Hey, Mac, check this out!   Mission iNSPIRE provides iPADS to enhance Cocalico kids’ educations

In Kristin Knapp’s classroom, students don’t hide behind technology.

Whether practicing spelling words, racing each other to solve math problems, or researching the Titanic, these Reamstown Elementary School first graders depend on iPads for individualized assignments that deepen the experience.

Knapp can see almost every swipe or tap they make, and she tweaks her lessons based on assessment scores that pop up on her own iPad. Students who meet goals — or stray off task — get their own feedback via a classroom app that also allows parents to track behavior in real time.

This is technology in a modern classroom, in a district that plans to put a tablet or laptop into the hands of nearly every student by the start of the 2017-18 school year.

This is Mission iNSPIRE, a plan that calls for Cocalico School District to increase its use of in-class and at-home technology to support learning “for every child, every chance, every day.”

Last month, district officials formally presented the multi-year plan to the school board, which must still give its approval in the form of financial backing.

Ella Musser, assistant to the superintendent, said the initiative began in earnest last year, with the purchase of six Apple iPads for every classroom in the district’s three elementary schools. It will get a major boost if the purchase of 11-inch MacBook Air laptops is approved by the board as part of the 2015-16 budget process.

After the laptops arrive at the middle school, computers that were once shared between classrooms or in technology labs would be sent down to students in third and fourth grades. The following year, the district plans to provide a computer to every high school student.

Superintendent Dr. Bruce Sensenig said in the past that he needed to be convinced that one-to-one purchases could be justified. After meeting with Apple and Lenovo during the 2014-15 school year, he was sold.

Musser said the laptops, quoted at just under $800 each, will cost the district “a few thousand dollars less” than the $230,000 budgeted for student computers this fiscal year. The proposed budget for 2015-16 has not been officially unveiled yet.

The district would finance the purchase, and the contract would include a four-year replacement cycle. The fifth graders’ computers would remain at school, but older students who sign a contract and pay insurance fees would be allowed to take their devices home starting sometime in the fall.

Cocalico Middle School Principal Stephen Melnyk says his students have proven themselves responsible with technology, and that extends to using them ethically and appropriately.

“We continually remind and enforce appropriate etiquette when collaborating and sharing information,” Melnyk said in an email. “As a preventative nature, we will install Internet filters on the student laptops….”

Musser said Apple’s reputation for being secure and durable was a major factor in choosing Macs over something Windows- or Google-driven.

As budget talks move forward, administrators and teachers will be meeting with other districts to learn what successful one-to-one programming looks like. Starting this month, district librarians are set to begin training for tech support. And select students will also be asked to train as helpers when school starts next year.

The district will use Schoology, which Musser describes as a learning management system that allows teachers to post and grade assignments electronically, link lessons to digital tools and communicate with students and families.

Musser says the laptops will ultimately offer a “robust” combination of uses, from researching and writing papers to developing presentations in iMovie or Prezi or other such tools. Gym teachers could share demos of specific activities or ask students to track fitness goals; language students could communicate with others around the world through Skype; business students might create commercials or track the stock market.

“We’re past the point where technology is an add-on or a luxury,” Musser said. “There’s just an assumption when you get to college that know how to make digital presentations, how to contribute online, how to access information.”

The district will hold special summer workshops for middle school teachers who will have to learn to navigate a broad range of apps and relay that information to their students come August. Melnyk said the training will be based on his teachers’ individual technology use and comfort level.

Knapp’s students — just 6 and 7 years old — use the iPads independently and in small groups. On a recent visit, she’d borrowed a full set from the library so that each of her students could use a device at the same time.

Photo by Kimberly Marselas
iPADS are becoming an important part of the early grade school experience in the Cocalico School District.

It’s a smooth, quiet operation, during which students occasionally ask for technological help. Some ask for more challenging reading and quizzes. That’s a request the iPads allow Knapp to honor regardless of whether the rest of the class is ready to advance.

Knapp has taken iPad instructional classes for graduate credit and helps other teachers who are not as keen on tablets. She says training will be critical in making their daily introduction seamless in the upper grades.

“You have to invest two ways: one is giving teachers the knowledge and the other is the technology,” she said. “Just putting it in their hands will not be beneficial.”