Techno-ABLE Evaluation Report
An Evaluation to Show the Impact of iPads and Digital
Technology on SEN Pupil Engagement and Progress
June 2013
Researcher – Leigh Gardner
Curious Minds have funded the evaluation as an integral part of the Techno-ABLE project
Contents
Introduction
Page 1
Evaluation aims and objectives
Page 1
Research methodology
Page 1
Overview of Project
Page 2
Project Methodology
Page 3
Case Study Tor View Special Community School
Page 4
Case Study Royal Cross Primary School
Page 9
Case Study Lancasterian School
Page 15
Conclusion to Report
Page 19 - 21
Common Themes Diagram
Page 21
Introduction
This report summarises the findings of an evaluation of a creative collaborative project
across three SEN schools in the North West of England, developed by Curious Minds and
DIY Theatre Company. The evaluation aimed to assess the effects of technology on pupil
engagement and progress. The technology used in this project was the iPad.
This evaluation is timely as the huge global explosion of technology means that the need to
equip SEN students of the 21st Century for an independent future in an ever changing
world is paramount.
The evaluation was commissioned by Curious Minds, the Bridge Organisation in the North
West, working with Arts Council England to connect all young people with great art and
culture opportunities.
Evaluation Aims and Objectives
1. To evaluate the effectiveness of using iPads on pupil progress and engagement
across three SEN schools
2. To evaluate the sub enquiries in each school which reflected the different needs from
the schools. These sub enquiries were looking at: writing, punctuation and parental
engagement
3. To identify common themes across the schools
Research Methods
The research conducted was action research and involved a practitioner, class teachers,
teaching assistants (TAs) and pupils. The rationale for it being an action research project
was so that the findings of the project can be related straight back into the schools to inform
future practice and effect positive and relevant change in the schools involved.
Methods used for collecting data were a series of observations of the classes working with
the practitioner and a series of interviews with the staff and the practitioner involved.
Alongside this qualitative data, quantative data was collected through the engagement
sheets across two schools and the assessment tool Nearpod was used in the other school
(see Royal Cross below).
Overview of Project
1
The Techno-ABLE project grew out of the Developing Different Voices series which is an
ongoing network for SEN schools across the North West run by Curious Minds. This group
has brokered links between special schools, cultural organisations and research institutes
across the region in order to encourage arts, culture and creativity in schools. Three special
schools have worked in partnership with each other, Curious Minds and the practitioner
Paul Main to develop the Techno-ABLE project to answer the question:
How can we improve pupil engagement and progress through the use of creative
technology?
The technology used was the iPad and the schools were keen to discover how iPads could
encourage engagement and learning. This question had come about through recognition
that technology can significantly support young disabled people.We were keen to look at
ways to help develop new creative skills and a higher visibility for pupils to create a more
level playing field between themselves and their mainstream peers. The overall aim of this
was to expand the life chances of these young people.
Through partnership with DIY Theatre Company, the regional agency for delivery of training
and specialist knowledge around Arts Award, this project has incorporated Discover and
Explore Arts Awards.
The three schools that took part in the project had worked closely with Curious Minds and
engaged fully in the Enquiry and Change Creative Partnerships programmes, showing a
commitment to the concept of creative learning. One school is based in Manchester and
the other two schools are based in Lancashire.
The project was awarded funding from Curious Minds of £10,500 with £1,500 from DIY
Theatre Company shared equally between the three schools and each school contributed
£3,000 as their share making a total budget of £21,000
Participants
A total of 53 pupils took part in the project with ten pupils from Tor View School, 24 pupils
from Royal Cross, and five pupils from Lancasterian school.
One highly experienced technical practitioner, Paul Main was involved across all three
schools to lead the project with staff and pupils. 21 members of staff across all three
schools made up of teachers and teaching assistants participated.
Jude Bird, the Cultural Education Manager from Curious Minds was the Project Manager
and Leigh Gardner was the Researcher/Evaluator.
Project Methodology
2
Jude Bird, Paul Main and the lead teachers from each school liaised closely to plan the
project. The schools received one session of CPD with Paul Main to familiarise themselves
with the iPads and some of the apps that Paul thought would be appropriate. Paul was to
work with a designated group in each school for six sessions spread across twelve weeks.
In Tor View and Lancasterian schools Paul worked with KS4 groups and in Royal Cross he
worked across KS1 and KS2. Tor View and Lancasterian were able to split their groups in
half in order to have a control group which did the same work as the iPad group (without
using the iPads) .Royal Cross took the opportunity to use the iPads across the whole
school as they had a genuine desire for total inclusivity and was possible due to them being
a very small school, so had no control group. The engagement sheets were filled out for
every pupil in both the iPad groups and the control group. The engagement sheets were not
used in Royal Cross (see below). The engagement sheets were an assessment tool
developed by Tor View school from research conducted by Professor Barry Carpenter
OBE.
Each school applied its own sub question to work to, in order to meet the different needs of
the separate schools.
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Case Studies:
Tor View Special Community School
Tor View Community Special School is situated on the edge of Rossendale in Lancashire
with views out across open countryside. It has 150 pupils ranging from 3-18 and holds
Specialist Arts College status. It caters for pupils with moderate learning difficulties (MLD)
through to pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD)
Staff involved: Six. In both groups there was a lead teacher and lead teaching assistant
(TA). The lead teachers took on responsibility of planning and the TAs took on the
responsibility of filling out the Engagement sheets. The control group lead teacher was the
Discover and Explore representative and was responsible for putting together the portfolios
for this.
Number of iPads: Ten
Number of pupils in the iPad group: Ten
Sub question: How far and in what ways can we facilitate the development and
retention of new skills to improve learning?
This sub question came from recognising the need for the retention of writing skills
especially in punctuation with use of capital letters. Paul Main informed the staff that he
would look for apps to help with this and described this as “Firing up the neural pathway
through games.”
Each pupil was identified with a specific learning need and set a target and the lead teacher
used the work produced (the eBooks) to assess these targets.
Methodology
Alongside the lead teacher Paul discussed planning of sessions and the suggestion of
making an eBook was taken up enthusiastically. Through this ebook, the pupils would have
the freedom to experiment with apps that Paul found for them and the chance to practice
writing skills, without realising that they were writing. There was recognition from staff that
this would be helpful in the future with the lead teacher saying:
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Lead teacher
I am hoping it will give me the time to try out the apps properly and have an awareness of
all the different programmes – this would be useful to take to outreach in secondary
schools, make me more aware and give me quick ways to search for things. It will make
me use my iPad more for teaching. And hopefully get my assessment results up.
Common themes noted by the lead teacher at the beginning, included a lack of confidence
and pupils not being able to check their work – they are either reluctant to do it or do not
know how to do it. It was hoped that using iPads could promote greater confidence or
eliminate some of the self doubt.
First observation - First session
The first session was used to get a baseline for the engagement sheets so the lead teacher
helped the pupils to choose things they knew they enjoyed doing, therefore the class were
all involved in separate activities and the TA was able to get results of what engagement
looked like for each individual.
2nd Observation – Second session
At this session the students were more used to seeing Paul and trying out the iPads. There
were 8 out of the 10 students present. One student S sits separately during class time from
the rest of the students who were all sitting together with their desks all pushed together.
Paul showed them an app, Spelling Lite and there was an immediate hush as they started
to concentrate. After 10 minutes there was still an interest and a buzz as some were
working at different paces and getting onto different levels so others wanted to see and
know what they were on. 15 minutes in there was still great interest and this continued until
break, when the pupils had to be stopped from working.
Example of engagement
Student (S) with ASD and behavioural problems
S was using her iPad and with her teaching assistant used paper and pad to try to find the
correct spelling. S has written ‘swimming’ clearly on her paper and lasts at this task for 25
mins. Then the TA lets her play for a break on something else.
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The teaching assistant working with S remarked:
Teaching assistant
“It’s really good because it is helping her with her writing without S realising it as her writing
can be problematic.”
We were to see examples of this ‘learning without realising it’, throughout the whole project.
3rd Observation – Final Session
During this session it was really apparent how familiar the pupils had become with the
iPads and levels of concentration and engagement were again high. There was very little
sound in the room as the group worked, heads bent over their iPads and the only talking
was the teacher helping one of the pupils.
Paul was working on their eBook with them and using photographs of them working to add
in. When Paul asked what apps could be used to help with the book one of the boys
immediately called out, “Poplet”, one of the apps they had used previously, showing an
interest and a retention of information. The pupil who sits on her own started the session
outside of the classroom (this was the first day back after half term and it takes this pupil a
while to settle back into class.) She then became interested in what was going on and sat
at her place using the iPad for most of the session. When another pupil joined her at her
desk S looked over at her photos and recognised herself and Paul on a photo which made
her laugh. This was an unexpected engagement and communication from S.
The iPads are all numbered and each pupil was able to recognise which number they used
with one pupil aware of the numbers for practically every member of the group, again
showing an engagement and interest in the iPads and project.
One of the TAs remarked that the class was really helping each other with their tasks. One
of the other boys went over to help one of the girls and her TA who were trying
unsuccessfully to find something and then went straight back to his own task. This young
man had been concentrating very hard on his eBook and his TA remarked:
Teaching assistant
S is now able to ask for help if he gets stuck. He tries things on his own but doesn’t mind
asking for help on it whereas if he was writing, his pen would be down and he would be
looking around the room instead of asking for help.
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Through working on the iPad and being able to experiment, this pupil’s confidence has
grown enough to enable him to ask for help if he needs it. This is something that is
occurring more across the class. Staff also commented that they are able to see
immediately how pupils are getting on as in the case of a partially sighted pupil who was
struggling with work that could then be made bigger for her on the screen, but if she had
been bent over her paper and pen, they may not have realised she was struggling.
Assessment of Targets set
The lead teacher drew up targets for the pupils by marking their current target and giving
them a target to work towards based on their English and writing e.g.:
English writing, (Pupil’s name ) level NCL -2B
Current – To produce writing that conveys meaning making appropriate word choice
Working towards – To order words correctly in writing
Number of pupils who met both targets
4
Number of pupils who met current target
8
Number of pupils who met working towards
target
4
Number of pupils who met working towards
target but inconsistently
3
Number of pupils who met neither target
2
The two pupils who met neither target had been set targets which, once the project moved
on and acquired its own life, were not relevant to them – they however both have surpassed
expectation in what they got out of the project, for instance S in the example above being
able to join in and concentrate on a task for 25 minutes and the other pupil using ideas of
her own to make her eBook.
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Conclusion
During the sessions working with the practitioner the pupils demonstrated skills in being
able to listen, follow instructions and really experiment with the iPads to find out what they
could do for themselves. Behaviour was seen to be very good (at one point in the final
session a TA came in to say she was supposed to be in the class to cover, she looked
around at all the pupils working and concentrating and said, “Well it looks like you don’t
need me” and left. There was an increase in independent learning and the iPads were very
useful for personalised learning as apps and games could be set at different levels to suit
the pupil’s needs. Pupils were asking for help much more than they had done before the
project and were also much more willing to share and help each other out. The iPads were
also making it easier for staff to see what the pupils could and couldn’t do and to be able to
make adjustments to the iPad instantly (see example of partially sighted pupil above). The
pupils looked forward to Paul coming into school and responded to him in a very positive
manner.
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Royal Cross Primary School
Royal Cross is in Preston Lancashire and is Lancashire’s only school for deaf children. It
caters for pupils from ages 4-11.Pupils can travel long distances across Lancashire to
access it. There are currently 24 pupils with a high proportion of boys and a higher than
average number of pupils with English as an additional language.
Staff involved: Three teachers and five TAs
Number of iPads in use – 6 Number of pupils involved - 24
Sub question:
How far can structured ICT workshops and activities develop good communication
and social relationships between deaf children and their families?
This is an important question for Royal Cross as they really wanted to make better
connections with parents, especially fathers. A high proportion of their pupils are from
Asian families and for these families the father tends to be the English speaker and the
more dominant person in the family. There was also a big issue about finding ways for
children to be using technology at home as a tool for communication and not just as a tool
for playing. There was the intention that the children could more fully enter into family life
and by sharing some of the apps in use at school the hope is that parents may feel more
connected to the school. So this project is looking towards the iPad as a tool for
communication not isolation.
Methodology
It took longer than in the other two schools for a clear methodology to be constructed as
there was a long wait for the iPads to arrive in school. The engagement sheets were not
suitable assessment tools for this school as the pupils are generally highly engaged in
learning so Paul helped to develop other methods of assessment and the school is really
keen to develop the iPads to help with assessment. In KS2, the project changed from
working on literacy skills to developing skills in science and this was then assessed using
as assessment programme called Nearpod. In KS1 the time with Paul was spent on
developing skills to form and recognise letters and they experimented with different apps to
enable this to happen. In the last session the pupils worked on finishing off their eBooks
which will form their assessment for Discover and Explore Arts Awards. For the penultimate
session Paul worked with KS1 and with KS2 on the last session. These changes and
occurrences happened as the school and Paul experimented to find the best methods for
working across all four classes as Royal Cross, in order to fulfill their genuine desire for
inclusivity and to engage the parents, decided on a whole school project.
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Alongside Paul working in school, the parent’s strand of the project was very important and
Royal Cross organised three workshop days to involve parents. These workshops were
designated to take place on three Saturdays in May, June and finishing with a social trip in
July. The rationale for choosing a weekend was to enable parents who work during the
week to attend as the school knows that this is a barrier to attendance at events. One of
the other barriers to parental engagement is proximity to school and transport difficulties so
transport costs were built into the project budget to overcome this. As our project was about
communication I constructed three questions to ask some of the parents:
Questions to parents
1. Do you feel you know what your child’s day in school is like when they come home?
2. Do you use Moodle at home (Moodle is the online communication tool for sharing
information between school and home)
3. Do you think the iPad can help with communication between you and your child?
I spoke to three sets of parents directly and observed others working with their children.
Observations
First observation using two borrowed iPads. Session 1
Reception – 3 pupils. The teacher felt it was important to find new ways to deliver literacy
so that the children did not get bored. From this class my main observation was that the
children were engaged when they were in control of the iPad (we were sharing two iPads)
but not interested if someone else had it.
Y1 and Y2, 4 pupils. This class were working on the story of The Hungry Caterpillar in a
very visual way. The children broke at the end and played in the classroom demonstrating
excellent ‘learning through play’ skills – one girl was making sounds down a cardboard tube
and the teacher explained that she is just learning that she can make her own sounds. After
free time Paul introduced the dragon through augmented reality and showed the pictures up
on the whiteboard. Only two pupils were here by this time. The pupil who had been playing
with her voice looked around the classroom for the dragon and hid behind Paul and the
other pupil looked very excited by it. There was a very immediate trust shown towards the
practitioner from these children – when the pupil wanted to hide from the dragon, she chose
Paul to hide behind and not her more familiar teacher. This trust in Paul was an important
part of the project and something that was apparent across all three schools.
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2nd observation Third session
Y1 and Y2 - From this visit I could see independent learning, sharing and the teacher found
it very useful to be able to observe her two new pupils and see what they are capable of
doing as they were working independently and making their own choices.
Teacher
I’ve not had a chance to be able to watch them like this before
Paul had set up some apps for the pupils to use and they enjoyed experimenting as shown
below:
From researcher’s field notes:
“The level of concentration is high – this is over an hour they have been occupied on one
task. They have absolute control over what they are doing – no-one is telling them they
can’t go on things, they are just finding stuff for themselves.”
One boy who had not shown any interest in the iPads in the first session (when there were
only two) sat with his support worker for over an hour looking at the iPad, and with help, he
used his finger to draw letters. This pupil normally moves around a lot and finds it hard to
concentrate due to his needs.
One of the new girls dropped her iPad (the covers for them had not yet arrived) so she was
given another one but was ignoring her instructions to leave it on the desk. She had it
taken from her and then when got it back she played with it until she found a way to take a
photo – while keeping it on the desk – thus demonstrating a way to problem solve! This
child wanted to know ‘Why?’ they had to stop at home time, as she was, in the words of her
teacher “so engrossed”.
3rd observation KS2 Final Session
There are two classes in KS2 and I observed them both on this day. The first class below I
had observed on my first visit prior to the iPads being in school and the second class had
not been observed by me before.
First class
The pupils were immediately showing an excitement that Paul was there and greeted him
with a very enthusiastic “Good Morning Paul”. There were six pupils present but Paul only
dealt with five of them as one of them was not having a good day and was outside for most
of the session. Paul explained that they were going to add labels to the photographs taken
11
by the photographer and the pupils remembered how to add text, talking Paul through it as
he demonstrated on the whiteboard. Paul asked them to download three photos and put
their labels on. During this activity they needed a lot of help but there were no signs of
frustration, the concentration was high and there was an air of excitement and willingness.
As the pupils filled in labels they showed them to Paul very proudly. When they came to
make their second pages, they were working with more confidence and the HLTA in charge
of the group remarked:
HLTA
It’s amazing how quickly they get it and they will remember it.
As the children worked at this activity there was a buzz and chatter – this was the opposite
of what had been happening in Tor View when the pupils were silent in their concentration
and an example of how engagement can be shown in different ways. This ‘noise’ of
working was demonstrating high levels of engagement, excitement and involvement in their
activity and the pupils were very relaxed in this learning.
In the second KS2 group the pupils were more able to work on the task (this is a higher
level class) and Paul realised that they were getting through the photos and labels very
easily so he chose some different activities for a couple of the boys to stretch them further.
This was a demonstration of how the iPads can be used for differentiation instantly. The
class teacher told me of the last lesson Paul was with them when they had been looking at
telling the time:
KS2 teacher on working on the iPads to tell the time
They could all work at their own rate which is what I like about technology, not the same
pressure to keep up with the rest of the world.
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Parent Engagement Workshop
First Workshop
The first workshop was attended by ten families and one of the fathers had never been in
the school before. One of the new pupil’s parents attended, they are both deaf and are
known as having a history of non engagement with schools. This was a very good start to
the workshops and the feedback at the end of the session was that it had been worthwhile
and the parents would like to do similar sessions.
Parents felt they could find out how their child’s day had gone through the Homework book
and through Moodle, which they were all aware of and had started to use it.
Parent comments about Moodle
D (child) controls it all – I find it useful as it links to games and the curriculum.
This comment is an example of how important technology is as a means of communication
between school and home. When asked if they thought that the iPad could improve
communication at home with their children all the parents agreed that they thought it could.
One of the dad’s plays games on the home iPad with his son and during these games his
son will talk to him via the online chat room –even though they are sitting next to each
other. It is a clear and quick form of communication for them and accessible via
technology:
Parent comment
If it wasn’t for digital technology, D would really struggle.
During this workshop parents got the chance to try out some of the apps that the pupils had
been using in school. The iPads were out on a large table in the conference room and
parents and children came in to play on them with the reception teacher, helping and
guiding them on apps. One of the parents was very impressed with some of the work her
son had done using Story Creator and she wanted to know how to get it on her iPad at
home. This parent had accessed funding from the Birkdale Trust to purchase an iPad and
the workshop was an ideal place for her to pass this information on to other parents to
encourage them to apply. Parents swapped information about other apps they had seen or
were using and the feedback at the end of the session was that this opportunity for mixing
and meeting had been very useful. They were also able to make suggestions as to what
would be useful to them and their children with the iPads and one of the suggestions was
that the teacher could film herself doing some signs for new words as the pictures of
signing were often hard to interpret.
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Conclusion
This project became a whole school project as they were so keen to share the iPads across
everyone. Therefore without a control group there can be no comparison to how pupils
progressed doing similar activities without the iPads. However, the enthusiasm across the
school from both staff and pupils has made this a very successful pilot scheme with a
higher level of engagement and involvement from the parents than was expected. KS2
looked at the ways that the iPads were being used in KS1 (as this is a small school, sharing
and best practice is very easily distributed) and KS2 staff decided that they wished to focus
on science and assessment more, rather than stay with KS1 on a focus for letter formation,
writing and literacy. Across both key stages differentiated learning was really important and
the instant access that the iPads can give for this was very apparent.
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Lancasterian School
Lancasterian is based in south Manchester in a highly residential area and is a Special
School for Communication and Interaction. The ages range from two to sixteen and the
school caters for pupils with physical difficulties, severe medical conditions and
communication needs.
Staff involved – Two lead teachers for both groups, five TAs
Number of iPads – Six
Number of pupils in the iPad group: Five
Number of pupils in Control group: Six
Sub question:
How far and in what ways can we facilitate the development of literacy skills in an
enjoyable and transferable way?
The lead teacher felt strongly that iPads could be used for finding different ways of working
and had been using her own iPad with the class to make and tell stories. This teacher
wanted her pupils to be able to explore the iPads and see them as something ‘fun’ and not
necessarily something that was for learning, so she wanted to find ways for the learning to
be hidden in the ‘fun’. This teacher works very creatively to encourage the pupils to
experience different ways of learning – for instance just before this project, the pupils had
been experiencing what it may have been like for Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel
by lying under the tables and painting onto paper pinned to the underside of the desks.
Methodology
The iPads that some of the pupils had at home were very much used for playing games on
so Paul’s aim was to find apps that would help with literacy while ensuring that the pupils
were enjoying using the iPads. Paul and the lead teacher planned sessions together and
decided that one of the ways to develop the literacy skills was to find different ways to
present a story (this reflects one of the needs in Royal Cross at KS1 where the teacher
wanted to find different ways to present literacy.) This class had a lesson with the lead
teacher two days before Paul was due so Paul and the lead teacher decided to use the
lesson on the Monday to present a story with Paul following it up on the Wednesday with
the iPads. The class looked at the Easter story in the first session with the iPads (which
was the second session working with Paul) then moved on to Gulliver’s Travels and then
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they worked on their e books. The control group was following the same lesson plan and
the lead teacher was teaching the control group.
First Observation – First session
The class were learning about Italy and working on a book that was going into a bigger
book of Italy. We did not use the iPads in this session and Paul and I used the session to
get to know the pupils. One of the pupils was excited that he was going to be able to find
out about Italian football and later in the session he brought his work over to show Paul and
me. His teacher explained that this pupil has fantastic verbal skills but can’t transfer them
to his writing so working on the iPad on letter formation would be useful for him.
Second Observation – Third session
The group were working on Gulliver’s Travels and had read the story two days before with
the lead teacher. Paul’s plan was to recap the story and then check their own retelling by
making it into a comic. We started work in one room but soon had to move to another room
for another class and lost some time doing this. However this disruption did not hinder the
engagement nor the enjoyment which was surprising. The pupils settled back to their work
as soon as we were in the other room. Using augmented reality in order to make the
pictures small to the pupils, Paul showed pictures of the story and the pupils took it in turns
to look:
Student responses to Gulliver’s Travels Augmented Reality
Pupil male 1: Oh my God!
Pupil male 2: I couldn’t believe my eyes!
The pupils eagerly swapped the pictures around to try them out and Paul let them know that
they would be making comics next. (We had to move again at this point but as before, the
move did not disrupt the concentration)
Now working in the studio everyone settled on the floor apart from Pupil male 1 (above)
who chose a chair and Paul started them all with the app, Comic Life. J called me over to
help and at this point we were all struggling to put the title in and needed Paul to help us.
One boy said it was hard to do and Pupils male 1 and I found our writing went into the title
not the speech bubble. There were no signs of frustration at this though, each student
waited very patiently for Paul to come and help . The photos I took show concentration and
engagement.
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Teaching assistant and student during Comic Life building
Do you like the iPads (Name)?
Yes
Do you like writing on them?
Yes
The TA told us that it is hard for the students to associate the iPad with anything but games
so using it as a tool for writing was unusual. Paul finished the session with them doing
some games of their choice. This was a session with very high levels of concentration.
There was also a huge amount of trust and acceptance from the pupils as they looked to
Paul for help and encouragement and were also asking me for help. After this session the
pupils were very keen to take their teacher back to the room to show her ‘the little people”
they had seen on the augmented reality and the teacher then built on this idea and brought
in Little People toys which they used to photograph and make Gulliver books on the iPad.
These books were done alongside the control group as one big group and the lead teacher
observed the iPad group sharing their new found skills with their peers and helping them.
This was unexpected behaviour as the pupils do not normally share their work or expertise
with each other.
Third Observation – final session
During this session the pupils continued using Comic Life and used the images that the
photographer had taken to make ebooks. One of the boys was having a slightly difficult day
and lost one of his rewards from his TA. Paul changed his activity for him immediately as he
wanted to “Do it myself” and the boy was delighted to be on an app where he could record
his voice (Story Robe) over his pictures and be more in control of what he was doing. One
of the other boys opened Tellegami (one of the apps they had been using) and started to
write a story with the sentence:
Example of pupil’s sentence writing
I am writing on the iPad.
By choosing his app and way of writing his story, this pupil was showing his independence
and his ability to choose his own way of learning.
Again, as in the session I had previously been in, we had to move rooms but the pupils
coped with this in a very mature and sensible manner and as soon as we settled in our new
area, they got straight back to their eBooks. One of the pupils in the iPad group is regularly
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removed from lessons for behaviour problems. Of the six sessions with Paul he only had to
be removed once which was a strong sign from him that he was engaging well.
The lead teacher has been able to encourage fine motor skills through the use of the iPads
– they are much more accessible to her students than the computers and one pupil loves to
do jigsaws which he can’t manage with his motor skills so is really enjoying being able to do
them on the iPad.
Conclusion
The lead teacher had been keen to ensure that the iPads would be seen as something to
be enjoyed and the pupils had no problems seeing them as that. They did see them as
something for games and through the apps that Paul choose for them and the activities he
planned for them, these games continued, while also encouraging the pupils to write and
experiment with words. As with Tor View, we were seeing the pupils ‘learning without
realising it’. During morning sessions with their teacher, if the students saw the iPads out on
the tables they would go straight to the tables to do their spellings so that they could then
go on the iPads. This was a big change but the iPads acted as an incentive fro the pupils to
get their spellings done. The lead teacher was in charge of the Control group and when she
worked with them on making books on the iPads, the iPad group were very helpful in
sharing their skills and encouraging their peers.
The iPads have had an effect on behaviour as concentration is high and the pupils are
really enjoying using them and gaining independence with their work. This has also helped
their motivation (see spelling example above) Confidence has grown as the results of what
the pupils are doing are so visual and immediate that they can see their work and then
show it very proudly to others, as well as being able to help others find ways to access the
iPads.
In terms of future work in Lancasterian the lead teacher feels that the school will probably
buy more iPads and is looking at them across the whole school, with a project currently
taking place with iPads in Nursery.
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Conclusion to report
The ‘Messiness’ of Research
This report, as detailed above, has been developed in order to put together the findings
from the Techno - ABLE project and as it has been collected and edited by the author, it
becomes a subjective piece of work which is one of the many criticisms of qualitative social
research. In writing and collecting the data I have tried to remain unbiased and open to
what I have been observing. I have copious field notes I have studied at great length to
look for themes across all the schools, themes in each school and answers to the questions
we asked and in this search for answers have often found myself and the data asking more
questions! Research is messy – I may be expecting to find something out and I am led in a
completely different direction by my subject – it is this messiness that brings the research to
life for me. I am looking at real people, children, teachers, parents, practitioners, a moment
in someone’s life and not looking at a neat row of figures that I expect to give me neat
answers at the Total column at the bottom. It is this realness and congruence from the
participants that makes research alive for me but also what makes it difficult sometimes to
piece succinctly together.
All three schools are very different and in each school there are a multitude of differences of
needs in the pupils so this research is in many ways about three separate projects, with, in
Royal Cross, another three separate projects, all under the banner of our one question:
How can we improve pupil engagement and progress through the use of
creative technology?
The two factors that remained constant across the schools were:
1. The iPads
2. Paul Main, the practitioner
The iPads caused an excitement and engagement from the start – they had the Novelty
Factor to start with so engagement was quite high from the beginning, what became
apparent though, was that this engagement was something real and not something that
occurred just because the activities were new. This is an important finding as it is the
engagement that will help to sustain this work and carry this project forward. Through being
engaged pupils have been able to show progression not only in terms of literacy skills (for
instance the letter formation, forming sentences, writing with capital letters) but in terms of
personal skills and behaviours.
Concentration has been very high throughout the project and pupils have demonstrated
clearly that they have been learning through the fun and enjoyment of the iPads. Pupils are
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able to remember the names of apps, to choose appropriate apps for specific pieces of
work, to be able to share their work with staff and peers and to take great pride in that
sharing. There has been far more independent learning occurring and pupils have been
able to correct their work without their peers knowing what they are doing which has
produced a surge of confidence – this confidence is being seen through pupils actually
asking for help when they need it. To aid this independence the iPads have been used to
help with differentiated learning and this has been done quickly and with minimal disruption
as pupils are working – apps can be changed, levels set differently to accommodate various
needs, all to benefit the pupil and empower them at their level.
None of this could have happened though without Paul who had the technical capacity to
be able to experiment and find apps suitable for the users. Paul was an essential part of
the process, instilling enthusiasm and understanding of the iPads across staff and students
and making the learning accessible for everyone. Several staff members have purchased
iPads for themselves and their families at home after working with Paul.
Many of these outcomes have reached across all three schools and figure 1 on the
following page shows this clearly.
Figure 1
Willingness to
help each
other
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Improvements
Increased
The project has changed in many ways from its beginning concept as each school used it
to shape to the needs of their learners and this adaptability will ensure that there is no ‘end’
to this project. The possibilities with the iPads or the next revolution of software is infinite
and our learners on the Techno-ABLE project will benefit from these possibilities immensely
and use them to enable them to expand their life chances and to give them the opportunity
to live a fulfilling and creative life.
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