We landed in a warm and unusually dry Singapore with brown grass and busy watering trucks. Like Hong Kong, their winter had also been unusual but the weather made for a pleasant trip. We had a busy three days ahead of us with the Conference and four school visit on the Monday and Wednesday
The Apple Summit was organized for selected government schools and we were one of two invited Hong Kong schools. The purpose of the conference was to showcase how schools in Singapore were using iPads to Excite and Engage students in new ways of learning across different subjects.
Challenging Learning activities was a key theme of the conference. Classroom workshops were led by teachers, who showed us how they were using iPads to engage and excite their students and stimulate their creativity and sense of curiosity
The Keynotes highlighted the importance of having a sound pedagogical justification for the integrations of iPads into learning design, and a clear idea of the desired learning outcomes. We also heard how schools had implemented their 121 iPad programmes. and the message here, was to start small and think big. Programmes with a clear focus and measurable outcomes were more likely to lead to sustainable and real change in classroom practice and learning behaviours.
The Classroom Showcase workshops were very hands on, and we played the role of students taking classes in Biology, Languages, Geography and Maths. This gave us a very realistic and convincing experience of how students can use elearning in these subjects. These sessions were delivered by local teachers and we were impressed by their deep understanding of how the technology leads to more student centred learning and allows students to construct their own knowledge by sharing and collaboration with classmates.
The Apps used in the workshops were:
Popplet for brainstorming and builing concept maps
Padlet for sharing prior knowledge and classroom discussion
Keynote for presentations
Nearpod for checking what students had learnt and for supporting student/ teacher interactions
Explain Everything for making learning visible
Air Drop to transfer of files within a group
Google Maps and Google Earth for Geography activities
iTunes University. A special mention has to go to this unique solution from Apple. At the conference and from our school visits, we kept hearing how iTunes U was proving to be a very popular course management tool. Several Singapore schools had already published their own iTunes U courses and making these available (via a secure connection) to their students and parents.
Edmodo. Comes as an Apple App and is a free VLE which many of the teachers in the 121 schools were using this to manage elearning for their classes. Edmodo was popular because it was easy to enroll students,; allowed them to publish and engage in learning conversations and came with many addition learning tools, such as quiz makers and flash card generators. It also connects directly with Google Drive. The best of all worlds!
The School Visits
Nanyang Girls School. They have been taking a leading role in elearning since the launch of their 121 iPad pilot in 2011. The success of this initiative has led to the widespread use iPads and adoption of elearning across all subjects in the school. So much so that if departments were not using elearning, they had to explain why! Teachers were using iTunes U to manage courses (3 public and 24 private courses) and Edmodo to manage class based learning activities. eBooks were also being published using iBook Author, and these were gradually replacing traditional text books. Technology adoption and practice was regularly reviewed using the SAMR model of technology integration.
We also visited the classrooms to see how they had been adapted to support students with iPads. The desks and chairs were on wheels to make it easy to re-arrange groups but the most innovative feature was the portable display screens to enable groups to share a monitor. All home made!
German European School. We met with their primary learning coach and their Head of Learning Technology. iPads were being extensively used in the primary classes – explain everything and eraser being two popular apps. We learnt how they were managing the change process by carefully monitoring teacher confidence and competence levels and also employing a secondary digital learning coach. An excellent presentation by a Humanities teacher showed us how one department was integrating technology to create students centred enquiry based learning activities – a copy of their department elearning guide was a model for us to consider at LTPSS.
United World College. We met with one of their digital learning coaches to see how technology was being fully integrated across the whole school. UWC has a highly developed elearning ecosystem, and has effectively operationalized every aspect of elearning adoption. Teachers were expected to develop elearning activities with extensive support from the digital coaches. Discussions about elearning were a regular topic for departmental meetings, where new ideas were openly discussed and evaluated – elearning was led by policy and practice – not by individuals.
In terms of development this represents the next stage for LTPSS.
All the digital coaches contribute to a elearning website where they publish case studies of best practice as well as easy to follow guides on how to best different Apps and applications.
