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Kearns High students to get iPods for school use!
By lisa schencker
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated Jul 1, 2010 03:00PM Next school year, teachers from at least one area high school won't nag students to put away their iPods during class.
They'll encourage kids to use them.
About 1,600 students at Kearns High will get iPod touches next school year, thanks to a $1 million federal stimulus Enhancing Education Through Technology grant. They'll download applications to use during lessons, use them to take notes, do research on the Internet and read their English textbooks on them. They will use the devices during class, take them home after school and keep them after they graduate.
"We're very, very serious about making it effective," said John Anderson, Kearns High assistant principal. "We're not putting toys in the kids' hands; we're putting tools in the kids' hands."
Anderson said it's almost like giving every child a laptop but without the same expense, and it allows each student to have Internet access in every class, not just in computer labs.
The handheld devices typically retail for a minimum of about $199 each. They can be used to download music, surf the Internet, e-mail and download applications.
Kearns teachers will spend the first two months of next school year learning how to better engage students and use the iPods in their instruction. Kids will then start using the iPods in class as early as November, Anderson said.
Last school year, Kearns experimented with a couple hundred iPods, and some teachers were trained how to use them in class, Anderson said.
In a history class, students used the iPods to research topics to create another verse of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" as part of a lesson.
A Spanish teacher downloaded an application that allowed students to hear the pronunciation of words and conjugations of verbs.
And a wildlife biology teacher downloaded an application that allowed students to see pictures of birds and hear the noises each made.
Tara Sorensen, who will be a senior at the school in the fall, said she enjoyed using the iPods to hear the bird sounds.
"They helped a lot," Sorensen said. She said she looks forward to using them full-time next school year. "I think they'll be really useful, and it's better than carrying a ton of books."
Anderson said students will still use books next school year, but the school's new English textbooks will also be available digitally, meaning students can access them on the iPods.
Michael Bagley, who will also be a Kearns senior in the fall, said he's excited students will be allowed to keep them if they graduate on-time.
"I think that will be the coolest thing ever," Bagley said. "I think that might be a little initiative for those who are thinking of not graduating to graduate, kind of a going-away present."
Anderson said school administrators are now working on changing Kearns' policies on electronic devices to match plans for the iPods. For example, students still will not be allowed to use the devices to access inappropriate materials, and social media sites, such as Facebook, will continue to be blocked.
But students will use them during class, and they will be allowed to download music to them.
He acknowledged that it might be difficult to keep some students from using the iPods to chat with friends or play games during class, but he said such challenges are nothing new in education. He said teachers will be trained to use the iPods to engage students so their attention doesn't wander.
"Kids have found ways to hand signal each other and send notes back and forth for generations," Anderson said. "In good classrooms, with good teachers, that can be avoided."
Plus, he said, he's not sure it's such a bad thing if kids use the iPods to multi-task, even during class. He said it's something college students and modern workers do every day.
"We've had to ask ourselves as a school, when the student is engaged and carrying out the activity, does it matter if they're IM-ing [instant messaging] somebody else at the same time?" Anderson said. "We don't know the answer to that, but we have to be able to look at what our college students are successfully doing as a model."
Bagley's mom, Michelle Bagley, said she hopes the devices aren't a distraction and don't lead to cheating. She said, however, she thinks the devices will be a plus as long as teachers know how to incorporate them into their lessons.
At least a handful of schools in the Tintic School District are already using iPod touches in class. Last school year, all of West Desert High's 14 students started using iPod touches in class.
Principal Ed Alder said the devices are synced to school computers. West Desert students used the iPods' advanced calculator feature in math classes, downloaded books for English assignments, used them for research and chose songs to play for a guitar class.
"The students do not have to huddle around one computer," Alder said. "They all had a computer in front of them."
He said he also allowed students to download music to them, so the students felt invested in them. Alder said not one device was lost all year.
Anderson said the grant money at Kearns High will last three years. He hopes they will have been successful enough to warrant funding from other sources after that.
Jena Anderson, who will be a Kearns senior next school year, said the iPod touches will be "awesome."
"The world around us is getting more technological, and I think that our schools need to start upgrading and using the technology for good," Jena Anderson said. "It can be helpful if we make it helpful."
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