TalkFactory

What is Talk Factory?

With the current focus on oracy throughout the English national curriculum, there is a demand for educational technologies which support both teachers and learners in developing their awareness of, and engagement in, educationally beneficial dialogic interactions in the classroom. Talk Factory is designed for use on an Interactive Whiteboard and supports whole class plenary discussions (recent work is exploring its role for supporting group working, see below). Talk Factory is designed to support ‘exploratory’ talk, which is defined as “a joint, co-ordinated form of co-reasoning, in which speakers share relevant knowledge, challenge ideas, evaluate evidence, consider options and try to reach agreement in an equitable manner” (Mercer, 2008). Research in recent years has found that this kind of classroom dialogue is effective for promoting children’s talking, thinking and listening skills (see Mercer and Littleton, 2007 and the Thinking Together website for details).

Talk Factory displays six ‘rules for talking’ which can be edited by the teacher to support the needs of their class. Three are positive, or desirable, features of discussion (e.g. ‘explains reasons’ and ‘explains disagreement’) and three are negative, or undesirable features of discussion (e.g. ‘interrupts others’). The teacher can tap on a rule every time a child follows it during a discussion. Talk Factory includes a bar graph which represents the teacher’s taps on the rules. It also includes a sum of desirable and undesirable events, and a timeline. These features can be used by the teacher and the children to evaluate how well their discussion adheres to the rules for talking. Talk Factory is a tool that has a dual role: it helps teachers to model and encourage the positive features of discussion and argumentation, and it enables students to take part more effectively in argumentation by increasing their understanding of how to talk together effectively.

Download TalkFactory

This material is available under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Please note that Talk Factory saves automatically to your desktop so it must be installed onto, and run from, your desktop. It will not save if you install it onto a school server or any other location on your computer. If you use a classroom computer that is not your own, then you will need to install Talk Factory onto its desktop.

There are 3 versions of Talk Factory:

1. Talk Factory Primary Science, which is designed to support whole class discussion around the design, implementation and analysis of fair tests.
   TalkFactory Primary Science Software - for any computer with Java enabled. 
   TalkFactory Primary Science Instructions - MS Powerpoint. 
   An example set of lessons plans which support lessons on investigating evaporation are available for free download from this website. These lesson plans can be adapted for other topics.
   Primary Science lesson plans_evaporation - MS Word
   Lesson1: clothes drying - MS Powerpoint
   Lesson1: puddles - MS Powerpoint
   Lesson1: our Investigation booklet - MS Powerpoint
   Lesson7: which container - MS Powerpoint
    
2. Talk Factory Primary Generic. This version of the software can be used to support whole class discussion in any subject area and any topic in primary schools.
   TalkFactory Primary Generic Software - for any computer with Java enabled. 
   TalkFactory Primary Generic Instructions - MS Powerpoint. 
    
3. Talk Factory Secondary Generic. This version of the software can be used to support whole class discussion in any subject area and any topic in secondary schools.
   TalkFactory Secondary Generic Software - for any computer with Java enabled. 
   TalkFactory Secondary Generic Instructions - MS Powerpoint. 

Talk Factory Primary Science: a research study

To date, a previous version of Talk Factory has been evaluated in a study carried out in year 5 science lessons on evaporation. This research was funded by the ESRC. The main findings from this study are:

• During lessons where Talk Factory was not used, students did not seem to recognise the importance of backing up their claims with reasons (e.g. they would say ‘I think the water in the plastic cup will evaporate the fastest’, without explaining why). In contrast, in the lessons in which Talk Factory was used during plenaries, the students used reasoning words (e.g. I think\I agree\ disagree because) to provide a series of arguments and counter arguments building and elaborating on what had been said previously.
• In classes which used Talk Factory, teachers initiated discussions and followed this with requests to their students for reasons and opinions. Teachers encouraged students to challenge each other's ideas. Such techniques were not common during lessons where Talk Factory was not used.
• Teachers using Talk Factory used the rules diagram to initiate whole class discussions about the importance of argumentation in science learning. In this way they made the talk rules explicit to students and part of the common language of the class.
• Teachers and children using Talk Factory used the graphical representations generated by the software (i.e. the bar chart etc.) to assess the quality of their discussions. This helped the students to improve their understanding of how well the class was doing and helped them to think about how they improve further. Similarly, when the teacher tapped on the negative features it reminded the class of the types of utterances and behaviours which are conducive to productive class discussions.

Talk Factory Generic in Cornwall: an evaluation in primary and secondary schools

The generic versions of Talk Factory available for download above are currently being evaluated by schools throughout Cornwall. We are working in collaboration with Andy Brumby, Lead Consultant Secondary at Cornwall Learning. Talk Factory generic is being used in several primary and secondary schools to support classroom argumentation and oracy in geography, history, english, maths, design and technnology, PE theory, french, science, PSHE and alternative curriculum classes. Interviews have been conducted with teachers and filming of some lessons is underway currently. Initial responses are very positive: Talk Factory is being used in a number of ways and is being used by teachers to support class discussions and to support group work. Some schools have explored the potential of the students using Talk Factory installed on laptops to support group working. Another school has encouraged trainee teachers to use Talk Factory to help develop their awareness of the pedagogical benefits of dialogue for learning. Analysis of data collected from this research is underway and publications are forthcoming.

Publications of previous research:

Kerawalla, L., Petrou, M., and Scanlon, E (2012 online), The Talk Factory: Supporting 'exploratory talk' around an Interactive Whiteboard in primary school science, Technology, Pedagogy and Education. doi: 10.1080/1475939X.2012.745049

Kerawalla, L. Petrou, M. and Scanlon, E. (2010), Talk Factory: the use of graphical representations to support argumentation around an interactive whiteboard in primary school science, in Z. Zacharia, C. Constantinou and M. Papaevripidou (eds.), Computer based learning in science, conference proceedings. Warsaw, 7-10 July.

Petrou, M., Kerawalla, L. & Scanlon, E. (2009) The 'Talk Factory Software': scaffolding students' argumentation around an Interactive Whiteboard in primary school science. In A. Dimitricapoulou, C. O'Malley, D. Suthers, P. Reimann (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Practices (Vol. 2, pp.129-131). Rhodes, Greece

References

Mercer, N. (2008) Talk and the development of reasoning and understanding. Human Development, 51, 1, 90-100

Mercer, N. and Littleton, K. (2007) Dialogue and the development of children’s thinking, London and New York; Routledge.

Feedback

Comments and questions about Talk Factory can be sent to l.j.kerawalla (at) open.ac.uk