Apple’s efforts to encourage schools in the UK to buy into its digital-video solutions is resulting in “better-behaved and happier pupils,” a UK government education agency revealed yesterday.
Apple, Canon and the British Educational Communications Technology Agency (BECTA) yesterday revealed the initial findings of a digital-video pilot in a joint press conference. BECTA launched the digital-video pilot last October 2001, equipping 50 schools with iMacs and a range of Canon digital-video cameras with the goals of identifying ways of inspiring pupils’ creativity and to gather evidence on the impact of information and communications technology on team-building. Feedback from participating schools — including a young offenders institute — showed that the project resulted in an improvement in pupils’ behavior, motivation and attendance, according to a Macworld UK report.
“Apple heard about the pilot and wanted to get involved,” Martin Vessey, Apple’s country education sales manager, is quoted as saying. “We contacted BECTA, which led to talks and ultimately our association with the pilot.”
Chris Morley, Apple’s strategic business manager, said the company had anecdotal evidence about the success of digital video in education, “but BECTA wanted to carry out its own assessment, so Apple supplied equipment, training and support to 50 schools for free.”