Founded in 2003, DPS a private school for 3- to 18-year-olds, at Surat in southern Gujarat, has 4,400 students of both sexes, and is affiliated to 123 other schools in the Delhi Public School Society. Like its sister schools, DPS Surat is committed to exploring new ways to keep improving students’ personal learning experience.
Technology has been important in the school’s quest for new teaching and learning techniques. Starting in 2010, teachers used Mac to develop podcasts based on lesson content, working with Aperture, Final Cut Pro and iLife. “It was a defining moment for the school,” says the Principal, G R Sivakumar.
“We got a first taste of developing our own learning content with Mac,” he says. “Apple’s creative tools were easy for teachers to use, and helped enhance lessons. We also got a sense of how powerful those tools could be in the hands of students. Giving access to digital tools would help them focus directly on their own learning needs, not just consume content provided by teachers. Students would also grasp important skills for the world of work.”
With the introduction of iPad, Sivakumar immediately noticed its potential use in education. He saw iPad as an opportunity to promote personalised learning for many of the school’s students. iPad offered a cost-effective and mobile solution for a big school with limited resources.
“Teachers began using the iLife suite, Final Cut Pro and Aperture to develop and edit impressive multimedia content for their own classwork,” G R Sivakumar, Principal, DPS Surat.
All 200 teachers were given an iPad to use in or out of school to research and develop lesson material. Two iPad ‘creativity’ labs were set up as development centres where children as young as three can get hands-on experience of creating their own project work or can access apps.
“There is never a doubt which lesson has involved using iPad,” says Mr Sivakumar. “We see very young children’s skill levels in maths and reading rising fast because they are so stimulated by the content they can access and what they can do for themselves. They are also much more confident in working with each other. They share each other’s success, and enjoy showing each other how to use an app.”
For older children, some of the most basic learning tasks — such as learning the periodic table — have suddenly become great fun. History is now a much more popular subject, teachers say, because students are involved in creating content — making movies with iMovie, for example, building their own text books with iBooks Author, and researching content with Safari.
With iPad used effectively in school, Mr Sivakumar wanted to encourage its availability as an ‘anytime/anywhere’ learning device. Parents had been impressed by their children’s improved motivation in class. So teachers held workshops called ‘iPad at home’, directed at parents, to explain how children could explore their learning using iPad outside the school gates.
“Many parents purchased iPads for their children after just one year of using it in school,” says Mr Sivakumar. “One of the markers of iPad’s success is that children want to use it all the time. If a student has a personal iPad to take home, the learning benefits can be unlimited.”
“India is not the most advanced user of digital technology, but I believe that in five years’ time we will not see children carrying books around school any more. iPad will generate all the great content we need to support the curriculum, and it will be easy to transport and access that content. It will also equip students for tomorrow’s work opportunities, and give them a major advantage in the highly competitive Indian jobs market.”
“We first saw the iPad as a simple tool for teachers to present content. Then we recognised how children could create fantastic material for every subject as part of their assignments, use powerful apps to make subject learning much easier and give them new hands-on digital experience. Now the iPad has led us into a great partnership with parents, ” says Sivakumar.
The impact of iPad on learning has been significant. Throughout the school, students have become more engaged with each subject, and able to find answers to their own individual learning challenges in their own ways.
“Students and teachers have found iPad easy to use from the start,” says Mr Sivakumar. “That means they can concentrate more on content and presentation than on technology — and it’s important in growing their confidence in using digital tools.”
