Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock is an independent school catering for children ages from 5 to 17 years. In 2009 they were inspired by the announcement of the Apple’s new iPad that would lead them to become the first school to offer 1:1 iPad provision for learners and staff. Since that time they have been working to integrate the use of this technology into the fabric of learning in their school. We visited them in October 2012 to find out what their experience with their 1:1 approach had been.

We met with Fraser Speirs (computing teacher) and Andrew Jewell (class teacher) to ask them what they had seen in terms of impact on learning as a result of their iPad initiative. Mr Speirs felt that that one of the biggest benefits with subsequent impact on learning was that life in school was very much like life outside of school in terms of their learners being able to access and use digital technology without having to make any adjustments or compromises. He also explained that much of the teaching in the school had been realigned in keeping with what the school felt was a  change of emphasis on what was really important, an emphasis informed and influenced by access to tablet devices, always on access to the web and the range of apps that are now available. One example of this was that there was now less of a focus  on tasks such as Word Processing with greater emphasis being place on developing a delivering effective presentations that communicated a message that was beyond text.

cedars_fspeirsimpact Listen to Fraser Speirs talk about impact on learning