St Mary’s bags Apple award

The competition is about pupils and teachers using Apple in showing off their talent and creativity and they win great Apple prizes. In her opening short speech, Core group Apple marketing executive Linda van der Nest said, “Our Apple in education competition this year presents to a series of educational challenges that can be applied across grades and subjects. Through guiding questions, creative solutions and innovative Apple technology, we look forward to seeing how you bring to life these projects in extraordinary ways.” The challenges were shape of my world, exploring the sciences in everyday life, bringing to life your favourite literary or historical figure, expression through the arts and iTeacher Award 2014.

She said they were working with 300 schools nationally with the aim to reward creative use of Apple in teaching and learning in classrooms. The hosts walked away with the Expression through the Arts Award from Grade 9 to 12 category. The team comprised of the teacher, Sue Heydenyd and her pupils, Gaby Nutter and Loren Page.

The Expression through the Arts Award gave pupils the opportunity to express themselves through the arts. They had to submit any project that focused on artistic expression forms in either a video, maximum of three minutes, or ebook, maximum 20 pages which ever best to meet the challenge to present their project. Speaking after the ceremony, Heydenyd said, “I am very proud of our achievements. We had two finalists and we also came third in another challenge. This shows creativity in our side, thinking out of the box is vital.” Meanwhile the excited pupil, Nutter said, “I am very proud for our achievement, our video went this far and it shows that a lot of hard work was put into it. I also learned a lot about this software. Page added, “I am very impressed with our work, I am happy that all the hard work paid off and I am happy with final result.”

Think Ahead managing director, Michelle Lisoos said, “The reason behind this project is that we live in a competitive world and we want to make sure that South African children from all schools, public , private and rural schools, have the same opportunities as the rest of the world. You can see their enthusiasm and that means we must give children resources so they can show off their creativity.”