A for apple… i for iPad. Students at The Newtown School will use iPads in class to learn lessons and solve worksheets.
The device will be introduced for English, maths, social studies and science in classes III, IV and V from the next academic session. The iPad classes will initially be optional.
Teachers will have access to every child’s account and can block their profiles if they swipe to another page or content.
“When children do their classwork on iPads, the teacher can see on her device what each child is doing. She can accordingly help a child or give specific instructions,” said Satabdi Bhattacharjee, the principal of the school.
Students can upload their assignments from home, once finished, and the teacher will immediately get an alert. “The teacher can share her feedback too,” said Bhattacharjee.
The technology, the school feels, will not only make teaching more interactive but also make schoolbags lighter.
“The iPads will be like living books with content uploaded by teachers in sync with the syllabus. We are not doing away with textbooks but the child need not carry them to school,” principal Bhattacharjee said.
What is taught in class will also be uploaded on the cloud and parents will have access to classwork, worksheets and classroom lectures. One fear is that this could allow parents to interfere with school lessons.
But Bhattacharjee is optimistic. “There will be an alignment in the teaching- learning process in school and at home,” she said.
At present, the school follows a shared model where all students of classes III to V get to complete some assignments and worksheets on one of the 40 iPads the school has.
Students who opt for iPad lessons under the new model will have to buy the devices. The school will offer the gadgets at subsidised rates.
The school will conduct a month-long pilot project with one section of Class II. “We want to understand the challenges and troubleshoot,” Bhattacharjee said.
Parents of around 500 students took part in an orientation programme for the project last year. The second orientation was held on Saturday.
Two teachers from The Newtown School will visit a school in Bolton, the UK, for lessons in teaching with iPads.
The Telegraph
