When the Mineola School Board gave iPads to all of the fifth grade students in the Jackson Avenue School last September, no one really knew how the youngsters would respond to using Apple Computer’s small-screen state-of-the-art devices for their school work.
But five months, and lots of new iPad applications after the introduction of the portable hand-held devices, the kids and their parents agree that the move has proved to be a productive one, according to surveys the school conducted among both groups last month.
During a presentation at last Thursday night’s school board meeting in the Jack Avenue gym, school principal Matthew Gaven said the objective was nothing less than implementing a quantum leap in learning techniques.
“The whole basis of this was to create 21st century thinkers, thinking creatively, collaboratively and using critical thinking,” Gaven said.
All the fifth graders have in-district e-mail service to enable them to share files with each other and receive lessons and homework questions from their teachers via e-mail. The students started working on collaborative WIKI research projects that enables them to link to one another’s research projects on various subjects online, according to Gaven.
“Part of the power is the amount of engagement students have,” Gaven said.
Asked to identify their favorite applications, the hands-down winner was an Apple educational program called State Stacker, a game that awards points as the students make progress in identifying the names, capitals, nicknames and shapes of the 50 U.S. states.
“They’re obsessed with this program,” said Gaven, who noted that 59 percent rated it as their favorite in what apparently has taken off as a school-wide competition to snag the highest point total possible
An informal survey among fifth graders at the meeting confirmed State Stacker’s popularity.
“I hide [the iPad from my mom so I can keep playing State Stacker,” Jackson Avenue fifth grader Juliana Lupo confided.
The Safari web browser was the second most popular application, according to 57 percent of the students, who ranked accessing Web pages as their next most favored activity (37 percent) .
Nearly half – 48.5 percent – rated science as their favorite subject. Nearly 70 percent rated research as the most interesting activity they engage in with the iPads. But reading was a close second, at 66.7 percent, followed by writing (55 percent), science (33.3 percent) mathematics (31.7 percent) and social studies (23.3 percent).
Approximately two-thirds of the students (65 percent) indicated that they’re using their iPads at home 30 minutes or an hour each day. And 82 percent can go online at home via WiFi, according to Gaven, who said that online access away from school was initially an issue when the students first received their iPads.
Among their parents, 87 percent said their children were more interested in their studies since they’d begun using the Apple devices. More that three-quarters of the parents (77.4 percent) said they’d had frequent conversations with their kids about the iPads. The vast majority of all parents (91 percent) favor continuing the fifth grade program and expanding the program into sixth grade.
Gaven credited the five teachers who had adapted their routines, simultaneously teaching the students two subjects in separate groups.
“What we’ve asked of them is to turn things upside down,” Gaven said.
The Jackson Avenue faculty have been working with student teachers from Adelphi University to develop new educational technology classes. Other school districts, including Garden City and North Shore, have sent representatives to observe students using the iPads. Representatives from Herricks are coming this week, Gaven said, with Friends Academy to follow suit shortly.
“We’re forming our vision on skills,” Mineola Superintendent of Schools Michael Nagler said. “We don’t know what jobs our children will have in 15 years.”
The four Cs – creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking – form the foundations of the school’s approach, according to Nagler, who seconded parents’ sentiments in saying it is “important” to replicate the educational experiment in sixth grade.
“We’re ahead of the curve and I’d like for us to stay there now,”
Nagler said, noting that school districts that have introduced iPads for use as integral elements in school curriculums have typically done so at high school or middle school level.
In other developments:
* Nagler said the “last pieces in the puzzle” of next year’s school budget would be in place for a March 16 hearing in the Willis Avenue School.
* Nagler announced new starting and finishing times for district schools next fall, as follows: 7:26 a.m. and 2:18 p.m. at the high school; 7:55 a.m. and 2:32 p.m. at the middle school; 9:09 a.m. and 3:16 p.m. at the Jackson Avenue School; 8:12 a.m. and 3:20 p.m. at the Meadow Drive and Hampton Street Schools; and 8.43 a.m. and 3:20 p.m. at the Willis Avenue School.
