Bloomington’s Oak Grove Elementary School is adopting a "one-to-one" tablet program in one of its classrooms thanks to charitable gifts from the Best Buy Corporation, Microsoft, Naiku and Ergotron.
Each student in teacher Stephen Searl’s 4th grade classroom will receive a tablet PC to use during the school day.
The program is part of Best Buy’s Classroom of the Future project, which works with schools to provide technology to improve student learning. Oak Grove is piloting the elementary program to determine if student learning, particularly mathematics scores, will improve in Searl’s classroom with use of the devices. The math curriculum will be digitally taught from the same publisher and then supplemented with online math games.
“One of our goals with the tablet pilot is to gauge student learning through online assessments during class,” says Oak Grove Principal Raymond Yu. “The tablets will allow teachers to test student knowledge and then use that data to modify their teaching methods based on the results.”
The tablets are outfitted with the latest educational software through Naiku and Microsoft. Charging and classroom display units are provided through Ergotron. Microsoft has also donated an Xbox Kinect.