dalek

Some very interesting points raised in the threads of this forum. As the Strategic Learning Manager of Autology I can give some direction where necessary. Firstly, with regard to students not being able to see the difference between Autology and Google, this is initially the case when students are introduced to it and they do not grasp that they are no longer restricted to purely using key words to search. Autology is a pattern matching program so it is able to understand meaning and therefore the more information which is placed in the search the greater the chance of clear returns more closely matched. (This is even more apparent when students are entering text using the Infomate which when installed will indexwhat they are writing and 'push' resources matched to their writing to them). We need to remember this is the first application of conceptual searching ever used and as such it is often difficult for users to grasp the application of this new technology. If anyone is concerned about how Autology works on a network please go to the following link: http://www.autology.info/contact_autology.html and select the Techical Suport link for all enquiries. Case studies for individual networks will be provided by Steve Moorhouse who is the head of Autology Technical Support.

The use of Autology in schools as with all digital learning tools is dependant first and foremost on teacher modelling. If a teacher does not have access to hardware to model and suggest that students use the program it has been noted that students do not automatically break pattern from using traditional key word searching and embrace the conceptual searching that Autology offers. That said, there have also been situations in schools that do have access to hardware and when after students have been inducted into using the program (particularly at upper GCSE an sixth form) they switch pattern immediately when they see the detail, relevance and wealth of the search return. At the end of the day, the recurrent theme of where it is being used successfully is a result of good hardware availability, motivated staff and good technical backing.