Remember singing the old childhood ditty “The Wheels on the Bus?”
Well, now they've got an app for that.
Kindergartners at Greenock Elementary School already are familiar with this particular piece of application software. Though it doesn't actually play the song, the program does help them warm up their fingers and develop dexterity at the onset of their thrice-weekly iPod Touch learning sessions.
It's part of a pilot program the district is employing at the school that incorporates the hand-held, touch-screen computerized devices into daily lessons on literacy, math and other subjects. Educators at the school say early learning educational programs designed for the iPod use touch-screen graphics and don't require typing or knowledge of the keyboard, making them ideal for students just starting school.
After a few minutes of flick-scrolling bus tires and tapping on images of yellow bus doors, making them open and close, the students are ready to move on to more substantial lessons.
The alphabet, primary spelling lessons and counting exercises are among the day's activities. The children's level of involvement with their iPods is such that they show only limited interest in several adults visiting the classroom to observe their activities.
The exciting action is taking place on the screen.
“They think all they're doing is playing,” said kindergarten teacher Christine Estadt, noting that students respond so favorably to the iPod sessions that they can be promised as a reward for getting through old-fashioned pencil and paper learning tasks. She said most of the students showed fluency with the devices the first time she introduced them.
“I thought there would be a whole day of showing them how” to handle and control the iPods, she said. “But we just jumped into the (curriculum-oriented) apps the first day.”
School planners say the iPods are proving themselves to be budget smart addition to their arsenal of instructional tools.
District technology director Mary Beth Wiseman said the cost of putting an iPod in the hands of a student is about $200 per unit. Many of the software applications are free or cost 99 cents. The most expensive program included on a list of apps used by the district cost $4.99. Wiseman said the purchase price is the amount paid for the classroom as whole, not for each student.
“We can get five of the iPod carts to the cost of getting one laptop cart,” said Wiseman.
A cart refers to the unit on which the devices are stored and charged when not in use. The district bought 28 iPods for use at Greenock this year. The district also is piloting a iPad tablet-sized computer program at its middle school this year.
District superintendent Bart Rocco said students are engaged by the new classroom technologies.
“This is their world,” he said.
Kindergartner Angelina Cortazzo said during a recent session that she likes the iPod simply because, “It's fun to do.”
Her classmate Kaylah Rice-Chambers, deeply engaged in counting game called Arithmaroo that has players identify the number of objects on the screen, looked up momentarily when a visitor observed she was good at picking the right number. She nodded earnestly at the obvious remark, then turned her attention back to the game.
Estadt said children like the games because they give them instant feedback in the form of rewarding sounds and sights when they get the answer right. But even when students get the answer wrong, they're less apt to get discouraged. The excitement of the game is its own reward.
She credits an application that allows students to make and play back audio recording of their own voices with improving her classroom's oral reading skills.
“I've seen their confidence in reading really pick up. They want to hear themselves reading really well,” she said.
So far, the iPods have only been used as tools for building skills, but Estadt believes they eventually could be utilized for testing and diagnostics.
A quick online search shows there is a plentiful supply of learning apps available for various handheld computing devices. The website www.parenting.com has a list of the 30 best iPod and iPhone apps for kids. They range in levels of age-appropriateness and teach everything from music theory to natural history.
Wiseman said the district hopes to expand its technology programs next year; there are two additional iPod carts and three more iPad carts budgeted for the coming school year, though the district is still months away from adopting its final spending plan for 2011-12.
In a tight budget year there are no guarantees the technology purchases won't get cut, but school officials are hoping for the best.
Estadt said she'll begin training other kindergarten teachers on how to use iPods with their students later this spring.
