Teachers tour paperless school

TECH TOUR: Leigh Perry, Greytown Primary School assistant principal, left, and fellow teacher Rachel Burt have just returned from a two-week study tour in the US that focused on the use of Apple computer technology in the classroom. PHOTO/NATHAN CROMBIEWTA160514NCIPAD

A pair of Greytown Primary School teachers are fresh back from a US study tour that opened their eyes to the advent of digital classrooms and paperless schools.

Leigh Perry, Greytown Primary School assistant principal and new entrants teacher, and Year 3 and 4 teacher Rachel Burt visited elementary, middle and high schools in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco as part of a touring contingent of a dozen Kiwi educators studying the classroom use of computers like Apple laptops and iPads.

One of two facilitators on the tour was Masterton educator Innes Kennard, Ms Perry said.

Ms Burt and Ms Perry will help guide the every use of Apple devices at the Greytown Primary School, where the technology was introduced about six years ago. Apple devices are today used throughout all classes at the school with senior students each using an Apple computer every school day.

"We've always been an Apple school. Today it's not necessarily one-to-one for every pupil but every pupil in the school does use an Apple laptop or iPad daily," Ms Burt said.

"One of my main things was that whole global connection. The kids over there wanted to know about New Zealand and straight away they went on Google maps and we zoomed in on our school in Greytown.

"Using blogs and maps and using the technology, not necessarily just in their own classrooms, expands to the whole world outside."

Ms Burt said a traditional classroom activity such as writing may be expanded to comprise online blogs, or commentary, that include multimedia elements like images and video, and "it makes writing real - for a purpose and for an audience".

She said senior students at the school were blogging and posting online comment on peer blogs, although she was so far uploading her students work to the net.

"Blogging is something we will be looking at though, definitely."

Ms Perry said that as a teacher of the junior classes, she found one of the more exciting facets of the study tour was discovering "the range of applications younger students could use independently".

The group also visited Monte Vista High School in San Francisco that was fully digital and completely paperless.

"For me personally its not where I want to go, but for some a paperless school is the future. The school had no library as such anymore, it was a student hangout room. Students would go to the library to pick out a Kindle (digital file). They do all their reading on a Kindle," she said.

Teachers from the high school were to tour some New Zealand schools on a future visit.

Ms Perry said the tour underlined the fact "that this is the world the students live in - we cant teach the children for the world that we've come from, we have to teach them for the world they're in and the world they're going to".

The digital classroom also was distinguished by the wealth of information and learning opportunities that were offered regardless of decile ratings, she said.

The pair said the tour group also had enjoyed the rare privilege of breakfast at the Apple Inc. headquarters in Cupertino, California.

"The entire tour was an amazing opportunity and we were very fortunate to be offered the chance."