Jodie Deinhammer wrote the book on using iPad in science classrooms. Literally.
The middle school teacher — and Apple Distinguished Educator — has been using tablets to teach since her district first equipped every student with an iPad in 2014. All that experience went into a new e-book for teachers.
As part of its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, Apple on Tuesday shared a guide for teachers and parents on how to discuss race and equity in the classroom.
Apple feels for all the energetic kids getting antsy under stay-at-home orders.
The tech giant released a worksheet with 30 creative activities designed for kids 2-8 but could also be fun for the adults in the house.
Teachers in Europe dealing with a flood of refugees are successfully teaching children new languages with iPads.
After a school in Germany gave every student in its German-as-a-second-language program an Apple tablet, the graduation rate rose to 100 percent.
A majority of today’s college students are Mac fans. A new study found that 71 percent those in higher education either use or would like to use macOS computers. But there’s an important caveat: many of these students actually use other types because they can’t afford Apple’s offerings.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump were greeted by happy students with iPads as the two visited Wilder Elementary School in Idaho today.
But not everyone is happy with the iPads that Apple gave to school as part of a grant two years ago. A small group of protesters criticized the iPad program, saying the tablets actually get in the way of teachers teaching.
More than 60 new sessions to teach Apple users how to get the most creatively from their apps and devices will be added to the “Today at Apple” program, the company announced in New York today.
Held at Apple Stores around the world, the sessions offer primers on essential hardware and software in the Apple ecosystem. Each workshop is headed by local creative professionals teaching coding, digital drawing, photography, video and making music.
Sign-ups began today for Apple Camp, a free three-day summer program for kids at Apple Stores across the globe.
The camps, designed to expose kids to the many ways to get creative with Apple products, run July 9 through 27. Reservations tend to fill up fast.
CHICAGO — Apple’s vision for the future of the classroom is clear: Students armed with iPads and quality apps, and instructors leveraging creative teaching methods. Laying the groundwork for a combination of interactive group projects, immersive audio and video experiences, and some gamification, Apple thinks students will find greater success in schools through the use technology.
With yesterday’s big educational event behind us, we know a lot more about Apple’s vision for the classroom of the future.
Apple has a new education page with the video that was shown today in New York City. The 6-minute clip starts off with a group of teachers talking about why they love what they do. Apple exec Eddy Cue then transitions into Apple’s approach to modernizing education.
Roger Rosner, another Apple exec who was rumored to have been involved with the announcement this morning, also talks about how Apple thought about designing iBooks 2 as an interactive learning experience. Cue then explains iBooks Author for Mac. The last part of the video involves two interviews with publishing executives from Pearson and McGraw-Hill. The Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District also talks about how Apple will have a pivotal role in shaping education.
You can watch Apple’s education video on its website. There are several other pages for exploring iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxZG2Nv4KA
Forget those old tape recorders in the language lab: one school district is handing out iPods for students learning English as a second language.
Five schools in Beaufort County, South Carolina are equipping kids with limited English skills with iPod Touches to get them up to speed.
The iPods take the place of the language lab of yesteryear — students listen to stories on them as part of a fluency program designed to develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation and emphasize important words and concepts. They also watch videos on the iPod for grammar and reading exercises.
“If you don’t understand the story, you can listen to it,” seventh-grader Alex Sanchez told the Beaufort Gazette. “When I read, if I then hear the story, it sometimes makes more sense.”
The schools paid about $200 for each device. Apple provided teacher training and docking stations that can charge and sync 20 iPods at once. The ESL iPod program launched in one middle school last year and expanded to another four schools in the district this year.
Right now, the MP3 players go to kids who need to learn English but the school district is considering using them for students of foreign languages like French and Spanish.
I love this idea. An Italian friend of mine started using her commute time to listen to ESL podcasts — of which there are a ton — and found that in a couple of months she had learned more than at a class she paid for.
Via The State
After our post on yesterday’s en masse binning of hundreds of working Macs from a “PC only” school district in Florida, a reader who wished to remain anonymous sent us pics of those computers destined by that school for the trash. We also received comment from a school administrator.
First things first: here they are, stacks of laptops and neat rows of Macs destined for the rubbish heap. Our tipster says more than 208 perfectly good Macs are headed for the dump.
As many of you pointed out in the comments of yesterday’s piece, even if the school district didn’t want to use the Macs, they could’ve sold them and used the money — or given them away instead of just dumping them.
More pics of the great Florida Mac massacre & commentary after the jump.
An elementary school in Sarasota, Florida is sending several hundred working Macs to the trash heap — in keeping with the school district’s “PC-only” policy.
Piled up in the cafeteria of the Emma Booker school, 140 G3 and G4 laptops and over 50 iMac and eMac machines await the scrap heap.
An account in the local paper takes on dramatic overtones:
Sarasota County Public School system employees who alerted the Pelican Press to the salvage effort asked not to be identified because they feared retribution. “All of the machines are still working,” said one. “The teachers asked if they could buy them or give them to the kids. We were told, ‘No.’”
Putting the Macs out to pasture is the result of a decision by Superintendent Gary Norris, who headed the school system from 2004-2008, who declared the school system would be PC-only, the paper said.
Even the county school district’s program that donates computers to needy kids, called Texcellence, is a Mac-free zone.
“We’ve never used Macs,” foundation spokeswoman Laura Breeze told Pelican Press. The group recently received 1,100 used PC computers and is refurbishing them and adding software before giving them out.
At a time when budgets are tight, you have to wonder why a school district would send working computers to the scrap heap.
