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Choosing a Tutor in Preparation for Exams

Exam time can be a stressful period for everyone involved. If your child needs extra help in a particular subject, of course, you may be thinking of hiring a tutor to get them through or improve their grades. This is a good idea but choosing the right person can also...

Top Tips on Helping Your Child With Their Homework

Once children start school, parents have to consider the prospect of homework. While this can be an exciting time as your child begins to learn new things, it can also be pretty challenging. Children can be enthusiastic or resistant to homework depending on their...

School Communication Barriers

As a company that helps schools communicate better in this brilliant technological age, working to bring down barriers is one thing that we’re particularly focused on at Parentapps. Most teachers and heads of school understand that good communication and involvement...

Parent’s Evening: Questions to Ask Teachers

One of the most important times that mums and dads get to meet teachers is during a parent’s evening. While these can be useful to understand how your child is doing in specific subjects and whether there are any problems, they can be quite hectic. Going in prepared...

Help with Pupil Premium

Since the launch of the Universal Infant Free School Meal Policy, schools have struggled to get parents to register for Pupil Premium because there is no longer the same incentive for parents to do so. Whilst the increase in children receiving school meals is fantastic…

How Surveys Can Help Improve Parental Engagement

The Surveys feature of Parentapps Connect, provides schools and nurseries with an easy way to find out what is and isn’t working when it comes to parental engagement. And, because you can choose whether to send them to the whole school, particular year groups, or…

How your school’s app can help with phonics

Now that Spring has begun, it will soon be time to start preparing your pupils for the Phonics Key Stage 1 Screening Check. Many children could benefit from having extra phonics help at home. And, many parents would be more than happy to work with their children in…

How an app can help improve safeguarding

Safeguarding is one of the biggest areas of concern for any nursery or school today. And, as parental engagement specialists, it is something that we take into great consideration when building our communication apps. A secure parental communication app can help put…

The Benefits of Having a Nursery App

If you want to build better engagement and keep your current parents up to date with the latest developments, you should consider a dedicated communication app for your nursery.
Increasingly, organisations are choosing to create their own apps to complement their…

Why Should Your School Have a Dedicated App?

Apps are everywhere. Collectively we download billions of them to our mobile phones and tablets each year. We do our weekly food shops, book flights and bank all from apps on our mobile devices.
But is a dedicated app suitable for your school? Can it deliver better…

We are used to using technology in the classroom nowadays. After all, we’ve come a long way since the days of the chalk board and exercise books. Many schools are even starting to operate a BYOD policy where pupils have their own tablets, laptops or smartphones to enhance their educational achievement. Others may still be lagging behind but the truth is that technology is changing the way schools operate to a significant degree.

One of the new innovations on the block is the Apple iWatch and there has been speculation recently about how this could be used more effectively in the classroom. In essence the iWatch is simply a wearable version of the iPhone and does much the same thing including having the capacity to download educational apps, albeit with a much smaller screen.

Indestructible and difficult to Lose?

Apple say that the iWatch is one of their most robust products, reputedly indestructible and, because it is strapped to the wrist, is difficult to lose. This may be true but the price range of the watches at the moment may well put it out of reach for most families on a tight budget. In the future though, perhaps all students will wear one to enhance their education in varying ways. At the moment, it is all about the possibilities rather than the certainties but there are some intriguing opportunities just round the corner for those with wearable technology.

Use it in PE

One area where the iWatch has been touted in the school is for use in PE classes to monitor heart rate and activity to make sure that our children are getting enough exercise. Many of us nowadays use some sort of feedback mechanism through either our smartphones or tablets to make sure that we are getting the right amount of physical activity.

Notification for classes

Downloading something like a school app can ensure that pupils are never late for class again with push notifications for lessons and geolocation alerts for where a student needs to be at any particular time.

Timing tests

Another possible use of the Apple iWatch in education is in timing tests and making sure that tasks are completed in a set time. Pupils may also be able to log when they have completed homework or see how they are progressing in a particular assignment.

A chance to enhance self-regulated learning

With it being such early days, the possibilities of incorporating wearable technology into the classroom still seem a little slim. A research project is underway in America at the moment that is looking at the way products such as the iWatch can be used to enhance and regulate self-learning – reminding pupils to study at a certain time, tracking their progress and giving them access to tailor made mini courses and quizzes that they can reach at the touch of a button. The idea is that a product such as the iWatch can prompt students to take more interest in their own study and promote an ethos of self-learning that will become a life-long habit.

Whether the Apple iWatch has any major impact on the future of education in our schools remains to be seen, of course, but it is another example of how technology is helping us to evolve better and more effective ways to teach and learn.

Image sourced on Free Photo accessed via Creative Commons