Oysterponds school board learns about iPads
Oysterponds school board members couldn’t stop playing with their iPads at Tuesday night’s regular meeting — but it’s not because they were bored.
Teacher assistant Brittany Knote gave an interactive presentation called “Technology in the Classroom” to highlight the ways technology is being integrated at the elementary school. The devices are enhancing learning in subjects like math, reading, spelling and science, she said.
At the beginning of her presentation, Ms. Knote asked board members, who each had iPads in front of them, to launch an application called iTrace. The app is used in the Primary 1 classroom to help students learn how to trace letters using stylus pens.
“I thought this was great for the younger kids,” Ms. Knote said as school board members virtually traced their own names. “One of the goals for pre-K is to be able to write their name by the end of the year so this is a good app.”
Students in pre-K and kindergarten recently wrote their own nursery rhymes and used virtual paint programs to create illustrations, Ms. Knote said.
Older students have also benefited from enhanced technology lessons, Ms. Knote said.
Earlier this year, Intermediate 2 students used applications like iMovie and Green Screen to create video trailers — not for movies, but for books they were reading, using language from the text to narrate them.
The trailers, which were a Project Based Assessment, helped students master story elements, write dialogue and sequence events in the book.
“I was so, so impressed with the kids and how easily they were able to just say, ‘Okay, let’s do this — let’s put this together,” she said.
Ms. Knote added she hopes to integrate things like Google Apps for Education and books on the iPads while creating an updated technology plan for the district.
