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Chaney, Rayen students get iPads from Apple
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Years ago, students would bring apples to their favorite teachers. But this year, it’s city school students and teachers who received Apples.
About 900 students and teachers at Chaney and Rayen Early College Middle School got Apple iPads to use at school.
About two years ago, school personnel applied for and were awarded an Apple grant.
Chaney Campus “was one of 114 schools across the country to be awarded the grant,” CEO Krish Mohip announced at a Tuesday morning assembly to celebrate the arrival of the iPads. “We’re going to show not just the rest of the state but the country what students can do with technology.”
Principal Joe Krumpak said the devices are valued at about $1.3 million.
Teachers received a MacBook and iPad mini last May, and the schools offered a handful of professional development days beginning this summer so teachers could learn the best ways to incorporate the devices into their instruction.
An iPad was distributed to each student Tuesday, and the students spent much of the first day learning to best use them. Some students are familiar with the technology, but not all, Krumpak said.
First-day training covered basics including terminology that will be used by all teachers.
“Apples up,” for example, means students’ iPads are sitting atop their desks with the Apple logo face up.
“Reading mode” involves the iPads positioned horizontally and propped up, and “writing mode” is vertical orientation.
The schools also received Apple TVs and accompanying applications and software as part of the grant.
For now, students will keep their iPads at the school, though they eventually may be permitted to take them home, the principal said.
The district’s wireless network underwent an update to accommodate all of the new technology.
Chaney freshmen Shirlise Gilbert, Jacob Mitchell and Antanasia Crockett, all 14, huddled over their respective iPads as Matt Garcher, world history teacher, reviewed the fundamentals of using them.
“I just want to use them,” an eager Antanasia said.
Shirlise looks forward to using her iPad.
“Technology is better because, first, it’s faster,” she said.
When Shirlise wants to know something for one of her assignments, all she has to do is turn to her iPad. Before she resorted to asking a teacher or hopping on one of the classroom’s desktop computers.
Jacob believes his iPad will make note-taking easier, too.
“It’s great,” he said. “It’s going from writing to typing.”
He types faster.
The iPads come with headphones that include a microphone and can be used for dictation.