ideas. We are responsible for our actions and we are responsible for making it better.

AfG student, 12

3. Students are clearer on their career interests

48% of students say that AfG has helped them to be clearer about their career plans

59% of educators say that AfG has given the students greater clarity on their strengths and weaknesses

A higher number of students (2-3% more) reported that they were ‘very interested’ in a career in business and technology because of the AfG course

This course has allowed me to discover that I could become a very good entrepreneur.

AfG student, 14

Educator outcomes

56% of educators feel they learned new relevant subject knowledge because of AfG

52% of educators who feel they have become more confident because of their experience delivering the AfG course

39% of educators feel they developed new teaching methods because of AfG

35% of educators feel they learned new technical skills because of AfG

Note These data above are based on a survey conducted with AfG schools in the UK in June 2012. The survey respondents were as follows: 268 students (population 1252), 23 educators (population 90) and 19 senior team members (population 38).

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How AfG works

Theory of change

When educators facilitate teams of students to design mobile applications to solve real-world problems, with support from industry experts, students improve their entrepreneurial skills4, technical skills and confidence. A positive by-product of this process is that in many cases teachers develop new pedagogical skills, subject knowledge and confidence.

Process of change The diagram below shows the process by which CDI AfG generates its objectives. Important points to note are the educational resources developed by CDI AfG in conjunction with a number of advisory sources, the facilitation of the course by educators in schools, and the expert input from industry professionals to the student teams.

Key Inputs Key activities Outcomes

4 ‘Entrepreneurial skills’ are taken here to encompass the following skills: teamwork and

collaboration, team communication, market research, making presentations, problem solving, idea generation, project management, working with adults.

Educators facilitate app design sessions

Students design their own problem-solving mobile apps

Education resources developed by CDI AfG

The best student apps win AfG awards, are developed and released into the market

1. Students improve entrepreneurial skills, confidence, product design skills, critical evaluation skills and technical skills

2. Educators improve subject knowledge, pedagogical skills, confidence and networking opportunities

3. Community gains from having young people with motivation and skills to solve problems using technology

Hardware devices from sponsors

App design software

Industry experts advise students on their app ideas

Training and support from CDI AfG

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The AfG five-step course methodology The AfG course that educators use to facilitate their sessions can roughly be separated into five steps:

1. Problem definition – students state their problem succinctly and concisely 2. Market research – students research the problem and validate their assumptions 3. Solution design – students design a solution to the problem which works on mobile,

understand their users and build a basic business model 4. Product design – students design the app’s wire frames and create a mock-up 5. Build and test – students use App Inventor5 to build a prototype and test it with users

Although the five ‘steps’ of the course seem to imply a linear approach, the course does not run linearly but in cycles of iteration as students continually refine their problem definition and solution based on user feedback. Educators introduce App Inventor early in the course so that students can gain practical experience of app development before they make their final product designs. This means the fifth ‘step’ is run concurrently with the other stages of the course.

The programme pushes learners into positions of leadership. Andrew Stevens, Senior team, Garth Hill College

We champion educated risk taking and this whole process ensures that our students are capable of proposing a possible idea and then developing this into something workable.

Tracy Langmead, Senior team, Lipson Community College

5 http://appinventor.mit.edu

1: Problem Definition

2: Market Research

3: Solution Design

4: Product Design

5. B

uild

& T

est

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What makes AfG special AfG is unique because it combines these specialities together into one programme:

Young people are engaged on problems which they care about (problem-based learning adapted from Paulo Freire’s educational theory6)

AfG gives educators the opportunity to bring industry professionals into the classroom, from whom both the students and educators can learn

AfG connects a community of educators who want to change the way students learn ICT

We had the freedom to choose our own problem, so it was something that mattered to us.

AfG student, 13

The AfG course has really supported the entrepreneurial zeal of our young people. It has broadened their understanding of existing technologies, put them in a 'real life' and business context and given them access to leaders in the field.

Martin Nirimsloo, Senior team, St Matthew Academy

We see the Apps for Good course as an integral way in researching how we develop our curriculum in the future to create projects for very clear purpose, ultimately aiding in young person’s entrepreneurial skills development. Projects for purpose are very important in our new curriculum and Apps for Good gives us a great case study to build upon.

Adam Hodgess, AfG educator, Lipson Community College

Apps for Good has given our students a brilliant design opportunity and has the potential to act as a cornerstone of a technology offer which links core ICT, creative design and contextualised computer science.

Sir Mark Grundy, Headteacher, Shirelands Collegiate Academy

6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire

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AfG connects professionals from industry with students to give them expert insights and information from the field. There is recent evidence from the Education and Employers Taskforce (EET)7 to suggest that connecting young people to employer contacts has these positive benefits:

Access to professionals whilst at school helps to compensate for social disadvantage

Statistically significant positive relationships exist between the number of employer contacts (such as careers talks or work experience) that a young person experiences in school (between the ages of 14 and 19) and:

o Their confidence (at 19-24) in progression towards ultimate career goals o The likelihood of whether (at 19-24) they are NEET8 or non-NEET o Earnings if salaried

A link exists between high levels of school-age employer contacts and ultimate workplace productivity

Young people are known to be especially attentive to the views of professionals they come into contact with in educational settings and overwhelmingly agree that contacts help in career decision-making

The EET report mentions data from the British Cohort Society and DeMontford University which found that ‘young people with uncertain or unrealistic career aspirations at 16 were two to three times more likely to become NEET for six months or more at 16-18 than better informed, more realistic peers.’ In addition the report states, ‘the greater the engagement with adult professionals from the workplace, the greater likelihood that individual pupils will gain access to useful, relevant, trusted information concerning career aspirations and pathways beyond those found within existing networks and information sources, notably families or the media.’ In summary, there is a need to have more employer engagement with young people, and these engagements tend to have statistically significant positive impacts on the futures of those young people.

Mentoring St Matthew Academy pupils with their Mobile Apps from ideas through to creation was a great opportunity and fantastic experience for all! St Matthew Academy won two of the Mobile App awards in the Learning and Community Categories. I’m extremely proud of them!

Leila Thomas, Technical Project Manager at Thomson Reuters and AfG mentor

7 It’s who you meet: why employer contacts at school make a difference to the employment

prospects of young adults, Dr Anthony Mann, Director of Research and Policy, Education and Employers Taskforce (2011) 8 Not in Education, Employment or Training

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Stakeholder value exchange The four main stakeholders in the Apps for Good programme are the students, the educators, the sponsors and the experts. The diagram below shows how the exchange of value happens between these groups.

This experience was amazing and brilliant as I got to design an app and talk to big industrial people. I would recommend this to everyone as I learned so many things like using Prezi, building mock ups.

AfG student, 14

CDI AfG

Educators

Students Experts

Better engagement, learning and

demonstrated leadership

To sponsors: a pool of

future talent

To educators: industry experience

and networking, subject knowledge

Sponsors

Insights from young people

Opportunities to mentor students, networking with

other experts

Opportunities to mentor students

Advice, industry experience, mentoring

Facilitation, guidance,

technical and subject

knowledge

Teaching expertise, co-

creating resources

Training, networking

opportunities, resources for class

Alumni network, fulfilment

Resources, Apps for Good Awards, access to experts

Financial support, expertise, corporate

volunteering

Access to youth market

To experts: networking in

education, access to young people,

Networking with a high

quality pool of professionals

Advice, industry insights

To students: what real jobs are like

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Are we making an impact?

(Apps for Good has) had a transformative, life-changing effect on some students. Janet Chapman, Senior team, Central Foundation Girls’ School

The level of confidence, aspiration and pure 'spirit' of the young people who have participated in the course has been noticed by my staff, their parents and their peers. I certainly feel that AfG is a programme to be celebrated and it one of the beacons in enterprise education and the development of employability skills amongst young people. AfG encourages its participants and has long term benefits outside of the classroom as 'inspiration', 'aspiration' and the encouragement of hard work and 'perspiration' will create 21st century leaders, thinkers and innovators.

Martin Nirimsloo, Senior team, St Matthew Academy

The students

The number of AfG students has grown rapidly from 47 in 2010/11 to more than 5000 in 2012/13

82% of AfG students are 12-14 years old

38% of AfG students don’t own a smart phone

AfG students are 15% more likely than the UK average to be of non-white ethnicity9

AfG students are 7% more likely than the UK average to be receiving free school meals10

41% of AfG students are female (24% higher than females in the UK tech industry)11

9 Department for Education, SFR, Jan 2011,

http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s001012/sfr12-2011.pdf 10

Department for Education, SFR, Jan 2011, http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s001012/sfr12-2011.pdf 11

E-Skills UK, Women in IT, March 2009 (http://www.e-skills.com/about-e-skills-uk/what-we-do/making-a-difference/encouraging-girls-into-it/)

47

1252

5000

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

Students doing Apps for Good

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11 www.appsforgood.org

The educators

The number of AfG educators has grown rapidly from 4 in 2010/11 to more than 250 in 2012/13

The schools

The number of schools running the AfG course has grown from 2 in 2010/11 to 100 in 2012/13

66% of AfG schools are 11-18 mixed comprehensives

There is a good spread of AfG schools around the UK for 2012/13, with 74% located outside London

4

90

250

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

Educators facilitating Apps for Good

2

38

100

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

Schools running Apps for Good

17%

41%

In techindustry

AfG students

Females =

22%

37%

UK nationalaverage

AfG students

Non-white ethnicity

= 15%

15%

22%

UK national average AfG students

Free school meals

= 7%

17%

41%

In tech industry AfG students

Females

= 24%

London

Midlands

NE

NW Scotland

SE

SW

Yorkshire

East of England

2012/13 AfG school partners

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Analysing outcomes and impact Apps for Good aims to create the following outcomes:

Students more skilled and confident; clearer on their career interests

Educators more skilled, knowledgeable and confident

Greater personal engagement between students, educators and industry professionals

Communities gain from having young people with motivation and skills to solve problems using technology

Page 13: Apps for Good: Impact report 2012

How the Apps for Good programme produces its outcomes CDI Apps for Good supports educators to run the AfG programme as a five-step course, taking students through the stages of defining their problem, researching it, designing a solution and its associated app product, and then building, testing and iterating that design. Each step’s activities produce a set of outcomes for the students, which accumulate to produce a set of summary outcomes. The diagram below shows how the course’s structure produces the outcomes stated. CDI AfG and educators provide the inputs, and the activities in each of the five steps of the course produce a set of outputs and outcomes which combine to give the summary outcomes for stakeholders on the right hand side.

Summary outcomes

Students

Educators

Community

• entrepreneurial skills• confidence• product design skills• critical evaluation skills• technical skills

• subject knowledge• pedagogical skills• CPD and networking

opportunities

• young people with motivation and skills to solve problems using technology

• engagement between students and industry

Activities

Students work in teams to define

real world problems

Students design and

conduct market

research, user analysis, and

shoot and edit a video

Students describe user experiences, design, test and refine solutions to their problem, build a business model, and pitch the solution

Student design wire frames of their solution, build scenario maps and practice using app mock-up tools

Students use AppInventor to build and test their app

• AfG course materials

• Industry experts

• CDI training and ongoing support

CDI inputs

Outputs and outcomes

Students understand the app design process, and can use AppInventor to build a prototype

Students can generate a series of real-world problems and

assess their validity

Students can articulate the SQCA

framing of a problem

Students can conduct market

research through interviews, surveys and web searching to verify a problem

Students can analyse a user

group and refine their problem

statement to meet their needs

Students can design, shoot and edit a video

which illustrates the problem

Students understand their users, know some simple methods for testing solutions, and understand basic business modelling

Students gain confidence from pitching their ideas, and engage with and learn from experts

Students can use simple mock-up tools to illustrate the wireframe of an app solution

Students understand the basics of product design, scenario mapping and site mapping

Students can improve their app by testing it with users

Problem definition

Market research

Solution design

Product design

Build and test

1

23

4

5

• Educators facilitate problem-focused app design sessions

Educator inputs

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Student outcomes

Students improve their entrepreneurial12 and technical skills

On each of the entrepreneurial skills that students were asked to describe the effect of AfG, between 19%-35% of students said that AfG had a significant13 effect

The most significant effect on their skills, according to students, was the effect of AfG on their programming skills (35% of students rated the effect as significant). Although the AfG course doesn’t currently include much programming, it is encouraging to see that students are feeling more confident in ICT-related areas. Currently AfG is building more programming into the course for the 2012/13 year.

32% of students said that AfG had a significant effect on their ability to do research – this is also encouraging because as an educator, research can often be a frustrating skill to try to develop in your students

N = 267

I developed my teamwork in groups by practising working with different people. I learned how to make an app step by step and how to present it.

AfG student, 14

Apps for Good allowed me to develop my programming and group working skills, particularly in mobile programming, and it also gave an insight into the full development cycle of an application in the industry, including the business-orientated areas.

AfG student, 18

(AfG) really helps you become more creative, become a leader and an effective listener.

AfG student, 16

12 ‘Entrepreneurial skills’ are taken here to encompass the following skills: teamwork and collaboration, team

communication, market research, making presentations, problem solving, idea generation, project management, working with adults. 13

In this report, the use of the word ‘significant’ does not have any specific statistical meaning. Rather it is used in the layman’s sense.

35% 32% 31% 29% 27% 27% 25% 24%

19%

Programming(e.g. buildingwebsites or

applications)

Doingresearch

Working ingroups/teams

Coming upwith ideas

Solvingproblems

Evaluatingideas

Makingpresentations

Working withadults

Usingcomputers

Percentage of students who feel that AfG has had a significant effect on these abilities

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On each of the entrepreneurial skills that educators were asked to describe the effect of AfG, between 43-74% of educators said that AfG had a significant effect on students

74% of educators said that AfG had a significant effect on students’ teamwork skills. Along with 31% of students who rated AfG as having a significant effect on their teamwork skills, and a high proportion of responses from the baseline survey mentioning teamwork as an important skill gained from AfG, this highlights the collaborative benefits of the AfG methodology.

61% of educators said that AfG had a significant effect on students’ ability to use technology/ICT

In nine out of eleven of the skills educators were asked about, more than half of educators felt that students had improved their skills significantly

N = 23

(AfG) gives pupils an opportunity to work independently and within groups to develop interpersonal and collaborative skills.

Charles Claxton, Senior team, George Green’s School

It provided opportunities for our young people, some of whom are the most vulnerable in society, to develop ICT skills in a different way. It also enabled them to develop social skills, working together on a project which has a practical end result.

Stuart Bailey, Senior team, Parkside PRU

74% 65% 65% 61% 61% 59% 57% 52% 50% 48% 43%

Percentage of educators who think that students improved these skills significantly because of the AfG course

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Students increase their confidence

45% of students say that they are more confident because of the course14

65% of educators say that students have significantly improved their confidence because of the AfG course15

AfG is less of "this is how to work this program", and more of "this is the program, do this". This method gives us more independence.

AfG student, 12

In AfG we got to actually make something and be creative - I used my own ideas. We are responsible for our actions and we are responsible for making it better.

AfG student, 12

Students are clearer on their career interests

48% of students say that AfG has helped them to be clearer about their career plans16

59% of educators say that AfG has given the students greater clarity on their strengths and weaknesses17

35% of educators say that the students have significantly shifted their career interests towards technology18

45% of educators say that the students have significantly shifted their career interests towards business19

2-3% more students reported that they were ‘very interested’ in a career in business and technology in the final (end of year) survey than in the baseline (beginning of year) survey.

14

N = 265, just as confident = 45%, less confident = 6%, N/A = 4% 15

N = 23, small effect = 30%, no effect = 4% 16

N = 268, made no difference = 51%, N/A = 1% 17

N = 22, small effect = 32%, no effect = 9% 18

N = 23, small effect = 22%, no effect = 17%, can’t say = 26% 19

N = 22, small effect = 18%, no effect = 14%, can’t say = 23%

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N = 692, 268 (baseline, final)

This has changed my views of the ICT world in a big way. I have acknowledged how apps are built and how this would work at an app company.

AfG student, 14

This course has allowed me to discover that I could become a very good entrepreneur.

AfG student, 14

AfG involves a lot of communication between other people and it gives you a taste of how a team would work in an organisation.

AfG student, 18

23%

32% 26%

34%

Business Technology

Percentage of students 'very interested' in these career fields

Baseline survey Final survey

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Educator outcomes

56% of educators feel they learned new relevant subject knowledge because of AfG:

N = 23

35% of educators feel they learned new technical skills because of AfG:

N = 23

The development of the project has greatly enhanced the reputation of the department and the staff involved. Technical knowledge was there already but the engagement in all aspects of delivery and celebration was an excellent developmental opportunity and had the glow of innovation and positivity all over it in times when good news is at a premium.

James Poulter, Senior team, Sussex Downs College

(AfG is) a good vehicle for collaboration between learners and staff. Bill Kerr, AfG educator, Matthew Moss High School

8%

48%

35%

9%

The degree to which educators think they have learned new, relevant subject knowledge because of the AfG course

A lot of new knowledgelearned

A reasonable amount of newknowledge learned

Some new knowledgelearned

No new knowledge learned

4%

31%

61%

4%

The degree to which educators think they have developed new technical skills because of the AfG course

A lot of new technical skillsdeveloped

A reasonable number of newtechnical skills developed

Some new technical skillsdeveloped

No new technical skillsdeveloped

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39% of educators feel they developed new teaching methods because of AfG:

N = 23

52% of educators who feel they have become more confident because of their experience delivering the AfG course:

N = 23

Teaching AFG course gave me the opportunity to teach a programme that was driven by students' interest. It gave me the opportunity to set the stage and facilitate the students' interest.

Patrick Dawkins, AfG Educator, Featherstone High School

9%

30%

35%

26%

The degree to which educators think they have developed new teaching methods because of the AfG course

A lot of new teaching methodsdeveloped

A reasonable number of newteaching methods developed

Some new teaching methodsdeveloped

No new teaching methodsdeveloped

4%

48%

13%

35%

The degree to which educators feel they have become more confident in their teaching because of their experience delivering the AfG course

A lot more confident

More confident

A little more confident

No more confident

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General outcomes

47% of AfG students rate AfG sessions as better than their normal ICT lessons20

AfG is better than normal ICT lessons because we worked in groups, assigned a leader each lesson and did scrum meetings, and we could come up with any kind of app we wanted to.

AfG student, 17

Apps for Good lessons are much better than normal ICT lessons because in AfG we get to meet people from outside. The group we work in is smaller than normal ICT lessons so it's fun.

AfG student, 15

At the end of this topic we will have something as a product of months of work. I like the fact that we have a chance to make our app so real people can use it.

AfG student, 13

Note These data above are based on a survey conducted with AfG schools in the UK in June 2012. The survey respondents were as follows: 268 students (population 1252), 23 educators (population 90) and 19 senior team members (population 38).

20

N = 268, same = 28%, worse = 25%

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The Apps for Good Awards In July 2012 AfG hosted the annual Apps for Good Awards at the Barbican Centre in London. 14 student teams from across the UK compete for 7 prizes and the chance to have their app designs developed professionally. 60 students presented their app designs to experts in business and technology. The judges selected the winning ideas, and these will now be built and released on the app market. The students also made elevator pitches to an audience of 150, and met with the experts for a more in depth discussion about their ideas.

We were blown away with the quality of (the students’) thinking and enthusiasm. We also truly enjoyed their pitches in the market place – and the visual stories were excellent, it helped the kids to get their ideas a cross in a professional way. The award ceremony was truly touching and an eye-opener for how we need to co-create the world with the kids not for them.

AfG expert at the Apps for Good Awards

I thought it went swimmingly well – the energy and creativity were fantastic. It’s been a long time since I saw people like the judges jump out of their seats at the power and simplicity of an idea. I think you’ve got something there.

Vineet Bewtra, Director, Investments at Omidyar Network and Apps for Good Awards judge

I continue to be blown away by the quality of all the entrants. Well done for everything that you do. You are making a huge difference.

Louise Ainsworth, Nominet Trust trustee and Apps for Good Awards judge

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I travelled up with a bunch of kids, and returned home with a group of young adults. What I really noticed was the change in conversation. On the way up it was questions like: "Will there be room service? What are the prizes? Are we there yet...?” On the way back it was "What do you think will happen to RIM? Do you think we should develop native or web apps? Can I teleconference in to your lessons next year to help out?"

Kevin Jones, AfG educator, Sussex Downs College, returning from the Apps for Good Awards

Student 1: Can we do Apps for Good again next year? Student 2: We don't need to. We've got the skills, know-how and now the business

cards to do it by ourselves and launch it! AfG students returning from the Apps for Good Awards

This is a programme that introduces the idea of tech entrepreneurship to kids in an imaginative and stimulating way for everyone involved.

Guest at the Apps for Good Awards

For more information, pictures and videos about the Apps for Good Awards, see http://appsforgood.org/afga12/.

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A selection of 2012’s student winners

Problem Promises between parents and children are often forgotten. Solution An app which tracks the promises which are made, and allows both parents and children to propose and accept promises.

Cool idea Parents and children can enter an agreed reward onto the app so that neither side forgets.

Problem Teenagers often experience mood swings and can find it difficult to understand, cope with and share their feelings.

Solution An app on which you describe your feelings, and it tracks them. The user can share their feelings with best friends and family, and people can know in advance of meeting up how their friend of family member is feeling. The app also provides emotional advice and links to other websites for help.

Cool idea You can receive a graph of your feelings on a weekly basis; this app is less public than Facebook.

Feelings in a

Flash

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Problem Literacy standards are dropping; students often don’t understand or remember what they’ve read in school.

Solution An app on which teachers set questions about the text being studied, and students answer them in the style of a game on the app. This allows teachers and students to track understanding and progress, and it makes reading more interesting by gamifying it. Students can also communicate directly with their teacher in this less intimidating environment if they are struggling.

Cool idea Teachers can have class league tables for number of books read and questions answered correctly.

One child did not attend school for 6 weeks but was still emailing in for details of the next (AfG) tutorial he could follow.

Andre Bailey, Senior team, The Bridge Academy

By the very nature of the programme the students were able to think laterally and focus on a subject that they felt would have a real life impact.

Tracy Langmead, Senior team, Lipson Community College

Qbook

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Educator training In June 2012, AfG trained 149 new educators in London and Bolton. The training consisted of taking educators through a shortened form of the course itself, punctuated by information sessions and chances for educators to share their cumulative experience with the group. We received this feedback:

90% of educators felt the training met their expectations

63% of educators felt ready to plan their first session

97% of educators felt confident in their ability to teach their departmental colleagues how to run the AfG course

Selected quotations from newly trained educators:

A very well structured course, well delivered. I loved the amount of time dedicated to planning first, rather than going straight into using App Inventor, as it brings critical thinking skills to students.

The teaching styles of how could you deliver the course was good. I also think the resources, considering this is a free course, are really well thought out and easy to use. The theory and practical work was very useful and trainers were very helpful. It was good to clearly see the course from the two different dimensions - as a student going through the process to appreciate what this is like as well as from a teacher/organiser/facilitator point of view. Having the opportunity to pitch an idea with others was really helpful in order to realise how important it is to be clear.

I am excited because I can see prospects of how it can be implemented in my school.

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Average cost per student/school The average cost per school to deliver the AfG programme has decreased 27% from 2011/12 to 2012/1321. This can be explained by a 163% increase in the number of schools and more streamlined delivery processes, despite taking on the cost of three new staff. There was a strong drive to recruit many new quality schools into the AfG delivery network in 2012, and internal procedures were refined and automated, allowing more efficient support.

The average cost per student to deliver the AfG programme has decreased 52% from 2011/12 to 2012/1322. This can be explained by the expansion of the school network, an increased number of students per school enrolled on the programme, and more streamlined delivery processes.

21

Figures based on total organisational cost and total numbers of schools and students. This includes some costs which are not directly related to course delivery, but enables CDI AfG to more easily track this metric. Student numbers are taken from the 2012/3 school applications and costs are taken from CDI AfG’s 2012/3 budget. Figures based on unaudited financial data. 22

As above.

£385.88

£184.07

2011/12 2012/13

Average cost per student

£12,693.51

£9,203.60

2011/12 2012/13

Average cost per school

= (52%)

= (27%)

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Achievements in 2011/12 2011/12 has been a year of rapid changes for CDI AfG. We have achieved the following:

Grown our school partnership network in size, geographical spread and range of schools:

o from 38 schools and 1252 students in 2011/12 to 100 schools and 5000 students in 2012/13

o adding 3 schools from Scotland to the network, including from the north Scottish coast

o Schools now include grammar schools, special schools, studio schools, a pilot primary school and more FE colleges as well as comprehensive schools/academies

Designed and built (to be launched in Sept 2012) our new online platform to facilitate students’, educators’ and experts’ engagement and progress through the course

Hosting the inaugural AfG awards at the Barbican Centre which saw 60 students present their app designs to industry leaders in technology and business

Added five new organisations to our list of sponsors

Refreshed the education content on our resource site, making a suite of improvements in quality and presentation

Grown our public presence through a variety of channels, producing several videos and articles showcased in the mainstream media (including articles on the BBC news website), including a verbal mention by the Education Secretary as an example of innovative new technology education practice

Trained a larger number of educators at the training events (from 90 to 149)

Implemented a framework for measuring the outcomes of the course on students and educators

Mapped the AfG course to existing curricula

Hired a lead developer, a head of fundraising and work with some consultants to expand our reach

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Aims for 2012/3 Our aim for the next 12 months is to improve the course delivery and grow our community of stakeholders. Our longer term aim is to become a leading global charity recognised for revolutionising education focusing on personal and real-life learning through technology. Specifically we hope to achieve the following in the next year:

To improve the quality of course delivery to students by: o growing a powerful community of educators and facilitating the sharing of

best practice, including using teaching experts to improve the quality of educational resources

o increasing the frequency and quality of expert advice for students by using our new platform to assist the virtual engagement between experts and students, and to develop a suite of video-ed expert talks for students and teachers to access

o incorporating more in-depth programming opportunities and support materials within the course (improving Step 5)

To grow our community of key stakeholders by: o growing our school partnership network from 100 schools and 5000

students to 1000 schools and 50’000 students in 2014 o increasing the number of sponsors o increasing the number of advisors and experts who share our vision and

can contribute their expertise to it

To increase our presence in the worlds of education and technology by: o attending global conferences to talk about the work we do o hosting our own annual conference on technology, enterprise and

problem-centred education o providing outcomes data on the impact of our model o increase the size and quality of our social media presence

To increase the size and quality of our internal team by: o making quality new hires (marketing, finance, education) o providing further training for growth

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Sponsors and supporters

Any organisation that sponsors and partners with Apps for Good will gain insights into a world they don’t understand and interact with, but that can have a profound impact on their business.

Guest at the Apps for Good Awards

Any organisation that takes the future of their business seriously should engage with Apps for Good. This program has a direct impact now on the students, but more importantly it fast tracks top motivated and capable students to create commercially viable solutions for a shared future.

Guest at the Apps for Good Awards

Strategic sponsors

Dell is proud to support the ‘Power to Do More’ category. The way students learn today is undergoing a major transformation as schools move to a digital learning environment. Students have great access and opportunities to access information, collaborate with their peers and teachers and create and consume content with the aid of technology. Through Dell’s technology solutions, youth have the chance to transform problem-solving and critical thinking exercises into valuable work skills. By placing technology in the hands of students, they are given the tools to enable them to maximize their learning ability and unleash their true potential to do more.

Jennifer Friday Jones, EMEA Giving Manager, Dell

Digital technology can play a big role in improving the life-chances of young people. Digital-making activities, such as the Apps for Good programme, gives young people a foundation in entrepreneurship, community involvement, problem-solving and teamwork; valuable skills that will enable them to participate both socially and economically within their communities. Nominet Trust has been a keen supporter of the Apps for Good programme since its inception and is delighted to be sponsoring this year’s competition. It’s evident from the high calibre of entries that the young people involved have learnt so much more than just coding and it is these life skills that are as important as the end product itself.

Annika Small, CEO, Nominet Trust

New innovations in learning technologies should involve students, which is why Nesta is delighted to be supporting the learning category in the Apps for Good Competition. The Apps for Good design process puts students centre stage – they identify problems and generate solutions for issues that matter to them, all the while learning valuable technical skills. We are also excited about the new app which will be developed as a result of the competition, and which will be available to support other students with their learning.

Jon Kingsbury Director, Creative Economy Programmes, NESTA

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Apps for Good Awards sponsors The Apps for Good project blends technology, creativity, investment and talent in a way that should help inspire young people to develop apps that can make a real difference to their lives and the lives of others. As the leading source of intelligent information for the world’s businesses and professionals we believe that the right information in the right hands leads to amazing things, so we’re delighted to sponsor the ‘Information’ category at the Apps for Good Awards.

Bob Schukai, Global Head of Mobile Technology, Thomson Reuters, and Tech City Investment Organisation ambassador

By encouraging young people to be entrepreneurs and to use technology to enable social impact, Apps for Good inspires individual action as well as connects talented leaders in a shared mission to create change. Omidyar Network is proud to support a programme that embodies our mission to create opportunity for people to improve their own lives and those of their communities, as well as our focus on the potential of technology to present new solutions to the world’s toughest social problems. CDI has thought through how to inspire action in young people in the UK, and we believe this is one opportunity of many to work together on initiatives that can enable citizens to solve problems in their own communities.

Stephen King, Partner, Omidyar Network Fostering innovation is at the heart of everything we do. Inspiring today’s youth to think creatively about the world around them and the technology that shapes the way we live our lives is crucial to creating sustained innovation in our business. We are proud to support the travel category of the Apps for Good Awards. We hope this will encourage more students to have the opportunity to bring their ideas to life.

Stephen Bates, Managing Director, Research In Motion UK and Ireland Barclaycard is delighted to sponsor the Money category of Apps for Good. Financial management is a fundamental life skill that is often neglected. The creative use of new technology has a crucial role to play helping young people to get to grips with managing their money, enabling them to build a solid financial foundation for the rest of their lives.

Jeremy Reynolds, Corporate Affairs Director, Barclaycard

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Lessons learned and what we are doing about them Throughout 2011/12 CDI AfG has run several internal and external evaluations with the purpose of identifying opportunities for improvement. The following list of lessons learned and current actions is a summary snapshot as of summer 2012. (A more detailed evaluation is currently taking place to identify actions for CDI AfG to take to improve the course for 2012/13.) Tools

There were problems with the hosting of App Inventor (it switched from Google to MIT) and schools were negatively affected. Thomson Reuters generously offered interim hosting for all the AfG schools, but the changes still caused difficulties for schools. We have now checked that MIT’s hosting works for all newly trained educators and will continue to monitor the situation for changes.

AfG platform

There were problems with our initial platform build, including site overload. We have now built a new online platform, under the guidance of experienced consultants, which has undergone rigorous testing and is more successful at meeting the needs of educators, students and CDI AfG quality monitoring.

We have refined our use of the Education Zone on Confluence to reduce complexity for educators, but will be retiring this service in future, in favour of integrating all content and delivery onto the AfG platform.

Training

Educators have called for more coding in the AfG course, especially now that it is being run more as part of schools’ ICT curricula. We are now developing programming elements into Step 5 and this will be a focus area in 2012/3. They will be trialled by a small number of schools in 2012/13 and ready for full roll-out in 2013/14.

Based on feedback from educators we made the training far more practical and this was well received by 2012’s newly trained educators. We have plans to incorporate past educators into training new educators and so to build deeper capacity within the community of educators.

Monitoring/evaluation design

We struggled to get educators’ attention and time for completing surveys. We have streamlined the number of surveys and the questions in each in order to lessen the burden on teachers. We will expand our use of focus groups to obtain more detailed information.

There was a higher than expected number of bad quality (humorous/sarcastic) survey responses from students. We believe that it is important to listen to students’ feedback and so are working to simplify surveys and focus just on the outcomes which matter. An ultimate goal may be to monitor student progress on an ongoing basis rather than through retrospective surveys.

Recruitment

We note, unsurprisingly, that the learning outcomes and enjoyment for students are highly dependent on the quality of facilitation by the educator. Student teams which were successful in reaching the finals of Apps for Good Awards and those who tended to say that they enjoyed the course came from classes where the educator was highly engaged, understood the fundamentals of the course well, and supported the students in achieving

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their own goals. Therefore we have outlined a set of indicators for recruiting schools which are likely to succeed and have been careful to recruit schools in which there is understanding and commitment from all involved staff in the school, both at management and teaching level.

The channel which is most used to spread the word of AfG is word of mouth. This is also the channel which is the best predictor of a successful new school application. We will be investing energy in helping educators to better share AfG links amongst their networks.

Measuring/assessment

Due to time constraints in schools, educators were overwhelmed with communications and struggled to completed surveys. We have lowered the number and length of the surveys and will increase the use of small focus groups.

Due to the difficulty in measuring quantitative educational improvements in a problem-solving course, we are increasing the focus on qualitative measures of outcomes, including interviews with students and educator focus groups.

Facilitating communities

Our group e-mail facility to help educators share information became overloaded and overwhelmed educators’ inboxes. We have switched to an online forum for educators to share information and have their questions answered.

Our new platform will better facilitate the engagement of experts and will be launched in autumn 2012.

Communication

We were reminded of the lack of time for most educators, and this had an effect on deeper partnerships and communication. We have now created opt-in working groups of educators who have more time and expertise in certain areas (e.g. assessment, PR) and will leverage these groups for the benefit of the whole educator community.

Providing resources to educators

We took on board feedback from educators gleaned from the baseline survey about course content and presentation, and have done a complete refresh of the materials. This will continue throughout next year

Top student, educator and senior team suggestions

More App Inventor support – we are now building training webinars

A scheme of work and timeline of the year’s activities – we have created a scheme of work, have made the course materials more easily navigable, and will be publishing an annual calendar that educators need to know

More expert support – the new platform will better facilitate this process

AFGA guidance published earlier – this will be published in term 1 this year (rather than term 3 last year)

Show student examples – we have shared the best 2012 AFGA entries as examples for 2012/13 cohort, and linked them to their relevant content topics

Curriculum and assessment support – we have shared with educators several mappings of the AfG course to well-known curricula and given a basic framework for assessment

Course learning and enjoyment

This is a summary of how educators felt about the success of their courses:

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I have enjoyed the process of Apps for Good, I have learnt to work in a team with people I wouldn't usually work with and share ideas effectively. I have learned some valuable life skills which could help me in my future career.

AfG student, 14

With AfG we can improve our skills to succeed in the finished product and this gives us more of a push on to achieve something, whereas in class you just do it for the sake of doing it.

AfG student, 13

I really enjoyed the AFG lessons more than regular ICT lessons because it enabled us to be more creative, work in groups, listen effectively, be a team leader and be more passionate. In contrast, regular ICT lessons are all about doing coursework which is beneficial but students tend to forget what they wrote.

AfG student, 16

74% 68% 65%

61% 55% 55% 52%

48%

35% 30%

23% 22%

5%

Percentage of educators who think these course elements were successful in terms of learning outcomes

78% 74%

65% 65%

52% 48%

43% 43% 39%

30% 23%

17% 17%

Percentage of educators who think these course elements were successful in terms of enjoyment

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Quotations I always thought apps and stuff were developed by experts or big companies; I was surprised we could learn the skills to do it.

AfG student, 12

AfG course was challenging yet rewarding. AfG is a course that is ahead of its time, students are placed at the centre. The support provided is fantastic and a great team to work with. We had challenges at school implementing it, but in the end it was very rewarding. We are now delivering AfG as our main offering in ICT for year 8 students.

Patrick Dawkins, AfG educator, Featherstone High School

Get involved - it's fantastic! Apps for Good are doing amazing work. It's great to see problem-solving elevated from a theoretical to a highly practical level, and brought into context with something that students can relate to from their everyday lives like this. And fantastic to see so many girls taking part - it bodes very well for the future of tech in this country.

AfG expert

I’ve learned how to evaluate things and how to find out if an idea is good or going to work or not.

AfG student, 13

I think this is programme is absolutely fantastic at bringing the relevance of IT to the forefront of the students imagination; it’s great to see more pupils enjoying learning. There are excellent learning materials and resources, and it’s great to see the ‘buzz’ pupils had from speaking to real experts. The pedagogy is sound and very refreshing. It has really helped me develop positive relationships with pupils that have transcended the club into other areas of school life.

Mike Rowley, AfG Educator, Wordsley School

The opportunity to link every day experience with ICT is a really positive addition to the traditional GCSE content. The link to industry is also potentially very powerful experiential tool.

Andre Bailey, Senior team, Bridge Academy

I’m now better at taking advice on board.

AfG student, 14

I really enjoyed my experience with AfG, because it improved my public speaking and team work skills, but it was really fun too!

AfG student, 13

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A new way to teach the art of app-making

www.appsforgood.org

CDI Apps for Good 125-127 Mare Street

London E8 3RH