There are scores of online learning journals on the market, with suppliers claiming they can save time and add value for practitioners and parents alike. But how valuable are the insights they offer? And do they turn observation into a tick-box exercise?
We asked nursery practitioners to test and report on five popular brands they had no prior experience of. Their thoughts reflect not only the capabilities of the software but also their own priorities and style of practice.
THE TESTING PANEL
Vanessa Callan,
director of High House Day Nursery, Stansted
Claire De Ath,
manager, Willow Garden Day Nursery, Essex
Ami Mahon,
deputy manager, Elmscot Day Nursery, Cheshire
Emma Scott,
early years practitioner, Pear Tree Nursery, East Lothian
Victoria Stafford,
Early Years Professional, Wellies, Lincolnshire
Joe Wright,
co-owner, Paint Pots Nurseries, Southampton
TAPESTRY
Ami Mahon
Easy and interesting to use. The tutorials were very clear and handy with an extensive list of FAQs answered, meaning it was very quick to navigate my way around. The tracking snapshots were a fantastic resource and I could see many practitioners saving valuable time with the option to export data and categorise tracking into groups such as boys/girls, spring/summer born, EAL etc. The ‘next steps’ and ‘observations to look out for’ sections were so handy and I could see these being extremely beneficial to team members, in particular those newly qualified.
My only negative reflection is how my setting’s current planning format would fit in with the current cycle of observation, activity/next step then evaluation.
The added feature of parents being able to have far more of an insight into the child’s learning and development was excellent, with them being able to comment directly on observations and staff being able to monitor/amend how much the parents can see. Support were helpful and personal.
Vanessa Callan
Quite easy to use and the tutorials and advice available answer most problems. The ability to access data quickly – such as percentages of each area of learning being observed – is useful.
I am an online learning journal sceptic, and as a beginner I found it isn’t as tick-box oriented as some of the online systems I’ve seen, and seems able to produce an individual online journal for each child. A helpful addition would be quick shortcuts to translate early years outcomes into plain English.
LEARNING JOURNALS
Ami Mahon
Bright and colourful to look at, but I found the format hard to navigate without looking over the learning tools provided. Once I did though these were helpful. I liked the option of having the child’s view so children could look at their own journals without editing them. I really liked the option of the parents being able to input their home observations. It’s also nice that parents can upload photos, which gives practitioners a sense of what the children do when not at the setting. There is an option to use the daily diary for children to show what they have been doing within the day.
I found it secure: three separate pieces of information are needed in order to log in. I also liked the extra touch of having the child’s country flag on their picture; this gives the user more of an insight about a child – for example, whether they are EAL or are using a slightly differentiated curriculum. Something to consider within a larger childcare setting.
Emma Scott
Attractive and easy to use. The design is eye-catching and simple and entails little training for a first-time user, though one-to-one training is available. Parents can comment on their children’s observations and communicate easily with the staff regarding their child’s interests. However, I could only upload one photo at a time to an observation, which made it a longwinded process. Overall though it’s good value for money.
OWL TRACK
Emma Scott
Owl Track has a simple appearance that doesn’t draw you in at first glance. I found some parts of the system time-consuming. However, the training provided is excellent, with one-to-one phone training as standard and a very detailed ‘How to Guide’ PDF, which ensured that I knew thoroughly how to navigate the system.
The guide mentioned that the system can highlight, from your inputs, if a child is ‘achieving within expected age phases’. This is categorised into four sections ranging from ‘not started’ to ‘exceeding’. These categories are flexible and can be moved so that a child with SEN, for example, can be assessed against those pertaining to a younger child. However, as every child develops at a different pace, I found this system of categorisation rigid and unhelpful.
Victoria Stafford
Bright, simple layout that is easy to use without much support. Owl Track offers support in a number of ways, such as friendly, personal phone support and Skype training. Once you have become familiar with the terms used, you can easily record observations, linking these to the characteristics of effective learning and the EYFS. These can be viewed by families and they are able to add their own observations and photos from home.
The ‘nursery news’ section is effective for sharing information with families. Some reports can be produced with groups of children; these show children’s progress as a score out of the number of development statements the child has achieved, in a chart format. Exported reports have a professional look and would be effective to use for sharing with other professionals, for example two-year progress checks.
EYLOG
Joe Wright
eyLog is a feature-packed program that particularly shines with its application for tablets which have a range of useful features that I haven’t seen from every other provider. These include a login page where staff tap their pictures after the admin has logged on. While it has a steeper learning curve than other software, the documentation that comes with it means that nothing is too overwhelming and staff should be able to make use of the basics with a small amount of training.
I particularly liked the icons at the top of the application which made it simple to navigate, and the landing screen with the number of observations for each child per day, which means you would be unlikely to miss anyone. I liked the My World section, which allowed the staff member to put more information about the individual child and would allow a new member to gain a quick insight.
I would have appreciated some sort of price guide and possibly some video tutorials. I did not like that I was forced to log in and register my interest before I was given any idea beyond the FAQs. It was not difficult to set up a demo and the sales team were very friendly and could answer my questions about costs, but I felt that many of these questions could have been answered online rather than having the frustration of going through a sales pitch on the phone. This would be likely to put me off.
Claire De Ath
Simple tabs and user-friendly input systems mean data is quickly and easily collated and can be viewed at a glance, which enables practitioners to readily plan activities tailored to individual children’s requirements.
Parents are able to monitor their child’s development and obtain comprehensive information about their child’s day at nursery. At our setting we spend the majority of our day exploring the outdoor environment, and they now have an offline version available, which would be more beneficial to a setting such as ours where wifi is not always available.
INTERACTIVE LEARNING DIARY
www.interactivelearningdiary.co.uk
Victoria Stafford
Interactive Learning Diary has a very in-depth range of guides and support to get you started. Observations with media can be created without the need for internet, using apps on a range of devices. These are then uploaded, enabling them to be securely viewed by families through the use of specially created parental apps, which are also available in multi-lingual formats. Families are also able to add their observations from home.
There is a wide range of reports available, some of which are for EYFSP. There is no limit to data stored on the system and this is regularly backed up.
Joe Wright
Interactive Learning Diary (ILD) provides a user experience that I found more challenging to use than other software I have tried. Many of the icons at the top of the page were difficult to understand at first and there were a number of options that I initially struggled to decipher, such as Update Curriculum Data, which the application forced me to do every time I logged in. I liked the ability to create observations and then upload them at a later date, and a feature that alleviates the stress caused by lost work when the internet connection drops.
I had some difficulties starting an observation as the ‘write observation’ button was greyed out and it was only afterwards that I realised I had to add a child before continuing.
ILD appears to be better suited to a classroom environment – it refers to ‘pupils’ rather than children and ‘class’ rather than room – and this is reflected in its design.
Entering an observation was clear and the software fairly easy to navigate. I liked the use of the traffic-light system to denote a child’s progress within an area. One big plus was the support, which I found to be superb. The web browser version of ILD contains an instant messaging button. I asked a question which was comprehensively answered by ‘Justin’ within 30 seconds. The site invites you to start a trial via online chat – a useful feature that others should adopt.
While other management software is priced according to the number of children at the nursery, ILD has pricing bands dependent on how many rooms you require, which I feel is unfair on smaller settings with a low number of children.
EXPERT VIEW
By Cath Arnold, early years consultant
As someone who has been observing and documenting young children’s learning for more than 30 years, I welcome the introduction of online learning journals suitable for early years settings to use. I see the main advantage as the opportunity to communicate with parents and with other family members, who may live further afield on a regular basis. The journals offer the potential to develop a two-way dialogue with families about children’s learning which is more immediate and vivid than current methods.
However, there are limitations: an observation can only be as fluent as the person who has written it; photos and video clips need to be carefully selected and have accompanying notes in order to communicate with families effectively; finally, I am not keen on using a computer to assess children’s learning – I feel strongly that assessment needs human judgement, which is a lot more complex than any computer software can achieve. We already worry that, in some hands, assessment can become a sort of ‘tick list’ and it can only be a tick list if carried out by a computer.
I would be happy to use an online learning journal but would want to consider each aspect of a child’s development. I would want assessment to be informed by human judgement as well as by data displayed on the OLJ. I would want to decide on plans for moving forward in dialogue with colleagues and parents.
OTHER LEARNING JOURNALS
Some of the other online learning journals available include:
2 Simple 2 Build, www.2simple.com
Astec Solutions, www.astecsolutionsltd.com
Capture Education, www.capture-education.co.uk
Connect Childcare (won Nursery World’s Staff Resources Award in 2015 for iConnect and Parentzone), www.connectchildcare.co.uk
First Steps Software, http://firststeps.software
INursery, www.inursery.net
Kinderloop, http://kinderloop.com
Kinderly, www.kinderly.co.uk
LearningBook, www.learningbook.co.uk
Parenta, www.parenta.com/abacus-nursery-management-software
Spark, www.sparkearlyyears.co.uk