Sherwood Middle School student Daria Serebrova shows some of her iPad schoolwork to the Shrewsbury School Committee.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Lord Paluzzi

Sherwood Middle School student Will Stewich shares his Keynote project on the culture of Israel, an interactive report researched, assembled and written solely on his iPad.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Lord Paluzzi

SHREWSBURY, Mass. - Daria Serebrova's fingers tapped on her iPad, scrolling through folders and apps as she explained to the School Committee just how the gadget has changed learning for her sixth grade classmates at the Sherwood Middle School.

"Every time one of our teachers says 'it's time to take out your iPads,' even if it's a test, we all say 'yay' and our faces light up," Serebrova said.

Serebrova is one of 53 Sherwood students who are participating in a pilot iPad program that has each student using school-provided iPads both at school and at home. School officials are investigating the possible benefits of the iPad as they look to roll out one-to-one technology across the district.

The Sherwood sixth graders became the envy of their peers back in December when "the White group" received their iPads. Since then, the iPads have nearly replaced textbooks entirely as the students use online versions that are interactive or hop on the Internet to facilitate class discussions.

Student Shreyas Patel showed the School Committee how his class work is now neatly stored in folders on his iPad's desktop.

"Before, we had all kinds of binders cluttering our desks," he said.

Teachers Christina Bielunis, Ryan Middlesworth and Erica McMahon said the iPads have proved to be an intuitive technolgy for both teachers and students and have changed their classrooms:

  • Teachers can easily communicate with parents, with newsletters sent home via iPad. Students are also able to communicate with other students, allowing a sick student to keep up-to-date with homework assignments;
  • Paper use is significantly down. Teachers use Evernote for student assignments and can easily disseminate materials directly to student iPads;
  • With the Internet literally at their fingertips, students are able to go online to research questions that come up in the course of class/


McMahon said the technology works especially well for students who otherwise have problems participating in class discussions.

"We get immediate feedback," she said. "Students who might have been shy or reluctant to raise their hand in class -- this allows them to participate."

While there have been days when a student forgets an iPad at home, that isn't a mistake that happen often, the teachers said. One day of classwork without the iPad, surrounded by others with them, tends to be enough.

"My dog ate my homework is no longer an excuse," Middlesworth said. "Anything they do on the iPad is saved automatically."

School Committee members were impressed with the students' presentations but wondered if the school district would have the funds to roll iPads out on a larger scale.

School Committee member B. Dale Magee wondered if students whose families owned iPads might be able to use them for school to save the town the cost of buying the tools.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Mary Beth Banios said the schools are able to get a discount on apps purchased for school iPads. School officials can also control access to cameras and texting programs on the school-owned devices.

School Committee member Steve Levine compared the pilot program to a successful drug study -- there comes a point when the placebo group is clearly out-performed.

"This is too important, this is too useful," he said.

The pilot classes at Sherwood have gotten used to other teachers dropping in to see how the iPads have been integrated into the learning process.

Student Will Stewich shared his Keynote project on the culture of Israel, an interactive report researched, assembled and written solely on his iPad.

"It's not that we don't do anymore writing in school," explained Stewich.
"We still do lots of writing. This is not our only academic tool."