[February 19, 2009] Just the right touch: Culbreth students show off their iPod Touch capabilities Tweet CHAPEL HILL, Feb 19, 2009 (The Herald-Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Students in the AVID program at Culbreth Middle School eagerly demonstrated the capabilities of the school's new iPod Touch devices during a class demonstration Wednesday in the school's media center. Culbreth was one of two schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools to receive $30,000 last fall from the North Carolina Virtual Public Schools. Officials at the other school, Scroggs Elementary, didn't immediately know how they would use the funds, but Culbreth already had them earmarked for an iPod Touch pilot program. AVID students perform in the middle academic range, and in most cases will be the first generation in their families to attend college. The program provides academic and social support to help make higher education an attainable option. Students in Wednesday's demonstration used their portable media devices to look up an interview on YouTube in which baseball player Alex Rodriguez denied using performance-enhancing drugs. Using the notepad application on their iPods, the students came up with questions about Rodriguez and the statements he made in the interview. They then looked up the interview in which Rodriguez admitted to steroid use, and discussed the ethics of using drugs and lying about it. The AVID students seemed to agree that the iPod Touch makes school work faster and more convenient because virtually everything they need is found in a 4-by-2-inch device that weighs about four ounces. Most want to buy their own iPods for high school, if they don't already have them by then. Eighth-grader Justice Holloway said her grades have "shot up" because she has been able to take better notes with her iPod. She can pronounce her Spanish vocabulary words better, and her math has even improved. AVID coordinator Chuck Hennessee said one of the only negatives he has seen so far with the program is that students sometimes would rather use the iPods than work with each other. But he said that can be a plus, too, because it cultivates independence. About a dozen Culbreth faculty members also demonstrated how the iPod Touch is useful in their classrooms. Pre-algebra teacher Robert Bales showed how students can pull stats from a recent Carolina basketball game, for example, off of the ESPN application. Bales said the stats are a fun and exciting way to learn about important math fundamentals like fractions, decimals and percentages. Ann Collins said students in the Culbreth writing center used their iPods to look up YouTube videos of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts swearing in President Obama as part of a discussion on the "finer points" of public speaking. Science teacher Brian Tyson said he was not excited about the iPods at first, but quickly became a believer after he discovered science how-to videos and images of bacteria that students could hold up to their Petri dishes for comparison in a bacteria identification project. "You learn about science by mixing, growing and blowing stuff up," Tyson said. "I was a skeptic at the beginning, but this really is the ultimate research tool." English teacher Angela Rivenbark said the iPod is not only a great tool for students, but has been great for her professionally because it has enhanced collaboration among colleagues and prompted broad discussions about curriculum as a whole. To see more of The Herald-Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald-sun.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]