JOHN HENRY NEWMAN CATHOLIC COLLEGE CASE STUDY impact of the iPad in SEN SEN Team

THE CHALLENGE: Why did you want to use the iPads?

The SEN Department chose to focus their use of iPads on interactive skills; the key outcome and objectives of this being that content is more accessible for young learners. The iPads are also used to support independent and collaborative learning, assisting students to structure and review their work and monitor their own progress during lessons. The main objective for using iPads during lessons is to support and improve literacy and numeracy skills; they are used with a variety of cohorts, ranging from years 7-11, specifically to support low attaining and SEN students. One of the College graduate coaches has used the iPad to promote student-led learning and understanding of key vocabulary. This focused on generating mind maps to describe characters from a key text. Another is using them to create quizzes and record ideas as well make animations to show understanding of a text. To support certain learners in science, a periodic app has been used to help students understand atomic structure with students communicating their understanding using educreations.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE: What did you do?

One example of how the iPad was used during a lesson is using the Popplet application to display a thought cascade. Mrs. D Marlow used the iPad during a session with a year 9 dyslexic pupil. The pupil used Popplet after reading a book, displaying his notes on the book in a flow diagram using the application. Another example is using Educreations to upload tutorials for students struggling to grasp a concept during the lesson. The tutorials can be uploaded online so students can access them at home, watch them and then use them to practice and improve key concepts. Educreations has also been used to develop maths intervention

strategies and an example of one of the grad team is described below. The SEN is also a centre of excellence for support for autistic students. The teacher who leads this facet of the SEN provision has developed several iPad based strategies for dealing with communications issues, one of which is described below.

IMPACT: WHAT DIFFERENCE HAS THIS MADE?

The iPads have made a significant difference to the attitude and behavior of young students. Students see the iPads as a reward and a treat, using them in the learning environment is something they enjoy and look forward to. This makes students more engaged during the lesson but more importantly gives them something to look forward to and there are plenty of individual learners whose work has really come as result of the work carried out. One of the graduate coaches has described the activities planned as improving behaviour for learning because the students are excited to use them.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OF A YOUNG PERSON(S) WHO HAS BENEFITTED FROM PARTICIPATING IN THE CASE STUDY?
One example is the year 9 dyslexic pupil who used the Popplet application to produce a flow diagram of notes based on a book he was reading. The Popplet application supported his spelling in addition to improving his confidence. The student is not confident with his handwriting and this can affect his attitude towards writing. Using the iPad to type his thoughts improved his attitude and made him more confident in expressing his ideas. His work is displayed in one the videos below. Lewis y94, MELP 5b achieving level 6c work now in atomic structure.

QUOTES ENDORSING IMPACT

Great stuff and I love using the iPads Aw Miss can we put that into a popplet! Are we using the iPads today? One of my year 10 students was shocked to find out Id recorded our conversation using educreations. However, he came to use this again next lesson to understand what he had to do in a related task.