“The iPod touch is fantastic. It’s easy to use, and accessible anytime, anywhere. We do our homework on the iPod touch instead of taking heaps of paper home.”

Hamza Patel, head boy, Essa Academy, Bolton

Essa Academy: Empowering students with iPod touch

The change in students’ motivation and commitment to learning was enough to convince Showk to buy an iPod touch for every child at the school - 900 altogether. The only technology infrastructure Essa needed was a wi-fi system, with 130 access points around the school so that children would never lose connectivity.

Students could use the devices freely outside school too: Showk did not want to create a barrier to their use by having them handed out and collected every day.

What the teaching team did not anticipate was the enthusiasm from the wider community for the new strategy.

“In the old school, we could never get parents inside the gates”, says Abdul. “If they did come, it was usually because of a child’s discipline issue. When we launched our learning vision and told them about the iPod touch, the effect was amazing. For one of our year groups of 200 students, the caretakers put out 400 chairs, but almost 600 people turned up. It seemed like the families and the school were together at last, rooting for the children and their education”.

After a year’s experience, iPod touch-based learning is a proven success for students and their families, teachers, and examiners.

According to head boy, Hamza Patel: “The iPod touch is fantastic. It’s easy to use, and accessible anytime, anywhere. We do our homework on the iPod touch instead of taking heaps of paper home. We can access all types of documents using the Documents To Go app for example, and we can learn on the move”.

15 year-old Sadiq Bhikha has found an app to help his PE, and likes the fact that if he doesn’t understand a lesson, he can quickly search the internet for clarification. Aamna Alam is a big fan of GCSEPod, a podcast service for GCSE revision. With the iPod touch she can make subjects come alive with audio and video, accessible when she wants to see them.

The students use a wide range of apps: Google Earth provides an extraordinary aid to studying geography, for example. iRevise helps revision planning. Stanza gives access to 100,000 books. Many of the apps are free, though the school has a small budget for app purchases – much smaller than a traditional text book budget, according to Showk.

“The iPod touch works symbiotically with other changes in school life at Essa”, Abdul Chohan says. “The school day and the curriculum has been restructured because children don’t need to study in rigid lesson periods if they are working outside the classroom and emailing their project work to their teachers. Instead they now have a Friday afternoon of activities, like rock climbing and swimming, which they can plan and book via the iPod touch”.

All teachers have an iPod touch. Some took to it more easily than others, mainly because they needed time to recognise its benefits.

“A big breakthrough was discovering that the iPod even helps teachers do basic administrative work more easily”, says Abdul. “Teachers now take the register on their iPod using Teacher’s WebFolder, which allows access to a student database with individual contact information, learning needs, target grades and so on. Notices are now sent via email, and children respond to them much more than they did to the old notice boards.

Showk Badat says that the impact on the school has exceeded what he believed would be possible in such a short time. “As well as helping individual learning, the iPod touch also encourages children and their teachers to work together. Its size and convenience is so easy for collaborative work. That means nobody feels isolated in learning”.

Confidence is undoubtedly rising amongst the students. Latest exam results reflect a new level of motivation in the school, and it gets stronger all the time. “We now have Year 8 pupils confident enough to start the GCSE maths course”, Showk says.

Essa Academy is not resting on its achievements however. Every teacher has now got an iPad to use with digital textbooks, which gives them unrivalled mobility within the classroom. The school is also looking at developing a directory of learning practice in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University, which could be accessed via iTunes in league with a local authority. A new school building has been designed for Apple technology.

The benefits of the iPod extend beyond the classroom in the academy. Award winning caretakers, Peter and Paul, have mobile access to emails, receiving messages anytime, anywhere, facilitating them in their daily job and helping the academy achieve great service from associate staff.

Its reputation outside is growing fast, too, and Essa Academy has become a Regional Training Centre where teachers from other schools gain ideas and share practice in using Apple tools.

“The first step has been to convince our students, teachers and the wider community there is no reason why we can’t claim ‘all will succeed’”, says Showk Badat. “Maybe we’ve reached that first step, with a lot of help from the iPod touch. Now we want our children to be properly prepared for the future, whatever that may hold. We look to Apple to help us do that too”.

Products they use

iPod touch

This pocket computer is great for learning both inside and outside the classroom. Learn more about iPod touch

iPad

Learn more about iPad

Apps they use

Children and teachers at Essa Academy use more than 100 apps on the iPod touch – mainly free. Children are also able to buy their own apps from the App Store, and the school has a small budget to support specialist app purchases.