iPad in Education at Sacred Heart College #iPadLearningZA

Ipad being used at Sacred Heart College
(Photo: Core Group)

Sacred Heart College has implemented iPads 1:1 in their learning environment.

Colin Northmore, the Head of Sacred Heart College, says that for a device like this to have a transformative effect, it has to be everywhere and it has to be invisible.
"What you really want to do is to focus the children on the learning. They are getting better results because the children want to be engaged in learning!"

The success of the iPad project at Sacred Heart College is due to the following: 

• The Emmaius Centre caters for students with special needs at Sacred Heart College. iPad is a critical tool for learning here and allows the school to meet the needs of individual students who may have specifi c barriers to learning. In these cases, iPad is used as a remediation and reinforcement tool.
• The Knowledge Cafe is a session that runs once a week and allows teachers to share ideas, successes and their experience with using iPad in their lessons. This allows for knowledge to be shared across all areas of teaching and facilitates collaboration among teachers. 
• The 3 to 6 Project is an after school initiative for underprivileged refugee students who do not attend school. The iPads are used regularly to aid in depth learning and understanding of basic numeracy and literacy concepts during this time.
• Some students at Sacred Heart College have special requirements when it comes to writing exams. The iPad is regularly used as an audio tool so that students can listen to their exams. These students no longer need to have special venues arranged for them.
• The registration of all extra mural activities in the primary school is done on the iPads and attendance is managed through an app by the teachers.
• Sacred Heart College is the first school in South Africa to develop a course on iTunesU which is based on a successful project they ran with their grade 7’s. The course allows students to create their own interactive books utilising an app called “Composer” and teaches them to be creators of content, rather than just users. It has allowed them to develop critical skills such as time management, teamwork, creativity, music composition, marketing, problem solving and technical app development.

I love what the schools are accomplishing with these projects!


The link and information is supplied by the Core Group.