“When one group of children was asked to compose a poem, they decided to brainstorm their ideas on their laptops because it felt better that way.”
Julie Wilsdon, Advisory Teacher, ICT,
Isle of Man Department of Education
Isle of Man Education Department: Planning an innovative technology future
One of the big benefits for children at Dhoon School has been the way that technology provides a level playing field for creating their work. “Handwriting quality and neatness sometimes create an artificial impression of ability”, she says. “It’s inspiring to see children you don’t expect to succeed using sophisticated combinations of software”.
“One of the worries we had at the beginning was whether the children would treat technology as a gimmick, and just want to use it for its own sake, but they have quickly learned to make rational choices about how it helps them best”, Julie Wilsdon says.
Apart from Apple’s creative added value, Graham’s ICT team has also found that an Apple strategy in primary schools delivers significant cost benefits.
“There is a reduced amount of training time for Apple software, and the cost of maintenance is very low. We look after 4,400 Macs with two technicians. The view is we would expect 1:40 support if they were PCs. In that case we would need 100 technicians!”
Graham and his colleagues make good use of Remote Desktop software to solve any minor software problems. Describing it as “Apple’s best kept secret”, he says: “It never fails to impress me that I can have a laptop dropped on my desk and I’m wirelessly connected to the teacher’s laptop at the other end of the island. I can take control of a problem or easily guide the school through a process to fix it”.
However, as it plans for the future, the Isle of Man Education Department wants an external assessment of the many ways it uses technology in schools.
“We have learned some interesting lessons from the 1-to-1 programme, both in terms of the attitudes of children to the technology when they have it permanently, and the use they make of it”, says Graham Kinrade. “We want to understand whether you’re taking away from a primary child’s learning experience if you encourage individual learning on a personal laptop rather than using one computer with a group”.
“We try to encourage lots of different approaches to using technology. The key question we’re asking ourselves is ‘what is appropriate access to a computer’ for an under 11 year old’”.
“I’m certainly a big fan of the technology and need no convincing as to what it can do in a classroom”, says Graham Kinrade. “But it’s a very careful balancing act. We must not swamp the learning experience with technology”.
Professor Heppell has been invited to give the Education Department an external view. It is a move that Graham Kinrade expects to see repeated elsewhere.
“I think that IT in general across education in the UK and across the world has to show what we’re delivering, because we’re investing a huge amount of money. Sitting here as an educationalist, saying 'I know technology is an effective education tool' just isn’t good enough. We have to lay out what it is we’re trying to deliver in education, and how technology is going to support that”.
“Assessment is key to doing this”, continues Graham Kinrade. “It’s very easy to teach children maths and then test it, but if a child brings me a 3D model created in SketchUp, stuck into iMovie, and has written a piece of music in GarageBand and added that, how do I as a teacher assess the project? If I don’t understand the process for creating that project in the first place, I’m onto a hiding to nothing. So we might need to look at children doing some of the assessment themselves, perhaps, and being able to talk about what their objective was and how they got there”.
The island’s future digital technology strategy in schools will be strongly influenced by Professor Heppell’s findings, says Graham Kinrade.
“We have seen some astonishing work produced with Apple tools, taking learning to a whole new level. But IT across education has to show clearly what it is we are delivering, and convince parents and teachers of the huge potential benefits to children of digital creativity”.
