Project iLearn going well in first half of school year

SIKESTON -- Nearly two quarters into the first year of implementing the use of iPads at Sikeston High School, and officials say the program is going very well.

Shannon Holifield, academic leader principal for high school, said she's proud of how hard the teachers have worked to implement Project iLearn.

"I'm very pleased with the transition," Holifield said. "The students are excited about it, too, and for the most part, they've shown maturity and responsibility handling the devices."

Michelle Gilmer, technology coordinator for the Sikeston R-6 School District, agreed.

"All in all, it's going really well," Gilmer said. "We've had a few cracked screens here and there, and only two iPads have gone missing, which is not bad considering we have over 1,000 being used."

Since the school year began in August, a total of 40 iPads have endured cracked screens or breaks of head sets or battery chargers, Gilmer said. The majority of these repairs have been to fix cracked screens, she said.

"The two missing have been gone long enough I'm not positive about us getting them back, but we had one gone for three weeks, and it found its way back to us," Gilmer said.

Generally, the lost tablets can be traced through an application, she said.

"I don't expect there to be more (lost iPads)," Gilmer said. "The students don't want to lose it; they try to take care of it."

In fact, generally anywhere a Sikeston High School student is, their black and red iPads are sure to be seen as well, Gilmer said, adding students take the devices with them everywhere.

Both students and their teachers are reaping benefits of using the devices a teachers across all content areas are incorporating the iPads into learning activities this year, Gilmer said.

"There are some really good things going on in the classrooms -- and at all different levels," Gilmer said.

The District is using the "SAMR" model of technology integration as a way of looking at how technology can transform our classrooms.

"While all levels of integration offer some improvement to the learning activity, we are challenging ourselves to reach for activities that redefine what our teachers and students can do in (and out of) classrooms," Gilmer said.

Some of the different activities include psychology students creating an iMovie to show what they learned while researching sleep disorders. Other students in an English class completed a graphic organizer as they evaluated rhetoric in a selected text. History students examined and summarized the Magna Carta using their tablets.

"One of the changes we've seen in the classrooms is more group work and collaboration by students," Gilmer said, adding collaboration and cooperative learning are important skills for 21st Century students. "Often teachers ask students to work in partners so that one iPad can display the text while the other iPad is used for annotation, notes, graphic organizers or creation task."

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