I attended a training at Minnetonka High School (MHS, not pictured above) last week to learn more about the school’s 1:1 iPad program. Very impressive! Each student in grades 9 to 11 (with grade 8 to be included this fall) has a school-issued iPad, as do all teachers. For this digital learning environment, educators upload activities, assignments, reading and other curricular materials, quizzes and exams, grades, you name it, onto the iPad, using Schoology, the LMS (Learning Management System)  that MHS has chosen to work with. LMS is a lot like Facebook, and it’s one of many, many LMS’s out there such as Blackboard, Edmodo, Moodle, itslearning, etc.

Teachers and administrators and students at MHS report that collaboration and communication have dramatically improved through the one-to-one learning program. Think flipped classroom, with all the benefits of the educator working with students during classtime and the communication that happens through the LMS environment. In fact, data from MHS show that student performance has improved over the two years the program has been up and running, with fewer overall D’s and F’s. It’s a catching trend; Minneapolis public schools will be piloting the program this fall.

Take a peek at these sites to learn more about the iPad learning environment:

Mind/Shift: “A Day in the Life of the iPad Classroom” (pictured above in San Francisco)

Minnetonka High School tinyurl.com/iPadTonka  (for more information about the MHS  iPad training and the school’s iPad program)

And don’t forget to check in again next month for more from TFCB!