The school bags of primary and secondary students are considerably lighter this year as more and more Victorian schools swap textbooks for tablets as the learning tools of the future.
But aside from the obvious chiropractic advantages of confining a library of textbooks to a device that weighs less than one kilogram, there remains some confusion among parents about the role of tablets in their child’s education.
According to Apple’s website, the iPad offers more than 75,000 apps just for education. But how are Victorian teachers using them to improve their students’ learning experience?
David Lovatt, the director of e-learning at Parade College in Bundoora, says the overall advantage of using electronic devices is that they engage different learners, which is often half the battle with education.
“iPads deliver that instant gratification that appeals to young people … if they can put a movie together using the device, then they can put it up on Facebook and show people ‘Look what I’ve done’.
Every student in years seven to 10 at Parade College has an iPad to use in all areas of learning. But Mr Lovatt says they are used in some subjects more than others.
The device has given the humble prac report a new lease on life in science classes, with students encouraged to create a video or cartoon strip to record their experiments.
The same applies to English students, who use iMovie and Strip Design to produce text responses through more creative mediums such as video and cartoons.
“If you’ve got a student who has difficulty putting words together, they often find it more beneficial to put together a movie to illustrate their thoughts on a book,” Mr Lovatt says.
As for mathematics, students use revision apps that link homework questions to the section of their textbook that will provide the answer. The app Numbers also allows them to analyse data and create graphs and charts.
Ultimately, Mr Lovatt says the success of a tablet in each subject depends on the teacher.
“If you’ve got a teacher who’s stuck in the old pedagogy, they can find it very difficult,” he says.
“They can’t sit up the front of the room any more and see that the students are on task, they have to get up and move around.”
At Santa Maria College in Northcote, teachers began experimenting with a “flipped classroom model”, using iMovie films to introduce information to students on their iPads at home, and using class time for analysis and discussion.
Every student at Santa Maria has an iPad with a suite of apps used for learning activities in all learning areas. They include Evernote for recording research and Keynote for presentations.
The college’s e-learning leader, Simon Gitson, says teachers are also expected to keep abreast of apps that could be of specific use to their subject.
“Recently food technology utilised Pinterest to think about how food is presented, and students created their own Pinterest board to show their learning,” he says.
Both schools chose the iPad over other tablets for its usability and the range of apps on offer.
But Mr Lovatt has left open the possibility of Parade looking into other brands at the end of the year.
“Apple [products] are very user-friendly, and the apps are cheaper, but when we get into industry it’s very PC-based,” he says.
“We will have to assess what we’re hoping to achieve with our curriculum … at the end of this year we’ll be at two years on an iPad,
so it’ll be an ideal time to start reviewing it.”
