Impact of Apple in Education

This is a difficult one because the question is almost divided into two parts because of the word ‘important’ which i think raises the additional question ‘important for who’. If school leaders and teachers are thinking about young people this is likely to be measures like engagement, skills development, creativity, curiosity, the inter disciplinary nature of learning that tech can so well facilitate.

But if schools leaders and teachers are thinking about what measures are important based on how they are judged by LA, SQA, Scot Gov, etc. then they’re more likely to be looking at measures which are easily countable and ‘fit’ in with pre designed ideas of what success looks like. Attainment, point to point improvements….and so on.

The development of the community in their digital skills, becoming digital citizens, tech in the school cannot just be for the school it has to benefit the individual and the community

Engagement but more importantly interactions. Meaningful feedback.

Reduction in photocopying and paper costs.

Communication with parents.

Improvement in skills.

Interaction with outside agencies and positive destinations.

Attainment is what school leaders/ councillors etc want to see improve or to measure but there are so many issues with using this as a measure of impact as there are so many factors that contribute to pupils attaining (or not) that you could never say that the correlation was caused by the use of digital technology even if we wanted to. It is difficult to get other measures - a lot of the time it’s listening to and sharing peoples stories (children, educators, schools, families) which are very valuable but this can also be difficult as it can take a lot of time/ is difficult to get representative samples. Feedback through forms etc can be useful but there are problem like whether it’s anonymised/ response rates/ who is more likely to respond (very strong emotions either way).

Ask the kids (especially seniors) how they’d feel if their iPads were taken away…and watch the panic descend.

a soft measure but a marker of how much an asset it is to them.

Pupil engagement and accessibility. Is there improved engagement from those learners with ASN. Do pupils enjoy learning more from methods of learning and expressing creativity made possible by tech and iPads. How much are learners benefiting from improved and more immediate feedback. What is impact on staff morale and opportunities for leadership at all levels. Impact on attainment and quality of learning and teaching, soft data and hard data.

Attainment and achievement

Quality assurance activities such as lesson observations, professional dialogue, pupil voice e.g. survey results, learner conversations

Engagement of classes e.g. pupils with iPad present

Parental engagement e.g. parents on Showbie, attendance at information evenings