http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/Ludington_iPad.mp3
UPDATE 2/24/2012 The school board agreed last night to bring the technology bond before voters in Ludington in an election this May.
Schools across the state and throughout the U.S. have been experimenting in recent years with iPads in the classroom. Most schools began using the gadgets in the upper grades, but Ludington Public Schools took a different approach and gave them to kindergarteners.
District leaders say they've been astonished at their usefulness and voters may soon be asked to pay for an iPad for every student in Ludington. The school board could decide tonight whether to go to voters for a bond at a special board meeting.
iPads In Kindergarten
In Ashley McDonald's kindergarten class students wear headphones as they work independently, leaning over iPads. They use the devices to read books and play games that help them count.
Olivia Bass gives a demonstration of an "app" that helps her sound out and spell words such as "them" and "with." When she pairs the right letters to make a word, the device responds with cheers and says "wonderful."
"I can work in a small group and then have the rest of the students working on this and I know they're learning things the correct way," says teacher Ashley McDonald. "They're getting that automatic feedback."
In the past, McDonald would have to check each child's work to make sure they were learning properly.
Ashley McDonald says iPads are just one tool in her classroom but, now that she's had them, she wouldn't want to go without. She lists benefits: parents like the gadgets and they're more involved. Kids work more independently and they just think learning with an iPad is fun.
One little girl even talked to her iPad as she left the room: "I'm gonna play you tomorrow," she said, almost singing.
Going To Voters
"Is this really necessary? iPads in kindergarten?" Ludington Superintendent Cal Dekuiper recalls the thinking back in the fall of 2010, when a pilot was launched in two lower elementary classrooms. DeKuiper says "everyone" was skeptical. Now he says that thinking has been turned on its head and he now thinks voters in the lakeshore district could be convinced to buy iPads for every Ludington student.
"All the sudden it's like this wave that's coming ashore and we're just going to ride it because it's the right thing to do," he says.
School board members could decide as soon as tonight whether to ask voters for a 10-year bond issue of more than $10 million dollars. As an example, that would break down to an average cost of $25 dollars to $45 dollars a year, for the owner of a house valued at $100,000 dollars.
Thinking Big
Teachers all over the district are dreaming of the prospect, and it's not all about academics. Band Director Ted Malt says he can imagine a day when all the CDs on the shelf, the sheet music on the stands and the play alongs he uses to teach jazz improv would all be available to students on one small, hand-held device.
"Students are more driven to learn with these devices than they are with a paper book. It's just reality, it really is," Malt says. "I haven't written out the full curriculum at this point on exactly how we're going to use every aspect of it. But if they were available the options are endless."
iPads A District Priority, Despite Needs
The district is hardly flush with cash. Half of its students are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches. Teachers have not had a pay increase seven of the past 10 years and there's really nothing left sitting in the rainy-day fund any more. Yet iPads have somehow risen to the level of a district priority.
"What would happen if something like this did not come to pass? I don't know," says Cal DeKuiper. "It's not like we have any dollars anywhere to go rebuild with traditional textbooks.
"Teachers are building their own curriculum and have been for the past four or five years and we are just trying to put that excitement back into education - into learning."
Need Vs. Want: A Social Studies Lesson
At Franklin Elementary School Amber Kowatch's second-grade class is working in partners, blogging responses to the social studies lesson on their iPads. Partners Emma Adams and Haley Arce are learning to distinguish a between something they really need and something they want.
"A candy bar is a want and a need is like, clothing, shelter, healthy air and healthy food," they explain.
After the girls save their answers on the iPad, their teacher will have access to them, and she'll combine them into a class-wide list - a collaboration that would have been a lot more cumbersome before the use of iPads.
A student asks the teacher to check her work. An iPad is on her list. It's a want, not a need. Her teacher agrees. But Amber Kowatch also says the way she teaches has been fundamentally altered by the technology, that learning is more self-directed and less reliant on the teacher.
"I don't think I ever really realized how smart second graders are until I had a tool like this that could really help them showcase what they know," Kowatch says, and laughing she adds: "It's a beautiful thing!"