As an example of how iBooks equipped with AirPort wireless networking cards can help reshape the way our kids learn, Apple recently posted a success story entitled Mobile Computers Raise Academic Bar.
Apple focuses on Chicago’s Wildwood School, which faces a number of distinct challenges: a high number of students living at the nation’s poverty level; significant percentages with learning disabilities or physical challenges; and nearly 20 percent who speak languages other than English.
Regardless, Wildwood students score well on standardized tests, ranking near the top of Chicago’s public school system. The school’s library media and technology coordinator Karen Percak says that a curriculum involving Apple’s iBooks has helped them achieve good results.
The iBooks have been used by the students to:
Percak says the iBooks have a much greater effect than just as information retrieval or data storage tools — they help the students work together.
“They start with an idea, then work out a plan of attack together. They’re actually working with creativity tools, development tools … things that will make them become productive learners as well as information-gatherers. Ultimately, we feel that this technology will help them move in many different directions throughout their lives, and keep them engaged,” said Percak.