Aliso Elementary School Honors Educators with Apples for an Apple Computers Award

There were apples everywhere: apple pie, apple cider, apple-shaped cards and normal, everyday, crunchy apples.

Teachers and staff threw a surprise apple-themed party at Wednesday to honor a principal and a longtime teacher for receiving awards from Apple Inc., maker of the iPod, iPhone and MacBook.

Principal Crystal Turner and teacher Kristin Thomsen recently earned the Apple Distinguished Educator Award for their use of Apple technology in the classroom.

Every two years, Apple honors educators at more than 70 schools across the nation, Turner said. She learned of the award by e-mail on March 1. 

“Our teachers work so hard here at Aliso,” Turner said. “It’s just an honor to be recognized as a school that does the right thing for kids.”

Thomsen, who has taught at Aliso Elementary School since 2003, said she felt "extremely honored" to get the award. But she said she didn't do it on her own.

"I need to thank my students," said Thomsen, who teaches fourth and sixth grade.

The school runs a program called iEngage, in which teachers give fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students touch-screen iPods—mp3 players that can act as tiny computers—to aide their learning. The program began November 2009.

On Wednesday, Turner said by way of example, students used the devices to play a Wheel of Fortune game to practice their vocabulary words and to create mini-comics about what they were learning.

Teachers have also given iPod Shuffles—the smaller version of the mp3 players—to younger students so they can listen to stories they are studying in class.

“Basically, it started out as a way to improve reading fluency,” Turner said. “Reading comprehension is always a difficult subject.”

In the past, the school has struggled with its state test scores, but in 2010 the school’s Associate Performance Index Score went up 45 points, from 785 to 830.

Turner credits the change to staff efforts, as well as the new iEngage program.

 “We’ve seen incredible results,” Turner said. She said that the number of students on the honor roll has increased and that various test scores had gone up.

The school has visitors about once a month to check out the program, and Thomsen said her students have taken the lead in telling visitors about iEngage. 

"It's my students who are showing them how we use the iPods to learn," Thomsen said.

Last week, state school Superintendent Tom Torlakson visited the school and watched the program in action.

“There are tons of schools doing great things, and so it was just an honor to be the one he visited,” Turner said.

In July, the two educators will head to Phoenix for an Apple conference about using the technology to help students.

The apple-themed party for Thomsen and Turner was in the teachers' lounge at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.

“We decorated the whole lounge in red and green,” said school office manager Debbie Butler. Butler said there was apple cider and congratulatory cards—shaped like apples—from Thomsen’s fifth-and-sixth-grade class.

Butler added that it was nice that someone honored the two educators for what school employees already knew about them.

“We know how wonderful they are and what a difference they are making to the students,” Butler said.