May 26, 2025 • 47 mins
As educators, I wonder do we think much about the research that is done about education. I spoke with Paula Korsnakova and Eliane Segers from the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) to talk about educational research, with a focus on reading from digital devices.
The following links may be useful if you'd like to learn more:
- https://www.iea.nl/publications/teacher-resources/teaching-reading-comprehension-digital-world : Link to the new volume of Research for Educators on digital reading
- https://www.iea.nl/publications/iea-teachers-snippet/digital-reading-comp : Link to the new Teacher Snippet connected to the new book
- And if you think these would be handy for listeners too:
- https://www.iea.nl/publications/iea-teacher-snippets : General Teacher Snippets page
- https://www.iea.nl/publications/iea-teachers-snippets/iea-research-educators-more-book-series : General Research for Educators book series page
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit simonmlewis.substack.com/subscribe
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Hello, you are very welcome to if I werethe minister for education from on shot
dot net, a regular podcast where I diveinto the world of primary education in
Ireland and let you know what I woulddo if I were the minister for education.
This is Simon Lewis speaking.
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(00:30):
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net slash subscribe.
As primary school teachers, even thoughwe work in the field of education,
(00:52):
I'm not sure how many of us actuallythink about the research that's
out there that goes into the thingsthat we do every day on the ground.
I was approached by anorganization called the IE.
A, the International Association for theEvaluation of Educational Achievement.
They are an international cooperativeof national research institutions
(01:14):
government research agencies, anda bunch of other people all around
the world based in the Netherlands.
And essentially simply put, they are thegroup of people that you may know better
from some of their studies, namely.
Tims, T-I-M-S-S and Pearls, P-I-R-L-S.
Many of their studies you would possiblybe familiar with, however, they are
(01:39):
at the moment trying to promote somesimple kind of ideas, which they
call snippets that they're published.
They're kind of like little bookletsalmost for teachers on the ground to
teach certain aspects of the curriculum.
And the one they're currently promotingis on reading from a digital device.
(01:59):
And as many of you know, childrenthese days are doing a lot of
reading from digital devices.
And I suppose the question thatwas asked is, is it doing any good?
So that is their pro project, but Idecided I would chat to them about that,
but also about educational research andI was very, very lucky to be joined by.
Two of their researchers, and I hopeyou enjoy the interview with them.
(02:24):
And this time I am being very exoticbecause I'm traveling outside of
Ireland for my podcast this time.
In fact, I am traveling virtually.
To the Netherlands and well viaFinland and also to Slavia and
Slovakia via the Netherlands as well.
It's very international episode today,but why I'm doing that is because I'm
(02:46):
speaking to two very interesting people.
Eliana Sagers is the professor oflearning and technology at bout
university in the Netherlands, andI have Paula Kova, who is a senior
research and liaison advisor to the IEA.
And we will be talking today aboutresearch with a kind of a little view
(03:06):
on reading and the study of reading.
I know this is a, an areathat a lot of Irish teachers
are exploring at the moment.
Particularly with lots of changes goingon in our primary language curriculum
over the last few years, but also some ofthe latest research that's coming our way
around how children learn how to read.
And I know the IEA have developed a numberof resources that might be useful for
(03:29):
you as teachers, and that's what we'regoing to be really talking about today.
So you're very welcome to, if I werethe Minister for Education, Eliana.
Thank you.
Now, I suppose the first questionI like to ask people without it
sounding like a job interview, butit probably does, is just to tell
us a little bit about yourselves.
So we might start off with Paola.
(03:52):
In the beginning I was thinking inbetween agricultural and education,
and then I picked the biology andmathematics as teacher education.
In retrospect, I seethat it's very similar.
Basically we are patient about growing.
We know that there are opportunitiesbut also that we are not in full control
(04:17):
which makes our profession so exciting.
So I, I did some teaching, then I didsome research in, in, in Slovakia,
came across international large scaleassessments, comparative studies.
Moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands workedwith IEA in different roles, and now I am,
(04:39):
as you said research and liaison advisor.
Fantastic.
And Elian can you tell us about yourselfand how you got into education and a
little bit, a bit about what you're doing.
Okay.
Yes.
Thank you.
So how I got into education, I grewup in the eighties, nineties, and
when I finished my master's, I wasasked to do a PhD in developing
(05:02):
software for kindergartners.
It was in the late nineties, formerprevious century, and there were
lots of computers already in theschools in the Netherlands, but
surprisingly, no software on it.
And with my background in speechtechnology and cognitive science, I
was asked to develop such things wedid on CD ROMs if those, for those
(05:23):
not so young teachers who know CDROMs Uhhuh and we designed software
and I studied the effectivenessof it and have been going on.
In that field ever since broadeningfrom kindergartners to towards teenagers
as well, reading comprehension.
So it's always been the combinationof learning, reading and
technology, which fascinates me.
(05:43):
Amazing.
That's really interesting.
I funny, I, just as it happens,I actually did my masters in and
my question was, can a computer.
Better teach reading betterthan a teacher, and I
developed a CD ROM for that.
Must be the age.
(06:04):
Yeah, I think my resultswere inconclusive.
Thankfully, so that's why I thinkwe're still, I still have a job.
A few.
Let's I suppose what I want to get Ithink before we maybe talk about the
IEA and the work that you're doing, Ithink Irish teachers were and I suppose
all teachers from different countries,they're always very interested in
other countries education systems andhow they work and what they believe
(06:27):
the strengths are and maybe whatthings they might learn from Ireland.
I'm not sure if that's something,maybe Eliana you might be able to
tell us a little about your country's.
Education system,particularly a primary level.
And you know what you feel about itand maybe things that you might know
about Ireland and what we're doing Well.
Okay, so the Netherlands arelittle bit in a reading crisis.
(06:52):
We love the term crisis in theNetherlands, and we are in a little
bit of that because for pearls,the international assessment, the
Netherlands scores have been dropping.
And as I said before, we look atIreland as our shiny example because in
Ireland things are going really well.
How can that be?
Not sure.
(07:12):
I've read a little bit aboutwhat Ireland is doing, at least
there is a lot of appreciationfor what the teachers are doing.
That's really good.
A lot of focus on reading.
And in the Netherlands what we aredoing is having libraries in the school,
so bring the books to the children.
I really like that.
That's good.
Since the reading crisis wasannounced a few years ago there's
(07:35):
more attention for reading.
That's good.
More adaptations have beenmade in the curriculum.
And I think what could beimproved is and that goes to
the book that we wrote for ia.
There could be more attentionfor challenges of digital reading
because there's no way around it.
And some schools are pushingagainst digital reading saying,
no, we should do paper because.
(07:56):
Not going towards all the new stuff.
I don't know why not?
Yeah.
I'm not sure how Ireland is doing in this.
Yeah it's an interesting one to write.
'cause I think we're probably the samequestions are being asked over here.
There.
I suppose we have a very longhistory of literature in Ireland
where we're very well known.
I suppose around the world for beingreally good writers, in, in general.
(08:17):
And the idea of, I mean there's somany famous, contemporary and writers
in Ireland, and the idea of moving orusing digital technology for reading is
I suppose it's still controversial andstill the, those, the same questions.
I been asked, for the last decade.
It's interesting, isn't it?
I really do not agree withpushing against digital reading.
(08:38):
We are also not readingfrom a papyrus role anymore.
So I think really schools need toprepare children for being citizens.
And as a citizen in currentsociety, you really should be able.
To deal with the complexitiesof digital texts.
Exactly.
And we'll talk a little bit morein depth into that in a bit.
I want to move back to you, Paula.
And just more broadlyabout educational research.
(09:02):
'cause I think, sometimes I.
When we hear about academics studyingand writing about anything from
reading to any sort of research theywonder how does it actually affect
teachers in their day-to-day liveson the ground in the classroom?
I suppose you're involved as anadvisor and researcher with the IEA.
(09:22):
A lot of Irish teachers may not know whatIEA stands for what it is or what it does.
So maybe could you give us a littlebrief summary of what the IEA is?
Sure.
The acronym is really not tellingmuch, neither the full name.
We're the International Association forEvaluation of Educational Achievements.
(09:43):
Very good, but we arenot doing evaluation.
Okay.
We're international.
So you are right.
Mentioning that behind researchthe origin is in academia.
And also IA origin is with academia.
And bit curiosity on what is educationallypossible, what could be achieved.
(10:05):
Not from the perspective who is thebest and who needs to learn the most.
It's more from the perspective todocument a context of education.
We know that education is embedded, sowe need to know the most context we can.
Find out that we can documentand then we can discuss together
(10:30):
in, with participating countries.
What would be the best way forward if weare interested in knowing achievement?
So with the study, we willbe speaking about pearls.
The study has been originated in 2001.
And since then there is ongoing rerefinement of framework on which
(10:53):
instruments are based, and thenelaboration on instruments and changes
of instruments to move with andtogether with educational systems.
Fantastic.
And I suppose for this, I don't thinkmost teachers will will dispute this,
but I'm gonna ask the question anyway,is why is educational research important?
(11:15):
I.
From my perspective, it's theperspective from research you
are starting with hypothesis.
With something you, you would liketo know whether it is happening or
not, whether it is working or not.
And then you are developing amethod and you are trying to collect
evidence, but then the results maybe actually what is worth to engage.
(11:40):
Different stakeholder, stakeholderslevel, so teachers can think for
themselves whether the the results arein line with data personal experience
or there is something surprising.
This can be beginning ofdiscussions in teachers' rooms.
Rooms.
So it's also a avenue for reflection.
(12:02):
Yeah.
And engagement.
Not only, disturbing school schedule andusing lessons for administering tests.
That's the most annoying part.
Yeah.
Of the whole process.
That we are afraid.
It's the part that our colleaguesin schools are not very fond of.
(12:22):
No, no one would be.
No.
And it's often what we're, whatwe're judged on as well, isn't it?
If you have anything to add to that.
Just shortly that I thinkresearch is crucial to know what
works for whom in education.
And if there's all new technology comingout, AI now, lots of new things happening.
You can't just throw that into theclassroom without knowing whether it's a
(12:45):
good idea, whether it's beneficial or not.
Yeah.
So we need research for that for sure.
And the why I suppose ofit's here and or why and how.
All those, all the questionsreally that, that we can ask for.
Sure.
And yeah, that makes absolute sense.
I wanted to move into what we're.
I suppose the meat of what we'regoing to talk about today, and it
(13:06):
was you touched on this Sian abouthow Ireland is now being seen.
I can't believe Ireland isbeing seen as a shining beacon.
We're always very critical of ourown education systems, but Ireland
seems to have carved itself a bit ofa niche in the area of reading and
literacy, and we seem to do very well.
In that area, particularly,in Ireland, we've become very
obsessed with Pisa results.
(13:27):
I don't know if it's the same inother countries, and I know PISA
isn't the only metric we are, we'regonna talk a little bit about your
metric and the study that used pearls.
But suppose the first thing I wantto ask and I'll ask, I think I
have power down for this one, butAnne, please feel free to jump in.
Is I.
I'm I'm a bit cynical of, and maybe it'sbecause I'm in the Irish education system
(13:51):
of why we do so well in Pisa, and ifthere were other studies out there that,
that kind of almost either backup whatPISA is showing about art and success
and literacy, or if it's just one of theit's just the, the way one study becomes
very famous and it becomes the onlystudy, let's say that people take notice
of, may I interrupt you, Simon, here?
(14:12):
Of course.
Yeah.
Am I correct that Ireland is doingpretty well in both PISA and Pearl?
So for the 15 year olds and the10 year olds actually do you know
what I know in Pisa we are, butI don't know about in pearls.
Do you know?
Do think so so that sort ofbacks up the idea that something
is really do going really well.
I would say something, something isworking and it's interesting when
(14:34):
you're in the middle of it all.
You don't know exactly what it is.
And I think we touched on that, but andwe must get into this because I, but
before I do given that PISA seems to be,the one that makes the media in Ireland
more that, can you maybe tell us alittle about the difference between them?
What are they?
I know Pearls is your area,but you might know about both.
(14:57):
Sorry.
Yes.
I have started my internationallarge scale assessment engagement
as pisa national researchmanager in, in, in Slovakia.
And I was with PISA for 2003.
2006 and 2009.
So there was also one, ofthose focused on reading.
(15:19):
The major difference in between OECDand IA studies is where the institution
organizing the study is located.
Okay.
IAS is located withinthe educational area.
So we ourselves as a.
(15:42):
Curriculum is guiding document fordevelopment of our assessments.
We are taking the whole classrooms.
We are doing grade base assessment.
Not selecting cohort.
Or students of particular age.
Of course we have age limits in ourstudy, so we have grade plus age.
But when we are coming to school,we are asking and assessing
(16:06):
students in one classroom.
And we know the teachers that are, wedon't know, but the classroom is coming
with teachers, so also those are.
Embed the research in a real structureof educational system and consider
where the educational system is.
Fantastic.
(16:26):
And while OCD they need results.
It's for economy, it's for labor market.
Ah, so in Pros you have a studentssmall, young, that are just at the moment
when they should be done with masteringreading as a tool for further learning in.
(16:49):
We have students that are tothe end of compulsory education.
Meaning they are very soon eitheravailable directly for labor market,
or they are progressing towards morecloser preparation for their careers.
And these are picked across.
Different grades from grade eight to11, depending on countries because
(17:13):
there is particular age sure.
Bracket.
So you can imagine that the text those twogroups are reading, they are different.
Yes.
Yes.
Also, you can imagine that forOECD, it's not so important what
actually is happening in schools.
Yeah.
They need results.
They need a number at the end.
(17:34):
Is it?
Yeah.
They need the competence.
They need to be to see that whatis needed has been developed.
And in, in our case, it's more, ofcourse we would like we are very
ambitious in school systems, of course.
I can tell that in teams advanceonce after field test, we had to
redo instruments because our expertswere so ambitious and so confident
(17:59):
in ability of their students thatthe tests were just too difficult.
Wow.
We are ambitious as researchersas teachers, but these two
bodies, ia more educational OECDeconomy driven labor market.
We.
Of course we have different approaches.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's very interesting.
(18:20):
And I suppose that feeds into,I, I guess particularly, again, I
can only take, talk from an Irishcontext that, that whole idea of.
Economics being so important,like being almost seen as
more important than education.
When we're talking about the IrishI don't agree with this by the way
but when we hear on the radio whatis the purpose of education, a lot
(18:42):
of the conversation goes down tothe labor market, towards economics.
And it's always disappointingto me when I hear that.
And I think probably that'swhy when the PISA results come
out, that's why the media are.
Look at those.
And they're always looking forthey never look for successes.
I never ever see Irelandbeing celebrated for literacy.
But we always they always advertise,oh dear, but your maps are terrible.
(19:04):
That's how the media works.
I assume it's the same in mostcountries though, where they pick on
the negatives rather than the positives.
It's, would that be fair?
It's unfortunate that it's alwaysa comparison between countries.
It's like the song festival, andwhereas you should be looking at within
your country if there's trends andnot if Ireland scores higher than the
Netherlands, which it does, that's not.
(19:27):
I know it's it almost turns it intoa sport rather than or like you
say, the Eurovision song contest.
It it's it isn't particularly helpful.
And as much as everybody likes,coming first or second in a
competition, it shouldn't reallybe a competition between countries.
No.
That, that, that makes absolute sense.
Let's actually move on to whatyou're doing at the moment and
why we're speaking about, youhave developed really interesting.
(19:49):
I ideas these short guides forteachers on the grounds, and I had
a look at one of them on readingspecifically around digital reading
on digital devices and so on.
Elian, that's your area isn't it?
Maybe you could tell us a little aboutthe short guide for people who might
be interested in finding out more.
It's we were asked by IA to writea book on how to teach digital
(20:13):
reading comprehension in schoolsrelated to the Pearls assessment.
And we've done so, so thebook can be freely downloaded.
It's for free for every teacher.
It's giving back to teachers asia it, and there are also shorter.
Things for teachers to read.
(20:33):
And what's, what I think is mostimportant in the book is that we give
guidelines to teachers on how to dothat with digital text because it's
not the same as reading from paper.
Yeah.
But as I said before, you shouldimplemented in your lessons and
modeling is a strategy that.
Teachers know and do I assume?
(20:56):
And so you should also do that withdigital reading because there are
hyperlinks that you have to click on.
You have to scroll, click,et cetera, et cetera.
And that's different thanflipping to the next page, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So the characteristics ofdigital text are important.
I.
It is, you can also do it onpaper, but when reading online
digitally, you most often haveto work with multiple documents.
(21:20):
When you Google something, you arequickly reading different texts.
And that's a complication,especially for children.
If you have less prior knowledgeto have, to integrate information
from multiple documents into onemental model, that's a thingy.
And that's what you need to learn.
That's true.
(21:40):
Because most of, yeah.
I think most of what we'rereading now is online single test.
Yeah.
And is there a reluctancefrom teachers to embrace.
Sometimes So teachers, so sometimes,so it depends, reluctance,
maybe it's an unfamiliarity.
That you feel that, oh, Idon't know how to do this.
(22:02):
Maybe some, say some want tostay with the paper, which I get.
And it, but if you, in currentsociety, you need to be able to see.
Or judge a document on itstrustworthiness, for example.
Is it a real, has it been written by ai?
Is it an opinion?
(22:24):
Is it a fact?
Is it so you need to be able to do that.
That's crucial in current society.
So it should be in the schools, andmost of that is digital, whereas.
When Simon, you, if you developCD ROMs, you have it too.
When you grew up, you went to thelibrary and what's written on paper.
That's true.
It's a fact.
It's what in the library.
(22:44):
You read it and you know that's true.
Whereas now if you are online, you readsomething, you don't know if it's true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's not easy for children.
This is it.
This is it.
And, I think schools are embracingkind of media education where
they're, looking at looking at thingsonline and getting the children.
I.
To ask those questionsof, why was this written?
(23:06):
Who wrote it?
Why do you think they wrote it,and what are they trying to do?
And they're very important questions.
And I think certainly, I can onlyspeak anecdotally really from my
own experience that we've we'veembraced in our own school the
idea of, a kind of, paper based.
Reading is obviously important andisn't, we don't want to, stop doing that.
(23:26):
But we, when we've introduced moredigital texts and mainly outta necessity
because books are expensive and thereare really good, and there are some
really good digital tools online,digital which are, and are trustworthy.
So moving away from trustworthythey're just books, but
they're, they're on a screen.
We found that while that children.
(23:47):
And, but mostly theirparents are resistant.
And parents are resistant because ofthis whole I, and again, I don't know
if it's the same in where you are aroundthe idea of too much screen time, so
they don't see the value of readingon a screen versus reading from paper.
Oh, may I answer that question, Paula?
(24:08):
Sure, go ahead.
Time has a negative connotation.
Rightfully if you watch television I.
I can, I will not give an example,but you, if you only watch the song
festival all the time, yeah, that'snot a good thing because you don't
learn too much from it, right?
So it depends on what you're watching ontelevision, if it's a good thing or bad.
(24:31):
So if you watch as a young kid, SesameStreet, and your parent is sitting next
to you and helping you understand what'sbeing done, it's really good screen time.
And the same goes for when you'reon your tablet or on your phone.
On average, people seenegative effects of it.
Which is true if you are I don't know,watching cat movies all night long.
(24:54):
Yeah.
You will not learn a lot.
But if your screen time is, if you'rereading the Irish authors of all great
times that you just mentioned Simon,I would say that's good screen time.
And whether you read it on paperor on screen, that doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(25:14):
So it depends what's, youcannot blame the machine.
You blame the content.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It, I think you're absolutely right.
I think we are singing from thesame hymn sheet as the phrase goes.
I, it's it, and it's very difficult toconvince parents of this at the moment
because of the negative connotations.
Often I can come up with manypaper things, magazines that you
(25:34):
would not want your child to read.
True.
And you're not saying that paperreading is a good thing then.
So it's.
That's very true.
If you're just reading Yeah.
I don't know, the samemagazine over and over again.
Yeah.
I dunno we won't go for examples.
No, let's not.
But I get you like, it, there,there's, there's good reading both
on text and on digital and I thinkit it's a, it's definitely one that
(25:56):
we need to, convince parents of that.
Just because you put something ona screen doesn't make it worse.
Or less beneficial.
It can actually often be morebeneficial, I think, because of,
yes, young kids are on YouTube.
And that's not educational.
But if you have adigital storybook, it is.
That's exactly right.
So why not have the youngkid have a digital storybook?
(26:19):
Absolutely.
And they're learning as well.
The skills of reading from that and alsothe Yes, A lot of, I love some of the
augmentation that can be done and Exactly.
Which can really enhance and help thechild read more independently and so on.
Yes.
Presume a lot of this is in the guidesand that you're, you've developed.
And so the book that we wrote is.
Focused on reading comprehension.
(26:40):
So 10 year olds and the digital storybookthat I just mentioned, some are for
kindergartners, but those are really,you can have it in all languages as well.
So you can read it at home in yourown, in your first language if it's not
English, and then in school in English.
So there's a win-win situation there.
Absolutely.
Gosh, it's benefit oftechnology and if I may, I would
(27:02):
highlight
resulting measure.
For our limiting screen time canbe very bad for students that
have no opportunity to actuallyengage with technology at home.
So basically in schools what wecan strive to achieve is to have
(27:23):
a good screen time in our results.
So we saw that students were usingthat was ICL study, another information
and computer literacy study.
We saw that students were usingtheir equipment their smartphones or
other equipment for reading purposes,but also for non-reading purposes.
(27:47):
That's the problem.
Yes.
And the same at homes.
Yes.
This is a mixed bag and I amcompletely supporting what Elaine said.
We need to go into what isgoing on the screen Exactly.
To judge.
Exactly.
And I'm just thinking while I'mlistening here, that, some of the
(28:08):
other benefits that maybe we, maybethey weren't anticipated, but I didn't
anticipate them, how it supports othervery important aspects of life in the
21st century, like pure lingualism.
For example, when you have a book.
On a digital screen.
If it's on the paper,it's in one language.
But all of a sudden, and particularlynow that AI is, has become better at
(28:29):
translating than some of the machinetranslations that we've been using.
This has to be very excitingfor your own research, is it?
It is, yeah.
Yeah.
Especially bilingualismis becoming the norm.
So yes, I think there'sreally great benefits there.
Yeah.
And given that both of you are incountries where, bilingualism is
(28:51):
and proper pluralism is a feature.
In Ireland we're, we often say,oh we're a monolingual country.
We all speak.
We actually, we're a bilingual nation.
We though we just don't use ourIrish language as much as we should.
I was, we're very hard on ourselves,but we are introducing, our new
curriculum in English or what wasour English curriculum, is now
becoming a language curriculum.
(29:11):
And not necessarily, we, I supposethe emphasis will be on plural
lingualism, that we're going to bemaking sure that, our very multilingual
classrooms are representative.
And I know we're not talking about thattoday, but I suppose given that I have
you here I'm going to put you on the spot.
Is there something that.
We could learn from countries where,you know, multilingualism and plural,
(29:35):
lingualism and bilingualism has been afeature of education for, generations.
I would say Simon, you are in a very luckyposition because align with the team.
They also altered the firstbook, the previous volume.
Now we are focusing on, on, ondigital uhhuh, but the first volume
was actually providing support andsuggestions for multilingual classrooms.
(30:01):
Wow.
So maybe Elaine could picksome key points from the book.
For me, what was retrospect,it, it really seems lo logical.
But I was anyway surprised that for secondlanguage speakers, it can be much more
difficult to understand particular work.
Because it's missing from their vocabularythan to evaluate the whole text.
(30:25):
Okay.
Okay.
But is.
Provide input.
Okay.
So I, there was not really aquestion, but let's see what we
can learn from the Netherlands.
There's always a, I think it's a pendulum.
So sometimes the multilingualismis embraced and then at certain
points it's saying, no, you should,the parents should talk Dutch at
(30:48):
home and not have own language.
But currently we're in the goodsituation, thankfully, that.
Should speak their own language at home.
So children who are proficientin their first language will also
learn the second language better.
So read books in your first languageand then read them in a second language.
(31:14):
But parents should not be afraidto not speak their own language.
It's really no.
Yeah.
And sometimes see thatparents still are afraid and.
Try to speak to their children in Dutch.
But then it's not a switch astheir own language, so really, no.
Okay.
Okay.
Multilingualism is now being embracedand that's good, that's a positive thing.
(31:39):
That, I'm glad to hear we'regoing in the right direction.
That's linguistic transfer.
That's so what you do, what you can, ifcan rhyme whatever in your own language.
You can do it in the second language.
Very good.
That's really interesting.
Really interesting.
And I know we won't have time to go toomuch into, but it's just, as I said, as we
were talking, I was thinking, gosh, thatit's funny things pop into your head while
you're talking to very interesting people.
(32:01):
So I'm interested, we've talked aboutthis particular short guide, and I
assume this is one of a number of shortguides that are going to be published
or are published Paula, what's whatother resources can teachers find if
they're looking for some short guides?
We are, we have just started, ah it,it was not easy task for ia to, to
(32:24):
think of what we could contributemeaningfully to, to the world of teaching.
The problem with our studies are thatthey are set at the system level.
Yes.
Meaning we have samples that aretelling about the overall situation.
But we cannot go back toparticular student or teacher that.
(32:48):
They were selected torepresent wider group.
In the case of students, becausewe are so bound to curricula,
we don't have all studentsresponding to the same instruments.
Yes.
So at the end we needed to find a wayof what we could meaningfully offer.
(33:09):
Yes.
And then we were thinking thatwe have different contexts of
education, different cultures,but we have some joint challenges.
Yes.
And then we were going from therewhat we see in the data that me
(33:29):
as teacher would like to know.
And then we came to theteacher snippet idea.
But that was only scratching the surface.
Sometimes you need much morebackground, much more information.
What are your options?
To react on particular problem.
And we were lucky enough to haveexpertise center in the Netherlands
(33:53):
that was actually originatedto support reading components.
And went from paper pearls because we allstarted on as a pen and paper assessment.
Then explored Aprils with onlineassignments for students in the test.
(34:15):
And now we are fullydigital as assessment.
Meaning of course we have items or passagetexts that are resembling a reading book.
But we have also this onlineenvironment for students to solve.
So we were thinking, okay we saw thereis this, issue with second language.
The legacy in many countries theimperial languages are having higher
(34:39):
status than domestic languages.
And there are different solutionswhen and how to engage learner
with language of the instruction.
The more powerful or yeahhow the mother tongue is.
That was the first topicof multilingualism.
And then with the transfer and chatGPT and the social media campaigns that
(35:02):
completely ruined some, some aspects.
We thought we need to face this.
We also saw that students that are goodreaders they're struggling much less
online than those that already had issues.
So we need to support all readers.
And then we got the second publication.
Our colleagues at IA that are dealing withcommunication and dissemination efforts
(35:26):
they managed to get some informationabout this publication in touch magazine.
Ah, very good.
Yes.
So colleagues can have a look andfind links to, to those publications.
Fantastic.
And for those of you unfamiliar withInTouch Magazine I'm sure most Irish
teachers are very familiar withit, it's the primary school unions
magazine that is published monthly.
(35:48):
I think there's nine or10 publications a year.
And I it arrives in.
Pretty much every staff room in thecountry and very well worth read.
It's great to know that it's,and it's actually probably the
best place to reach teachers.
I'd suggest.
And and well done on gettingit into the union magazine.
Yeah.
That, that, that thanks.
Goes to, to IA communication team.
Calm and.
(36:09):
The thing is that we really needto celebrate this second volume
on digital reading for sure.
It was not easy task and I admiredour authors and Elaine was among them
how we were iterating and going closerto, imagine you, you are having book.
(36:32):
Put what is on your screenand how you're engaging with
that on a, into a book format.
So I would really be interestedin opinion of colleagues if they
can go through it and drop a note.
Yeah, I think that wouldbe absolutely fantastic.
And what we'll do is, we'll, at the,before we, when we finish we'll I'll
be asking you the best way people canactually do that and provide their
(36:55):
feedback, because I think most peoplewho listen to this podcast ask are
very engaged in the education system.
I try to give, anindependent sort of slightly.
Off center sc analysisof the education system.
So generally the people listening to thishave the same have are engaged in that.
We'll certainly do that at the end.
One question I like, I always ask myguests on this podcast and I, it's
(37:17):
always, it can be a difficult onefor I suppose, people who aren't in
Ireland to answer because I supposeit's a sort of an Irish question In
Ireland, our education system is.
Is strange, and I'm sure you'remore familiar with it than than
maybe I, I think, but we have aminister for education in Ireland.
I know you minister for educationsin most countries, but they get to.
(37:39):
In some ways, they're in charge of theeducation system and at a systems level
rather than at a on the ground level.
So I always ask, you know about whatmy guests would do if they were the
Minister for education for a day.
They could change one thingabout our education system and.
I'm gonna ask you that question.
I've given you some time to prepare it.
(38:01):
So it's not the first time I've askedyou this question, so hopefully you've
had some time to think about it.
So I'm gonna ask you about that.
So what would you do if you wereshipped into Ireland and you were given
the Minister for Education portfolio,you had a benign dictatorship, so
you could do whatever you wanted.
And I know your answer to this isto dismantle this dictatorship.
(38:22):
If you had to make one rule, we hatchedwhich we had to at least discuss
and vote upon, what would it be?
I would make sure that digitalinequalities is prevented as much as
possible by making sure that childrenhave access to digital materials, but
also are able to use it to use thedigital technology because equality is
(38:44):
not just having or not having the machine.
But also knowing how to use it and usingit, because then you can drive further.
So that's what I would do afterI've set out the elections.
Oh, absolutely.
We need to restoredemocracy, that's for sure.
(39:05):
For sure.
Very good.
And Paula, what about yourself?
Oh that's question.
Colleagues are thinking what would bethe vice thing to do in in, in such
case what to lobby for, what would bethe safe point to start development
(39:26):
improvement changes redoing whatever.
I think what maybe is now I'm ofcourse responding from my context,
so take it that, okay, this isnot Irish lady saying us this.
She didn't know.
So I am, I'm saying that whatI think is very important in
the field of education is to.
(39:50):
To start working together.
In a way that is because weknow how it is on the fields.
There are edges, there areborders, there are walls, there
are these straps with thorns.
So it's difficult sometimes tocommunicate with the colleague from the
next classroom or from another school.
(40:11):
We, we need to find a way.
How to discuss not only contractualmatters like trade union matters.
That's very important.
Sure.
In addition, it's also veryimportant to mind the purpose to
to discuss how we would like tomove forward as a society because.
(40:34):
Of society.
Contributing and can nourish andcontribute to a lot of changes.
And I had one initial reactionwhen I saw the ship question and
the initial reaction was that.
Good.
Good.
Because I think basically in thefield of education, you have a
very highly educated workforce.
(40:55):
So I would think that any dictator.
Should have a real problemto get through that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think they would.
But it's a very interesting, Ithink what you said there about the
idea of the purpose of educationand so on and in Ireland, what I
there's this strange kind of I.
(41:15):
What the paradox in a way that everyschool in Ireland is its own little
fiefdom, for want of a better word.
Like we're all, even though we're publiclyfunded schools, we're all very private
and we're all our own insular buildings.
But at the same time, we've createdthese structures and I'm in the country,
and maybe it's because we're a smallcountry where we have a number of,
(41:36):
like schemes and systems, which allowus to have those big conversations.
We have this really goodnetwork of education centers.
There's 10 of them in the country wherethey, and their job is to bring teachers
together in their regions to discuss thebig questions and sometimes the small
questions, and to learn from each other.
And we call them t TPLs or tps.
(41:58):
Teach professional networks.
I see that as a really positive thing.
And I'm not sure I think sometimes wetake for granted those sort of things and
we're, there's lots of big, and we didn't,I didn't want to, it was on our list
of things to talk about, but I decidednot to talk about it with you today.
But I'll just mention it.
There's huge discussions aroundreading in Ireland at the moment with
and controversies, and we won't getinto it 'cause we don't have time.
(42:19):
But it's, I what I think is good.
Is that we're having the conversationsand we have the spaces to have
those conversations, and I'm notsure if that's unusual or not.
And what I'd love to see, I supposemaybe if we did, going back to the
Minister for Education, is there wastalk about having a citizens assembly.
I.
On the education system.
And there was a promise at governmentlevel to do that in Ireland.
(42:39):
And sadly, that seems to havedisappeared, which is a little bit
disappointing to me because I thinkwe have a lot of big questions to
ask about the Irish education system,really from its foundational levels.
And to have that to, if we had havehad that space, it would've been great.
So I'm really delighted with bothyour answers to that question because.
It really feeds that thought,I think, a little bit.
So thank you for that very much.
(43:01):
The last thing I suppose is reallyI've really enjoyed this conversation
and I see we're already almost anhour into the conversation, so we do
have to come to an end, but I thinkwhat most teachers will be wondering.
Is, where am I going to get this guide?
Where am I going tofind all this research?
So maybe Paolo you might tell us andEliane where are we going to find this
(43:22):
research on reading and technology,or even about pluralism pluralism.
Sorry.
Where's the best place teacherscan start to find that?
I think I, I.
That's the book.
Great.
On the IA website sir?
Paulina and Springer too.
Okay.
It's open Access book.
Yeah.
I think maybe that's the way howI'm Googling is you'll put ia.
(43:48):
You will put digital.
Reading.
Yep.
If you have IA Springer Digitalreading, you find it's the first hit.
Ah, very good.
Your SEO is excellent.
That's what we needed.
Because that's the most that's the body.
That's what what we can offer.
And then if someone wouldbe kind enough to visit ia.
(44:11):
The, what is needed is to put educationand then cite and l because you need to
avoid this other IA that has E for energy.
Very good.
And that's very populatedon, on, on internet.
And within IA you can checkpublications and there are dedicated
(44:33):
teacher publications for teachers.
And we have a couple of teachersnippets on different topics.
That are not only about reading, butalso something about mathematics and
science, misconceptions on civic andcitizenship education through or false.
(44:54):
We, we were mentioning thesechallenges online to evaluate whether
the information is reliable or not.
Not really.
So we have some findings.
From our IEL study in a form ofteacher snippet available there.
And one advantage in ia website on theIA website is that we are adding all
(45:17):
national different language versions.
We can provide files and colleagues fromcountries are translating publications.
And then they are using them ofcourse, and we can share them.
We actually a bit colleaguesthat would like to read.
I've seen Irish teach snippetsof the digital reading book.
Oh, brilliant.
(45:37):
That's amazing.
Oh that's absolutely, that's great to knowthat there's, that we are, we're involved.
I in a way in that.
Fantastic.
Elia.
Paula, it's been an absolutepleasure speaking to both of you.
I've really enjoyed talking about,I, I haven't been doing any academic
work myself for a few years and.
Started me thinking about going backto the, back, to the the old academics.
(45:57):
Again, it's I suppose everyone a lotof teachers I suppose were in, in
the world of education and you canalways keep learning more and more.
And I've really enjoyed, I.
Learning about your work andwhat you're doing it's just
sounds absolutely fascinating.
I can't wait to see what's coming next.
It's really interesting.
I just want to finish by, thank youboth for taking the time to speak with
me and the very best luck with yourfuture work in the area of education.
(46:23):
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
So there you have it.
Really interesting discussionthere with Anne and Paula.
We were to talk about the dig reading ondigital devices and just around research
and everything, but I couldn't, I supposewhen I found out about the language
learning and pluralistic language andthings like that I couldn't resist.
But jump in with a couple of questions.
(46:44):
I hope that was of some use to,particularly with the modern foreign
languages curriculum coming along.
But really I think ingeneral, just I feel.
I learned a lot about whyresearch is so important.
I will be sharing all the links that wementioned in the podcast as well as to the
research, as well as the snippets as, aswell as anything else that may be of use.
(47:07):
And there'll be pasted in the show notes.
Look, I'll leave it there for this time.
Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed it, andwe'll catch you again very soon.
All the very best.
Bye-bye.
Hello, you are very welcome to if I werethe minister for education from on shot
dot net, a regular podcast where I diveinto the world of primary education in
Ireland and let you know what I woulddo if I were the minister for education.
This is Simon Lewis speaking.
If you enjoy this podcast, pleaseconsider subscribing to my fortnightly
(00:30):
newsletter, where I go through some ofthe news from Irish primary education
and beyond from my own perspective.
And I also give some hints and tips fromthe classroom, some technology tips and
other bonus materials that's at onshaw.
net slash subscribe.
As primary school teachers, even thoughwe work in the field of education,
(00:52):
I'm not sure how many of us actuallythink about the research that's
out there that goes into the thingsthat we do every day on the ground.
I was approached by anorganization called the IE.
A, the International Association for theEvaluation of Educational Achievement.
They are an international cooperativeof national research institutions
(01:14):
government research agencies, anda bunch of other people all around
the world based in the Netherlands.
And essentially simply put, they are thegroup of people that you may know better
from some of their studies, namely.
Tims, T-I-M-S-S and Pearls, P-I-R-L-S.
Many of their studies you would possiblybe familiar with, however, they are
(01:39):
at the moment trying to promote somesimple kind of ideas, which they
call snippets that they're published.
They're kind of like little bookletsalmost for teachers on the ground to
teach certain aspects of the curriculum.
And the one they're currently promotingis on reading from a digital device.
(01:59):
And as many of you know, childrenthese days are doing a lot of
reading from digital devices.
And I suppose the question thatwas asked is, is it doing any good?
So that is their pro project, but Idecided I would chat to them about that,
but also about educational research andI was very, very lucky to be joined by.
Two of their researchers, and I hopeyou enjoy the interview with them.
(02:24):
And this time I am being very exoticbecause I'm traveling outside of
Ireland for my podcast this time.
In fact, I am traveling virtually.
To the Netherlands and well viaFinland and also to Slavia and
Slovakia via the Netherlands as well.
It's very international episode today,but why I'm doing that is because I'm
(02:46):
speaking to two very interesting people.
Eliana Sagers is the professor oflearning and technology at bout
university in the Netherlands, andI have Paula Kova, who is a senior
research and liaison advisor to the IEA.
And we will be talking today aboutresearch with a kind of a little view
(03:06):
on reading and the study of reading.
I know this is a, an areathat a lot of Irish teachers
are exploring at the moment.
Particularly with lots of changes goingon in our primary language curriculum
over the last few years, but also some ofthe latest research that's coming our way
around how children learn how to read.
And I know the IEA have developed a numberof resources that might be useful for
(03:29):
you as teachers, and that's what we'regoing to be really talking about today.
So you're very welcome to, if I werethe Minister for Education, Eliana.
Thank you.
Now, I suppose the first questionI like to ask people without it
sounding like a job interview, butit probably does, is just to tell
us a little bit about yourselves.
So we might start off with Paola.
(03:52):
In the beginning I was thinking inbetween agricultural and education,
and then I picked the biology andmathematics as teacher education.
In retrospect, I seethat it's very similar.
Basically we are patient about growing.
We know that there are opportunitiesbut also that we are not in full control
(04:17):
which makes our profession so exciting.
So I, I did some teaching, then I didsome research in, in, in Slovakia,
came across international large scaleassessments, comparative studies.
Moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands workedwith IEA in different roles, and now I am,
(04:39):
as you said research and liaison advisor.
Fantastic.
And Elian can you tell us about yourselfand how you got into education and a
little bit, a bit about what you're doing.
Okay.
Yes.
Thank you.
So how I got into education, I grewup in the eighties, nineties, and
when I finished my master's, I wasasked to do a PhD in developing
(05:02):
software for kindergartners.
It was in the late nineties, formerprevious century, and there were
lots of computers already in theschools in the Netherlands, but
surprisingly, no software on it.
And with my background in speechtechnology and cognitive science, I
was asked to develop such things wedid on CD ROMs if those, for those
(05:23):
not so young teachers who know CDROMs Uhhuh and we designed software
and I studied the effectivenessof it and have been going on.
In that field ever since broadeningfrom kindergartners to towards teenagers
as well, reading comprehension.
So it's always been the combinationof learning, reading and
technology, which fascinates me.
(05:43):
Amazing.
That's really interesting.
I funny, I, just as it happens,I actually did my masters in and
my question was, can a computer.
Better teach reading betterthan a teacher, and I
developed a CD ROM for that.
Must be the age.
(06:04):
Yeah, I think my resultswere inconclusive.
Thankfully, so that's why I thinkwe're still, I still have a job.
A few.
Let's I suppose what I want to get Ithink before we maybe talk about the
IEA and the work that you're doing, Ithink Irish teachers were and I suppose
all teachers from different countries,they're always very interested in
other countries education systems andhow they work and what they believe
(06:27):
the strengths are and maybe whatthings they might learn from Ireland.
I'm not sure if that's something,maybe Eliana you might be able to
tell us a little about your country's.
Education system,particularly a primary level.
And you know what you feel about itand maybe things that you might know
about Ireland and what we're doing Well.
Okay, so the Netherlands arelittle bit in a reading crisis.
(06:52):
We love the term crisis in theNetherlands, and we are in a little
bit of that because for pearls,the international assessment, the
Netherlands scores have been dropping.
And as I said before, we look atIreland as our shiny example because in
Ireland things are going really well.
How can that be?
Not sure.
(07:12):
I've read a little bit aboutwhat Ireland is doing, at least
there is a lot of appreciationfor what the teachers are doing.
That's really good.
A lot of focus on reading.
And in the Netherlands what we aredoing is having libraries in the school,
so bring the books to the children.
I really like that.
That's good.
Since the reading crisis wasannounced a few years ago there's
(07:35):
more attention for reading.
That's good.
More adaptations have beenmade in the curriculum.
And I think what could beimproved is and that goes to
the book that we wrote for ia.
There could be more attentionfor challenges of digital reading
because there's no way around it.
And some schools are pushingagainst digital reading saying,
no, we should do paper because.
(07:56):
Not going towards all the new stuff.
I don't know why not?
Yeah.
I'm not sure how Ireland is doing in this.
Yeah it's an interesting one to write.
'cause I think we're probably the samequestions are being asked over here.
There.
I suppose we have a very longhistory of literature in Ireland
where we're very well known.
I suppose around the world for beingreally good writers, in, in general.
(08:17):
And the idea of, I mean there's somany famous, contemporary and writers
in Ireland, and the idea of moving orusing digital technology for reading is
I suppose it's still controversial andstill the, those, the same questions.
I been asked, for the last decade.
It's interesting, isn't it?
I really do not agree withpushing against digital reading.
(08:38):
We are also not readingfrom a papyrus role anymore.
So I think really schools need toprepare children for being citizens.
And as a citizen in currentsociety, you really should be able.
To deal with the complexitiesof digital texts.
Exactly.
And we'll talk a little bit morein depth into that in a bit.
I want to move back to you, Paula.
And just more broadlyabout educational research.
(09:02):
'cause I think, sometimes I.
When we hear about academics studyingand writing about anything from
reading to any sort of research theywonder how does it actually affect
teachers in their day-to-day liveson the ground in the classroom?
I suppose you're involved as anadvisor and researcher with the IEA.
(09:22):
A lot of Irish teachers may not know whatIEA stands for what it is or what it does.
So maybe could you give us a littlebrief summary of what the IEA is?
Sure.
The acronym is really not tellingmuch, neither the full name.
We're the International Association forEvaluation of Educational Achievements.
(09:43):
Very good, but we arenot doing evaluation.
Okay.
We're international.
So you are right.
Mentioning that behind researchthe origin is in academia.
And also IA origin is with academia.
And bit curiosity on what is educationallypossible, what could be achieved.
(10:05):
Not from the perspective who is thebest and who needs to learn the most.
It's more from the perspective todocument a context of education.
We know that education is embedded, sowe need to know the most context we can.
Find out that we can documentand then we can discuss together
(10:30):
in, with participating countries.
What would be the best way forward if weare interested in knowing achievement?
So with the study, we willbe speaking about pearls.
The study has been originated in 2001.
And since then there is ongoing rerefinement of framework on which
(10:53):
instruments are based, and thenelaboration on instruments and changes
of instruments to move with andtogether with educational systems.
Fantastic.
And I suppose for this, I don't thinkmost teachers will will dispute this,
but I'm gonna ask the question anyway,is why is educational research important?
(11:15):
I.
From my perspective, it's theperspective from research you
are starting with hypothesis.
With something you, you would liketo know whether it is happening or
not, whether it is working or not.
And then you are developing amethod and you are trying to collect
evidence, but then the results maybe actually what is worth to engage.
(11:40):
Different stakeholder, stakeholderslevel, so teachers can think for
themselves whether the the results arein line with data personal experience
or there is something surprising.
This can be beginning ofdiscussions in teachers' rooms.
Rooms.
So it's also a avenue for reflection.
(12:02):
Yeah.
And engagement.
Not only, disturbing school schedule andusing lessons for administering tests.
That's the most annoying part.
Yeah.
Of the whole process.
That we are afraid.
It's the part that our colleaguesin schools are not very fond of.
(12:22):
No, no one would be.
No.
And it's often what we're, whatwe're judged on as well, isn't it?
If you have anything to add to that.
Just shortly that I thinkresearch is crucial to know what
works for whom in education.
And if there's all new technology comingout, AI now, lots of new things happening.
You can't just throw that into theclassroom without knowing whether it's a
(12:45):
good idea, whether it's beneficial or not.
Yeah.
So we need research for that for sure.
And the why I suppose ofit's here and or why and how.
All those, all the questionsreally that, that we can ask for.
Sure.
And yeah, that makes absolute sense.
I wanted to move into what we're.
I suppose the meat of what we'regoing to talk about today, and it
(13:06):
was you touched on this Sian abouthow Ireland is now being seen.
I can't believe Ireland isbeing seen as a shining beacon.
We're always very critical of ourown education systems, but Ireland
seems to have carved itself a bit ofa niche in the area of reading and
literacy, and we seem to do very well.
In that area, particularly,in Ireland, we've become very
obsessed with Pisa results.
(13:27):
I don't know if it's the same inother countries, and I know PISA
isn't the only metric we are, we'regonna talk a little bit about your
metric and the study that used pearls.
But suppose the first thing I wantto ask and I'll ask, I think I
have power down for this one, butAnne, please feel free to jump in.
Is I.
I'm I'm a bit cynical of, and maybe it'sbecause I'm in the Irish education system
(13:51):
of why we do so well in Pisa, and ifthere were other studies out there that,
that kind of almost either backup whatPISA is showing about art and success
and literacy, or if it's just one of theit's just the, the way one study becomes
very famous and it becomes the onlystudy, let's say that people take notice
of, may I interrupt you, Simon, here?
(14:12):
Of course.
Yeah.
Am I correct that Ireland is doingpretty well in both PISA and Pearl?
So for the 15 year olds and the10 year olds actually do you know
what I know in Pisa we are, butI don't know about in pearls.
Do you know?
Do think so so that sort ofbacks up the idea that something
is really do going really well.
I would say something, something isworking and it's interesting when
(14:34):
you're in the middle of it all.
You don't know exactly what it is.
And I think we touched on that, but andwe must get into this because I, but
before I do given that PISA seems to be,the one that makes the media in Ireland
more that, can you maybe tell us alittle about the difference between them?
What are they?
I know Pearls is your area,but you might know about both.
(14:57):
Sorry.
Yes.
I have started my internationallarge scale assessment engagement
as pisa national researchmanager in, in, in Slovakia.
And I was with PISA for 2003.
2006 and 2009.
So there was also one, ofthose focused on reading.
(15:19):
The major difference in between OECDand IA studies is where the institution
organizing the study is located.
Okay.
IAS is located withinthe educational area.
So we ourselves as a.
(15:42):
Curriculum is guiding document fordevelopment of our assessments.
We are taking the whole classrooms.
We are doing grade base assessment.
Not selecting cohort.
Or students of particular age.
Of course we have age limits in ourstudy, so we have grade plus age.
But when we are coming to school,we are asking and assessing
(16:06):
students in one classroom.
And we know the teachers that are, wedon't know, but the classroom is coming
with teachers, so also those are.
Embed the research in a real structureof educational system and consider
where the educational system is.
Fantastic.
(16:26):
And while OCD they need results.
It's for economy, it's for labor market.
Ah, so in Pros you have a studentssmall, young, that are just at the moment
when they should be done with masteringreading as a tool for further learning in.
(16:49):
We have students that are tothe end of compulsory education.
Meaning they are very soon eitheravailable directly for labor market,
or they are progressing towards morecloser preparation for their careers.
And these are picked across.
Different grades from grade eight to11, depending on countries because
(17:13):
there is particular age sure.
Bracket.
So you can imagine that the text those twogroups are reading, they are different.
Yes.
Yes.
Also, you can imagine that forOECD, it's not so important what
actually is happening in schools.
Yeah.
They need results.
They need a number at the end.
(17:34):
Is it?
Yeah.
They need the competence.
They need to be to see that whatis needed has been developed.
And in, in our case, it's more, ofcourse we would like we are very
ambitious in school systems, of course.
I can tell that in teams advanceonce after field test, we had to
redo instruments because our expertswere so ambitious and so confident
(17:59):
in ability of their students thatthe tests were just too difficult.
Wow.
We are ambitious as researchersas teachers, but these two
bodies, ia more educational OECDeconomy driven labor market.
We.
Of course we have different approaches.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's very interesting.
(18:20):
And I suppose that feeds into,I, I guess particularly, again, I
can only take, talk from an Irishcontext that, that whole idea of.
Economics being so important,like being almost seen as
more important than education.
When we're talking about the IrishI don't agree with this by the way
but when we hear on the radio whatis the purpose of education, a lot
(18:42):
of the conversation goes down tothe labor market, towards economics.
And it's always disappointingto me when I hear that.
And I think probably that'swhy when the PISA results come
out, that's why the media are.
Look at those.
And they're always looking forthey never look for successes.
I never ever see Irelandbeing celebrated for literacy.
But we always they always advertise,oh dear, but your maps are terrible.
(19:04):
That's how the media works.
I assume it's the same in mostcountries though, where they pick on
the negatives rather than the positives.
It's, would that be fair?
It's unfortunate that it's alwaysa comparison between countries.
It's like the song festival, andwhereas you should be looking at within
your country if there's trends andnot if Ireland scores higher than the
Netherlands, which it does, that's not.
(19:27):
I know it's it almost turns it intoa sport rather than or like you
say, the Eurovision song contest.
It it's it isn't particularly helpful.
And as much as everybody likes,coming first or second in a
competition, it shouldn't reallybe a competition between countries.
No.
That, that, that makes absolute sense.
Let's actually move on to whatyou're doing at the moment and
why we're speaking about, youhave developed really interesting.
(19:49):
I ideas these short guides forteachers on the grounds, and I had
a look at one of them on readingspecifically around digital reading
on digital devices and so on.
Elian, that's your area isn't it?
Maybe you could tell us a little aboutthe short guide for people who might
be interested in finding out more.
It's we were asked by IA to writea book on how to teach digital
(20:13):
reading comprehension in schoolsrelated to the Pearls assessment.
And we've done so, so thebook can be freely downloaded.
It's for free for every teacher.
It's giving back to teachers asia it, and there are also shorter.
Things for teachers to read.
(20:33):
And what's, what I think is mostimportant in the book is that we give
guidelines to teachers on how to dothat with digital text because it's
not the same as reading from paper.
Yeah.
But as I said before, you shouldimplemented in your lessons and
modeling is a strategy that.
Teachers know and do I assume?
(20:56):
And so you should also do that withdigital reading because there are
hyperlinks that you have to click on.
You have to scroll, click,et cetera, et cetera.
And that's different thanflipping to the next page, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So the characteristics ofdigital text are important.
I.
It is, you can also do it onpaper, but when reading online
digitally, you most often haveto work with multiple documents.
(21:20):
When you Google something, you arequickly reading different texts.
And that's a complication,especially for children.
If you have less prior knowledgeto have, to integrate information
from multiple documents into onemental model, that's a thingy.
And that's what you need to learn.
That's true.
(21:40):
Because most of, yeah.
I think most of what we'rereading now is online single test.
Yeah.
And is there a reluctancefrom teachers to embrace.
Sometimes So teachers, so sometimes,so it depends, reluctance,
maybe it's an unfamiliarity.
That you feel that, oh, Idon't know how to do this.
(22:02):
Maybe some, say some want tostay with the paper, which I get.
And it, but if you, in currentsociety, you need to be able to see.
Or judge a document on itstrustworthiness, for example.
Is it a real, has it been written by ai?
Is it an opinion?
(22:24):
Is it a fact?
Is it so you need to be able to do that.
That's crucial in current society.
So it should be in the schools, andmost of that is digital, whereas.
When Simon, you, if you developCD ROMs, you have it too.
When you grew up, you went to thelibrary and what's written on paper.
That's true.
It's a fact.
It's what in the library.
(22:44):
You read it and you know that's true.
Whereas now if you are online, you readsomething, you don't know if it's true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's not easy for children.
This is it.
This is it.
And, I think schools are embracingkind of media education where
they're, looking at looking at thingsonline and getting the children.
I.
To ask those questionsof, why was this written?
(23:06):
Who wrote it?
Why do you think they wrote it,and what are they trying to do?
And they're very important questions.
And I think certainly, I can onlyspeak anecdotally really from my
own experience that we've we'veembraced in our own school the
idea of, a kind of, paper based.
Reading is obviously important andisn't, we don't want to, stop doing that.
(23:26):
But we, when we've introduced moredigital texts and mainly outta necessity
because books are expensive and thereare really good, and there are some
really good digital tools online,digital which are, and are trustworthy.
So moving away from trustworthythey're just books, but
they're, they're on a screen.
We found that while that children.
(23:47):
And, but mostly theirparents are resistant.
And parents are resistant because ofthis whole I, and again, I don't know
if it's the same in where you are aroundthe idea of too much screen time, so
they don't see the value of readingon a screen versus reading from paper.
Oh, may I answer that question, Paula?
(24:08):
Sure, go ahead.
Time has a negative connotation.
Rightfully if you watch television I.
I can, I will not give an example,but you, if you only watch the song
festival all the time, yeah, that'snot a good thing because you don't
learn too much from it, right?
So it depends on what you're watching ontelevision, if it's a good thing or bad.
(24:31):
So if you watch as a young kid, SesameStreet, and your parent is sitting next
to you and helping you understand what'sbeing done, it's really good screen time.
And the same goes for when you'reon your tablet or on your phone.
On average, people seenegative effects of it.
Which is true if you are I don't know,watching cat movies all night long.
(24:54):
Yeah.
You will not learn a lot.
But if your screen time is, if you'rereading the Irish authors of all great
times that you just mentioned Simon,I would say that's good screen time.
And whether you read it on paperor on screen, that doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(25:14):
So it depends what's, youcannot blame the machine.
You blame the content.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It, I think you're absolutely right.
I think we are singing from thesame hymn sheet as the phrase goes.
I, it's it, and it's very difficult toconvince parents of this at the moment
because of the negative connotations.
Often I can come up with manypaper things, magazines that you
(25:34):
would not want your child to read.
True.
And you're not saying that paperreading is a good thing then.
So it's.
That's very true.
If you're just reading Yeah.
I don't know, the samemagazine over and over again.
Yeah.
I dunno we won't go for examples.
No, let's not.
But I get you like, it, there,there's, there's good reading both
on text and on digital and I thinkit it's a, it's definitely one that
(25:56):
we need to, convince parents of that.
Just because you put something ona screen doesn't make it worse.
Or less beneficial.
It can actually often be morebeneficial, I think, because of,
yes, young kids are on YouTube.
And that's not educational.
But if you have adigital storybook, it is.
That's exactly right.
So why not have the youngkid have a digital storybook?
(26:19):
Absolutely.
And they're learning as well.
The skills of reading from that and alsothe Yes, A lot of, I love some of the
augmentation that can be done and Exactly.
Which can really enhance and help thechild read more independently and so on.
Yes.
Presume a lot of this is in the guidesand that you're, you've developed.
And so the book that we wrote is.
Focused on reading comprehension.
(26:40):
So 10 year olds and the digital storybookthat I just mentioned, some are for
kindergartners, but those are really,you can have it in all languages as well.
So you can read it at home in yourown, in your first language if it's not
English, and then in school in English.
So there's a win-win situation there.
Absolutely.
Gosh, it's benefit oftechnology and if I may, I would
(27:02):
highlight
resulting measure.
For our limiting screen time canbe very bad for students that
have no opportunity to actuallyengage with technology at home.
So basically in schools what wecan strive to achieve is to have
(27:23):
a good screen time in our results.
So we saw that students were usingthat was ICL study, another information
and computer literacy study.
We saw that students were usingtheir equipment their smartphones or
other equipment for reading purposes,but also for non-reading purposes.
(27:47):
That's the problem.
Yes.
And the same at homes.
Yes.
This is a mixed bag and I amcompletely supporting what Elaine said.
We need to go into what isgoing on the screen Exactly.
To judge.
Exactly.
And I'm just thinking while I'mlistening here, that, some of the
(28:08):
other benefits that maybe we, maybethey weren't anticipated, but I didn't
anticipate them, how it supports othervery important aspects of life in the
21st century, like pure lingualism.
For example, when you have a book.
On a digital screen.
If it's on the paper,it's in one language.
But all of a sudden, and particularlynow that AI is, has become better at
(28:29):
translating than some of the machinetranslations that we've been using.
This has to be very excitingfor your own research, is it?
It is, yeah.
Yeah.
Especially bilingualismis becoming the norm.
So yes, I think there'sreally great benefits there.
Yeah.
And given that both of you are incountries where, bilingualism is
(28:51):
and proper pluralism is a feature.
In Ireland we're, we often say,oh we're a monolingual country.
We all speak.
We actually, we're a bilingual nation.
We though we just don't use ourIrish language as much as we should.
I was, we're very hard on ourselves,but we are introducing, our new
curriculum in English or what wasour English curriculum, is now
becoming a language curriculum.
(29:11):
And not necessarily, we, I supposethe emphasis will be on plural
lingualism, that we're going to bemaking sure that, our very multilingual
classrooms are representative.
And I know we're not talking about thattoday, but I suppose given that I have
you here I'm going to put you on the spot.
Is there something that.
We could learn from countries where,you know, multilingualism and plural,
(29:35):
lingualism and bilingualism has been afeature of education for, generations.
I would say Simon, you are in a very luckyposition because align with the team.
They also altered the firstbook, the previous volume.
Now we are focusing on, on, ondigital uhhuh, but the first volume
was actually providing support andsuggestions for multilingual classrooms.
(30:01):
Wow.
So maybe Elaine could picksome key points from the book.
For me, what was retrospect,it, it really seems lo logical.
But I was anyway surprised that for secondlanguage speakers, it can be much more
difficult to understand particular work.
Because it's missing from their vocabularythan to evaluate the whole text.
(30:25):
Okay.
Okay.
But is.
Provide input.
Okay.
So I, there was not really aquestion, but let's see what we
can learn from the Netherlands.
There's always a, I think it's a pendulum.
So sometimes the multilingualismis embraced and then at certain
points it's saying, no, you should,the parents should talk Dutch at
(30:48):
home and not have own language.
But currently we're in the goodsituation, thankfully, that.
Should speak their own language at home.
So children who are proficientin their first language will also
learn the second language better.
So read books in your first languageand then read them in a second language.
(31:14):
But parents should not be afraidto not speak their own language.
It's really no.
Yeah.
And sometimes see thatparents still are afraid and.
Try to speak to their children in Dutch.
But then it's not a switch astheir own language, so really, no.
Okay.
Okay.
Multilingualism is now being embracedand that's good, that's a positive thing.
(31:39):
That, I'm glad to hear we'regoing in the right direction.
That's linguistic transfer.
That's so what you do, what you can, ifcan rhyme whatever in your own language.
You can do it in the second language.
Very good.
That's really interesting.
Really interesting.
And I know we won't have time to go toomuch into, but it's just, as I said, as we
were talking, I was thinking, gosh, thatit's funny things pop into your head while
you're talking to very interesting people.
(32:01):
So I'm interested, we've talked aboutthis particular short guide, and I
assume this is one of a number of shortguides that are going to be published
or are published Paula, what's whatother resources can teachers find if
they're looking for some short guides?
We are, we have just started, ah it,it was not easy task for ia to, to
(32:24):
think of what we could contributemeaningfully to, to the world of teaching.
The problem with our studies are thatthey are set at the system level.
Yes.
Meaning we have samples that aretelling about the overall situation.
But we cannot go back toparticular student or teacher that.
(32:48):
They were selected torepresent wider group.
In the case of students, becausewe are so bound to curricula,
we don't have all studentsresponding to the same instruments.
Yes.
So at the end we needed to find a wayof what we could meaningfully offer.
(33:09):
Yes.
And then we were thinking thatwe have different contexts of
education, different cultures,but we have some joint challenges.
Yes.
And then we were going from therewhat we see in the data that me
(33:29):
as teacher would like to know.
And then we came to theteacher snippet idea.
But that was only scratching the surface.
Sometimes you need much morebackground, much more information.
What are your options?
To react on particular problem.
And we were lucky enough to haveexpertise center in the Netherlands
(33:53):
that was actually originatedto support reading components.
And went from paper pearls because we allstarted on as a pen and paper assessment.
Then explored Aprils with onlineassignments for students in the test.
(34:15):
And now we are fullydigital as assessment.
Meaning of course we have items or passagetexts that are resembling a reading book.
But we have also this onlineenvironment for students to solve.
So we were thinking, okay we saw thereis this, issue with second language.
The legacy in many countries theimperial languages are having higher
(34:39):
status than domestic languages.
And there are different solutionswhen and how to engage learner
with language of the instruction.
The more powerful or yeahhow the mother tongue is.
That was the first topicof multilingualism.
And then with the transfer and chatGPT and the social media campaigns that
(35:02):
completely ruined some, some aspects.
We thought we need to face this.
We also saw that students that are goodreaders they're struggling much less
online than those that already had issues.
So we need to support all readers.
And then we got the second publication.
Our colleagues at IA that are dealing withcommunication and dissemination efforts
(35:26):
they managed to get some informationabout this publication in touch magazine.
Ah, very good.
Yes.
So colleagues can have a look andfind links to, to those publications.
Fantastic.
And for those of you unfamiliar withInTouch Magazine I'm sure most Irish
teachers are very familiar withit, it's the primary school unions
magazine that is published monthly.
(35:48):
I think there's nine or10 publications a year.
And I it arrives in.
Pretty much every staff room in thecountry and very well worth read.
It's great to know that it's,and it's actually probably the
best place to reach teachers.
I'd suggest.
And and well done on gettingit into the union magazine.
Yeah.
That, that, that thanks.
Goes to, to IA communication team.
Calm and.
(36:09):
The thing is that we really needto celebrate this second volume
on digital reading for sure.
It was not easy task and I admiredour authors and Elaine was among them
how we were iterating and going closerto, imagine you, you are having book.
(36:32):
Put what is on your screenand how you're engaging with
that on a, into a book format.
So I would really be interestedin opinion of colleagues if they
can go through it and drop a note.
Yeah, I think that wouldbe absolutely fantastic.
And what we'll do is, we'll, at the,before we, when we finish we'll I'll
be asking you the best way people canactually do that and provide their
(36:55):
feedback, because I think most peoplewho listen to this podcast ask are
very engaged in the education system.
I try to give, anindependent sort of slightly.
Off center sc analysisof the education system.
So generally the people listening to thishave the same have are engaged in that.
We'll certainly do that at the end.
One question I like, I always ask myguests on this podcast and I, it's
(37:17):
always, it can be a difficult onefor I suppose, people who aren't in
Ireland to answer because I supposeit's a sort of an Irish question In
Ireland, our education system is.
Is strange, and I'm sure you'remore familiar with it than than
maybe I, I think, but we have aminister for education in Ireland.
I know you minister for educationsin most countries, but they get to.
(37:39):
In some ways, they're in charge of theeducation system and at a systems level
rather than at a on the ground level.
So I always ask, you know about whatmy guests would do if they were the
Minister for education for a day.
They could change one thingabout our education system and.
I'm gonna ask you that question.
I've given you some time to prepare it.
(38:01):
So it's not the first time I've askedyou this question, so hopefully you've
had some time to think about it.
So I'm gonna ask you about that.
So what would you do if you wereshipped into Ireland and you were given
the Minister for Education portfolio,you had a benign dictatorship, so
you could do whatever you wanted.
And I know your answer to this isto dismantle this dictatorship.
(38:22):
If you had to make one rule, we hatchedwhich we had to at least discuss
and vote upon, what would it be?
I would make sure that digitalinequalities is prevented as much as
possible by making sure that childrenhave access to digital materials, but
also are able to use it to use thedigital technology because equality is
(38:44):
not just having or not having the machine.
But also knowing how to use it and usingit, because then you can drive further.
So that's what I would do afterI've set out the elections.
Oh, absolutely.
We need to restoredemocracy, that's for sure.
(39:05):
For sure.
Very good.
And Paula, what about yourself?
Oh that's question.
Colleagues are thinking what would bethe vice thing to do in in, in such
case what to lobby for, what would bethe safe point to start development
(39:26):
improvement changes redoing whatever.
I think what maybe is now I'm ofcourse responding from my context,
so take it that, okay, this isnot Irish lady saying us this.
She didn't know.
So I am, I'm saying that whatI think is very important in
the field of education is to.
(39:50):
To start working together.
In a way that is because weknow how it is on the fields.
There are edges, there areborders, there are walls, there
are these straps with thorns.
So it's difficult sometimes tocommunicate with the colleague from the
next classroom or from another school.
(40:11):
We, we need to find a way.
How to discuss not only contractualmatters like trade union matters.
That's very important.
Sure.
In addition, it's also veryimportant to mind the purpose to
to discuss how we would like tomove forward as a society because.
(40:34):
Of society.
Contributing and can nourish andcontribute to a lot of changes.
And I had one initial reactionwhen I saw the ship question and
the initial reaction was that.
Good.
Good.
Because I think basically in thefield of education, you have a
very highly educated workforce.
(40:55):
So I would think that any dictator.
Should have a real problemto get through that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think they would.
But it's a very interesting, Ithink what you said there about the
idea of the purpose of educationand so on and in Ireland, what I
there's this strange kind of I.
(41:15):
What the paradox in a way that everyschool in Ireland is its own little
fiefdom, for want of a better word.
Like we're all, even though we're publiclyfunded schools, we're all very private
and we're all our own insular buildings.
But at the same time, we've createdthese structures and I'm in the country,
and maybe it's because we're a smallcountry where we have a number of,
(41:36):
like schemes and systems, which allowus to have those big conversations.
We have this really goodnetwork of education centers.
There's 10 of them in the country wherethey, and their job is to bring teachers
together in their regions to discuss thebig questions and sometimes the small
questions, and to learn from each other.
And we call them t TPLs or tps.
(41:58):
Teach professional networks.
I see that as a really positive thing.
And I'm not sure I think sometimes wetake for granted those sort of things and
we're, there's lots of big, and we didn't,I didn't want to, it was on our list
of things to talk about, but I decidednot to talk about it with you today.
But I'll just mention it.
There's huge discussions aroundreading in Ireland at the moment with
and controversies, and we won't getinto it 'cause we don't have time.
(42:19):
But it's, I what I think is good.
Is that we're having the conversationsand we have the spaces to have
those conversations, and I'm notsure if that's unusual or not.
And what I'd love to see, I supposemaybe if we did, going back to the
Minister for Education, is there wastalk about having a citizens assembly.
I.
On the education system.
And there was a promise at governmentlevel to do that in Ireland.
(42:39):
And sadly, that seems to havedisappeared, which is a little bit
disappointing to me because I thinkwe have a lot of big questions to
ask about the Irish education system,really from its foundational levels.
And to have that to, if we had havehad that space, it would've been great.
So I'm really delighted with bothyour answers to that question because.
It really feeds that thought,I think, a little bit.
So thank you for that very much.
(43:01):
The last thing I suppose is reallyI've really enjoyed this conversation
and I see we're already almost anhour into the conversation, so we do
have to come to an end, but I thinkwhat most teachers will be wondering.
Is, where am I going to get this guide?
Where am I going tofind all this research?
So maybe Paolo you might tell us andEliane where are we going to find this
(43:22):
research on reading and technology,or even about pluralism pluralism.
Sorry.
Where's the best place teacherscan start to find that?
I think I, I.
That's the book.
Great.
On the IA website sir?
Paulina and Springer too.
Okay.
It's open Access book.
Yeah.
I think maybe that's the way howI'm Googling is you'll put ia.
(43:48):
You will put digital.
Reading.
Yep.
If you have IA Springer Digitalreading, you find it's the first hit.
Ah, very good.
Your SEO is excellent.
That's what we needed.
Because that's the most that's the body.
That's what what we can offer.
And then if someone wouldbe kind enough to visit ia.
(44:11):
The, what is needed is to put educationand then cite and l because you need to
avoid this other IA that has E for energy.
Very good.
And that's very populatedon, on, on internet.
And within IA you can checkpublications and there are dedicated
(44:33):
teacher publications for teachers.
And we have a couple of teachersnippets on different topics.
That are not only about reading, butalso something about mathematics and
science, misconceptions on civic andcitizenship education through or false.
(44:54):
We, we were mentioning thesechallenges online to evaluate whether
the information is reliable or not.
Not really.
So we have some findings.
From our IEL study in a form ofteacher snippet available there.
And one advantage in ia website on theIA website is that we are adding all
(45:17):
national different language versions.
We can provide files and colleagues fromcountries are translating publications.
And then they are using them ofcourse, and we can share them.
We actually a bit colleaguesthat would like to read.
I've seen Irish teach snippetsof the digital reading book.
Oh, brilliant.
(45:37):
That's amazing.
Oh that's absolutely, that's great to knowthat there's, that we are, we're involved.
I in a way in that.
Fantastic.
Elia.
Paula, it's been an absolutepleasure speaking to both of you.
I've really enjoyed talking about,I, I haven't been doing any academic
work myself for a few years and.
Started me thinking about going backto the, back, to the the old academics.
(45:57):
Again, it's I suppose everyone a lotof teachers I suppose were in, in
the world of education and you canalways keep learning more and more.
And I've really enjoyed, I.
Learning about your work andwhat you're doing it's just
sounds absolutely fascinating.
I can't wait to see what's coming next.
It's really interesting.
I just want to finish by, thank youboth for taking the time to speak with
me and the very best luck with yourfuture work in the area of education.
(46:23):
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
So there you have it.
Really interesting discussionthere with Anne and Paula.
We were to talk about the dig reading ondigital devices and just around research
and everything, but I couldn't, I supposewhen I found out about the language
learning and pluralistic language andthings like that I couldn't resist.
But jump in with a couple of questions.
(46:44):
I hope that was of some use to,particularly with the modern foreign
languages curriculum coming along.
But really I think ingeneral, just I feel.
I learned a lot about whyresearch is so important.
I will be sharing all the links that wementioned in the podcast as well as to the
research, as well as the snippets as, aswell as anything else that may be of use.
(47:07):
And there'll be pasted in the show notes.
Look, I'll leave it there for this time.
Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed it, andwe'll catch you again very soon.
All the very best.
Bye-bye.
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