If you go into any modern university’s lecture hall while a lecture is going on, there’s a pretty strong chance you’ll spot a student taking notes on an iPad or Macbook. And now, Apple gets set to transform education all the way down to elementary schools with the introduction of its Everyone Can Create curriculum.
The new curriculum joins Apple’s successful Everyone Can Code initiative to keep students excited and engaged.
Integrating Creativity, Inspiring Success
Everyone Can Create is a new, free curriculum that makes it fun and easy for teachers to integrate creativity into their existing lesson plans. With Everyone Can Create, teachers can engage their students with drawing, music, filmmaking, or photography as part of their lessons.
The program is designed to take advantage of the new 9.7-inch iPad and Apple Pencil. It teaches students to develop and communicate ideas through different mediums, not just text. This makes it great for students who have trouble engaging with traditional modes of teaching.
Research has shown that when students are engaged, they take ownership of their learning. Creative skills help students become better problem-solvers, communicators, and collaborators. Skills that will carry them through school, and beyond.
Everyone Can Create includes teacher and student guides, lessons, ideas, and examples. These are aimed to help teachers bring new communication skills into their existing subjects. For example, students can use the built-in camera in iPad to learn about fractals! Or they can use Apple Pencil and apps like Tayasui Sketches to learn about symmetry.
Beginning later this year, Apple Stores will begin teaching Everyone Can Create as part of their regular Today At Apple sessions for educators. Apple’s 501 stores in 21 countries have already taught nearly 5,000 hands-on Teacher Tuesday sessions. Topics range from more technical ones like coding and app design to creative ones like music and film.
Affordability And Access
The new iPad starts at just S$468 for schools, and is more versatile and capable than ever. It features a large Retina display, enhanced cameras, and advanced sensors. Along with all that, it also comes with all the portability and ease of use that users have come to expect from Apple’s iPads.
The iPad also gives students and teachers access to free, powerful, built-in apps like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and more. Most importantly though, it also gives you access to Apple’s all-new Schoolwork app. Schoolwork builds on the success of Apple’s Classroom app, which is now used in schools worldwide. Schoolwork and Classroom are designed to help teachers and administrators get the most out of integrating Apple technology into schools.
The Schoolwork app helps teachers and students more effectively use the creative power of Apple iPads. Teachers can easily distribute and collect assignments and keep an eye on their students’ progress in educational apps. And for students, it makes it easier to stay organised and keep track of assignment due dates. Schoolwork also gives teachers new insight into how their students are performing, to help them better tailor their teaching to each students’ individual needs.
Classroom For Macs
Along with Schoolwork, the Classroom app makes its way to the Mac. With Classroom, teachers can easily launch apps, books, and webpages on all student devices at once, or send and receive documents. Teachers can also view student screens during class to make sure that students are paying attention.
The Mac version of the app will be available in beta starting in June.
