ALTHOUGH Apple is known for its consumer products like iPhones, MacBooks, Apple Watch, etc, the company is also big in the education sector, and it has been actively engaging educators from around the world, including Malaysia, to help boost the implementation of technology in education.
Apple is also one of the technology enablers for the Ministry of Education (MoE)'s recent digital learning platform for teachers, educators and students, called Digital Educational Learning Initiative Malaysia (DELIMa).
In the initiative, the company offers resources such as the Apple Teacher Learning Center to help Malaysia achieve its digital transformation goals and support lifelong learning for millions of students in the country.
The Apple Teacher Learning Centre is a free professional learning programme designed to support and celebrate educators using Apple products for teaching and learning. The programme is recognised by the MoE for teacher professional development.
Through the programme, teachers can build skills on iPad and Mac that directly apply to activities with their students, and earn recognition for the new things they learn.
Besides that, Apple also has a special programme for educators, in created in 1994, called the Apple Distinguished Educators (ADE) programme, aimed at recognising primary, secondary and higher education pioneers who are using Apple technology to transform teaching and learning.
To help educators move forward in digital teaching and learning, Apple also offers Apple Education Learning Series, which is a growing series of videos designed to help educators use built-in features of their Apple products no matter where learning happens.
According to UKM's Deputy Director of Learning Technologies and Apple Distinguished Educator, Ts Dr Helmi Norman, the ADE programme is for educators to enhance digital learning.
"The learning resources from Apple, for example, has helped inspire me and teachers to shift to digital learning though Everyone Can Create and Everyone Can Code curriculums," he said.
"Personally, I have used the curriculum and this has helped me transform my teaching and learning practices," said Helmi.
"In Everyone Can Create, for example, educators are brought through the journey of music composition, creating drawings, capturing photos and producing videos to assist them with developing creative digital learning materials. In my experience, the curriculum is unique and empowers teachers to become great digital learning authors easily," he said.
For instance, Helmi said he does not have any background in Music, yet, Everyone Can Create's Music guide has enabled him to learn and compose music within seconds, and has driven his hunger for creating more and more music for teaching and learning.
As an Apple Distinguished Educator, Helmi assumes the roles of an author, advisor, ambassador, and advocate.
"As an author, I create original digital teaching and learning content in my field and across fields of expertise, to encourage active and meaningful learning," he said.
"I fell in love with the innovation in Apple products since my early years and this pushed me further to explore integration of the technology in teaching and learning environments. I envisioned teaching and learning to be different - challenging the norms of traditional learning," he said.
Some of the innovations brought by Apple are very capable for enhancing digital learning.
"When Apple introduced Apple Pencil with iPad Pro, it truly changed the way I looked at digital learning, as its affordance allowed me to shift to new realms of educational possibilities," said Helmi.
He believes technology has many advantages in transforming education, and he has witnessed learning environments transform with the integration of the Apple ecosystem.
"With an iPad and Apple Pencil, students in my class can create original teaching and learning content easily. They can create drawings and animate them with Keynote, compose music with GarageBand, produce CGI-like green screen effects with iMovie and Clips, and publish interactive digital books using Pages.
"Through learning activities like this, motivation is not an issue anymore, as learners are totally immersed in creativity when using the Apple ecosystem," he said.
As all the content is original and unique, and it places students far away from copyright issues in terms of content creation and curation.
"Additionally, students nowadays are very tech savvy, allowing for the seamless integration of technology in teaching and learning as well as encouraging an active mode of learning in both synchronous and asynchronous modes of learning," he added.