Tuesday 21 May 2013

iPad as a content creation tool...are you mad?!


We are in the middle of an iPad mini trial at school at the moment and I was on a learning walk last week observing how our students are integrating them into their lessons. I had a strange, but enlightening experience in a Food Technology lesson that I observed.

The students were in an ICT room preparing presentations on some work they had done in the Food Tech lab. The ICT room is kitted out with PCs, with PowerPoint, Google Presentations, Prezi etc.. all at their disposal. As part of our 1 to 1 trial, all of the students also had their iPad mini.

Going back a few months, when researching in preparation for our iPad trial, I came across the old mantra several times of PC = creation, iPad = consumption, smartphone = soupcon. Having been an iPad power user since September, I didn't personally believe this as I can pretty much do everything I need to on my iPad. However, what about the normal teacher or student who isn't as sad and geeky as I am? I assumed they would follow the old mantra of get to a PC in order to do anything meaningful.

Going forward again, back to the Food Tech lesson, students were on the PCs and had their iPads as a second screen. On closer inspection, they were using the PC as a second screen to do the research, and the iPad to create the presentation (Explain Everything, Haiku Deck etc...). Interesting, I thought. This is turning that mantra, which at first glance looks like it makes sense, on it's head. I don't even think this is because they still have the novelty aspect of the iPads (they have had them for 6 weeks).

My reasoning behind this choice made by our students is that that portability wins over power and functionality. Students want the ability to take their work with them over snazzy animations, colours and pictures. Because they are working on their iPads, they can continue this work anywhere and at any time, which is in essence why the iPad works for me and many others. This is not something that the teacher asked them to do as they had free choice as to which tool would work best for them, and they chose the best tool in their opinion, which is ultimately what we are trying to achieve by integrating ICT into classrooms.

So, is that old mantra dead? Not yet, but the writing appears to be on the wall (or on the iPad).

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