New York school district converts 75% of its curriculum to Apple's iPad
All students in grades 3 through 9 in the affluent Mineola, N.Y., school district have been equipped with Apple's iPad, in an aggressive and ambitious initiative that has converted some 75 percent of its students' instructional days to the touchscreen tablet.
The Mineola Union Free School District, located in the New York City suburb of Mineola, is in the fifth year of an initiative equipping its students with iPads for the bulk of classroom lessons. The progress being made was detailed by Gail Robinson of The Hechinger Report, after she spent a day with 24 third-graders at Jackson Avenue School.
The districtwide initiative keeps the traditional model of one teacher per classroom, but provides each student with their own iPad. For the third-grade class taught by Morgan Mercaldi, the students are "constantly" using their tablets for a variety of activities.
That's not to say that pencil, paper and books are a thing of the past: Mercaldi's students still write reports on physical paper. But in an example of how the digital classroom is evolving, for one particular math lesson, the students use an application called Edmodo to communicate with the teacher and let her see their answers.
Schools and students have been a major part of the initial success Apple found with its iPad after it launched in 2010. Though sales have slowed in recent quarters, Apple remains bullish on the platform, and has noted that users keep their iPads for longer than an iPhone, giving it a longer, PC-like upgrade cycle.
In an effort to boost sales, Apple is said to be working on major changes to its iPad in Education program, aimed at bringing down some of the barriers schools encounter when trying to deploy iPads in the classroom. Specifically, Apple is said to be planning to allow schools to distribute apps without assigning Apple IDs to each tablet, while in 2016, schools will be able to create and manage Apple IDs for students that can be used to access iCloud.
Apple has inked a number of deals with school districts worldwide to use the iPad in education. But its most high-profile deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District was scrapped after officials caught wind of cost overruns, problems with students bypassing browser restrictions, and concerns about officials favoring Apple products without considering other options.
The Mineola Union Free School District, located in the New York City suburb of Mineola, is in the fifth year of an initiative equipping its students with iPads for the bulk of classroom lessons. The progress being made was detailed by Gail Robinson of The Hechinger Report, after she spent a day with 24 third-graders at Jackson Avenue School.
The districtwide initiative keeps the traditional model of one teacher per classroom, but provides each student with their own iPad. For the third-grade class taught by Morgan Mercaldi, the students are "constantly" using their tablets for a variety of activities.
That's not to say that pencil, paper and books are a thing of the past: Mercaldi's students still write reports on physical paper. But in an example of how the digital classroom is evolving, for one particular math lesson, the students use an application called Edmodo to communicate with the teacher and let her see their answers.
Schools and students have been a major part of the initial success Apple found with its iPad after it launched in 2010. Though sales have slowed in recent quarters, Apple remains bullish on the platform, and has noted that users keep their iPads for longer than an iPhone, giving it a longer, PC-like upgrade cycle.
In an effort to boost sales, Apple is said to be working on major changes to its iPad in Education program, aimed at bringing down some of the barriers schools encounter when trying to deploy iPads in the classroom. Specifically, Apple is said to be planning to allow schools to distribute apps without assigning Apple IDs to each tablet, while in 2016, schools will be able to create and manage Apple IDs for students that can be used to access iCloud.
Apple has inked a number of deals with school districts worldwide to use the iPad in education. But its most high-profile deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District was scrapped after officials caught wind of cost overruns, problems with students bypassing browser restrictions, and concerns about officials favoring Apple products without considering other options.
Comments
My kid's charter school runs on iPads for the kids, MacBooks of various sorts for teachers and administration, Apple TV and Airplay with projection TV for lessons. (iMacs for the computer lab). Works pretty well. They use a variety of software and web based portals for instruction and text.
The iPads have normal fake leather wrap around cases and seem to take the use and abuse of the kids. Kids like it. Seems to work for the school.
Apple's failure AND the LA Districts failure was they both trusted Prometric to organize, set pricing, and run it into the ground basically. The apps they provided wouldn't work/crash. It was very poorly designed. Costs were way more than they should be... They should have vetted it more..
Many mistakes to learn from with LA deal, but biggest one is STAY AWAY FROM PROMETRIC!
The article's opening paragraph calls Mineola affluent which is untrue.
Mineola is a typical Long Island, NY middle class community.
I've read bits, here and there, that iPads have increased test scores from autistic kids all the way to medical students.
I know this is a bold statement, but the iPad is most under utilized teaching tool available to the American education system. Ugh!
I made sure my daughter had a MacBook (mine) when she went off to school. Upgraded up to a MacBookPro for Med. school. Bought her the original iPhone and iPad...she now has a iPhone 6, iPad mini, and a late model 11" MacBook Air. And her birthday is coming up! (Sports AppleWatch-Pink wristband.)
Meanwhile, I have a cracked 4s, a 2006 iMac running SL and 10 year old Seiko watch. Grrrrrrrr!
P.S. Lucky she got her mother's "brains!"
My kid's charter school runs on iPads for the kids, MacBooks of various sorts for teachers and administration, Apple TV and Airplay with projection TV for lessons. (iMacs for the computer lab). Works pretty well. They use a variety of software and web based portals for instruction and text.
The iPads have normal fake leather wrap around cases and seem to take the use and abuse of the kids. Kids like it. Seems to work for the school.
Cool.
Like neighborhoods, all school districts are not the same. Let’s hope educators find a way to make cutting edge technology teaching to all students.
You need to have the highest property taxes in the entire country first.
I think largely the LA deal was a horrific bust because of Prometric. They used to be 'the' name in education.. now they don't care what they put out, which is mostly garbage.
Apple's failure AND the LA Districts failure was they both trusted Prometric to organize, set pricing, and run it into the ground basically. The apps they provided wouldn't work/crash. It was very poorly designed. Costs were way more than they should be... They should have vetted it more..
Many mistakes to learn from with LA deal, but biggest one is STAY AWAY FROM PROMETRIC!
The LA deal had Pearson as a partner ... they even had a former Pearson exec as part of the implementation team. Pearson is not Apple friendly and is a huge international cartel that looks to control the whole education market. The whole project was doomed when Pearson came on board.