An intro page

The use of iPads has encouraged greater sharing of resources among teachers. All communication with parents is now done by email. Working as a group in class is much easier as children can share documents. Children who previously did not have access to the internet at home are given the same opportunities as their peers. The whole class can look at one child’s work by attaching the iPad to the interactive whiteboard. If a child has forgotten their textbook, the teacher can take a photograph of the relevant page and send it to the student in class.

The iPad in the classroom brings education to life. Children have endless access to valuable information such as a dictionary and thesaurus, which previously were only available in printed format. Interactive technology makes learning more engaging and memorable. Tools such as audio and video recorders can change the way that learning takes place and homework is completed. So what if all children in a school were given an iPad to use in class and take home with them?

Anne Laure Bazin (Assistant Head Teacher at Mounts Bay Academy in Cornwall) works in a school where every child, teacher and teaching assistant is given a free iPad to use in and out of lessons. For her, the main advantage of everyone having an iPad has been the improvement in communication. Documents can be emailed straight over to colleagues during a meeting. Children submit their homework by email, or through the school’s virtual learning environment. Teachers now take the register using their iPad, which means that there is a centralised record of which children are in school, and which classroom they are in, that every teacher has access to.