Indianapolis, IN — When Forest Manor Middle School Principal Karen Dailey sees her students in the halls, they often try to sneak a peek at what’s on the screen of the wireless iBook she always carries. “Can you communicate with us, and do the same things we do?” they ask. “Yes, indeed,” is her reply. She then shows them the projects she creates with iMovie, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and other applications used by the student body. “I want all students and parents to know that I believe our iBook laptops are an essential learning tool for students today,” Dailey says. “Here at Forest Manor, we believe 100 percent that technology is the way to go.”
Forest Manor is one of three middle schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) district that have received a total of 2200 iBook computers. Right from the start, says Dailey, the wireless laptops sparked a dramatic shift in the way students could find and work with information at school and at home.
“The iBook computers provide a wonderful opportunity for children to explore, and the real-time access to information is much more fascinating to them than what they can find in a textbook,” Dailey reports. “Take something as simple as the fish of the sea: Through the iBook laptops the children can view fish in a virtual ‘aquarium,’ and see movement and color, instead of looking at a static picture in a book. That’s when the ‘oohs and ahs’ start coming, and they want to find out more.”
I believe our iBook laptops are an essential learning tool for students today.
— Karen Dailey, Principal, Forest Manor Middle School
Students Exceed Expectations
Dailey isn’t alone in her assessment. Jeff McMahon, IPS Academic Technology Officer, says that students who’ve had the iBook laptops are far exceeding academic expectations.
Says McMahon, “We have a list that we call the ‘attributes of an IPS graduate,’ which is essentially the things we should see in a high school graduate. A lot of what we say our graduates should have — communication and presentation skills, higher-order problem-solving, and so forth — we’re seeing in the sixth and seventh graders who’ve been using the iBooks. They’re doing things we never thought of.
“For example,” McMahon continues, “you might think kids would never care to look at an encyclopedia. But we have World Book on the iBook laptops, and some kids know every nook and cranny of that program!”
McMahon is equally impressed with the creativity the students are showing with their learning. “Recently,” he recalls, “a mother came up to me to tell me that her son had a teacher who was giving a history lecture. Her son flipped his iBook open, and using iTunes he’d figured out how to record the whole thing. The mother was able to listen to the questions her son asked in class, then he studied the lesson using iTunes. It never entered my mind that kids would do something like that!”
iBook Gives Students Extra Edge
Cathryn Drummer’s son Casey is an eighth grader at Harsham Middle School, and is in his third year of working with an iBook. Casey has always been a good student, Drummer says. But having 24/7 computer access has given her son an even greater advantage in the classroom.
“In my opinion as a parent,” Drummer says, “having the iBook has provided an extra dimension to my son’s learning. Since his teachers all have an iBook, there’s such a collaborative-learning environment at his school. The teachers are teaching the kids, and the kids are teaching the teachers … and then Casey comes home and teaches me the things he’s learned!
“He uses his iBook all the time, even when he’s not doing schoolwork,” Drummer adds. “And now he wants to be a programmer, or use technology in some way when he gets older. I just think the whole iBook laptop program has been incredible.”
