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Source: The Telegraph, Alton, Ill.儲存Sept. 04--BETHALTO -- Confident of the benefits of technology to student learning, the Bethalto School District began rolling out iPads to all of its elementary students Tuesday morning in its final phase of a digital conversion begun five years ago.For her students' first assignment, fifth-grade teacher Jenny Hanks asked her class at Meadowbrook Intermediate School to use their iPads to create an "It's About Me" keynote presentation incorporating images, photos and videos that reflect their interests."In the past, we've done 'About Me' bags, where they have brought in items from home to talk about themselves," Hanks said. "Now instead of the items going into their lockers, I told them once we got the iPads that we would put together presentations, and they can take the iPads home to take a picture or a short video of their cat, dog or their families -- whatever they want to do."As an introductory exercise, students were searching the Internet for pictures of their favorite sports and video games to embed in their presentations."This is really fun, and it's a really cool way to learn," fifth-grader Abbi Geiger said. "I like being able to touch it and play around with it. I like that whenever I make a mistake that I can just wipe it off."Students no longer have to stand in front of the classroom to share their presentations; they can now "mirror" or project it onto a screen from their desks. Geiger also said she likes being able to look down at the iPad and be able to follow the notes Hanks has projected onto the screen at the front of the classroom.If the presentation includes a word she doesn't know, Geiger said she "can go to the dictionary on the iPad and look it up."The reading curriculum includes visual cues with vocabulary words along with the definition, an example with antonyms or synonyms and another sentence, so there are different ways of reinforcing learning."And every time I want them to have a new app, I can sync my machine to theirs through a station," Hanks said. "This way, their material is always up to date."However, the biggest advantage in teaching, Hanks said, is that the iPads allow those students who need to re-read material to be able to do so while other students can move ahead with enrichment activities without being aware of what anyone else is doing."There can be so many things happening in the classroom at one time," she said. "We want the kids to be able to guide themselves through lesson新蒲崗迷你倉, so these options help me to better engage students at multiple levels."The district began integrating technology into the curriculum with the issuance of individual laptop devices to Trimpe Middle School students in 2009. Since that initial roll-out, all high schools have received MacBook Air devices and middle school students have been "refreshed" with the same Apple device."We decided to do fourth-grade and fifth-grade pilot rooms last year to glean what these particular grade levels needed," said Jill Griffin, the district's curriculum director. "We were looking at the iPad and the MacBook Air options, and we decided the iPad would work best, based in part on the potential wear-and-tear to the machine because these kids are younger."To safeguard the machines, the district elected to cover each device with an OtterBox case and screen protector for added durability."We looked at what apps the device offered, and we were influenced by the fact that our curriculum could be easily delivered on iPads," Griffin said. "We also looked at cost, which is about half that of a MacBook Air."Director of Technology Jay Stemmley said the older elementary students were give iPads with more storage space, with 32 gigabytes on the machines issued to fourth- and fifth-graders, and 16 gigabytes on machines given to kindergarten through third-grade students."We looked at students as consumers of information and content creators to determine what they would need," Stemmley said. "We saw no difference for fourth- and fifth-graders between the MacBook Air and the iPad."The MacBook Air cost between $900 and $950, compared to a 16-gigabyte iPad priced at $490. The 32-gigabyte iPad costs about $100 more.This year, the district purchased 1,000 iPads for student use, bringing the total number of laptop devices issued to students in the district to approximately 2,600 machines."Everybody has a laptop now," Stemmley said.As a result, students can use iPads to take snapshots of examples on the board or assignments for their personal use."One thing we worried about was whether students would have access to the Internet at home," Hanks said. "But because the iPad uses apps, it's really OK, because Internet use isn't required, because everything is already downloaded for them. All they need is a charger."kbassett@thetelegraph.comCopyright: ___ (c)2013 The Telegraph (Alton, Ill.) Visit The Telegraph (Alton, Ill.) at .thetelegraph.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesmini storage