Category Archives: iPad in Elementary School

This category will highlight the use of the iPad in elementary (primary) schools.

iPad Apps for Elementary School

Posted on by mkaufman

Here are iPad and iPhone apps that can be used in primary school.

Alphabet Fun Learning the A-B-Cs was never like this. Alphabet Fun makes the most of Multi-Touch technology on iPad to teach kids letters, numbers, and colors. They’ll swipe through colorful images and easy-to-read text. They’ll trace over letters with their fingers right on the iPad display. They’ll even write entire words. Kids think it’s a game. Parents think it’s educational. Everybody wins. (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

Math Magic – Don’t you just love how much your child has improved in adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing? You never get tired of hearing, “Can I do math?” from your six year old, do you? Of course you don’t. (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

Star Walk is a winner of APPLE DESIGN AWARDS 2010 for technical excellence, innovation, superior technology adoption, high performance, and outstanding design! Star Walk is installed for demonstration on iPads at Apple Stores! Try it out in the shops! Enjoy NEW Picture of the Day and Bookmarks sections, share your astronomy observations via Facebook and Twitter! iPhone best astronomy app *Featured by Apple – Best Apps of 2009!* is now available for iPad! On a bigger screen starry night sky looks fantastic with 3D graphics and one of the user-friendliest interfaces ever. Star Walk is your personal planetarium that can answer to all your curiosities about the sky! For anyone who is interested in stargazing, amateurs or professionals Star Walk makes discovering more than 9,000 stars, planets, constellations, messiers as beautiful and easy as it has never been before! (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

National Geographic’s World Atlas HD – Designed specifically for the iPad, National Geographic’s World Atlas HD puts our best maps in the palm of your hand. Unlike other map applications, the National Geographic World Atlas HD utilizes our highest resolution, press-ready images, providing you the same rich detail, accuracy, and artistic beauty found in our award-winning wall maps and bound atlases. The app is preloaded with 3 different styles of world maps, down to country-level detail. With an internet connection, you can continue zooming through continent-level maps to detailed Bing maps – close enough to see your home! (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com – The free Dictionary.com app delivers trusted reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, including nearly 1,000,000 words and definitions and 90,000 synonyms and antonyms. No Internet connection is needed. The app also features audio pronunciations, similarly spelled words and Dictionary.com’s popular Word of the Day that is enjoyed by millions of people. (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

Wikipanion – Accessing Wikipedia has never been faster and easier than with Wikipanion, designed for easy, search, navigation and display of Wikipedia entries. Streamline your browsing with history grouped by visit date, and bookmarking that not only bookmarks individual entries, but individual sections within an entry. (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

Miss Spell’s Class is an original word game that lets players test their spelling skills against the most commonly misspelled words on Dictionary.com. Players must quickly decide whether each of 20 words is spelled correctly or incorrectly, as speed and accuracy count to get to the top of the class! (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

ArithmeTick – How fast can you add and multiply? Solve math problems against the clock! ArithmeTick is a challenging math game where you solve addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems! The objective in ArithmeTick is to solve as many problems as possible before time runs out. You are awarded up to 10 points and additional time for each correct answer. A practice mode is also included to help sharpen your math skills! With five difficulty levels, ArithmeTick is perfect for kids and adults! (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

Read Me Stories – A new talking picture book EVERY DAY teaches your child new concepts, new words and how to say them. Your child can practice reading – anywhere, anytime – while you’re driving, shopping in the grocery store, or having a quick coffee at your favorite cafe. Our books are fun and entertaining – so your child will look forward to reading their new book, every day! Imagine that – your child reading a new book everyday! You can spend quality time with your child while teaching them the core skills of reading and speaking that are so necessary for every child in today’s modern world. Bedtime reading will become something extra-special. Or, you can have a break while your child practices reading. With our books in your pocket, that can be when and where it fits into your day. (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

VideoScience – Science Class Experiments brought to you by Science House and featuring Science Teacher Dan Menelly, winner of the NSF Einstein Fellowship in Cyberinfrastructure! These videos are 2 to 3 minutes in length and demonstrate the steps of simple science experiments. The experiments are designed to inspire and excite kids of all ages, with very little set-up time and using only low cost materials. So whether you are a public school teacher, private school teacher, or home school teacher; we hope you use these videos and the many more on our website to ignite the scientific passion in your kids. (DESCRIPTION VIA APPLE)

All Subjects/General:

Language Arts:

Math:

Social Studies:

Science:

iPods to iPads

Posted on by mkaufman

iPod in school

Until recently I didn’t realize that numerous schools were using iPods for learning – not just for listening to music but as a study tool/aid and as part of classroom learning. If this is true, that teachers and schools are finding real learning value from iPods, it makes sense this can lead naturally to finding iPads in these same schools at some point.

It makes sense that people would enjoy the small form factor – however in my opinion, the iPad is a better learning tool because of it’s larger screen and better user experience. If the iPod makes a good learning tool then the newer, more powerful, iPad should make a better learning tool.

In a recent article about the iPod in school, Joe Morelock, the director of technology and innovation for the Canby School District in Oregon, shared how he started a pilot program of iPod Touch devices in a single third-grade classroom. The pilot’s success led to the district setting a goal of providing every third-grade student with access to an iPod Touch.

This graph, just one from that article, shows the number of students that meet or nearly meet the math requirements on a standardized test are much higher for the iPod Touch classroom (left circle).

The Canby School District is extending the iPod program by providing iPod Touches for all third graders district-wide during the 2010-2011 school year. In addition, pilot programs using iPads will run at the elementary-, middle- and high-school levels.

Perhaps most importantly, both students and teachers love using the devices:

You know that little boy who came up to us this morning? He loves the iPod Touches. They have made an incredible difference in his math work. He has Asperger’s, and before the iPods, he could never sit through a math class. The kid absolutely loves math now and gets As. He sits himself up at the front of the room — he likes to be by himself — tucks his foot up, leans on the desk and goes to town on math. It’s simply amazing. — Gale Hipp, sixth-grade math teacher. [Note: Link added.]

And simply:

This is the most fun I have had teaching in the last 25 years. — Deana Calcagno, fifth-grade teacher.

In another article I read about some Vancouver schools testing the use of iPods as learning tools.

What do the iPods offer?

They allow students to repeat drills, dig up research material or view short video lessons on hard-to-grasp concepts. All at their own speed, without disrupting others, freeing up teachers for more one-on-one attention.

The hands-on activity engages brains, often better than a teacher’s monotone and overhead screen might. Students can repeat a lesson until they truly “get it,” minus the embarrassment they may feel in front of classmates. their peers can race ahead, even play one of several skill-building games.

The iPods also let students whose home lacks a device or wireless Internet access master technology and learning styles they surely will use in the years ahead.

“It’s a totally different way” of classroom instruction, said Kara Beu, one of several King teachers who received special training this summer. “It’s not so much teacher-controlled, it’s children-controlled, which has been kind of nice.”

In my point of view the iPad would be the most logical step beyond the iPod. How long with that take? We’ll see!

Sources:

Libraries Using iPads

Posted on by mkaufman

iPad in librariesA recent research study found that young people are open to, and interested in, reading e-books (more so than their parents). This makes sense to me as most young people are more comfortable with technology as a natural part of their lives. As more and more young people find value in using these types of tools it makes sense we would see these tools migrate into the library experience.

Here’s a quote from an article about the e-book study:

The 2010 Kids and Family Reading Report, released Wednesday and commissioned by Scholastic Inc., offers a mixed portrait of e-books and families. Around six out of 10 of those between ages 9 and 17 say they’re interested in reading on an electronic device such as the Kindle or the iPad. Around one out of three from the same age group say they’d read more “for fun” if more books were available on a digital reader.

Combine that research with technical revolution taking place in libraries and we can see a natural progression to having iPads and other electronic reading devices becoming a natural part of the library experience.

We’ve already explored briefly how the iPad can be used for research. Combine this idea with the fact that libraries are becoming more technologically savvy and we can see one very clear application emerging. This quote from a recent article about public libraries makes the point:

Libraries are tweeting, texting and launching smart-phone apps as they try to keep up with the biblio-techs — a computer-savvy class of people who consider card catalogs as vintage as typewriters. And they seem to be pulling it off.

The more the world changes the more schools will have to change. If young people experience their local library (which some still do) as being a ‘cool’ place to be and one in which exploring and learning is encouraged, wouldn’t they expect the same thing from their school library? And if their explorations and learning come in some way through the interaction and use of technology it makes sense they would expect that to be true in their school libraries as well.

From that same article:

In Princeton, N.J., 44 people are waiting to borrow Kindles, a wireless reading device. Roya Karimian, 32, flipped through the preloaded e-pages of “Little Women” after two months on the waiting list.

“I had already read it, but I wanted to experience reading it on the Kindle,” Karimian says.

A growing number of libraries are launching mobile websites and smart-phone applications, says Jason Griffey, author of “Mobile Technology and Libraries.” No one keeps tabs of exactly how many, but a recent iPhone app search showed more than a dozen public libraries.

It makes sense the same thing would be happening in school libraries.

I can imagine many applications being developed specifically for libraries.

Each library can have their own specifically branded application – like a library guide – that helps users navigate their way in and around the library. As more and more books are digitized it makes sense that there will be both physical and virtual versions of books so I could imagine people sitting around the library reading books on their e-book readers. When doing research it makes sense that someone with an iPod or iPad like device could ask the librarian for help – but not necessarily in person. It could be through the device – like a walkie-talkie – or even in the form of ‘point me to a specific book’ using a digital map of the library.

The image included at the top of this post is an imaginary wall of iPads – in a library. It comes from an interesting article about using the iPad in museums in libraries. The article talks about museums and libraries using the iPad to displays e-books and introducing a tactile way of accessing information.

More and more schools should find their own media centers and libraries using tools like the iPad for students.

One more thing. This may come as a surprise, but an elementary school in Pheonix has just opened the first iPad lab. So the media center could look like a whole slew of iPads instead of rows of computers!

Based on a sixth grader’s winning essay on the future of technology in education, the school decided to open the iPad lab to give the students the same interactive learning environment they are used to outside of school.

Sources:

Schools Using iPads Before Business

Posted on by mkaufman

ipad in school

I just came across a great resource documenting some significant school investments in iPads. The author makes a bold claim that since there is this much investment to buy iPads for school use it is likely schools will be using them ahead of businesses.

I don’t think this is a fad. Schools cite numerous reasons for investing in iPads including:

  • Instant and personalized access to information
  • Creating more interest
  • Making users more productive
  • Freeing users from wires (and letting them move around)
  • Saving money
  • Keeping users up to date with current technology

Here’s the top 13 schools and their investments from the list I found (see a link to his google doc below for more than 50 examples of schools making investments in iPads):

1) Florida State College at Jacksonville has deployed 350 iPads to executives, administrators, faculty, IT staff and students. “It’s the first phase of a project calling for a thousand iPads to be delivered throughout the college by the end of the year, including at libraries and labs where students can ‘check’ them out,” wrote Tom Kaneshige in CIO magazine.

2) As many as 736 students in the Chicago Public Schools will test iPads this year in 23 schools. One school, Burley Elementary, will use them to provide individual instruction and encourage critical thinking through multimedia apps and collaborative tools.

3) The California Department of Education, in conjunction with textbook vendor Houghton-Mifflin, are testing iPads with 400 eight-graders in four school districts (San Francisco, Long Beach, Riverside and Fresno).

4) Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High School is investing 7,748 for 320 of the 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads with extended two-year warranties plus wireless infrastructure for the public high school near Mankato, Minnesota.

5) The University of Adelaide in Australia plans, starting next year, to give free iPads to “hundreds” of first-year science students. Lecture notes, audio, background docs and textbooks will be delivered through “tailored web-based apps” for iPads as well as regular notebook PCs.

6) In rural northern California, Avery Middle School is using 170 iPads with 6th-8th graders to help “displace expensive textbooks, promote active engaging and learning…and greater flexibility in accessing course materials, even in rural areas,” according to a news release.

7) Marymount School has given 150 iPads to its students and teachers. The private all-girls school in Manhattan hopes to have enough for all 550 students by early next year.

8) Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland has rolled out iPads to its 115 students, a project being documented as The iPad Project by teacher and blogger, Fraser Speirs.

9) Stanford University is trialing iPads with 91 first-year medical school students.

10) Alexander Dawson School, a private K-12 school near Boulder, Colorado, is leasing-to-own 90 iPads for 3 years for $36,000 total (normal retail price: about $45,000). The iPads are preloaded with about 30 textbooks for the 5th and 6th grade students using them.

11) Morristown-Beard, a private middle and high school in New Jersey, hasissued iPads to 60 students. If the trial is successful in encouraging teacher-student interaction (compared to the laptops used today), it will give iPads to all 500+ students next year.

12) Pikes Peak Prep in Colorado Springs, Colorado has bought 50 iPads for students to use in math, science, language arts and social studies. Students will send screen shots of work rather than turn in papers and also perform virtual frog dissections using the iPads, according to the principal.

13) Notre Dame University is testing iPads with 40 business students, according to a Forbes magazine article by Elizabeth Woyke.

Google Doc with more than 50 examples of buying iPads for school.

Grants for iPads in Schools

Posted on by mkaufman

using grants to get ipads for school

It looks like there are a number of schools using (or getting) grants that enable them to use iPads in their school. The following are a few of the articles I’ve found recently that mention how schools are using grants to get iPads.

Big grant will help West St. Paul school go ‘paperless’

Updated: 9/30/2010 11:07:05 AM
West St. Paul, Minn. — From the curb of Butler Avenue, Heritage Middle School looks like any other school. But step inside and you’ll quickly learn science and technology is king. Now, a federally funded grant for magnet schools will give the king a kick start.

Every kid at the 690 student school will get an iPad or iPod touch. It means a lot to a magnet school that focuses on science, technology, engineering, and math.

KARE Channel 11

Grant secures iPads for Attalla schools

Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 9:14 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 9:16 p.m.
The school system recently used grant funds to purchase 10 iPads to be used by administrators, teachers and students.

“We’re trying to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs,” said Wesley Gulledge, assistant principal of Etowah Middle School and site director of the school’s 21st Century Community Learning Center. “Tomorrow’s jobs are going to want them to have technology skills. It’s our job to make sure students have access to that technology and know what they’re supposed to do with it.”

The Gadsden Times

Grant lets school add iPods as learning tools
Written by Deb EgenbergerThursday, 23 September 2010 21:23

A grant written by technology coordinator Robbi McKenney and awarded from the John R. Applegate Fund through Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation has allowed the district to purchase 10 new iPod Touch units, two iHome speaker systems and extra headphones.

These are in addition to 10 iPod Classics, 20 iPod Touches and an iPad the school already has available for K-12 students.

The iPod Touch and iPad units have been loaded with educational applications that can integrate into a variety of subject areas including Spanish, science, history, art and math.

Last spring, the advanced computer class completed a project with second and sixth graders using the iPod Touch to learn Spanish, improve spelling, do research online and study geography.

The Gothenburgtimes

IPad hits N.S. classrooms
$10,000 worth of Apple tablets for teachers and students

Last Updated: Friday, September 24, 2010 | 5:25 PM AT
A Nova Scotia elementary school has added the iPad to its list of classroom teaching tools.

Mount Carmel Elementary School in New Waterford, Cape Breton, bought 10 of the high-tech tablet computers this year to share among its students as a complement to textbooks and chalkboards.

Principal Lowell Cormier said the $10,000 cost was covered by a combination of fundraising, community partnerships and school board contributions. He said the school expects a good return in the form of improved learning.

CBC News

Freshmen in Naselle get iPads, thanks to grant
NASELLE, Wash. — School officials in the small Southwest Washington town of Naselle are hoping some new technology will boost performance among high school freshmen.

The school district last week provided its 29 freshmen with iPads outfitted with educational software such as graphing calculators. The high school has 150 students.

Apple’s latest portable computer typically retails for $499. The Daily News of Longview reports the district purchased the iPads with a $20,000 grant from a private foundation and invested $25,000 of its own money in training for teachers.

The Daily News