Tablets Taking Hold at Tower School

The following is a press release issued by Jennifer Burke, Director of Communications at .

It’s a Tuesday afternoon at Tower School, and Mrs. McCarthy’s third grade classroom is hushed in concentration. The object of such intense focus? The students are playing a Jeopardy-style game on tablet computers to test their knowledge of national parks, the subject of a recent classroom unit.

What park is known to have the greatest population of black bears? One student deftly punches his answers onto the screen of his iPad while another throws up her arms with excitement when she sees that she has selected the correct answer (Shenandoah).

Down the hall in Mr. Wells’s science class, fifth graders are using tablets to graph the bounce height, stretch distance, and other physical characteristics of glubber, a polymer similar to Silly Putty. Next door, Mr. Thompson’s sixth graders are using iPads to watch a slideshow of pictures and maps related to the previous night’s reading and to take notes on a shared Google Doc.

All of these activities are part of a tablet computer pilot program launched this spring that has students and teachers at this independent elementary school at the forefront of the educational technology movement.

In an age where the average student’s lexicon includes YouTube and Google, technology is a language that young people understand. Tower’s tablet program stems from the work of the school’s Technology Task Force, which has identified ways in which the school can be forward-thinking, flexible, and inventive in the rapidly expanding realm of learning technology.

“Tower’s teachers are driving the school’s tablet computer pilot program,” says Head of School Peter Philip. “They are excited by the potential that iPads provide to enhance their students’ educational experience. Our enthusiastic pursuit of this pilot program highlights the school’s integration of contemporary and traditional approaches to education.” The tablets also encourage collaboration among faculty through sharing of documents and research.

Most of all, the tablet program aims to enhance and support the student-teacher relationship through collaborative learning and inventive teaching that will arm students with the technological savvy that will serve them well into the future. “This technology is likely to completely alter the way teachers teach,” notes Admission Director Libby Parker.

While the program is a significant financial investment for Tower, the school’s administrators recognize its enormous value to students and have made it a budget priority. Says the school’s business manager, Dean Sidell, "Tower has always strived to create a budget so that teachers can provide an academic program that meets our curricular goals and provides the best resources available to our students."

Once the pilot program concludes, the next step is to have tablets in the hands of all students in grades three through eight, likely this fall. 

Founded in 1912, Tower School is the oldest independent elementary school on Boston’s North Shore. We aim to spark a lifelong love of learning in our students by providing a stimulating education in a supportive environment. We encourage children to strive for personal levels of excellence and to develop fully across a broad range of academic, physical, creative, and social endeavors. Tower seeks to nourish a spirit of inquiry, to impart an appropriate body of knowledge, to set high standards, to instill strong learning habits, and to help students become secure in themselves while respecting the dignity of others.