Learning a lesson from software in schools

Observations of interactive whiteboards and iPads in schools show pupils are benefiting greatly, writes MARIE BORAN

IS THE iPad simply finger-tapping frivolity or can it unlock a new era of educational experiences? It all depends on how it is used, as some forward-thinking educators are demonstrating.

Did you know that more children aged between two and five can use a smartphone app than can tie their shoelaces? Or that more toddlers can open a web browser than can swim unaided?

These are interesting stats from internet security firm AVG gathered on children in Europe, Canada and the US, and unfortunately just the kind of comparison that can led to the knee-jerk reaction of “technology bad, back to basics good”.

We didn’t get all the way to 2011 by assuming that while technology builds industry the children are best left with books and blackboards but many Irish classrooms still operate on this level. The laptop or tablet has not replaced the book because there is still the separation of pedagogy and technology: children in one room, computers in the other.

While the interactive whiteboard is a vast improvement, it is still an electronic version of its predecessor in the sense that teaching continues as it has done since the 1800s, with the teacher still standing at the blackboard, says Fraser Speirs, a computing teacher at the Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland.

Last year Speirs started what he called the iPad Project, a 1:1 deployment of iPads for every student in the school, to be used every day in every single class and brought home for course work by the older students.

Six months have passed and the results, says Speirs, are very positive.

“The iPad is being used in every class and there was no teacher that refused to use it,” he adds. “Depending on the subject, it is more embedded in some classrooms than others, but most encouraging is the fact that teachers and students are collaborating and continually finding new ways to use it.”

Some of the ways in which students were using the iPad were surprising, creative and not the kind of things you could pitch in a meeting for the school IT budget. “There are musical instrument simulator apps so some of the kids put together an iPad band.”

What is revolutionising the learning process, says Speirs, is not the tablet device itself so much as the apps. “The software is really changing the game. One minute the iPad is a book, the next it is an interactive map, a painting tablet or a web browser.”

Teachers at Cedars aren’t complaining either. In fact, they have observed that children are handing in longer essays because they find it easy to write and edit digitally on the iPad, contrary to the results of a recent pilot program in the US that only gave the students an iPad to use for a maximum of three lessons a week.

It turns out that the key to integrating any kind of technology is one-on-one use and consistency. There is, however, the issue of budgeting for technology in the classroom as well as the training required.

Speirs argues that when you look at how much the iPad is used across all subjects and the fact that it doesn’t require any training to use, then it is a case of “not being able to afford not to have them”, but most State-funded schools simply won’t have the available cash.

In any case, the interactive whiteboard (IWB) is present in most and is not to be knocked, says Simon Lewis, principal of Carlow Educate Together National School.

“The IWB has been referred to as the ‘wooden horse of Troy’ of the education world. I believe it will go down in Irish educational history as the device that kicked everything off.

“Before this, teachers simply weren’t using technology. It’s hard to believe that in 2005, reports suggested that only 4 per cent of teachers used any technology every day in their classroom,” Lewis adds.

“Since the advent of IWBs, I would estimate that this figure has been raised to 70-80 per cent. Whatever it is about IWBs, it captured teachers’ imaginations and because of them, teachers are now using digital content on a daily basis.”

Time moves on though and Lewis argues that other teaching methodologies need to be addressed and personal computing is very much the way forward. Whether it is the iPad or any other decent tablet device, he echoes Speirs’s opinion that the software will dictate the educational merit.

“I’ve used tracing programs with younger children to help them with their co-ordination and maths games are well-received too. Games like Countdown and Boggle are good openers for literacy classes. However, the apps that I find most successful are those that adults also use, like Keynote.

“Having instant access to apps without having to wait for the device to boot up is really useful,” Lewis adds.

Another Irish educator exploring apps is Austin McManus, choir and music teacher at St Clare’s national school in north Leitrim.

He has been using his own iPad since last year as a teaching aid and says it is the first time most of the students have seen or used a tablet or touchscreen device.

“Personally I would love the next set of devices to arrive in to the school to be iPads and they would be a fantastic resource across the curriculum as well as in music,” McManus says.

“An iPad can be your piano, a canvas for your artwork, a scientific calculator, an atlas, a history book far more easily than any laptop.”

Although he rates it highly, using apps such as forScore, PianistPro and iDraw, he says it is an “unrealistic proposition for state-funded schools” to have a 1:1 roll-out like Cedars in Scotland.

For now, one iPad for each child may be unattainable but at least there is the hope that there are educators out there who know that learning to use innovative apps is just as important as being taught to tie our shoelaces.

GENERATION I

19 per cent of two-five-year-olds can use a smartphone app while 9 per cent can tie their shoelaces (AVG).

25 per cent of two-five-year-olds can open a web browser while 20 per cent can swim unassisted (AVG).

70 per cent of two-five-year olds in Britain play computer games (AVG).

31 per cent of US children aged six-12 wanted an iPad for Christmas last year.

47 per cent of teenagers can text with their eyes closed (CTIA and Harris Interactive).