Apple eNews for Education: March 2007


	Purchase a qualifying Apple Mobile Learning Lab by June 26 and you’ll receive a free Digital Media Creation Kit, valued at $999. The tools in this kit, combined with the iLife software included with every new Mac, give your classes the power to produce exciting, media-rich digital projects that inspire learning in any subject area.


	School Night at the Apple Store, brings students, teachers, and parents together to celebrate student projects created on a Mac. More than 2000 schools have already showcased their creativity, exhibiting everything from original music and video documentaries to photo books and digital science reports.


	A delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Education recently visited schools in the Reed Union School District in Marin County, California, to explore how Apple technology has been incorporated into the classroom. According to Reed Union district superintendent Chris Carter, the delegates are responsible for designing a new curriculum and standards for Chinese students and were interested to see how the use of Apple notebooks has benefited both students and teachers.
	More news...

This month’s featured product in the Apple Digital Learning Series is Geometer’s Sketchpad from Key Curriculum Press. These award-winning mathematics visualization and exploration environments spans the mathematics curriculum and gives students the tools they need to explore concepts in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus. They’ll develop a solid foundation before moving ahead to more advanced levels — building confidence along the way.

Infovox iVox provides Mac OS X users with clear, natural-sounding voices in a variety of languages. It works in conjunction with the Mac OS X built-in speech and accessibility features, including Tiger’s VoiceOver screen reader. Infovox iVox makes it possible for sight-impaired users to have complete access to any Mac application that involves speech. More than 15 languages are available, most with your choice of either male or female speakers.

The Building Learning Communities (BLC) conference is a world-class education event with leading-edge thinkers in online community building, critical thinking, new school design, and global communications. Featured content from this conference is now available as free podcasts, including discussions with Alan November.

Apple eNews for Education
March 2007
Volume 6, Issue 3

We hope you enjoyed reading this month’s issue of Apple eNews for Education. We’ll be back next month with more exciting news about Apple and the valuable role it’s playing in education.

Apple eNews for Education is a free, monthly email publication.

Event dates are subject to change. Some products, programs, or promotions are not available outside the U.S. Visit your local Apple site or call your local authorized Apple reseller for more information. Prices are estimated retail prices and are listed in U.S. dollars. Product specifications are subject to change.

How can one person make a difference? That’s the question posed by the 2007 Student Moviefest competition, sponsored by Apple. The fourth annual contest, organized by the National School Boards Association, has challenged students across the country to explore issues that affect our world and come up with suggestions for inspiring change.

NSBA and Apple will select three films created by students in each of three grade categories: K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Each film should be in the form of a 60-second public service announcement that shares insights and ideas for making a positive difference happen as individuals, as members of the local community, or as global citizens.

Registration is now open, and will continue until Monday, April 23. Winning students and teachers will receive complimentary registration and travel support to the Arts Spotlight at the 2007 T + L Conference in Nashville.

Are your middle or high school students less than excited about studying geometry and algebra? The Secondary Math solution from the Apple Digital Learning Series can help. It delivers challenging, interactive, content-rich products designed to motivate students while supporting NCTM curriculum.

The Geometer’s Sketchpad, for instance, allows students to create an object and then explore its mathematical properties. Objects can be changed while keeping the properties the same, allowing students to test their hypotheses as they develop mathematical knowledge that can be applied in other ways. Measurement in Motion is another interactive tool that uses real-time simulations for students to develop graphing and algebraic concepts.

Or you can concentrate on the basics with ClassTools Math, innovative and media-rich online courseware including fundamentals for Introductory Algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. ClassTools Math focuses on problem-solving and critical thinking and provides real-time assessment of student progress.

Empire High School in Vail, Arizona, is the first high school in the country designed to be completely wireless and entirely textbook-free. Every student and teacher has an Apple notebook computer, providing digital media that can be accessed from 156 wireless areas throughout the school.

According to district superintendent Calvin Baker, “we wanted to change the nature of instruction and create a more relevant setting for our students. With the Apple notebooks, we believe we can provide our students with the technology skills they’ll need in the 21st-century workplace.”

So far, both students and teachers have found benefits in this new style of school. Empire’s teachers are free to explore and use timely digital content to teach Arizona’s state standards and students have come to regard their notebooks as a necessary educational tool. According to principal Cynthia Lee, “there’s such good education going on and it’s much easier than we ever thought it would be.”

Can’t take your class on a field trip to the Smithsonian? No problem, the Smithsonian can come to you. Now you can enhance your curriculum with podcasts from art and science museums and other institutions, such as the Miami MetroZoo.

You can take virtual tours through the works of artists such as Marcel Duchamp or Salvador Dali, learn about animals like the New Guinea Singing Dog, or go on a video field trip to the Palace at Versailles. Other world-class institutions with free podcasts are the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate Modern, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Many of these podcasts are the same virtual tours that visitors listen to while they walk through the galleries. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for example, has won a Muse Award for its artcasts. So if you can’t visit the City by the Bay and take one of the museum’s guided self-tours with an iPod, you can still get an expert view of exhibits such as “Picasso and American Art,” or “Brice Marden: A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings.”