A prototype twenty-first century class: A school-wide initiative to engage the digital native

Abstract

iPads are so ubiquitous now that one sometimes forgets that they came onto the scene and into schools only very recently in 2010. Hence, there is relatively little in current literature on the impact of the use of iPads in teaching and learning. This chapter presents the findings of a 3-year study undertaken in Nanyang Girls’ High School (NYGH) in an all-girls’ secondary school in Singapore. The school had launched the use of the iPad in 2011 through a project called Prototype twenty-first Century Class (P21C2), an initiative to engage, excite and empower the Digital Native through 1: 1 computing environments using the iPad. This chapter describes the key personnel and the implementation involved, with examples of how it changed teaching and learning in class. It also analyses the critical success factors as suggested by the findings of the study. It concludes with some implications this study suggests about the pedagogy for the digital native.