Blog

While visiting Eccles Elementary School today, I toured through classrooms using iPod touch devices. In Jenne Parker's class, I noticed that she had some of her kids counting out tiles from baggies while others were using their iPod touch and a math game. When I inquired as to the activities happening in parallel, Jenne told me that all the students were to count out a specific number of tiles that she would be using with them in the next math activity of recognizing algebraic patterns. Mrs. Parker then said that she'd found in the past that some students would count out the tiles in the proper amount really quickly and then sit for several minutes while others finished their tile counting.

Instead, Jenne instructed them to reach for their iPods while they waited and practice their math addition facts with an app called FlashToPass. It was amazing to see the two things happening at the same time, and I began to think about each minute in the precious six hours that we have with students as a learning opportunity to be harnessed or to be wasted. In Mrs. Parker's 3rd grade classroom, not a moment was lost on this rainy Thursday, and several kids got to improve their addition acumen.

Welcome to the first day of school for the 2010-11 year. We are very excited for our 3rd grade iPod touch program which launched across the district in all of our elementary schools. At left, you can see a photo of some of our students at Trost Elementary as they explore their iPod touch for the first time in the classroom. Going through several classrooms yesterday, I was able to see and hear students and their excitement around using this powerful technology tool.

Students at Trost had already begun using the Dictionary.com app, the calculator, and Google Earth. You could see how they just knew that this little device was about to become their "learning buddy" for this school year. They leaned in and shared their favorite things with each other, explored the whole world through Google, learned to enter text using Notes and Dictionary.com... and one could watch the excitement for their 3rd grade school year take off like a rocket. You're only a third grader once, and something tells me that our Canby 3rd graders are really looking forward to what's ahead.