At the eleven schools in Yuma County that are part of the Apple ConnectED partnership, teachers are finding that not only are classrooms changed, but technology transforms how children learn by giving them greater opportunities to connect and interact.
In the Crane school district, public relations coordinator and grant writer Trina Siegfried says that technology transforms how children learn, and there is a positive outcome as the Apple team showcases the school district on its website and continues to invest in teachers.
This spring the Apple public relations team photographed several locations, showing students, teachers, and administrators. “It’s really been wonderful,” Siegfried said. “Teachers aren’t normally recognized, so I think that a lot of times someone comes in and they don’t know what to say, they’re not used to their hard work being being showcased.”
According to Siegfried, the classrooms today are quite different from the old methods of 20 years ago, when teachers stood up front and lectured, maybe using an overhead projector transparency. “When (people) see videos of kids making noise and moving around a classroom and working collaboratively, it may seem chaotic, or that there’s a lack of classroom management but we’ve found through many, many studies that kids on the move learn better,” Siegfried said. “That kids that can collaborate and use new knowledge that they’re gaining in a connective way with their world — it sticks.”
In today’s classroom, she continued, the world is at the child’s fingertips. They take virtual tours of sites around the world. They communicate and collaborate in ways that were previously not possible.
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