Over the course of our visits to schools involved in device pilots one of the issues that is always raised with iPads is that of workflow. There have been concerns expressed from colleagues in local authorities about this device’s ability to work effectively with Glow with the result that schools have attempted to make  provision to enable workflow to happen more effectively. An inability  to easily transfer documents and other materials from the iPad to the storage areas in Glow has been the biggest issue that has arisen in this regard.

Wendy French (class teacher) at Sciennes PS talked with us about the challenges that she faced with workflow in the early stages of the device pilot that they were undertaking in her school. Early attempts involved emailing work to and fro and then moved towards using Dropbox as the means of sharing work. This, however, proved unsustainable and it was felt that in order to access learners’ work and give formative feedback the email and Dropbox solutions were not quite good enough. Mrs French finally came across a proprietary app called ebackpack which they are now using in Sciennes PS. She feels that this is now meeting her needs much  better, but she notes that it was a paid for app. What she wants to see is for the workflow between IOS devices and Glow (as it evolves) to be much easier and slicker than it currently is so that there would be no need to purchase an app to manage workflow.

Sciennes PS: workflow Mrs French discusses workflow on the iPad

We also spoke to the pupils about workflow. Interestingly enough, they were not so concerned with what was used or where any material might be stored, but they were keen to state what a difference it made to be able to access their work at any time! One pupil commented on this change in access to their school work

…before we couldn’t take out jotters home, even if we wanted to carry on with our work we couldn’t but this is with us seven days a week!

Sciennes_kids_workflow Pupils’ perspective on workflow with the iPad