Feb 26 2012
Initial Questionnaire Results Are In – Grade 11’s Speak About Their Thoughts to iPAD Program
As part of the careful and considered phasing in of the iPAD programme with Grade 11 – DP1 IB Diploma Students. Each student was asked to fill in an initial questionnaire after they had been involved in the training workshops, signed the Code of Conduct and setup certain applications on their home computer ready for Cloud use. Below are some on the insights to the questionnaire which hint at some interesting points that we will hope to come back to as we monitor the development of the programme over the coming months.
Initial questions involved looking at how in general students would think that the iPAD would impact on their learning. Probably due to the obvious keenness of students to be involved in the programme 81% of students suggested that the iPAD will not be a distraction to their learning. The emphasis during training and introduction to the programme was very much about the responsibility being placed upon the students to follow the code of conduct and use the tool responsibly so over coming weeks went a elicit teacher feedback it will be interesting to see their viewpoints. The potential of the iPAD after the workshops was shown in many comments from students – following similar lines to the following:- ” I already utilize flashcards for memorization in German, Science, History, and sometimes English, but it takes ages to make all of the flash cards. Having them in my iPad will make my studying 60% easier. It would also be pretty grade to carry the iPad while I’m doing a presentation. Having the notes on the iPad somehow seems better then holding ten pieces of paper with notes scribbled down. Also it will be very handy in art because when I need to draw something I can just Google image it and draw it from the iPad instead of wasting paper printing so many things.”
It was good to see that the workshop sessions were deemed useful – as it was very important to make sure that students connected the tool with their learning and increased productivity.
Even though use of shortcuts is a very simple tool – is was important to see if students had understood the principle as it will be important in overall use when coming to such skills as: – checking CAS in ManageBAC, citing sources in Noodletools, accessing Forum that they utilise this facility.
A number of applications were demonstrated to them including Notability, A+Flashcards Pro and initial feedback from the questionnaire shows that many students have not only downloaded but understood how they can be utilised in a productive way. Of interesting note is the slightly more mixed feedback to the note-taking apps and specifically Notability which does indicate the major culture change for students to move to this sort of tool. Although it might also suggest that pen and paper is still the most useful?
An essential part of the introduction to the iPADs was the understanding of their new school Google accounts and how this can be used in a number of ways. This included the sharing of a Grade 11 Google Calendar which would have all of the students deadlines and major events for their academic year alongside their own personal calendar. 97% saw this as an immediate benefit and eventually if this is embedded within the use by faculty could really revolutionise the use of the calendar.
There was encouraging comments from students in this section as well including :- “It is much easier to access documents and it’s a lot more efficient in that I don’t have to lug my laptop around everywhere or remember where my USB stick is. It’s also easier to make edits without having to update files on multiple devices.”
The Google Docs use and response I believe is not to be fully taken as correct as many students when asked in face-to-face meetings had had little experience or understanding for cloud based documents – so I believe the question was probably answered if for example they had used GMAIL before. After this questionnaire recently I have demonstrated the use of Google documents in conjunction with the development of the Extended Essay and it will only be through feedback from Extended Essay supervisors that I can gain a more realistic view into students understanding and usage of GDOCs.
Final points of note were related to the use of Dropbox – which I feel is essential for students to understand the workflow from desktop to iPAD through use of cloud based storage and although response was 78% suggesting use I believe this is a significant enough proportion that this understanding and skill set will spread through the Grade 11’s.
Many students have already identified areas to target use including:-
“Biology – have a digital copy of my diagrams (using notability) so that it will never be lost! Also, if anyone misses a class, I can email notes to them and/or upload them to Dropbox.”
“Within French I will now be able to connect to relevant websites that she suggests to access during class, look at French news regularly with the Apps I downloaded in order to stay up to date with current events, and use the French/English and Verb dictionaries downloaded on my iPad to have reference material for in and out of class.”
The potential is definitely there – so do call back to the weblog regularly over the coming months to see if that potential is realised. All the results and feedback can be viewed from the following link – Grade 11 iPAD Introduction Questionnaire responses.
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