Media-Providence Friends School to Launch iPad Program

The Media-Providence Friends School will soon be outfitted with its own iPad tablets as part of the school’s “classrooms without walls” initiative.

Next September, each 6th, 7th and 8th grader will have their own iPad.

Integrated into all aspects of MPFS’ middle school curriculum—from math, to science to humanities, art, music, Spanish, health and comparative religions—the iPads will afford students and teachers unparalleled real-time access to up-to-date, interactive academic resources for enhanced teaching and learning, in every classroom, all day long.

"Schools must educate tomorrow’s workforce to be designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers, artists and big picture thinkers who can leverage new technologies in creative ways to add value and bring about the change they want to see in the world. Our mobile iPad implementation will supplement the careful planning and personal interaction of our teachers, while expanding technology instruction into the classroom and providing opportunities to develop the habits of mind to apply technology in productive and positive ways, all within a safe environment," Head of School Earl Sissell says.

Friends’ faculty, who will receive their iPads this spring, are excited about creating new opportunities for learning that will tap the natures of middle schoolers: energetic, inquisitive, engaged in the culture of the time, wanting to have an impact, to be known and understood. They’ve already begun to plan lessons and expect that the iPads will:  

• Facilitate research skill-building and students’ development of personal learning networks with peers and experts around the world.
• Provide an engaging platform for collaborative work, problem solving, creative expression and imaginative invention.
• Enable the fine-tuning of curriculum and learning on a student-by-student basis through targeted applications for extra skill-reinforcement and challenge as needed.
• Expose students to a wider variety of people, places and ideas, helping to instill within them a greater appreciation for alternative perspectives and an understanding of their responsibility to improve the lives of others and the world at large.
• Offer an ideal platform through which to consider the complex moral challenges that technology’s increasing importance poses for society.

Also enthusiastic about the initiative is MPFS’ Technology Coordinator Deb Olller.

"There are over 5,000 educational apps for the iPad, it couldn’t be simpler or quicker to sync simultaneously with the ChargeCart so content is always up to date, and their battery life easily exceeds a full school day," Oller says. "They offer us so much more than a lap-top program would."

Sissell is clear to note that Friends’ philosophy won’t change with the advent of the iPad initiative.

"Even as we adapt to leverage new teaching and learning opportunities like this one, the academic and moral foundations upon which MPFS is built will not change. Our core values, simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship, remain a constant that directs all we do and how we do it. We will persist in honoring the unique qualities in each child, and in meeting every one of our young people where he or she is in order to guide him or her to becoming the best student and person possible."

This press release was provided by Media-Providence Friends School representatives. Visit www.mpfs.org for more information.