Apple, Impact on learning, North Lanarkshire, Sharing devices, Teacher

Bellshill Academy: Impact on learning

April 19, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Bellshill Academy: Condodent individuals and successful learners — Device pilot inspiring confidence in learners

Anne Munro (headteacher) discussed with us the impact that she believes the iPad pilot has been having on learning in the school. She commented on the iPad itself and felt that the enhanced flexibility that it offered with the immediate access to ongoing work, the internet and a range of supportive apps/resources was a significant factor in the developing confidence and enhanced attitudes to learning she was seeing in her pupils. The school had worked with parents and through focus groups and written evaluations they had found out that there was evidence of greater parental engagement with learning at home over the course of the pilot. Mrs Munro was also pleased that a visit from HMIE had led to a series of positive comments on what was being observed in terms of impact on learning. She believed that the iPad pilot was contributing to the school’s aim to transform the learning culture of the school so that it led to high aspirations at all times, leading to improvement in standard, attainment and outcomes for learners.

Bellshill Academy: Impact on Learning1 Interview 1 with Mrs Munro (HT) about impact on learning

Mrs Munro shared with us a story about the positive impression that was created by pupils involved with the pilot who were asked to plan, prepare, present and host a workshop for senior mnagers at a local authority event. What she saw at this event made her think something positive was happening for learners involved with the pilot. It was not only the young people’s ability to use the technology that caught the eye but the confidence with which they delivered the workshop and how they responded to questions. She saw these S2 learners becoming the teachers and the facilitators for the adults in the room.

Bellshill Academy: Impact on learning 2 Interview 2 with Mrs Munro (HT) about impact on learning

Willie Davidson shared with us his initial cynicism about what he though was the ‘gimmick’ of the always-connected tablet device in the classroom and how his chance observation of learners working independently in class with them made him re-evaluate his opinion and begin to think that perhaps there is something in this after all.

Bellshill Academy: Impact on learning 3 Interview with Mr Davidson (The Learning Centre) about impact on learning

1:1 deployment, Apple, North Lanarkshire, Professional Learning, Teacher

Bellshill Academy: Supporting staff and early staff feedback

April 18, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Bellshill Academy: Staff at ease with the device — Staff at ease with the device

Anne Munro (headteacher) and Willie Davidson (The Learning Centre) discussed the importance of ensuring that CPD opportunities to help support the iPad pilot were planned and offered. School management had given a commitment to not let the staff be left on their own with the device; however, the response they received to this offer was not quite what they were expecting. Mrs Munro commented that previous ICT initiatives had always required support and CPD opportunities to help them along, but on this occasion she was taken aback at the lack of support sought or required by staff, as they felt it was not necessary because they were at ease with the device. This reaction to an ICT initiative was one that both Mrs Munro and Mr Davidson were not expecting and was indicative, they feel, of the user-friendly nature of the tablet technology they were trialling.

Bellshill Academy: Staff development The staff at Bellshill Academy have not relied on being trained over the course of this pilot

Mrs Munro explained to us the mechanisms that were put in place to help create a supportive learning community for the staff involved in the pilot. The main aspect of this was the formation of an iPad committee that included members of staff from across all curricular areas. Through this committee good practice, new ideas and resources began to be shared via the formal processes that were being established and informally through the networks and relationships that were already in place in the school.

Bellshill Academy: Staff Support Management discuss the informal staff learning/support networks that have grown with the Apple pilot

Willie Davidson (The Learning Centre) also shared with us points of interest from a staff survey that the school carried out to gauge attitudes to the pilot and early perceptions of the impact it may be having on the learning and teaching in their classrooms. Some of the statistics from this survey included:

75% of staff felt that they were more confident in the use of ICT in the classroom
78% of staff felt that the device made delivering lessons easier, no-one felt it made delivering lessons harder and 21% felt that there was no change in this area
87% of staff felt that their pupils were more interested in learning now that they were part of the device pilot, 9% felt there was no change, whereas 4% believed their pupils were less interested because the device distracted them in class
95% of staff felt that there was now a more positive ethos in the classes involved with the device pilot

1:1 deployment, Apple, Device workflow, North Lanarkshire

Bellshill Academy: Issues with workflow

April 17, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Willie Davidson (The Learning Centre) discussed with us some of the challenges that he felt were faced with the iPad in relation to workflow. He felt that moving learners’ work to and from the devices had presented a challenge. He acknowledged that there were a number of third-party tools (many paid for) that could address this issue, but he felt that he was yet to see the perfect solution to address this issue.

Mr Davidson told us how the school had decided to use Dropbox to address the file sharing issues, but he expressed his concerns about the security of this solution and he also gave examples where pupils Dropboxes had been ‘broken into’ by other pupils. He also felt that, although the Dropbox solution was the one he felt offered the school the best and cheapest option at that time to address the workflow issue, he believed that it would prove to be unsustainable if a secondary school such as theirs attempted to roll the Dropbox solution out across the whole school. The workflow issue is one that, if resolved, Mr Davidson believes could help make learning with devices in school an even better experience.

Bellshill Academy: workflow issues Mr Davidson (The Learning Centre) discusses workflow challenges he has faced with the Apple pilot

1:1 deployment, Apple, North Lanarkshire, Pilot overview, Teacher

Bellshill Academy: Pilot overview

April 17, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

The device pilot at Bellshill Academy in North Lanarkshire involved every pupil in the S1 cohort and every teacher who volunteered to be part of the pilot being given an iPad. In this interview Anne Munro (headteacher) and Willie Davidson (The Learning Centre) discuss their school’s involvement in North Lanarkshire’s device pilots and explain their thinking behind allocating an iPad to every first-year pupil and the importance of ensuring that they had buy-in from the staff.

bellshill_overview Mrs Munro (HT) and Mr Davidson (The Learning Centre) give an overview of the iPad pilot at Bellshill Academy

Anne Munro also discussed the thoroughness of the preparation required in the build up to running their pilot and what was involved in planning for parent information evenings to support their plans.

Bellshill Academy: Preparation Mrs Munro (HT) discusses the planning that took place prior to the pilot starting

Apple, North Lanarkshire, Trusting learners

Bellshill Academy: Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

April 15, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Willie Davidson (The Learning Centre) discussed with us the formation of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and how a ‘deficit view’ of the learners at the school in terms of not trusting them to look after the devices was not allowed to set the agenda for the pilot. Rather than worrying about the unfortunate things that might happen to the device, the school decided to trust their learners and allow the devices to go home. It was a requirement, however, that the pupils’ parents/carers had to attend one of the information evenings for the pilot or make an appointment with the school if they could not attend any of the planned evenings, so that they were made fully aware of the expectations of the pilot and agreed to and signed the AUP. There was 100 percent attendance by all parents/carers. At the time of our visit to Bellshill Academy there had only been one instance of an iPad going missing and that was due to a burglary. There had been minimal instances of any type of misuse of the device or transgression of the AUP.

Bellshill Academy: Acceptable Use Policy Mr Davidson (The Learning Centre) discusses Bellshill Academy’s Acceptable Use Policy

Mr Davidson stressed that an AUP does not necessarily stop those who wish to misuse their iPad from doing so, but it does give the school the formal structure to ensure that learners and their parents/carers are made fully aware of what is not acceptable.

The AUP devised by Bellshill Academy is available as a pdf.

1:1 deployment, App purchase and management, Apple, Device management, North Lanarkshire

Bellshill Academy: Technical challenges with their iPad pilot

April 15, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Willie Davidson (Learning Centre) at Bellshill Academy was a central figure in the planning and implementation of the iPad pilot at the school. In our discussions he talked of the many technical challenges that he faced in order to ensure that the pilot moved forward, such as those associated with wi-fi, iTunes accounts, parental issues and infrastructure.

One of the first challenges he recalls was associated with the purchase and management of apps for the iPads. He told us that when the pilot began there was no way of managing apps for a number of iPads centrally and as a result he had to buy 150 iTunes cards at a local store, scratch off the material to reveal the 15 digit number, then type those numbers into the computer for every card. This proved to be a time-consuming and laborious process and at the time was one that he was concerned about in terms of the sustainability of this process. He is aware that this issue has now been addressed to some extent with Apple introducing Apple Configurator and Volume Purchasing, services it is hoped will make the purchase and management of apps an easier process.

Bellshill Academy: Technical challenges Mr Davidson (The Learning Centre) discusses the technical challenges that the pilot faced

When the iPads were set up it was decided that the school would retain control of absolutely everything. iCloud accounts were set up using the school network login credentials that had already been allocated to pupils. Pupils were informed that they were not allowed to change the details of these accounts and this rule was written in to the Acceptable Use Policy. The pupils and their parents/carers were informed that the apps installed on the device were the property of the school and parents/carers were advised against tying their credit card to an iTunes account due to the fact that any purchased apps would still belong to the school and also because it would limit the chance for their account being hit with the costs of many purchases.

As part of the pilot a new wi-fi system was installed; however, this needed to be reviewed, particularly when it became apparent that the signal was not reaching the areas that it was intended to. Mr Davidson stressed in the interview the need to have a strong data connection for any school that intends to embark on a similar device pilot to theirs.

Aberdeenshire, Android, Learner

Mearns Academy: The learners’ perspective

April 15, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

At the time we visited Mr Fleming’s S6 class he was in the process of teaching them about the past three Prime Ministers of the UK. The Android tablets had been booked out for this lesson and they were being used to access the relevant pages of a website their teacher had created.

We interrupted Mathew and Helena to get their initial perspectives on what having access to the Android tablets meant for them. Mathew felt that:

it was great to have a device that let you immediately access current information and not just have access to a textbook that might be out of date
the touch screen and the immediacy of the tablet device was really appealing and that this was much better than the access to computers was before the pilot.

Mathew acknowledged that the pilot was still in its early days and that they had been mostly been using the browser up until now. He was aware that there were subject-specific apps that could be used to support his learning but he felt that the school’s start with the pilot was a good one. Interestingly, Mathew was of the opinion that in school he still preferred using paper and pencil to help him learn to the digital surfaces and tools that were becoming more and more prevalent!

Mearns Academy: S.6 Mathew Interview with Mathew from S.6 at Mearns Academy

Helena was also happy to be involved with the pilot and she felt that having access to such a flexible tool and not being stuck at a desktop was a good experience as a learner.

She too acknowledged that the pilot was in its early stages but she looked forward to having access to a device where she could save her own stuff and have all her material in the one digital place.

Mearns Academy: S6 Helena Interview with Helena from S.6 at Mearns Academy.

Apple, Critical thinking, Edinburgh, Impact on learning, Learner

Sciennes PS: The learner perspective

April 11, 2013 User deactivated Leave a comment

Sciennes PS: The Learner's perspective — Learners talk enthusiastically about learning with the iPad

Some of the pupils from Sciennes PS talked with us about how helpful some of the apps that they use to support their learning are. They gave examples of how they have helped them with timestables and spelling. In many cases they choose to use these apps in their own time in order to make progress with their learning. One child commented:

…I can’t even imagine school without iPads now. It’s so helpful in every day….I used to really hate maths before the iPads but once we started using them and apps like Cloud Tables it’s helped me with maths and now I enjoy maths. I never used to be good at my time tables but within one week of using this I knew my times tables up to the 10x table.

Sciennes PS: Kids learning with apps

Some of the pupils from Sciennes PS talked about how having access to a device had improved their productivity in writing. Instant access to editing tools makes writing so much more enjoyable and is making them ‘want to do their school work’ now.

When I used to write on paper I would write maybe 100 hundred words, but now I am writing 1000 words, and my writing’s really improved because I’m writing more, I’m writing at home and before I was more reluctant to edit it because you have to rub it all out and it just makes a mess but with this it takes two seconds and you’ve got a very good piece of work.

Sciennes PS: Learners discuss story writing Learners discuss story writing with the iPad

The discussion continued and the size of the impact on learner perceptions that this device pilot was having became increasingly apparent. When learners were asked if they thought the pilot had been beneficial one response was:

Oh yes, it has completely changed my life at school, and at home too, because I feel that although I already had an iPad at home I just really played games and stuff but now I use it for… I’m actually wanting to finish off my school work and wanting to do more school work.

To bring the discussion with the pupils to a conclusion we asked them what having their own connected device meant for them as learners and what
they would say to adults who may be of the opinion that devices such as those might be getting in the way of learning. They talked quite openly about how they believed the device has helped them learn and how access to technology such as devices should be part of modern teaching strategies in schools. Comments included:

I’d say with it improving our maths and storywriting and stuff they should think maybe that it’s really helping us and that we should keep it.

and

If people think that we should still be writing on slates and that school should be the same [as it was] then we wouldn’t have learned as much as we have. Technology and modern teaching strategies help us to learn every day and I think that if any adults who are a bit sceptical would come in to the classroom and see how much it helps us on a daily basis.

Sciennes PS: Why have a device? Learners discuss the benefits of having a device