Rhetoric and Realities of London 2012 Olympic Education and Participation ‘Legacies’: Voices from the Core and Periphery

A legacy emphasis was one of the fundamental pillars of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The notion of an Olympic legacy was predicated on assumptions that the event’s value would not purely derive from the sporting spectacle, but rather, from the ‘success’ of enduring effects met out in London and across the country. For physical education students and practitioners, Olympic legacy agendas translated into persistent pressure to increase inspiration, engagement, participation and performance in the subject, sport and physical activity. Responding to this context, and cogniscent of significant disciplinary scholarship, this paper reports initial data from the first phase of a longitudinal study involving Key Stage Three (students aged 11-13) cohorts in two comparable United Kingdom schools: the first an inner-city (core) London school adjacent to the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London (n=150); the second, a (peripheral) school in the Midlands (n=198). The research involved the use of themed questionnaires focusing on self-reported attitudes toward the Olympic Games, and, experiences of physical education, sport and physical activity. Students from both schools demonstrated a wide variety of attitudes toward physical education and sport; yet, minor variances emerged regarding extreme enthusiasm levels. Both cohorts also expressed considerably mixed feelings toward the impending Olympic Games. Strong and variable responses were also reported regarding inspiration levels, ticketing acquisition and engagement levels. Consequently, this investigation can be read within the broader context of legacy debates, and, aligns well with physical educationalists’ on-going discomfort regarding legacy imperatives being enforced upon the discipline and its practitioners. Our work reiterates a shared disciplinary scepticism that while an Olympic Games may temporarily affect young peoples’ affectations for sport (and maybe physical education and physical activity), it may not provide the best, or most appropriate, mechanism for sustained attitudinal and/or social changes en masse.

Replicating the Networking, Mentoring and Venture Creation Benefits of Entrepreneurship Centres on a Shoestring: A Student-centred Approach to Entrepreneurship Education and Venture Creation

As support for both university-level entrepreneurial education and the use of experiential learning methods to foster student entrepreneurs increases, so too have the number of university-established or affiliated entrepreneurship centers. The activity at the center of this study aimed to combine experiential learning methods with assets associated with entrepreneurship centers, including venture creation, networking, and mentoring. Students were invited to participate in a competition wherein they were guided through the business creation process and pitched their ideas to investor judges who chose the winner and provided capital start-up funding and consulting. This research puts forth that university faculty at institutions without entrepreneurship centers can organize experiences to provide the benefits of entrepreneurship centers. The study used interviews to find that many of the benefits of entrepreneurship centers were able to be replicated using this method. The project is outlined, outcomes are analyzed, and the results and lessons learned are discussed.

'Always Connected’: Transforming Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

The argument of this chapter is that the idea that young people and students being ‘always connected’ should not be seen as being polarized into good or bad, but instead there is a need to see being connected as ‘learning at the interstices’. It also suggests that there is a need to be aware of the impact of digital governance on teaching and learning space. This chapter therefore introduce questions about the value and impact of always being connected and the impact and possible transformation it could have on teaching and learning in higher education.

Developing Innovative TEL Practice in Teacher Education

This interactive symposium will focus on the use of different technologies in developing innovative practice in teacher education at one university in England. Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is a field of educational policy and practice that has the power to ignite diametrically opposing views and reactions amongst teachers and teacher educators, ranging across a spectrum from immense enthusiasm to untold terror. In a field where the skills and experience of individuals vary from those of digital natives (Prensky 2001) to lags and lurkers in digital spaces, the challenges of harnessing the potential of TEL are complex. The challenges include developing the IT skills of trainees and educators and the creative application of these skills to pedagogy in all areas of the curriculum. The symposium draws on examples from primary, secondary and post-compulsory teacher education to discuss issues and approaches to developing research capacity and innovative practice using different etools, many of which are freely available. The first paper offers theoretical and policy perspectives on finding spaces in busy professional lives to engage in research and develop research-informed practice. It draws on notions of teachers as researchers, practitioner research and evidenc-ebased practice to argue that engagement in research is integral to teacher education and an empowering source of creative professional learning for teachers and teacher educators. Whilst acknowledging the challenges of this stance, examples from our own research practice illustrate how e-tools can assist us in building the capacity and confidence of staff and students in researching and enhancing teaching, learning and assessment practice. The second paper discusses IT skills development through the TEL pathway for trainee teachers in secondary education across different curriculum subjects. The lead tutor for the TEL pathway will use examples of activities developed with trainee teachers and university subject tutors to enhance their skills in using e-tools, such as QR codes, Kahoot, Padlet, Pinterest and cloud based learning. The paper will also focus on how these skills and tools can be used for action Discussant - the wider use of technologies in a university centre for teacher education; course management, recruitment and mentor training. research, evaluation and feedback and for marking and administrative tasks. The discussion will finish with thoughts on widening trainee teachers’ horizons into the future direction of educational technology. The third paper considers institutional policies and strategies for promoting and embedding TEL, including an initiative called ‘The Learning Conversation’, which aims ‘to share, highlight, celebrate, discuss, problematise, find things out...’ about TEL through an online space. The lead for ‘The Learning Conversation’ will offer reflections on this and other initiatives across the institution involving trainee teachers, university subject tutors, librarians and staff in student support services who are using TEL to engage, enthuse and support students on campus and during placements in schools. The fourth paper reflects on the use of TEL to engage with trainee teachers in post-compulsory education. This sector of education and training is more fragmented than primary and secondary schools sectors and so the challenges of building a community of practice that can support the development of innovative practice are greater.