I was incredibly enthused by the slideshow below, as it demonstrated that ISM are facing in the right direction when it comes to integrating tech into the classroom and preparing our learners for the future that they, not us, will need to survive in. The debate over tech-learning continues to rage, and I doubt whether it will ever be settled by those teachers who were learners in the late 20th Century. However, take the word ‘tech’ out the debate and you are still left with the same question: why are we still implementing the industrial model of education to children in the 21st Century?

With magnificent tools such as these at our disposal, we have the opportunity to give a voice to students that they have never had before. We will give them the possibility, as 21st Century learners, to end the debate about technology, test-based curriculum and industrial cloning. Instead we will produce a generation of tech savvy, independent learners who understand the world around them; a world where jobs, communication, networks and success are no longer measured by obsolete preconceptions of academia.

When you are facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep on walking…

A small group of teachers at ISM were fortunate enough to attend a highly informative iPad session with Apple expert Mark Pentleton yesterday. Mark flew in from Scotland and brought with him some remarkable ideas that will change the face of learning at ISM.

The session started with some iPad basics; simple techniques on the iPad that make the device even more user friendly. For example, the international and accessibility functions; both extremely helpful at our International School.

A shared ‘dropbox’ file was then created for all attendees. We brainstormed our initial hopes and fears for iPad integration using the brilliant iThoughts App.

Mark very quickly demonstrated the power of reading through the iPad. Using iBooks, Mark showed us how notes could be made on specific sections of text, the notes could be bookmarked, saved and emailed to the teacher in seconds. The definition of every word in every e-book could be found just through tapping on it and many books had additional interactive functions; podcasts, videos, hyperlinks and pictures. Stunning.

The scary thing was we were told by the end of the day, we would be producing e-books (ePubs) of our own!

Next we used keynote, photo rotate, screen grab and iMovies, to create  beautifully presented movies that could be stored, shared, uploaded to an e-pub or iTunesU in seconds. So simple but with endless possibilities both for teachers and learners.

After Mark was able to prize us away from our iPads for lunch, we re-grouped for some even more powerful ideas and concepts in the afternoon.

Next on the list was creating e-pubs through Pages. We all downloaded ePubs best-practice pro-forma and then used it to make some awesome ePublications. Again – everything was very simple and within minutes we were making professional looking books that had video, podcasts and pictures that we could actually pick from the shelf in iBooks on our iPads!

Finally, we all downloaded book creator to our iPads, and followed simple instructions from Mark and again we were very soon producing our own e-books! Using  drawing pad and iPhoto we inserted pictures and photos and all of us, from Early Years to Secondary Science, instantly realized the potential of this incredible App.

A huge thank you to Mark for such an informative, eye opening and practical training session. I can’t wait to see Mark back at ISM to share more fabulous ideas. We all left inspired, motivated with plenty of food for thought. I now look forward to seeing what we learnt coming to life with the learners at ISM.