School Profiles

Teachers and students at Northwest Kansas Tech find a common touch point in iPad.

When first-year auto instructor Jim Kennedy contemplated using iPad as a teaching device, he asked, “This is a neat deal, but how is it really going to be a tool to help me fix cars in the shop?” After using iPad with his students, he says, “I was really surprised at the amount of things we can do with it.” Among the most useful is faster car realignments — made possible by the Hunter TouchRemote app, which lets a mechanic working under a car view on iPad all the readings needed to turn a toe to spec.

Northwest Kansas Tech cosmetology teacher Christa Bergsma initially could see a million ways to use iPad in the classroom, but she wasn’t sure how to make it relevant for her profession. Then she discovered tools like the Vagaro Pro app, which her students use to track clients, customer formulas, allergies, and services performed. Bergsma knows her students will be well prepared when they take jobs in salons and bring their iPad devices with them: “You can’t cut hair with them, but you can do a lot of other things.”

Students at the UK public school Flitch Green Academy use iPad, Mac, and iPod touch to create unique learning experiences.

The Mac, iPod touch, and iLife help 1st grade students create a cross-curricular learning experience with a battle animation.

Students at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, use Mac notebooks to research class assignments and show results in ways they never could before.

Promoting environmental sustainability is a major educational initiative at Punahou School. This theme found a perfect medium for expression in learning projects created by Danette Kobayashi’s 4th-grade class. Instead of planting regular gardens, the teacher and students decided to grow them hydroponically. They used MacBook computers with applications like iPhoto, GarageBand, and iMovie to document their learning, creating brochures and videos complete with effects, music, and voiceover.

MacBook Pro helps students at the Missouri School of Journalism effectively learn and practice the skills of modern journalism, including reporting, writing, and editing in different media. And it allows faculty to focus on teaching journalism — rather than managing technology.

As they advance through the Missouri School of Journalism, students use MacBook Pro and Apple applications to create video projects of increasing complexity. For their freshman interest group, Natalie Cheng and Samantha Hill used Final Cut Pro to document their experiences in a Charlie Chaplin-style video with old-school effects. For a senior capstone project, a dozen students pushed their skills and learned new tools — including Final Cut Pro — to produce Project 573, an intensive online reporting effort to discover the effect of the recession on typical citizens in Columbia, Missouri.

The Mac has transformed teaching and learning in the Greene County school system in rural eastern North Carolina. A new project-based curriculum has engaged and motivated students, and college-going rates have risen dramatically.