More Than Typewriters: Students learn new laptop techniques

FARMINGTON – Students at Mt. Blue Middle School ran newscasts, created songs and designed their own graphics Thursday, as part of a collaboration between school staff and Apple Inc.

The Katahdin community spent the day with Apple Professional Learning specialists and local teachers learning new ways to use programs on the Apple laptops provided through the state’s Maine Learning Technology Initiative. While students routinely use their laptops to conduct research and complete homework, teacher Denise Mochamer said that Thursday’s event was an attempt to show them some of the computer’s other functions.

“We don’t want to use the laptop as a typewriter,” Mochamer said. “We want to do higher learning activities.”

Apple provides the learning specialists at no cost due to the state’s participation in the MLTI program. Mochamer got the idea over the summer, after some of the specialists attended a summer technology camp and pointed out that they were available to come to the middle school to provide demonstrations. 7th grade Katahdin community students participated Thursday, while the Sugarloaf community will work with the specialists later this year.

The APL specialists, mostly former teachers themselves, each provided a workshop to students, focusing on different programs. The workshops ranged from generating images to creating songs to taping broadcasts on green screens about the upcoming snow days. The workshops drew connections between the generally fun activities and possible classroom applications. Students could use the video recording knowledge to tape themselves solving math problems, for example, while the song recording techniques would be equally effective at capturing voice-overs for presentations.

Discussing dual coding theory, the idea that people can learn better when information is presented both verbally and through visual imagery, APL specialist Ann Marie Quirion Hutton led students through an application that used shapes to create images. As she completed the basic exercise, she stressed that she wanted to give the students some free time to create their own images.

“The nice thing about letting kids create,” Hutton said, “is that you’re learning while you do it.”