An Apple a day: How Steve Jobs revolutionized children's education
Much has already been said about Steve Jobs’ exponential contribution to modern life as we know it today. What most parents may not yet know is how teachers and students have creatively used these tools to understand the world better in infinitely fun and engaging ways.
In First World schools, the paradigm of education has already shifted from one that is dependent on teacher talk to one where students are the primary agents of learning. Unfortunately, in Third World countries like the Philippines, this has been hard to implement due to a large class size, which is true even in prestigious schools. However, with the introduction of the Apple computers in the classroom, teachers now could find ways to make a classroom of 40 students be as individualized as possible.
From personal experience, with the help of Apple applications like Garage Band and iTunes, my students were able to experience first-hand, how to create short story podcasts by easily interweaving their recorded voices to available sound effects and background music. What’s more, they didn’t need to wait for a teacher to receive feedback. Students will just play back what they have recorded, assess their fluency, pronunciation, and enunciation, and thanks to the ease of splitting, looping, and splicing, students take the initiative to recreate scenes until they are satisfied and convinced they will do well vis-a-vis the teacher’s standards. Through these examples, my students and I were able to experience the shift from test paper instruction to authentic and real-life project- based learning.
Equally important, thanks to Apple computers’ features, all these complex projects were done with the least amount of work, thus ensuring students were engaged and not intimidated by challenging activities.
Another practical application I used in my class was transforming student essays to imitate real-life publications and journals. Through the office application, Pages and the fantastic ability of Apple programs to drag-and-drop pictures and videos into documents, students’ essays come alive with illustrations and references to embedded videos that support the topic of their essays. My students are then able to learn the value of having a good presentation to reinforce content in their essays, and acknowledge the importance of citing sources in their essays to build credibility and reader-engagement.
These are just examples from my own ideas. A quick look at the Internet reveals how teachers around the world have used Apple technology to improve learning. Other schools have expanded the modes of their literary canons to audiobooks and digital print. As a result, young people have started to enjoy reading again. The usual roadblocks to reading are reinforced by the computers’ features. Unfamiliar words reveal their meaning through an easy three-finger click shortcut to Dictionary. Dull, small book fonts could easily be customized to make the text larger and more visually appealing. Textual allusions to events or other works of art are not dismissed but conveniently researched using the Internet. Most important of all, students get to share their reactions to what they read, proving their interest in literature and building a culture of reading and collaborative discussion. A few years ago, PC computers may have made reading less interesting, but Apple computers have brought back its value and importance by thinking of the students and readers’ needs first.
A language arts and literature teacher’s use of technology is just a drop in the ocean. Other teachers from other subject areas have utilized Apple’s thousands of learning applications to make their subjects easier to learn. And thanks to the portability of Apple gadgets, learning on the go is a viable alternative to computer games and listening to music. Most touching also is how special education teachers have used applications to communicate more with students with intellectual disabilities. One can just imagine the breakthroughs happening when special ed teachers share how their students have learned better and shared more of themselves through assistive gaming and technology.
In a field that is mostly conservative and takes ages to reinvent itself, Steve Jobs has rubbed off his passion for innovation on the field of education by encouraging students to lead their own learning. In doing so, he has made learning cool and relevant to the computer and touch generation students of today.
