The Apple TV is the small box below the TV
The joy of this tour is being able to sit down with students and a listen to them talk about their learning. Upon arrival we were greeted by a student saying hello and wielding an iPad, before even the Principal arrived.
Cindrich Elementary School are using Apple TV and iPads to enrich their curriculum and the results have exceeded their expectations. The Apple TV is a small black box, connected to the bottom of a digital tv or projector and allows the iPad, or other Apple device, to be mirrored to the tv screen. Students use this technology to produce content on their iPad and then share it on the screen. In a classroom where each student has access to an iPad and is encouraged to bring their own mobile device, they are making real changes to this low social economic community.
One of the projects shown by the students was their French lesson where they took the theme of Spring, found images using Flikr creative commons (yes it is unblocked) and created an iMovie on the iPad. It was interesting to sit with these students and talk about their learning. With them being a Year 7 class, many will move to high school next year and they are not looking forward to entering a school where iPads are not available in every classroom.
This group of students and their teacher were willing to try anything. Teachers use Edmondo as a school based social network to keep kids informed of what is happening, they were well organized in the use of Dropbox and a range of other social web 2.0 tools.
We had a great lunch and chatted with members of the staff about teaching and learning that was going on in their classrooms.
Apple TV is something I think will be well worth following up when I return as it adds some flexibility to some of the learning commons spaces we are creating.