Mac - Week 1: Comments on Classroom Technology

iPad & MacBook Pro images from http://apple.com
Illustration prepared with Adobe Photoshop CS5 by Kathy Valunas

@Torrey Proctor-

Every student in grades 5th-12th at Spirit Lake received a MacBook in the fall of 2010. The community also blessed teachers with MacBooks and classroom projectors. I’m hoping that the school invests in a quality scanner everyone can use, makes Wi-Fi available, and installs Adobe Photoshop to a computer lab. I’ve purchased a green screen in order to make video presentations more interesting for the art students. I originally intended the purchase of my iPad for student use. Unfortunately my iPad retains its mint condition at home and misses the opportunity to assist student achievement. This discussion board entry has inspired me to bring my iPad to school as soon as possible. In addition to my teacher issued MacBook, students will also use the iPad for Google searches on visual reference materials related to their artwork and art software play.

Projector image from:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=projector#ai:MC900353340|

My comments-

Torrey- how wonderful that your district got the MacBooks for all 5th-12th grade students! Our district would never agree to that for fear that the laptops would get damaged or never returned. It is even better that all teachers got iPads! I got a 17" MacBook Pro with all the graphic software and bells and whistles when my district redid my lab and I used it for everything, so I was really glad that I got one from FSO when I started this program. I hope to purchase an iPad sometime this month and am anxious to see all that it can do. I think it would be great to use in the classroom for surveys, instant feedback and blogging, short research activities, WebQuests, and storyboarding within small teams. You could give each team of students a block of time to use the iPad to work on collaborative activities. It will be interesting to see what you end up doing with your new "toy". -Kathy V EMDT-MAC-Month 11-Week 1