Appeal for Data Loggers To Enhance Junior School Science

As we enter a period of reflection after the summer exams, amid the exhausting current heatwave, there is still time to set targets!

It will be no surprise Bablake staff create SMART targets for themselves, departments and even the school every academic year. Miss Sam Holyman, Junior Science Co-ordinator reports that her personal target has been working to develop the use of handheld devices to aid teaching and learning across all the key stages at Bablake:

"SMART targets are specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and time based. They should clearly set out the goal, with the steps needed to reach it, outline how success will be measured and give a timeframe for the target to be met.

Initially the Bring your Own Device to School policy ignited interest about the use of Mobile Phones as well as Fit Bit data to be used as dataloggers.  Then, with the help of ICT support, the use of different apps in the classroom was developed until ICT technician Mr Rohan Kular found the Lonely Screen app, which allows mirroring of Apple devices so phones may be used as visualizers. Once I discovered this, I began working with Miss Sarah Young in the Junior School to develop the uses at different key stages.

Then Google Expeditions was brought into Bablake Senior School and Pre Prep for a morning, where nearly 60 Google cardboard headsets and mobile devices allowed our pupils to unlock the potential of the virtual reality experience to enhance their learning and further ignite their interests.

We have developed the use of free apps this year to unlock deeper thinking in science and capture awe and wonderment in our students. I have been using four donated iPhones that my family and friends have given me when they have updated their handsets. We have made fantastic strides in the appropriate use of ICT in the classroom from slow-mo recording of the germination in cress to the use of a free app which is an oscilloscope.

To further the work of using hand-held devices, Miss Young and myself would like to appeal to Bablake community to donate their used smartphones so that we can generate a class set of devices in Science for VR and data loggers. If you have any working handset, or iPod Touch device you are willing to donate, please hand it into the Junior School Office or Senior School Office.

The donated working devices will be wiped and equipped with apps to let them be used as a data logger, classroom visualizers and, following school investment in Google cardboard, also take students on a journey around the world or even into outer space!"

Exciting times are clearly ahead and we look forward to reporting further on the final outcome.