Central Catholic deploys iPads for ‘student-friendly’ education

iPads are integrated into everyday learning at Central Catholic High School where there is a tablet in the hands of every student.
Principal Vic Bonnaffee said, “With all of the apps on the iPad, you’re able to get all of the textbooks and the curriculum materials you need with the iPad … it’s a lot easier to make it student-friendly.”
Central Catholic is in its third year of iPad use. In 2006-07, the school entered a one-on-one laptop program and then moved to an iPad program in 2011-12.
Bonnaffee said, “I believe kids have become visual learners. I think to try to be able to teach kids with audio in this day and age only, you can’t work with them. They’ve got to have some sort of a visual.
“The visual could be a Power Point, notes in front of them on an iPad, a demonstration or an activity,” he said.
“They’ve got to have something visual to work with. I think what happens is this now forces them to go from being just an audio learner of facts to become a learner of comprehension, a learner of analysis and a learner of creativity now,” Bonnaffee said.
Almost all textbooks have been eliminated at the school. The few that remain primarily are the religious education series the school utilizes, Bonnaffee said.
The textbooks are on the iPad, integrated with videos explaining a concept or showing an example of how to work a math problem.
Math teacher and IT director David Irwin said even if the student has to miss school, he or she can still receive instruction.
“My kids, in this class, can go watch an example that’s been downloaded … (the books) are hardly ever out of date. Deacon always gives the example of a history book. If something happens in the Middle East, within a week, usually, the books are updated. When a new country is formed we’ll have the update without buying a new textbook series,” Irwin said.
Trynitie August, a freshman currently on crutches, can receive instruction without having to traverse the stairs to her second floor classrooms because of the iPad in her hand.
August said she emails back and forth with her teachers and submits her work online, so it’s easy to keep up with her classes.
Meanwhile, students in Spanish I were upstairs completing a worksheet translating various words for animals. The teacher assigned several animals such as parrots and students had to find a picture online representing the animal then correctly translate the singular or plural of the word depending on the picture located.
The teacher has the ability to project any of the iPad screens in the room onto the main screen for further instruction. Students answer questions directly on the iPads as well, allowing for instant feedback between teacher and student.
Irwin said the iPads are a lot easier to work with. “The laptops, you’d have a screen go out or a keyboard mess up or some hard drive issues. With the iPad, it’s a lot simpler to maintain.”
Bonnaffee said Irwin’s department is a necessity at the school.
“When you make the decision to go with all this technology, you’ve got to have a staff person who has technology background. You can’t wait to get on the phone and call a company and have a company say ‘we’ll be there in two hours’. You can’t lose two hours of education. Our entire program is built around the support of our technology. It supports everything that we do,” Bonnaffee said.
Students have the opportunity to buy their iPads when they graduate, but whether or not they do, the work they created using the tablets is theirs to keep.
Irwin said most of the students’ work is backed up to the Cloud. They can deposit papers into Dropbox or a similar program.
“So in reality,” Bonnaffee added, “what’s one of the beautiful things is, it is theirs and because it is theirs, you don’t lose it and they can take it with them when they leave Central Catholic.”
New this year is security software to ensure students are on the educational programs they are supposed to be utilizing. This keeps them off Facebook, games and ESPN, Bonnaffee said.
“Now, with the security software we put in, we have the ability to know where a student is at all times on their iPads so that we can make sure they stay focused on this campus,” Bonnaffee said.
The school uses the program Absolute to monitor use of the iPads, Irwin said. While at school the iPads must be used for educational purposes. They can go on other sites when at home, but at school they can’t access certain sites.
“I can see what apps are installed, and there’s a lot of games students do have but they’re educational games. They don’t have Angry Birds. If they do, I can call them in and get it removed from their iPad and they get a discipline referral,” Irwin said, noting he can’t monitor the websites the students visit at home.