Duration: 1:44
Parents from Wairakei School describe the benefits that being in a BYOD class has had for their children in terms of increased motivation, improvements to learning, and greater independence. They value being able to support their children and to see their progress more readily.
Mark duMez:
Tasmin’s quite a motivated learner herself. She likes to research her own stuff and the iPad’s definitely something she can just grab and do things or experiment with, whatever application they are using at the moment. She’s perhaps a typical 10 to 11 year old girl in that she loves to make movies and do trailers and things like that, so she’s always at home doing extra work doing that.
In terms of other learning she definitely uses it as a research tool and as an editing tool. In terms of sharing her learning with me it would be more that I would be around while she was doing it, or I would be part of her discussions with Kelso about something that they’re doing.
Julia Christie:
So him being able to bring the iPad home and everything’s on there we can support him because we can see what he’s doing. He shows us. We can also go onto his blogs and comment. Yeah, it’s just more interactive and you can look at it any time you want really, and so you can see the progress of your child.
Denise Fuller:
We’ve just been so pleased in the last six months, I mean it’s still early stages with trying it all out and seeing how it’s going to go, but we’ve been really pleased with the difference it’s made, his motivation, his interest. Socially he’s more part of the class.
Mark duMez:
In terms of Tasmin’s learning and her assessments and all that, I do feel that there’s some barriers that have been lowered, rather than focussing just on what the class is doing at the moment perhaps focus on what she needs to be doing. Same with Kelso as well, his writing for example is definitely improved over the course of the year, and they’re both improving in the areas that they weren’t doing so well in before.
Simon Vesty:
Having their own iPad means they can use their own personal, or put their own personal touch on it, they can still work on obviously all their things they need to work on at home and at school, so it’s just been a great extension of that.
Mark duMez:
They have the ability to do what they want, they can move onto other things and just expand the range of what they are doing in the class and make the most of their class time I suppose.