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| School lends pupils iPhones to use as educational tools |
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Most schools outlaw mobile phones in the classroom to keep distractions to a minimum. But Gumley House Convent School in West London is taking a different approach - and actively encouraging their use as a teaching aid. Thirty pupils at the girls' school have been lent the latest iPhones topped up with £15 credit to enable them to buy educational software. Applications available on the device, so-called 'apps', include the periodic table, Shakespeare, GCSE history, algebra, Bible studies and maths. Pupils at the state school taking part in the taxpayer-funded scheme only have to pay for their phone calls. The experiment is being seen as a further step in the classroom technological revolution which could eventually replace books. But critics claim the link between new technology and academic progress is far from proven. The rules of the scheme state that pupils must keep the volume their handsets turned off in class and cannot surf social networking sites. Pupils who give the most constructive feedback to the class on what they have learned will be given extra credits they can spend on any application or music they like. Stephen Byrne, assistant head, said: 'It's a very popular scheme at the moment. We carry out spot-checks to monitor what they are downloading. There's no Facebook in class and the volume must be off. 'We are encouraging them to download "apps" and share this with us and other students - the children that feedback the most constructive data will be given more iTunes vouchers that they can spend how they like. The iPhone opens up the classroom to anytime-anywhere-learning. 'We're designing the classroom of the future - there won't be computers as we know them - we'll be wearing them or whatever. 'We thought we'd give the students the power to do everything.' The pupils have been lent the phones until the end of the academic year. They will only have to pay for any calls they make on their Apple iPhone 3GS, with the rest of the tab being picked up by a local learning centre. Professor Michael Gibson, a former head of education at Kingston University, will be observing how the students use the phones for learning and monitoring their impact on progress. But Katie Ivens, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: 'Mobile phones have quite rightly been banned from many classrooms as they prove to be a distraction. 'The case for learning by computer has not been proved at all.' It emerged earlier this week that more than a dozen schools are introducing maths software designed to mimic computer games for use in lessons. Manga High involves pupils answering mathematical puzzles to progress through the game. From: MailOnline
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