Visit to school - reflection

On Tuesday, we went to Shirley Warren Primary School for the day to observe iPads being used in a Year 6 classroom. The pupils were given the task of making a book on the iPad, which highlighted the differences between countries in the world compared to the Shirley Warren community. In groups, they were working on particular topics and were making a two-page spread to go into the book.

Initially, I was unsure about the idea of using iPads in the classroom, but I really enjoyed learning about the apps that could be used to stimulate learning. I was interested to discover ‘Green Screen’, which allows children to make their own films using backdrop scenes such as Buckingham Palace, and ‘I Can Animate’, which enables pupils to take a series of photos and then play them as an animation. I could see that they would be brilliant ways of motivating children and building on their creative skills, and I found myself thinking about how I could incorporate these apps into my own lessons.

The group that I worked with were creating an array to illustrate the number of pupils in the class who were of each religion. They had decided to print pictures of each religion’s symbol, then cut them out individually, sort them into an array and take a picture on the iPad. I felt that this would be a very time-consuming method, so I suggested finding pictures on the iPad and making an array on there. However, they were determined to do things their way. One of the teachers had told us that he believed children should be left to figure things out for themselves, and that adults should not interfere in this learning, so I went along with their ideas and helped them to carry out their task.

Together, we discovered that it was in fact time consuming, and I asked the children how they might adapt their method next time to ensure it took less time. They agreed that using the iPads to make the array would have been better. We started by laying the array on a large piece of paper. This was changed many times through trial and error; we realised it would not fit on the paper, so one pupil stapled two pieces together. We then discovered that the array did not look as effective as we had hoped, so I suggested making a bar chart instead. We worked as a team to figure out how to do this.

Initially, the pupils had wanted to simply take a picture of the chart, but I was keen to use ‘I Can Animate’, so I proposed that we make an animation to make it look as if the bars were growing on the chart. They really liked this idea and were pleased with the results. For this reason, I feel that teacher contribution can be effective, as children can adapt and change ideas given by the teacher that they may not have thought of before. I think that discussion between the teacher and pupils can lead to great results, as long as the teacher is not explicitly telling them what to do.

I think that iPads can be a useful and fun resource for pupils, but should not be used as frequently as they appear to be used at Shirley Warren. I think that iPads can have negative effects on children, and from what I could see, they played a huge role in the childrens’ learning. It terrifies me to think that iPads could one day take over classrooms completely. What, then, will be the role of the teacher?