‘iLearning’ with iPods a success

AUSTRALIA - A senior high school in Warwick, Western Australia, is one of the first schools to work with iPods during classes.

Embraced by students and staff, students are now making podcasts and blogs, use them for research, while being made aware of the importance of cyber safety.

The iPod touches were first used in Year 8 classes and were so successful that they are now being used throughout the school in maths and science, society and environment and English classes.

“We wanted to embrace technology as a quality learning experience for students and an efficient and interesting way for teachers to deliver lessons,” says teacher Andrew Bell.
Andrew says that two thirds of the students using iPods had improved their learning.

“The key aspect of the introduction of iPods has been about getting students more interested and engaged in class, with many students mentioning that work is more fun and easy because of the new technology,” Andrew says.

Teachers have now started changing the way they teach. Several team members now use online test facilities such as classmarker.com.

Classmarker.com is a free online application where teachers can construct tests and students log on, complete the tests and receive immediate feedback, which has proved very popular among students and teachers.

As teachers develop more resources and learning-teaching materials that can be posted in as Google documents, students will be able to complete more homework and learning tasks online. This would be a great way to engage students and cut down on paper use, says Andrew.

“iPod technology is a very cost effective way to get access to a wealth of education resources. But more importantly, it has been a great vehicle for sparking teacher interest in reflecting on their teaching and considering the importance of technology in students.”