Pilot Apple Technology Project Huge Success for St. David's Grade Fives

The Grade 5 students were so excited they could hardly sit still as their St. David teacher Jennifer Gran asked them to open their macbooks and turn on their ipods. Gran along with Leann Laframboise, one of the Sudbury Catholic Technology Integration Mentor Teachers had put together a proposal and submitted it to Apple Canada with the hopes that the Grade 5 class would be selected to pilot a technology project. Luckily, the two teachers’ proposal was selected out of the hundreds of proposals submitted from across Canada. Apple selected Gran’s class which allowed the students the use of ten MacBook computers with wireless connectivity, digital still and video cameras, and iLife ’09, Apple’s award-winning digital media software as well as ten ipods. For the last four weeks, the class has created podcasts, comics, digital stories, movies and posters. As well, the students used ipods for different activities such as reading, navigating apps and browsers and literacy and numeracy games. Gran was thrilled that her class had the opportunity to have some really hands on learning time with the provided technology. “If you have a high number of identified students, the technology really levels the playing field in regards to learning. “said Gran. “The technology gives the students many different options for learning. They don’t all learn the same way and with the macbooks and ipods, they can choose the way they learn most effectively, which makes teaching easier for the teacher.” For each different activity, the students were divided into groups and sat down with either Gran or Laframboise to consult on their projects. All of the students got the opportunity to use both pieces of technology daily. After St. David’s, the next school to receive the kit will be St. Francis Catholic Elementary School which was also one of the schools to be selected from across Canada.