District Takes the Lead with 1 to 1 Learning
Profiles in Success: Shoreline School District
Shoreline, WA — At Echo Lake Elementary School, several teachers have expressed concerns about their students’ homework habits. But it’s actually a “problem” most educators would love to have: Now that Shoreline School District has implemented a 1 to 1 learning program, Echo Lake students are actually doing more homework than necessary. “Since they received their iBook notebooks, they’re so motivated that they say, ‘Can I do 10 extra sentences?’” says Mary Koontz, principal at Echo Lake. “Now students have all of the tools they need to work on their projects at home, and the learning is just way up.”
Shoreline launched its first notebook program with the distribution of an Apple Mobile Learning Lab to grades 5, 6, and 7 in three schools in the district. Dubbed the “Math Tech Pilot,” the initiative focused exclusively on improving math instruction and comprehension, an area of the curriculum that had proved challenging in the past. District Technology Director Jim Golubich says the results of the pilot were encouraging.
“Since we’ve ‘gone digital,’ our teachers now can use technology to assess their students, then put interventions in place for kids who need them.”
— Lori Longo, Principal, Kellogg Middle School
“In the schools where the teachers truly got into using the iBook notebooks, the feedback was very, very compelling and persuasive,” Golubich reports. “Echo Lake Elementary, especially, had universal buy-in from all of the teachers. They were fighting for every spare minute they could get their hands on the iBooks!”
Peer Coaches Guide the Way
Echo Lake’s adoption of the iBook notebooks was no accident. In the early stages of the pilot program, the school adopted a highly effective professional development model based on peer coaching. As each teacher learned to integrate technology tools into the curriculum, he or she was paired with a colleague to guide the way. Thus, Echo Lake’s faculty had a rock-solid support system that enabled them to experiment and discover.
“Every staff member knew they had a coach who could model lessons for them, act as guides, and assist in any way needed,” explains Koontz. “This allowed our teachers to make mistakes and discover that they all faced very similar challenges, even if one was teaching first grade and another sixth grade.
Next Page: Teachers Weave Tools into Classroom Activities
