Education in Your Hand, Utilizing iPad Technology
Kids are motivated by technology, and taking advantage of motivation is a great way to assure educational success. This grant brings an increasingly familiar piece of technology, the touch screen iPad, into the newly created Language Program housed at the J.R. Briggs Elementary School. With the creation of this new program, designed to meet the needs of some of our most academically challenged students, it is the perfect time to integrate as many multi-media, multi-sensory approaches as possible as a seamless part of this program. The iPad would be used for guided practice and independent practice in language arts and math, as an additional computer for keyboarding, a source of text to speech applications, as well as a source of internet access for email letters home from students to parents. Over the year, teachers will expand the use of the iPad throughout the academic day. Academic excellence can be defined in many ways. This program encourages people to take another look at academic excellence. Taking a broader view, academic excellence is bringing a student to a higher level of academic success than they ever dreamed possible. This proposal would help students learn of their own academic excellence. Students within this Language Program have experienced severe struggles in school, not only with learning to read, but also with needing to rely on others to be successful. The text to speech and practice activities on the iPad allow these students to independently access curriculum. For many, the gift of academic independence is the greatest step towards academic excellence we can provide. If students see themselves as independently able to learn, then we will have created lifelong learners and there is nothing more academically excellent than that.
Grant Year: 2011-2012
Grant Recipients: Joy Weiss
Receiving Schools: J.R. Briggs Elementary School