Monday, February 18, 2013
Students pioneer the iPad frontier
BY: SANDRA TAN / NEWS STAFF REPORTER for the Buffalo News
In the long history of technology innovation, the iPad is an infant. But since its unveiling three years ago, the skinny, 10-inch wonder device has been transforming education at every level. It’s changing how teachers teach and improving how students learn.
The improvement has been so dramatic that – despite the cost – some schools have begun issuing iPads to every child.
Williamsville is the latest example. Every fifth-grader at Heim Middle School in the Williamsville district recently received an iPad2 as part of a one-year pilot program that will eventually translate into the biggest public school iPad distribution effort in the region.
Starting next school year, the district will spend about $300,000 equipping every fifth-grader across the district with one of the hot tablet devices.
That’s about 800 kids who each will have his or her own iPad to bring to school and take home for the duration of the school year. The following school year, sixth-graders also will get them. If all goes as planned, all Williamsville middle school students will be individually iPad- equipped within four years.
“It was almost like winning the lottery,” teacher Brandon Sanders said of student reactions to receiving their tablets two weeks ago.
Certainly, Heim Middle School isn’t the first public school in the region to use iPads in the classroom. These days, many schools have carts of iPads that move from classroom to classroom and grade to grade.
Third-graders at Windom Elementary School in Orchard Park, for instance, are currently creating their own nonfiction books using the devices.
Prior to Heim receiving 200 iPads, the Williamsville district already had about 1,300 iPads distributed among its elementary, middle and high schools, said Peter Ciarelli, the assistant superintendent for technology services.
But one-to-one student-to-iPad programs are still relatively rare in public school settings.
Roy B. Kelly Elementary School in the Lockport school district was the first in the region to adopt such a program, in 2010-11, when the school began a three-year study with the University at Buffalo to see if iPad use translates into improved academic achievement.
Every kindergartener got an iPad that first year. Now students through third grade – about 100 of them – have their own iPads, and fourth grade will be added in the fall, said Principal Marianne Currie-Hall. Anecdotally, she said, the bump in student performance has been significant.
“It’s transforming instruction,” she said. “I’ve got kindergarteners who email me their work.”
This school year, the 700-student Pine Valley Public School District in Chautauqua County distributed iPads to all students in grades five through nine, as well as to all high school honors students.
Third-graders are getting iPads this week, said Superintendent Pete Morgante. By next school year, every child from third grade through high school will have one.
The iPad distribution program in Williamsville will eclipse all others in the region. Though the fifth-graders at Heim have only had their iPads a short time, the change in classroom instruction has been huge.
No more stumbling over unknown words in reading class. A light tap on the electronic page calls up the definition from Webster’s Dictionary. Fifth-grader Breann Wilson quickly called up the definition for the word “reap” during a passage about harvesting in her e-book, “Esperanza Rising.”
No more class trips to the computer lab for academic research. Facts and images now appear before each student in seconds. That’s how 10-year-old Arnav Patra learned about the Canadian region of Nunavut.
“It’s a territory, actually,” he corrected.
No calling on one student at a time to gain correct answers. For many teachers, feedback is now instantaneous.
Students register their answers on their iPads, and teachers use polling software to tally class responses. Kids who get the answer right can have their iPad work projected overhead for all their classmates to see.
Emma Belica, 11, said her math teacher had everyone hold up their iPads to show her how they answered a math problem involving division with decimals “instead of only one person answering the question.” In some cases, the teacher was able to show how different students used different strategies to arrive at the correct answer.
Finally, no more lost classroom time spent writing down homework assignments at the end of each class. All assignments are automatically downloaded and completed on the iPad. Samantha Ingham, 10, reported that her backpack is a lot lighter these days.
So did Jacob Schlau, a fifth-grader at the school who never had an iPad and was pretty sure he’d never want one. That all changed the moment he held one in his hands.
“I fell in love with it,” he said.
An admittedly disorganized person, 10-year-old Jacob said he used to spend considerable time sorting through mounds of papers in the hunt to find his homework assignments each day. He’d often worry that he left papers behind in his locker.
Now that everything is on his electronic tablet, he’s shocked himself by turning in everything on time.
“It might just be luck,” Jacob mused, “but I think it’s the iPad.”
A few teachers also observed that students who have greater difficulty learning are finding the iPad to be a great equalizer, allowing them to participate more fully in class, interact more easily with the learning material, and catch up faster on remedial work at home.
“I feel like it’s starting to close that gap for them,” said special-education teacher Laura Lukasik.
Internet access is still restricted on the iPads by a content filter to make sure children aren’t exposed to inappropriate material.
Like their textbooks, the iPad devices will stay with these students until the end of the school year, when the fifth-graders must turn them back in.
Heim Middle School is piloting the iPad program because it has the smallest number of fifth-graders, about 165.
“It made sense to do this at a smaller school so we could work out some of the bugs,” Ciarelli said.
And there are some bugs to work out. The Internet content filter, for instance, has been causing some technical glitches, and the district still hasn’t found a way to purchase all the e-books it needs without having to create individual Barnes & Noble accounts for every fifth-grade iPad user at Heim. That’s cumbersome.
Regardless, technology integrator Lee Ferenc and Principal Valerie Keipper said the staff at Heim has rolled with the punches and embraced the technology.
Teachers are showing up after school for Ferenc’s voluntary lessons on how to incorporate the iPads into their lesson plans. And they’re turning to their own students, who are more than happy to show their teachers how to use the iPads better and faster.
“In many ways, they’re more familiar with the technology than I am,” said teacher Joe Roche.
Teacher Amy Chiavetta said she’s already had her students create video book reviews with scannable QR codes that will enable anyone curious about a library book to scan the attached two-dimensional code with their iPad and immediately access the video review by their peers.
Meanwhile, the school’s physical education and music teachers already have asked for the iPads to be outfitted with student fitness trackers and music lesson schedules.
Ferenc said he’s amazed at how quickly teachers are putting the iPads to use.
He said, “They’re already running with it.”
email: stan@buffnews.com
In the long history of technology innovation, the iPad is an infant. But since its unveiling three years ago, the skinny, 10-inch wonder device has been transforming education at every level. It’s changing how teachers teach and improving how students learn.
The improvement has been so dramatic that – despite the cost – some schools have begun issuing iPads to every child.
Williamsville is the latest example. Every fifth-grader at Heim Middle School in the Williamsville district recently received an iPad2 as part of a one-year pilot program that will eventually translate into the biggest public school iPad distribution effort in the region.
Starting next school year, the district will spend about $300,000 equipping every fifth-grader across the district with one of the hot tablet devices.
That’s about 800 kids who each will have his or her own iPad to bring to school and take home for the duration of the school year. The following school year, sixth-graders also will get them. If all goes as planned, all Williamsville middle school students will be individually iPad- equipped within four years.
“It was almost like winning the lottery,” teacher Brandon Sanders said of student reactions to receiving their tablets two weeks ago.
Certainly, Heim Middle School isn’t the first public school in the region to use iPads in the classroom. These days, many schools have carts of iPads that move from classroom to classroom and grade to grade.
Third-graders at Windom Elementary School in Orchard Park, for instance, are currently creating their own nonfiction books using the devices.
Prior to Heim receiving 200 iPads, the Williamsville district already had about 1,300 iPads distributed among its elementary, middle and high schools, said Peter Ciarelli, the assistant superintendent for technology services.
But one-to-one student-to-iPad programs are still relatively rare in public school settings.
Roy B. Kelly Elementary School in the Lockport school district was the first in the region to adopt such a program, in 2010-11, when the school began a three-year study with the University at Buffalo to see if iPad use translates into improved academic achievement.
Every kindergartener got an iPad that first year. Now students through third grade – about 100 of them – have their own iPads, and fourth grade will be added in the fall, said Principal Marianne Currie-Hall. Anecdotally, she said, the bump in student performance has been significant.
“It’s transforming instruction,” she said. “I’ve got kindergarteners who email me their work.”
This school year, the 700-student Pine Valley Public School District in Chautauqua County distributed iPads to all students in grades five through nine, as well as to all high school honors students.
Third-graders are getting iPads this week, said Superintendent Pete Morgante. By next school year, every child from third grade through high school will have one.
The iPad distribution program in Williamsville will eclipse all others in the region. Though the fifth-graders at Heim have only had their iPads a short time, the change in classroom instruction has been huge.
No more stumbling over unknown words in reading class. A light tap on the electronic page calls up the definition from Webster’s Dictionary. Fifth-grader Breann Wilson quickly called up the definition for the word “reap” during a passage about harvesting in her e-book, “Esperanza Rising.”
No more class trips to the computer lab for academic research. Facts and images now appear before each student in seconds. That’s how 10-year-old Arnav Patra learned about the Canadian region of Nunavut.
“It’s a territory, actually,” he corrected.
No calling on one student at a time to gain correct answers. For many teachers, feedback is now instantaneous.
Students register their answers on their iPads, and teachers use polling software to tally class responses. Kids who get the answer right can have their iPad work projected overhead for all their classmates to see.
Emma Belica, 11, said her math teacher had everyone hold up their iPads to show her how they answered a math problem involving division with decimals “instead of only one person answering the question.” In some cases, the teacher was able to show how different students used different strategies to arrive at the correct answer.
Finally, no more lost classroom time spent writing down homework assignments at the end of each class. All assignments are automatically downloaded and completed on the iPad. Samantha Ingham, 10, reported that her backpack is a lot lighter these days.
So did Jacob Schlau, a fifth-grader at the school who never had an iPad and was pretty sure he’d never want one. That all changed the moment he held one in his hands.
“I fell in love with it,” he said.
An admittedly disorganized person, 10-year-old Jacob said he used to spend considerable time sorting through mounds of papers in the hunt to find his homework assignments each day. He’d often worry that he left papers behind in his locker.
Now that everything is on his electronic tablet, he’s shocked himself by turning in everything on time.
“It might just be luck,” Jacob mused, “but I think it’s the iPad.”
A few teachers also observed that students who have greater difficulty learning are finding the iPad to be a great equalizer, allowing them to participate more fully in class, interact more easily with the learning material, and catch up faster on remedial work at home.
“I feel like it’s starting to close that gap for them,” said special-education teacher Laura Lukasik.
Internet access is still restricted on the iPads by a content filter to make sure children aren’t exposed to inappropriate material.
Like their textbooks, the iPad devices will stay with these students until the end of the school year, when the fifth-graders must turn them back in.
Heim Middle School is piloting the iPad program because it has the smallest number of fifth-graders, about 165.
“It made sense to do this at a smaller school so we could work out some of the bugs,” Ciarelli said.
And there are some bugs to work out. The Internet content filter, for instance, has been causing some technical glitches, and the district still hasn’t found a way to purchase all the e-books it needs without having to create individual Barnes & Noble accounts for every fifth-grade iPad user at Heim. That’s cumbersome.
Regardless, technology integrator Lee Ferenc and Principal Valerie Keipper said the staff at Heim has rolled with the punches and embraced the technology.
Teachers are showing up after school for Ferenc’s voluntary lessons on how to incorporate the iPads into their lesson plans. And they’re turning to their own students, who are more than happy to show their teachers how to use the iPads better and faster.
“In many ways, they’re more familiar with the technology than I am,” said teacher Joe Roche.
Teacher Amy Chiavetta said she’s already had her students create video book reviews with scannable QR codes that will enable anyone curious about a library book to scan the attached two-dimensional code with their iPad and immediately access the video review by their peers.
Meanwhile, the school’s physical education and music teachers already have asked for the iPads to be outfitted with student fitness trackers and music lesson schedules.
Ferenc said he’s amazed at how quickly teachers are putting the iPads to use.
He said, “They’re already running with it.”
email: stan@buffnews.com
Why (And How) Teachers Should Start Using iTunes U
Added by Fred Sitkins on 2012-12-29 to http://edudemic.com
With so many schools adopting the use of iPads I find it strange that we aren’t hearing more about the incredible opportunities available in iTunes U. Well I suppose it isn’t that strange given that schools in the early stages of transitioning to an iPad platform are extremely busy and learning one more thing can seem overwhelming.
Trust me, I understand that, but I believe if you were to learn one more thing it should be about the power of iTunes U. The possibilities of this incredible tool are endless. I’d like to provide you with just a few examples of the many uses of iTunes U in the hopes that more schools will join this incredible network of learning resources.
The first and likely most exciting benefit of iTunes U is the multitude of incredible classroom resources at your disposal. If you aren’t aware of iTunes U, it’s a depository of entire courses of educational content for K-12 institutions, universities and colleges, and other institutions Apple terms Beyond Campus, which includes a wide array of institutions from museums to the Washington National Opera.
When I think of the potential of iTunes U, the first thing that comes to my mind are the incredible communities that developed around SMART board users. The benefits of SMART board users sharing their lessons for the benefit of other SMART board users are numerous. It appears to me that iTunes U is based on a similar concept, with the primary difference being that the power and capabilities of an iPad are so much greater than a SMART board.
An important consideration to think about is that the individuals creating these courses are cutting edge classroom teachers. These are individuals that are actually in the classroom using the iPad and web 2.0 resources to engage, motivate and captivate our students. Those of us in the trenches of education understand that there is a benefit in obtaining resources from others in the trenches who are actually using the tools for the same reasons we are.
A quick search of the iTunes U catalog reveals many incredible courses full of engaging educational materials and resources. I believe it is through avenues like iTunes U that schools will learn to help our students see learning in new and exciting ways while at the same time opening our classrooms and homes to a wide array of exciting new educational opportunities.
I would love to take a minute to highlight a few courses that I am extremely proud. We have some teachers in our school district learning to use iTunes U and what they have produced in these early stages is very encouraging. Check out the attached links to some of our Boyne City Public Schools iTunes U courses.
Solar System
Students begin this unit by researching the Solar System with an emphasis on Earth, Sun, and Moon. Then, students are presented with primary and secondary sources regarding the Solar System. Students demonstrate what they have learned by collaborating with each other to create an ePub about the Solar System.
Ecosystems
Students will journey through books, videos, songs and illustrations to gain a better understanding of Ecosystems Around the World.
Underground Railroad
Students begin this unit by learning about the Underground Railroad. Next, they explore videos, apps, and books that expand their knowledge about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Finally, students write an opinion piece about slavery.
Presidents
Your job is to learn more about presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. Next you will investigate what the Electoral College is and why it is important when campaigning to be president. Finally share, in your Keynote, all of your new knowledge of how to become Chief Executive Officer of the United States.
Why You Should Try iTunes U
I’ve had the privilege of seeing iTunes U courses at work in classrooms and with my own children as they look over my shoulder while I review courses for our teachers. Witnessing first hand the captivating power of these courses has cemented my belief in the power of this current technological revolution to change education. I know when others experience the potential of iTunes U they too will be believers.
The second exciting use of iTunes U I hope more schools discover are the many exciting opportunities for teacher professional growth. If a school is looking to train staff on just about any topic, or you would like to experience some personal growth, I would encourage the first step to be researching the topic in iTunes U.
Again, some of the nations most technologically advanced individuals have been the first to adopt utilizing the iTunes U platform for sharing their resources and as a result, some of the nations best are those that will be doing the training for your staff. I would encourage you to check out the attached courses from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools or the Cedars School of Excellence as excellent examples of some of the quality staff learning resources you will find on iTunes U. A keyword search of the iTunes U catalog reveals a great number of quality resources on most any professional learning topic. School administrators and teachers alike will agree that the learning resources available on iTunes U are truly exceptional.
Creating iTunes U Courses
This course is intended for teachers and administrators to learn how to manage a class or set of classes through iTunes U. The course covers the basics of setting up a course in iTunes U and adding content to it.
IT Weekly
Here’s the idea. There are a lot of great ideas out there, and we would love to share them all with you. You have started this website as a way to get the information out to as many as possible in a fun, exciting format. Each week we’ll do our best to focus on one concept or one idea. The beauty is for people throughout the district to connect and share these ideas that are presented here.
We have read a great deal about the benefits of flipped learning for our students and are beginning to hear more and more about the same benefits for staff learning. I have already observed many of the benefits associated with the concept of flipped learning occurring with our students and staff as a result of iTunes U. In fact, one of my favorite student stories this school year was from the student that reported to his classroom teacher that he watched her video six times over the weekend. I can’t think of any other time where a student would have the opportunity to listen to a lesson six times. I can’t think of any reason for an educator not to be excited about this return on investment.
One of the things I like most about providing iPads to all students is that for the first time in my educational career I feel we have made a significant impact on evening the playing field for all students. Now, all students have the same access to educational resources and materials. iTunes U goes a long way in assisting schools in creating this balanced playing field because all of the course materials and resources can be downloaded to the iPad at school while the students are connected to wifi. This includes books, PDF’s, Videos, Music, basically any resource provided in the course can be downloaded to the iPad and accessed any time or any place whether or not the student has internet access at home.
Wherever you are in your voyage of implementing iPads into the classroom, I would strongly encourage you to give iTunes U a look. You can search for resources by course type or keyword. Just one more place to get you lost for a little while as you look for new and exciting activities to use not only with your students, but for your own personal learning as well.
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