Solve the Top 5 Primary School Challenges with iPad

Every year, teachers are faced with opportunities and challenges. Most primary school teachers will be getting to know a whole new class. Some will be faced with a new year group, and as a result, they will need to change the way they teach. If you start to think about all these changes and combine them with new educational initiatives, your head might just explode. 

Teachers are expected to adapt and evolve. They are expected to meet new challenges every year and overcome them. However, the classrooms are all the same from the year before. The support networks probably haven’t changed, and unfortunately, we still live in an age of teacher shortages. 

So, how do you adapt and evolve to overcome new challenges when not much has changed from the previous year? The answer is technology. More specifically, the answer is iPad. The iPad is a Swiss army knife of possibility and opportunity. There is no better device that can transform to meet needs. I intend to prove it by detailing how one device can tackle five big challenges that every primary school will face this year. 

When justifying the upheaval of the old primary maths curriculum, the NCCA cites technology as being one of the main factors. Just as technology has advanced, so should the teaching of maths. One such advancement is the encouragement of sharing mathematical ideas through discussion and collaboration. The iPad can help capture conversation through filming or recording audio. When it comes to group work, learners can be on their own devices and share ideas on screen via iCloud collaboration. In both cases, the teacher can evidence the ideas being shared without having to physically be with the group at the time. Whilst mathematical discussion is valued, the new curriculum also encourages individualised investigation of maths concepts ‘in ways that are interesting and meaningful’ to each child. How can a teacher possibly provide a personalised experience for each learner? iPad to the rescue again! Individuals can approach the same maths objectives in a myriad of different ways using a never-ending list of apps and the multimedia functionality built into iPad. Innovative and progressive maths gaming apps can also help to alleviate some of the pressures associated with the curriculum’s focus on ‘playful and engaging learning experiences’ to nurture confidence and creativity within the subject. On top of this, the iPad offers interactive whiteboard apps that can capture and aid teacher/learner maths modelling, and online quizzing tools can be extremely engaging. Finally, the new curriculum places importance on learners making practical connections within their mathematical learning. This leads me neatly on to the exploration of ‘challenge 2’. 

STEM is all about making practical connections between subjects. In day-to-day life, we combine skills in just about every interaction we make, and technology now sits hand in hand with most problem-solving scenarios. So, it makes sense that STEM learning is becoming more and more important. The question is, how does a teacher create connective tissue that runs through science, technology, engineering, and mathematical lessons? Well, the iPad can expertly weave its way through any ongoing STEM activity. Firstly, the camera, videoing, microphone, screen capturing, drawing, and typing functionality of an iPad enables learners to make practical and theoretical work digital. Apps like SeeSaw, Showbie, and Classwork are perfect tools for amassing the work and saving them in digital portfolios. In other words, the iPad could pull together work from all four subjects seamlessly into one place. Moreover, the iPad can have a significant impact on each subject in isolation. For example, science can be enhanced by video analysis, data exploration, research, and the capturing of practical experiments, all of which can be achieved on an iPad. On the computing side of things, the device can facilitate lessons on word processing, digital artistry, digital literacy, e-safety, presentation-making, and so on. Not to mention all the programming apps available and the iPad’s Bluetooth connection to a range of physical programming resources. Even engineering can be aided by digital design and augmented reality opportunities that come with an Apple device. We’ve already explored the impact that iPad can have within math activities, but I’ll end this section of the blog by bringing us back around to the importance of making practical connections in mathematics. Linking theoretical mathematical problems to real-world science, technology, and engineering activities is perhaps the best way of making the subject come to life. Let the iPad be the link.

Even the best teachers need assistance. Any one class can contain learners with EAL, additional needs, and mental health needs, to name a few. Most classes will have two adults in the room. It simply isn’t enough to properly meet the needs of the class, and yet, many teachers do a fantastic job and rise to that challenge. Nevertheless, technology can help. Every iPad has a long list of accessibility features built in. These settings can help assist an individual learner in massively impactful ways. For example, the ‘Magnifier’ feature can allow learners at the back of the class to zoom in on the whiteboard through the iPad camera. The ‘Speak Text’ function can enable pupils to highlight words and have the iPad read it out to them. The ‘Color Filters’ can place a hue over the screen to allow dyslexic learners to track text. More complex needs can also be catered for by things like ‘Live Speech,’ which turns the iPad into a voice for the voiceless. Or the ‘Sound Recognition’ that picks up on noises and alerts a learner with hearing impairments. For EAL, the iPad can become a translator and the keyboard can be set to a specific language. Not only does this allow for typing in another language, but it also means that Siri dictation can scribe in a range of native tongues. When it comes to mental health and wellbeing, the iPad enables access to a wealth of calming, sensory and mood journaling apps. Outside of any specific need, I believe that one of the iPad’s strengths is that it offers choice. You can record a podcast rather than writing up a history report. You can whip up a digital photo collage instead of relying on fine-motor skills. You can film a musical performance and show that to the class if you’re too nervous to do it in person. The list goes on and on. The iPad is the very definition of assistive tech. If it’s used properly, it can almost become another adult in the room.

Primary, secondary, and higher education all face the same challenge. Teachers are leaving the profession. Without a doubt, teaching is a hard job, not least because of the lack of assistance that we explored in my previous section. I’ve mainly concentrated on learning-centric challenges so far, but what can the iPad do for a teacher? How can it improve the work/life balance that we all strive for? Ultimately, the answer is that an iPad can save time. Firstly, a classroom set of iPads makes it easy for a teacher to distribute resources digitally through AirDrop and the Apple Classroom app. No more time wasted at a printer. Apps like Quizlet already have hundreds of educational flash cards uploaded onto them, created by other teachers. You can find all sorts of excellent resources on award-winning educational apps so you can save time planning and know that you are providing top-quality content. The iPad can make marking and assessing knowledge so much easier. The forementioned quizzing apps can test a class whilst simultaneously marking the answers. Apps like Showbie, Google Classroom, and OneNote all have ‘built in’ marking tools so that work can be collected, and feedback can be given entirely digitally. In that scenario, you can leave voice notes as feedback (if you are that way inclined), and an awful lot of time can be saved. Templates within Keynote and Pages are a quick and easy way of creating worksheets that are 90% done for you. Finally, you cannot underestimate the power of an iPad just working. It’s instantly on at the touch of a button. It’s hard to break because there are only a few physical buttons and it’s well made. This is a massive time saver in and of itself. We’ve all been there. We’ve created a brilliant lesson, and it’s taken us a long time to prep it, only to find that the tech doesn’t play ball. When it comes to job satisfaction, I found an iPad gave me everything I needed to keep calm and carry on in the classroom as it just works.

Artificial intelligence is here, and it isn’t going away. Educators everywhere are scratching their heads and trying desperately to understand its place in the classroom. Is it a good thing? Is it a terrible thing? Should we try and shield learners from AI? Should we embrace it? The challenge for all teachers now is to work out how to move forward. I believe that AI can be a hugely positive game changer for teachers, and Apple devices have featured AI technology for a long time. iPad is the perfect device to harness its power. Let me give you some practical examples. Socrative Teacher (a quizzing and assessment app) now has an AI quiz generator. Just give it a few prompts, and it will create a custom quiz for your learners. Another app called Tiny Tap can generate an entire term’s worth of topic resources for you via AI. Artificially created images can spruce up presentations and make some super-specific content for lessons. Chat GPT can provide you with some creative writing to analyze with the class in a matter of seconds. Apple Intelligence (Apple’s built-in AI tool) will bring a whole new element to iPad, allowing the device to better understand the individual using it and offer assistance in all sorts of ways. So, for teachers, I believe AI can save time and increase productivity whilst also offering up high-quality resources. In that sense, it could help with Challenge 4 by making the day-to-day life easier. So, what about learners? Can some of these tools and apps hinder a learning journey? Will pupils become too reliant on them? How can we stop learners from using AI tools when they are not supposed to? I feel that each teacher should be empowered to lift the lid on AI and shut the lid just as easily. This is where Apple Classroom comes in. The app enables teachers to guide learners through lessons and ultimately keep them away from anything that isn’t relevant. On the flip side, it means that teachers can decide to push children on to AI tools as and when it might be useful. This is why I feel an iPad is a perfect device to use as teachers and learners dip their toes into the vast ocean of AI. Teachers can employ it tentatively and be safe in the knowledge that they have a handle on the lesson via Apple Classroom.  

It's almost too easy to fall into the trap of using iPad for a handful of activities in the classroom. You could find yourself only dolling them out for internet research or offering up an educational game as a reward. You might only ever use an iPad in one specific subject, like computing. If this is the case, turn on the selfie camera and take a good, hard look at yourself. The iPad can offer so much more. It can be a full film editing suite or 3D map. It can be a world library or a graphic design portfolio. It can be a professional music studio or just something you write a shopping list on. Whilst I appreciate a first year is not likely to produce an album on their school iPad, the amazing thing is, there is nothing to stop that from happening. If you allow the floodgates to open, learners and teachers can follow creative ideas to their conclusion on an iPad. Although I have singled out five challenges that an iPad can solve, it’s worth remembering that the device itself can harbor awe and wonder. At its best, it can meet challenges and put a smile on your face at the same time.
 
If you need support to use any of the apps or features mentioned in this blog, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our in-house Apple Professional Learning Specialists. They can provide you with a custom training plan and direct you to Select’s CPD offerings.