Bringing joy and creativity to the classroom: Teachers making the most of Apple Learning Coach initiative

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 — The Apple Learning Coach (ALC) initiative made its Malaysian debut in July 2024, a programme that sought to not just train but certify local educators in maximising Apple technology in teaching and learning.

Apple Learning Coaches are poised to guide other teachers in their efforts to make the most of technology in the classroom.

On October 2, members of the local Apple Learning Community convened for a special event held at the Apple The Exchange TRX Store.

Certified ALC teachers shared their experience with the programme as well as how they utilised Apple technology to support their endeavours as well as increase students’ engagement.

According to Apple’s senior director, worldwide product marketing for education, Dominic Liechti, around 500 teachers in Malaysia have been certified as ALCs with another 500 or so enrolled for the next round with a target of 10,000 teachers by the year 2030.

Liechti said that the focus is on making sure that the next cohort of  future Apple Learning Coaches is going to be certified in a good way; that they feel supported and heard.

He also noted that Malaysian teachers participating in the programme when surveyed reported a very high level of satisfaction with the programme.

“Out of the cohorts that have participated, we’ve got incredibly strong satisfaction,” he said.

“A significantly high number ALC participants say that they believe their students as well as other teachers in Malaysia will benefit from this. That’s a very strong endorsement.”

Learning to coach, not just teach

At the event, a common thread among the teachers who presented was that the programme got them to think not just as educators but as coaches, whether it was with their own students or fellow teachers.

Sheikh “Laoshi” of Sekolah Kebangsaan Mohd Khir Johari said that when he showed his students videos he had made with iMovie, his students called them “cringe” and told him they could do better.

That’s part of the challenge of being a teacher in the Digital Age where you have to catch up on technology just to keep up with tech savvy youngsters.

Fatin Raihana Esrifaizal, a teacher at Sekolah Seri Puteri Cyberjaya who like Sheikh is an Apple Learning Coach, said that in class she finds that her students have gone even further in exploring apps than she has, finding out things even she didn’t know.

She said she found it sad when teachers were too afraid to try and use technology in the classroom.

“After all, don’t we all have smartphones?”

Speaking of Sekolah Seri Puteri, a visit to the all-girls residential boarding school demonstrated successful use cases of technology in schools.

It was impressive to see the students being excited to present their projects, tapping their iPads to the TV and near-instantly sharing their screens and speaking with confidence and fluency.

What was also important, however, is the school’s insistence that at the end of the day the iPads needed to be put away in lockers because there is a time for technology and a time for the kids to do things that didn’t require gadgets.

Still I had some of my own reservations even with the iPad being my favourite device of all time.

How do we make technology available to all our kids and not just the ones lucky enough to have parents who can afford iPads or school alumnis, such as at Sekolah Seri Puteri, willing to step in to pay for devices?

It was painfully obvious just how much a difference effectively managed tech in the classroom can make to a learning environment.

In my day, my classmates were often too shy to speak up in class or present their work while at the school, young girls could not wait to show me what they were working on and how quickly they figured out assignments on their iPads.

While you could cynically consider programme such as Apple Learning Coach an attempt at marketing the technology to the lucrative education sector, the reality is that without private initiatives like Apple Learning Coach or Google’s own teacher programmes, educators would struggle to learn on their own.

In an ideal world, schools would be platform-agnostic and technology would be accessible to all.

In this world, it’s still a good thing to see teachers excited to learn alongside their students just how to use technology to make learning fun again.