Apple Brings Enhancement to Learning

Profiles in Success: Leigh Technology Academy

The Leigh purchased 600 iMac desktop computers and 235 MacBook laptops for its learning plazas, where students use Apple’s inbuilt iLife multimedia tools to enhance their coursework across the curriculum. Every classroom is also equipped with a MacBook and projector, so that teachers can show videos to support their lessons.

The school encourages students to develop Podcasts to express creativity in ways that traditional pen and paper cannot match, and stores lesson recordings for teachers to share.

The Leigh has also invested in a TV studio, which provides a well-equipped facility for students to develop sophisticated editing techniques for still image, video and audio editing techniques, using Apple’s professional standard Aperture, Final Cut and Logic software tools.

“Apple brings a massive enhancement to learning here”, says Mark Poulter. “The Mac and its creative tools inspire a keenness to learn. Students can express themselves imaginatively, and they love the fact their coursework looks so professional – something to be proud of. They also have a sense they are learning skills, particularly with the professional editing software, that are relevant to the exciting creative worlds of television, film and music”.

Students with learning difficulties, particularly, are helped by using the iMac inbuilt camera to describe their approach to their work, enabling them to get better marks in class and gain greater confidence. “Teachers find their relationships are improved with this group of children,” says Mark Poulter. “They are getting new insights that they can share and use with other children and teachers.”

Creating Podcasts enables science teachers to record experiments in lab conditions where children are not allowed to be present for health and safety reasons. Other teachers are using snippets of video material from iTunes in their subject lessons to support learning points.

Not all teachers were Mac users in the past, but the school is investing in a day’s training per teacher – split equally between the Mac OS X operating system and the iLife multimedia suite. “Nobody I’ve talked to regrets the move to Mac”, says Mark Poulter.

One of the unexpected benefits of Mac technology is the significant savings in costs when the Leigh was equipping its new buildings. Mark Poulter explains: “We had a budget of over £1m for new furniture. I realised that the all-in-one iMac desktop meant we could save about £60,000 in desk space. It’s also saved costs to have all the iLife multimedia software free with every Mac”.

The Mac strategy does not constrain use of Windows applications if required. All software is available through server technology that provides students and teachers with 24/7 access to the school network from any computer.

Unusually for a secondary school, the Leigh is becoming an Apple Authorised Training Centre for Education (AATCe), which enables it to offer students high quality training and certification in the Apple software used in many of today’s creative companies. “This will give students a real leg-up into higher education, and help those with ambitions to work in creative technology industries”, enthuses Mark Poulter. “That really shows how this school has developed in the last decade”.

With creative technology now playing such a major role in students’ coursework, Mark Poulter hopes that exam boards will begin to accept digital submissions for assessment. “We can see how multimedia offers a much more accurate reflection of students’ real abilities and achievements than pen and paper. It’s important to their future success that assessors also recognise it”.

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