PETE SHEEHAN | TLIC
Jonathan Kramer, principal at St. Mary’s H.S., Manhasset, explains the schoool’s iPad usage.
Jonathan Kramer, principal at St. Mary’s H.S., Manhasset, explains the schoool’s iPad usage.
St. Mary’s H.S. discusses details, benefits, of iPads in classrooms
MANHASSET — When St. Mary’s High School here introduced a new iPad-based curriculum for its freshman class last fall, they soon found that other schools were interested.
Last week, representatives from a score of local Catholic and public schools came to St. Mary’s to learn about the system, whereby each member of the freshman class receives an iPad and faculty are trained to tailor their teaching to take advantage of the technology.
“It’s going even better than I ever expected,” said Jonathan Kramer, St. Mary’s principal, who initiated the program, the latest in a comprehensive effort to implement technology usage in the school.
St. Mary’s is one of only a few schools on Long Island to implement a system relying on iPads, electronic devices resembling 8 ½ by 11 inch pads that store, display, transmit, and receive information and provide Internet access, Kramer said. Each incoming freshman class over the next three years will also receive iPads so that the entire student body will eventually have them.
Student and parental reception has been unfailingly positive, Kramer said, and the faculty have also been overwhelmingly receptive. There have been some adjustment issues because, “when you’re on the cutting edge, you bleed,” Kramer said with a chuckle. Still, he said, all difficulties have been manageable.
“The iPad initiative at St. Mary’s High School is well done and will prepare students for an ever-changing world by infusing the most current technologies into a rigorous Catholic faith-based education,” said Norma Whitley, assistant diocesan superintendent of schools for educational technology. She also praised Kramer for sharing his experience with other schools.
Before students received their iPads, Kramer explained, each iPad was synchronized with the school’s computer, and designated for the individual student. Each is equipped with specific educational applications or “apps.” Students are not able to add apps. The system allows access only to websites that serve educational purposes.
Freshmen have a technology class to help them learn the iPad. The school brought in Apple, the company that makes iPads, for initial faculty training. Teachers also coached each other about specific ways to use them.
Each iPad enables students to tie in to specific presentations that the teacher has for individual classes. Kramer said that teachers are required to use iPads for a lesson at least once a week. He visits classrooms to observe their use.
In addition, the iPads contain electronic versions of most students’ textbooks so “they don’t have to carry around 10-pound backpacks,” Kramer said. Each student still receives hard copies of textbooks to keep at home “so they’ll never have an excuse for not studying.”
Among the popular applications that teachers use are e-Clicker, for taking quizzes, a virtual piano keyboard, a virtual Bible, and an app which simulates dissection of an animal.
At the recommendation of the biology teachers, Kramer explained in response to a question, virtual dissection is used in preparation for performing actual dissections. So they receive the “real world experience” of dissecting an animal.
In addition, each iPad is programmed with a locater to help if the device is misplaced. Students and parents sign an agreement about use of and care for the iPad.
The school provided the iPad to each freshman for no additional cost, Kramer explained. “Each student pays a $100 technology fee along with the tuition.”
“We have 150 iPads and one was lost” when a student, who hadn’t correctly understood how to set the locater, left it on a table at a library. In accord with the contract, the student had to replace it. “We’ve also had two or three where the screen was broken,” requiring replacement for $250.
Difficulties the school has encountered include a required update when the original, less expensive security system didn’t work well enough. Also, in classes that include students from other grades, teachers are more restricted in iPad use.
“This could be a great tool in education to open up the classroom, of bringing more resources in that couldn’t otherwise be there,” said Nan Doherty, principal of St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School, West Islip. “Each school has to look at how to use the tools to gain the maximum benefit. It’s the creativity and the applications of the teachers that make it work.”
“It’s impressive what St. Mary’s has done,” said Eugene Fennell, principal of Holy Trinity High School, Hicksville. “It gives everyone food for thought.”
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