London Connected Learning Centre

London Connected Learning Centre (CLC) is an award-winning organisation that helps schools and other settings use digital technologies to improve learning. London CLC is part of a not for profit organisation, Education Development Trust. The term Connected Learning describes London CLC’s approach and activities. The centre makes links between learning at school and at home and fosters collaboration between teachers, students and parents and works in partnership with businesses, community and cultural organisations.

CLC Background

London Connected Learning Centre (CLC) is part of Education Development Trust, a charitable company that supports education in the UK and internationally. London Connected Learning Centre provides a range of in-school and centre based professional learning opportunities for educators; activities and projects for children and young people and independent, tailored technology solutions for schools and other organisations. The centre supports schools’ digital strategies, delivery of the computing curriculum and provides professional development for teachers. London Connected Learning Centre makes links between learning at school and at home, we involve children and young people in using digital technologies to create, experiment, design and explore.

Computing Awards

The CLC has won several awards for the quality of its work including winning the 2019 BETT Award for support and service to schools and the NAACE (UK subject association for computing) Impact Award for the CLC’s continuing professional development programme, the Association of Learning Technologists team of the year and the Dragon Award for the success of its teacher training programme for computing subject leaders created and delivered in partnership with IBM.

Research

The CLC is involved in several research projects to monitor the impact of technology on various aspects of education. Our recent project with the UK’s Education Endowment Fund exploring the use of technology to enable a better understanding of children’s metacognitive skills showed a positive impact on children’s maths understanding. The centre is currently working with the EEF on developing a second phase, UK-wide project to gain a deeper understanding in this area. The centre has also worked on a 2 year research project with University College London to evaluate the effect of programming using Scratch on mathematical thinking and computational thinking.

Virtual and Blended Learning

Alongside its delivery of services to schools, the centre is developing expertise in platform creation and online learning. The CLC was commissioned in 2016 to create a website for teachers in Egyptto enable them to share English language teaching practice and in 2018 was commissioned by the Queen Rania Teacher Acadamy in to write an online course to improve Jordanian teachers digital competencies.The centre has also created sites for its Education Endowment projects to share materials and enable teachers to collaborate and exchange for the duration of the programmes. As part of its family programmes, the centre has created a suite of entry-level modules using the open badges platform to support adults with low digital skills to acquire a level of digital confidence and competence. Open badges allow parents to gain recognition for learning through a data-rich verifiable online credentialingplatform.

The CLC team & learner numbers

The CLC’s team of 13 permanent staff and 15 consultants comprises teachers, technicians, tutors, computer scientists, media specialists and administrators. The team works across just over 100 schools in South London and beyond training teachers, working in the classroom with children,supporting parents and advising senior leaders. Last academic year the centre worked with over2600 teachers, 11700 pupils and almost 500 parents. 99% of teachers and 96% of pupils and 100%of parents rated CLC input as good or excellent with the majority as excellent in each instance