I C T M AT T E R S
CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL APPROACHES
TECHNO GEEK
It’s T ime to ‘Think Different’
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Remember the time in school when you had to use different devices for carrying out planning, gathering information and task management? NIGEL MILLIGAN does, and he wants schools to know there is a better way
think back to the days when I was based in the nursery at the first primary school I was working in. We had to gather evidence and record everything onto a spreadsheet to see the progress of the children. This involved gathering lots of comments written on Post-it notes, offloading photos from digital cameras and then printing them off to add into each child’s evidence file all very time-consuming. In 2010 when the very first iPad was launched, I proposed the idea of using iPads to cut down the processes above by recreating the evidence files for each child in the Evernote App. Straight away the time and cost saving benefits showed. There was also the ability to allow others in the school to view the evidence using the collaboration options at the time. This was a very innovative period when many challenges started to be solved using the iPad. It wasn’t too long before the school realised the power of iPad use across the school. This led to a full 1:1 roll out for all staff and pupils.
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Summer Term 2025: Issue 3
USES BEYOND CONSUMPTION When the iPad was first introduced it had a very mixed reception. Not everyone understood the huge list of benefits that it offered. The first big win for our school was the fact that the iPad was instantly usable without wasting time. One of the biggest criticisms of the iPad was that it would only ever be good for consumption of content and not for creating content. The iPad sits perfectly in the range of task complexity versus task duration as per the following three device types: ● Mobile Phones - Small tasks / Short duration ● iPad - Mid size tasks / Medium duration ● Traditional Computers - complex tasks / Longer duration When you factor in all the apps and features that the iPad provides along with a long battery life and the ability to take it anywhere in school, it leaves the world of laptops behind. There are so many creative uses for the iPad and when used with a stylus such as