Visit to Choate Rosemary Hall

On January 15, 2013, a group of Exeter teachers visited Choate Rosemary Hall for an Eight Schools Association Technology Committee meeting. The highlight of the meeting was hearing from Choate teachers about the 1:1 iPad program, which was instituted in September. I have summarized each report below...

Georges Chahwan, who teaches Arabic, described the iPad as "language's new papyrus." He went on to say, "Technology has become the new language in which our students communicate on a daily basis. We, as educators, should embrace this challenge and keep up with the technological advances." He reported that he makes use of the Apps Notability, Socrative, Educreations, and Explain Everything."

Mathematics teacher Will Nowak reported that the iPad is changing his classroom by "engaging students with more stimulating content and enhancing real-world applications with access to real data." He makes use of free graphing calculators, such as Desmos Graphing Calculator, and demonstrated an App called Tap Towers, which simulates the Tower of Hanoi puzzle.

Tom Foster, history teacher, showed examples of the texts he created for his course on The History of the West and 20th Century Social History using iBooks Author. Using iBooks Author allowed him to imbed video and audio along with electronic selections from the text Letters of the Century. He feels that being able to organize all course materials into one source, electronically, has made his courses much more powerful. This was all the more impressive because Tom was admittedly skeptical of the iPad adoption but is now fully on board.

English teacher Katie Levesque credited the iPad for it's aid in "delivering content, fostering collaboration, and creation of material." While the iPad engages kids in different ways, she felt that quiet kids can find their voice with electronic discussion. Students do peer editing using Notability and create presentations with Prezi. While short readings are presented electronically, she gives students the choice of reading novels either electronically or with paper texts. Citation and page reference between electronic and paper versions of texts was not a problem.

Deron Chang, science teacher, said that a faculty trip to Apple in Cupertino, CA changed his opinion of the iPad which, up to that point, he had seen as a glorified notebook. He said the visit to Apple and speaking with Apple Education folks was eye-opening. He now believes that the iPad helps students to get excited and passionate about learning. Moreover, he feels that the iPad allows students to "learn their strengths and weaknesses, and allows them to collaborate, create, and innovate in ways not possible before."