This is Just The Beginning...

Ok so this is the beginning. The beginning of something really enormous.

The background:

I've been in education for all my life, one year at nursery, seven years at primary school, six years at secondary school, four years at university and for the past fifteen or so years (at the time of writing) as a teacher in the latter years of primary school.

It's a job I love. I love working with children, I love learning, I love theory, I love making a difference, I love working with great people, I love variety.

I expect I'll still be in education 30 years from now and I hope I'll still love it for all the same reasons.

There is, however, something major happening.

When I started nursery school in 1975 there were no home computers, no mobile telephones, no portable music players, no video cameras, no digital cameras, no internet and definitely nothing called an iPad. The day after my first birthday, April 1st 1976, Apple Computer Inc was established as a company in California. It was a time of flared trousers and 70's music that I lived through but cant remember. I look back through faded photos taken on polaroid cameras and wonder if was really that fat as a toddler!

Today I begin the day in my classroom by reading emails from the children I teach. These I file and then prepare lessons which centre around the iPads that every child in the class brings with them in their schoolbags. Language, Art, Maths, Geography, History, Problem Solving, Research Skills, Presentation Skills and more. It seems the applications to my class teaching unfold every day. It's only beginning.

My young niece has just started school at five years old. She is not screaming with excitement over her new iPad the way my older children are. For her, it's just part of going to school.

Schoolbag? Check,

Lunchbox? Check,

iPad? Check,

Pencil Case? ...


I know that I am fortunate in a way that very very few teachers are yet. I work in a school where every child has an iPad. In this blog I hope to document the experience of teaching in this new environment. I'll obviously not mention specific children but rather try and provide some kind of chronicle of the days when education becomes something new...