iPads aid in curriculum differentiation (Photo: Lexie Flickinger)
Using iPads in classrooms can help teachers cater to the individual learning needs of their students, according to a leading educational technology researcher.
Dr Kate Highfield, Lecturer and Researcher at the Institute of Early Childhood, said one of the key benefits of using iPads in classrooms was that it allows teachers to differentiate the curriculum very quickly and easily.
“In a classroom children are not a homogenous bunch of learners, they are all at different ages and stages,” Dr Highfield said.
“If we use the device creatively and well, we can cater to the needs of those children at their own level and at their own stage,” she said.
Ms Catherine Maimone-Crowhurst, Director of Early Learning to Year 6 at Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak, said her staff found multiple benefits in using iPads to meet individual students needs.
“The iPad allows for discretion, so that within a classroom students wont know the exact level that the other students are working at,” Ms Maimone-Crowhurst said.
Ms Maimone-Crowhurst said the iPad provided an alternative means for students to demonstrate their learning.
“It is the intuitiveness of the technology, they can just pick it up and start using it,” she said.
Dr Wayne Warburton, Deputy Director of the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University, said that while moderate use of technology was unlikely to be harmful, it was important to ensure balance with offline activities.
“In terms of the developing brain, a really crucial time is that time in early puberty where children have a huge amount of hormonal influences, there are lots of social pressures on them, and their brain is wiring up at a furious rate,” he said.
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