Innovation Middle School opened 5 years ago, it is a low income school with a high majority of hispanic students. 70% of their roll are on 'free lunch' which seems to deem what we would call their decile rating in NZ. The priority of the school is 'STEM' - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
The school is currently 1-1 netbooks but through a federal grant are moving to 1-1 iPads. This will be a take home policy where basically the students borrow the iPads from the library for two years. They have the iPads enabled with 3G to make it equitable access for all. The scheme is called LOGO - learning on the go. There is also mandatory parent and student training before taking the device home. There are also 3 training days teachers have to go to - Vision training, promethean training and device training.
Awesome to spend time in the classrooms and again great examples of 'flipping' going on. Lucky enough to spend time with students who again could clearly articulate 'flipping' and why it worked for their learning styles. The student I spent time with, Chloe, reflected that she liked how even if she missed school she didn't miss out on the learning, Chloe also felt she could concentrate better at home on watching the videos of 'the how' and then used time with her teacher to consolidate her learning. Chloe also said she liked the opportunity to watch other students videos as it made her own thinking clearer. This class in particular was using Educreations extensively and with Apple TV mirroring their screencasts for all of the class to see. They are also using online programmes such as IXL to review their learning.
You can watch a video explaining better than I can write here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbnxEiXDa1k&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Websites to check out
imiddlemath.org
Again having trouble with wifi so will add links and photos when I am in better place:-)
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