Classroom iPad use: how it helps students’ results, and how schools cap screen time to avoid internet addiction
- Teachers share their experiences of using iPads to help pupils learn, and of how to avoid children having excessive screen time, in part by involving parents
- Children are spending more time on electronic devices, a recent Hong Kong government survey found
On a recent weekday afternoon, a Primary Six student in a Hong Kong school gave a crisp and confident presentation on a robot that could double up as a smoke detector. With the help of an iPad, she explained the creative process that went into her invention that could sense any object that comes within its vicinity before setting off an alarm with flashing red lights.
Welcome to the Apple Education Summit. Her school is one of a few in Hong Kong that have enrolled in the global “1:1 iPad” programme that gives students their own digital tablet solely for the purpose of learning. It also helps raise awareness among parents that their children might be spending too much time staring at screens.
Helen Kelly, the principal of Canadian International School, which began bringing the iPad into classrooms in 2009, says it is always challenging to bring parents on board, as many work with computers themselves and are mindful about their children’s screen time.
Some 32 per cent of the children believed they slept less because of the internet, 39 per cent said the habit had affected their academic performance, and 51 per cent said there were more family quarrels as a result.