Principal Phil Winston checks his email on a new iPad fully-equipped with a Bluetooth keyboard. iPads are finding homes in the Paly curriculum as interactive textbooks and digital pianos.

– Kevin Lee

Palo Alto High School students can look forward to using iPads in their classrooms as interactive textbooks and portable pianos, an indicator that the Paly curriculum is changing to accommodate new technologies.

Biology AC, Advanced Placement Environmental Science, AP Music Theory and Astronomy are among the courses which will use the new iPads in class. Teachers and staff hope that the introduction of iPads will benefit students.

“I think that it enhances the learning experience because it’s interactive, it’s comfortable, it’s fun to play with,” Principal Phil Winston said. “Whenever you have something new, it excites people, and there are some apps out there that are just dynamite.”

iPads were purchased for the school recently as a more interactive alternative to laptops. Both AP Environmental Science teachers Nicole Loomis and Kenyon Scott have already integrated the iPads into their lessons by downloading the “Our Choice” textbook app onto every device.

“They are cheaper than laptops, and they are good for tasks that don’t require full laptop capabilities,” Loomis said. “They can be highly interactive, which also will help keep kids engaged.”

Winston shares the view that iPads could potentially have key advantages over laptops in the classroom environment.

“I think there’s limitless potential for the iPads,” Winston said. “I know that not everyone agrees with that but I would see them being essential in the way we move students towards new skills, maybe what the business world looks like, what college is going to be like.”

Astronomy teacher Josh Bloom also plans on using the iPad to make his classroom more fun and interactive.

“The iPad has some unique and useful astronomy applications I plan to make use of,” Bloom said. “One is called Star Walk which displays and interactive night sky allowing you to see the constellations and planets that will be up tonight or any night in the past or future from anywhere on Earth.”

AP Music Theory teacher Michael Najar uses music apps such as Virtuoso and Karajan Pro to help students create songs or to enhance their understanding of music.

“There are a few applications right now that work really well for young singers and musicians to learn aspects of music theory,” Najar said. “There’s a really great piano application [Virtuoso] that imitates exactly what a piano sounds like, does everything, and there is a good ear training application [Karajan Pro] that can be used for either music theory or choir.”

Winston believes iPads could slowly replace laptops with their new-age feel and functionality.

“You can buy the Microsoft [Office] suite,” Winston said. “Or you can use Google Docs, and then what you do is you can buy a keyboard with Bluetooth, and that combination is less than $700. You can do everything digitally. It’s in the sky.”

Najar also sees potential in iPads as accessible alternatives to low-tech class materials.

“There’s another program we will eventually use,” Najar said. “It’s called Music Notes, it will have PDFs of music, enough viable PDF scores, that we’ll be able to sing right from the iPad. So in other words, no more paper scores anymore.”