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IT’S A SCENARIO about as removed from the traditional classroom as most of us can imagine.
At the start of a lesson, instead of taking out books, copies, and pens, a classroom full of students reaches into their bags and pulls out iPads.
That’s what one Irish start-up is aiming to be a part of aPperbook, based in Dublin’s digital hub, is a platform for delivering school books to tablet devices.
“It’s the complete replacement with digital content”, explains co-founder Ruth MacPartlin.
The digital education revolution is already more advanced in Ireland than many would think, she explains, with 15% of Irish classrooms already switching to e-books and tablets in favour of books.
When it’s done well, MacPartlin and co-founder Liam Twomey say, the educational and lifestyle rewards for students are easy to see. Lighter bags make more room for larger, healthier lunches and sports gear, while interactive learning materials improve exam scores.
However, it’s not as simple as pushing a button, they argue. And in Ireland, there’s no guarantee that progress to date is going to be built on.
The LA tale
Transitioning to paperless classrooms can be a fraught process. Education systems are complicated places, with lots of stakeholders – teachers, students, parents and education boards, to name but a few.
Simply throwing money – or iPads – at a problem is unlikely to make it disappear. A recent attempt to roll out tablet-based learning in Los Angeles proves this, MacPartlin says.
“Thousands of iPads were rolled out where they hadn’t done professional development with the teachers, yet the applications were quite complicated and were changing significantly how they did their lesson plans – and they rushed it, so the content wasn’t ready.”
It’s a cautionary tale that Irish educators should be aware of, Twomey says.
“We had the ICT co-ordinator of one of the largest schools in Ireland in for a meeting, and she put across straight away that teachers are suffering from change fatigue.”
“You’re expecting teachers to manage the change infrastructure within the schools, that’s not good enough”, MacPartlin adds.
There’s disruption on the technology side, there’s disruption on the teaching methods that digital can deliver, and there’s disruption in terms of national teaching systems too.
On top of these challenges, the pair rate the poor standard of broadband infrastructure as one of the main factors holding back development of the digital classroom in Ireland. The fledgling company’s best customers are in fact in emerging economies like South Africa and Brazil.
“The opportunity in these emerging economies is already bigger than the UK and US. They can leapfrog us. It’s like in Eastern Europe with their internet connectivity – they’re way ahead of us because they put it in so late in the noughties and the nineties”, explains MacPartlin.
They can look at what’s out there, what’s best in class in the market, and learn from others’ mistakes.
The Irish experience
How can Ireland avoid mistakes and build on the progress it’s made in the last three or so years, since the first paperless classrooms were introduced?
The major risk at the moment, according to Twomey, is rolling out digital services without any central policy to support it.
The Government is currently consulting on a digital education strategy, but in the meantime, it comes down to whether individual principals push paperless classrooms in their schools.
“There’s no official policy in terms of mandating what it does or doesn’t have to be used. You’ve got a principal who may or may not understand exactly what they’re taking on board. There’s no standardised way of rolling it out from a departmental point of view.”
According to Twomey, a concentrated effort needs to be made across the education system if the benefits of paperless classrooms are to be realised.
“There’s the providers of the content, the publishers, they need to see that they’re going to make money from generating interactive content…then you’ve got the teachers, who are a key actor in terms of changing the way they’ve learned to teach courses…then parents, government and broadband infrastructure.”
If the paperless classroom is to become a reality across Ireland, it seems that lot of moving parts need to operate in unison if we’re too see the arrival of the paperless classroom.
This month’s theme on TheJournal.ie’s SME hub is the Education sector.
They don’t build things there like the Romans did to last for millenia.
@Tim McCormack29: Not when the Mafia is building it.
@Pat Lonergan: smug and ignorant comment, some knowledge of topography rather than Netflix would be a plus.
Never happened before……must be climate change,
@Eugene Conroy: comment deleted for stating climate has been changing since year dot !!!
@SF Knee Knockers: two words! “Happening faster”. Try and keep up.
@Paul Furey: faster than what…earth billions of years old..human records only for a few 100 years…climate has been changing forever.. faster slower faster.
Ligurian infrastructure is in such a state. No area of europe has suffered so much with bridge collapses despite the fact that they pay the highest road tolls in Europe, and most of the motorways there consist vastly of viaducts like this, which were said to have been audited after the last collapse.
@.: it’s probably the most corrupt country in the Europe. Millions of EU grant money has just disappeared into black holes and is untraceable.
@Conoroconnor: I read about how mafia ran most of the construction in certain parts of Italy. Never had any competition so they where awarded all the civil contracts.
@Conoroconnor: as an Italian myself I am afraid I have to agree. Left Italy decades ago but very little seems to have changed and corruption seems still incredibly widespread
@Robbie Clancy: No5nonly that but they provided sub-standard concrete and Steele to state projects and in turn bribed construction standards authority overseers to turn a blind eye. Modern Italy is crumbling. The motorways are the worst in western Europe.
@Attilio: the thing is, I love italy. A truly beautiful country with some of the most unspoiled countryside, incredible old walled towns, lovely people and the best food in the world. Such a shame.
@Conoroconnor: well then jump in your Ferrari and enjoy some of the best roads, best scenery, best food by a mile, wine and best people. I’m not Italian but I have family there and I dislike it being disparaged despite it being 10 times the country ours is.
@Mike McGann: most of my italian friends would agree with my assessment of the corruption. Like I said, it’s a pity because it is otherwise such a great country & great people I’m not saying we are that much better, by the way. but I spoke with people in Apulia who were in awe of how Ireland has used it’s a EU Grant’s for redevelopment over the years, as over there the money just disappears with little or no obvious development having taken place. The mechanisms of the Italian state have also taken bureaucracy to a whole new level. These are the faults with the place, but I really love Italy and its people. In many ways, public transport for example, ithey way ahead of us. By the way, I go cycling there once a year and their smaller roads are in as bad of condition as ours, if not worse.
@Conoroconnor: Great country. I’m regularly there. Was only there last week. I’m I correct in saying this road from Genoa to Ventimiglia was constructed not long after WW2 originally. Are some of these structures from the 50s & 60s?
For those putting this down to poor Italian infrastructure, this is also happening in the French Alps where least 2 people have died. There is an unprecedented level of flooding happening. Put this together with Venice recently and parts of England that experienced an absolute monumental deluge, and you have a pattern of highly unusual weather events that are fully predicted by climate change.
https://amp.breakingnews.ie/world/two-dead-as-floods-hit-france-and-italy-966261.html
@Paraic: You must be racking up the brownie points with Cookie and Dana at Skeppie Science.
@Tommy Roche: How many troll accounts is it now that you’ve racked up?
better get used to it whatever the reason the climate is a changing.
Made with mafia Concrete!!!!!!
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