LindaLocke

Hi I'm Linda and I teach ICT at a Primary School - that involves ICT integration, staff and pupil training support. I also run adult training courses part time. I'm from Durban, South Africa.

I forgot my passcode for the school ipad and unfortunately lost everything because according to the techs I consulted we had to reset it and start over. It would have been a good idea if it were synched with another itunes or icloud account as backup.

Does anyone have a suggestion for us? We have been looking at different interactive teaching options, but there are so many factors at play. At the moment, teachers have either SMART interactive boards or data projectors. We have a few things to consider: teachers feel that they do not want to be confined to the front of the classroom when they teach, so we are considering interactive projectors. We will be using iPads in the near future, so it has to be compatible with that. We had a demo interactive projector but couldn’t connect iPads to it and maintain the interactivity – as soon as one exited iProject, one lost the interactive ability. It also didn’t come with an educational suite, which meant that we still had to purchase e.g. math teaching tools etc.. The tablet that could connect remotely to the interactive projector was quite pricey. Apple TV and a conversion cable to the projector works for remote interactivity with an iPad, but then one loses interactivity on the board. Does anyone use iPads with interactive white boards? And if so, can one use them remotely (from anywhere in a classroom)? Will appreciate advice.

I teach ICT at an all girls Primary School in South Africa. Our aim has certainly been to push ICT tools into the classroom and to move away from ICT lessons that are unrelated to what students do in other subjects. We have found that we still need to have a suite where I will teach certain skills, applications or concepts, which the students can choose from to apply. The students would often start work in the "lab", and then they can then carry on working on the shared netbooks that they have in their classrooms. (The Year 6 & 7 classes each have a bank of netbooks that connect wirelessly to the network.) We have just installed wireless access point in the suite as well so that we can use laptops there as well as the PCs. There are also many teaching aids that we are acquiring, e.g. digital microphones, easy to use video cameras, etc.. We are also looking into buying iPADS but there are still some issues that we need to resolve with regard to bulk licensing. We have bought an iPAD for each phase so that teachers can experiment, but I believe that the beauty of iPADs for teachers is that it is a very personal device and is better used when it can be set up to synch to one's personal iTunes account. Free apps sometimes have limitations and the school does not yet have a payment structure in place for the purchasing of apps. Even in the Primary school, the girls have access to cell phones and teachers have integrated these in lesson where it was appropriate. In the Foundation phase, we find that we still need to teach skills, so the ICT lessons are very structured, but again based on what the teachers are doing in their classes. Each classroom has an interactive white board or a data projector which the teachers use. I agree with previous contributors that schools must steer away from making blanket decisions, e.g. out with all ICT suites, or out with Windows, only use Apple, etc.. We really should get to a stage where we select the right tool for the job, much like we use a pair of scissors when we want to cut a small thing and a guillotine when we cut in bulk...one does not exclude the other.