It was great today to visit Avondale Grammar School and meet Craig Kemp, the Head of ICT and Learning Innovation. We met on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, and our schools have a lot in common in that we are both piloting tablet devices this year. It was great to talk through our common issues/challenges of dealing with parents and staff, sustainable and realistic professional development, student-led learning and the ever-thorny presence of social networks like Facebook and YouTube that have so much learning potential…to block or not to block? Is it better to let students find their own way or to actually teach them to make responsible choices..and teach staff at the same time? A loaded question if ever I saw one!
It was also interesting to compare their choice of Windows 8 Dell tablets with our iPads in terms of expected use, app equivalents, consequences on school desktop provision, insurance, student acceptable use, distribution of apps, to name but a few areas!
Craig has invited us back when their tablets are deployed and in use and we have extended an invitation for a visit to Tanglin to see how our iPad pilot is going. An hour of face -to -face is worth a thousand tweets!
Steve Morgan Training 