Teachers at Forest Town School have always struggled to get the attention of pupils in the classroom. But that has changed since they started piloting the iPad learning programme at the school for children with special needs last year.
Forest Town is one of the first schools to cater for children with special needs to introduce tablets in the classroom.
In January, Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi launched the paperless classroom project in seven schools.
In those schools, pupils are not given textbooks; instead the books are loaded onto the tablets. The pupils have internet connectivity and interact with teachers through them.
The iPads learning programme has changed how Grade 3 teacher Lisa Ferris interacts with her pupils. She says they are more engaged and confident.
“The children are not nervous in class anymore. The moment you put the iPads in front of them, they start paying attention. They see the tablets as part of playing and do not think they are doing maths lessons or a communication task. Because the maths tasks on the tablet are games, they do not worry about losing. They keep on trying,” she said.
She designed a competition using a maths program called Maths Pro Light, where she put the sums in little bubbles on the iPad screens.
When a child gets the sum right, interactive fun elements built into the program draw the attention of the child and make the exercise enjoyable.
She said she had started seeing an improvement in the pupils’ performance.
“The iPad opened up a whole new world of interactive education for children in the class,” she said.
Forest Town piloted the project last year when it first received 20 tablets, and yesterday it was given 40 more by the PPC cement company.
Norma Grezenberg, the head of the school’s iPad learning programme, said they would give 16 tablets to pupils with communication impairments to use full-time, while the rest of the 300 schoolchildren would share the other 44.
“The tablets will be given to non-verbal children and we want to see how they improve their communication skills. Before, when learners wanted to go to the toilet, they would use picture books and point at objects to communicate.
“Now, they can use the iPad applications like Talk Assist and type what they want, and the computer will say it out loud for them,” she said.
The iPads have been installed with programs to assist teachers and pupils with mathematics, literacy, life skills and fine motor skills.
The school is hoping to get more programs in speech and occupational therapy.
Every week, each class is allocated an hour to use the tablets during lessons.
Grezenberg said they hoped each pupil would soon have their own tablet. – [email protected]