Teachers at South Middle School gathered around a room, all with their attention on a piece of paper and a hair dryer.
The teachers were learning about Bernoulli’s Principle related to lift, how blowing air over an object creates lift. More importantly, they were learning more about using an iPad in education, part of a pilot program in Berkeley County Schools at South Middle, Martinsburg High and Musselman Middle.
Derek Oldfield, instructional technology specialist, explained the teachers were using the iPads to record the paper in slow motion and capturing screens of that recording to annotate lift principle, showing high pressure and low pressure areas.
“They were sort of in the students’ seat,” Oldfield laughed.
While the county is already at one-to-one with devices for students and teachers, the iPad pilot comes as a way to further better the use of technology in the classroom and best serve the students of Berkeley County as they move toward their futures.
“Every year, the discussion of devices comes up,” Oldfield said. “The two of us talk about, ‘We’ve got to keep moving forward. Are we going to make any shifts or changes? What needs to be purchased this year?’ Every district has these conversations.”
The district’s Teaching & Learning Department moved the conversation toward what a classroom should be and what outcomes the district seeks for its classes, looking at the desired profile of a BCS graduate. The department looked at the desired skills and competencies for what BCS students should have.
“When you think about those things, we also think about the trends going on in the job market and the career fields, what skills and competencies employers are looking for right now,” Oldfield said. “We put all those pieces of the puzzle together to come up with this idea of what we would like schools and classrooms to look like and sound like and feel like. That’s quite a chance and undertaking, honestly, because of the impact of this rapid change in technology we’re experiencing. Not just now but for the last 20 years or so, I feel like education has been in this system of pretty rapid change because of how quickly technology changes and the impact that places on our learners, the changes it brings about in the job market and the career field.”
From there, the iPad pilot was formed as thoughts circulated that the devices might best allow students to develop those desired skillsets. Instead of rolling out in a traditional manner, where students and teachers received the devices at the same time virtually, the district chose one where teachers received their iPads in August and would go through training and professional development throughout this year. Students in the three pilot schools will receive their iPads next August, replacing the Chromebooks that are currently used at that programmatic level.
The teachers in the pilot schools are meeting, at minimum, once a month to learn more about the devices and their usage, and their classrooms have been equipped with Apple TV to help allow educators to utilize the devices now. Oldfield said even without the students having iPads in hand, the teachers can still capitalize on the devices with mobility not allowed by traditional computers, as well as presentation abilities with the Apple TV.
Having the devices in the hands of educators before the students also allows them to be ahead of the learners in experience in a way that’s rare in current times.
“The students are usually a little bit ahead of us,” Oldfield laughed.
Tablets won’t be a totally new device to students in those buildings, as currently, students in K-Grade 5 use tablets in the one-to-one device initiative in the county.
Students in the pilot schools will receive a case with a keyboard for those secondary-level classes that require more writing than others.
Oldfield said a tablet allows for a strong balance of critical thinking, education and creativity when used right in the classroom, as he shared projects students have created using the technology, including a podcast from the point of view of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the day after the “I Have A Dream” speech or movie trailers inspired by books that haven’t already been turned into films.
“They’re doing a lot with technology that allows them to create these very cool projects,” Oldfield said.