“At the beginning of the school year, 13-year-old Trey Cash didn’t have a computer at home and had to turn in hand-written reports. Now, the Greene County Middle School eighth-grader has access to his own computer and almost anything he needs to complete his assignments,” LaToya Mack reports for The Kinston Free Press.
“Greene County Schools’ iTech program, which provided every middle and high school student in the county with an Apple iBook laptop computer, has been going since July, when the staff development phase began. Students began taking the computers home in October,” Mack reports.
“The first eight months of the project have been a whirlwind for Greene County. Superintendent Steve Mazingo, Gail Edmondson, iTech project director, and Pat MacNeill, director of instruction, have traveled across the state and outside North Carolina telling people about the program,” Mack reports. “School administrators have been to Greensboro, Pinehurst, Charlotte, Greenville, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida talking about their success with iTech. Everywhere Greene school officials go, people want to know how they were able to make the project work.”
Mack reports, “Greene County Middle eighth-grader Marcus Lee said the iBooks really helped him with a food project in health class. Lee used the Keynote program to put together a presentation and used the Internet to find pictures of the food guide pyramid… Mazingo said seeing how engaged students are in learning when they use the iBooks is what has amazed him.”
Full article here.
Quick, Apple, send that superintendent an iPod. Or a fruit basket or something.
I still say that Macs come with the software preinstalled that teachers and students can/need to use. It goes beyond the basic office suite that my classroom had when I was teaching. I could have done so much more with computers if my district had given us access to useful software, my computers would have been used for more than web surfing.
“Mazingo said seeing how engaged students are in learning when they use the iBooks is what has amazed him.”
Surprise, surprise: students learn best by active involvement in their own learning process. This is what education theorists have been saying ever since John Dewey, if not earlier.
Dang, send me back to the eigth grade if that is what it is like now.
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Anybody else have trouble opening the page? I would like to see the full article..