Current+Events+Discussions

=== Check out this article from Tween Tribune! Read the article below and post your thoughts on this issue. Let's try and make sure we write in complete sentences! === [|Students excel with iPods, iPads in classrooms] For kids these days, an iPod has become more than a source of entertainment. It's an educational tool. Students are using the popular gadget to practice math skills, learn how to read and improve English fluency. In the last year, iPods and iPads have been introduced into Logan, Utah, classrooms. According to local educators, kids have excelled because of it. Barbara Child, Title I math coordinator in the Logan district, said student performance has improved because of the interest kids have in using tools like iPods. "The motivation factor is huge ... They get so excited," she said. "It's just the way kids learn today." In Jen Green's English as a Second Language class at Adams Elementary, students in kindergarten through fifth grade use iPods. On a recent morning, a handful of students spent about 40 minutes working on iPods. To help with reading and fluency, Green has students use iPods to record themselves reading. Green and the student then listen to the recording together. They hear any errors, and then the student reads and records again until they have read it correctly in a certain amount of time. Green said student progress has been "unbelievable." With one student, she saw results in just minutes. Green has kept some of the recordings to measure progress. By listening to the child's first recorded reading, it was difficult to understand what they were saying. Green played a reading recorded 15 minutes later and the words were clear and understandable. "Within 15, 20 minutes, they fix it. I mean, the first reading ... you can't understand it at all, and then 15 minutes later you can," Green said. "Their reading has just shot way up in just the few months we've done this," she said. "It's really incredible." Students are also using apps to practice math facts. "It's really engaging, which is surprising because all you're doing is math problems, but it's very fun," Green said. Green isn't the only teacher with iPods. Every classroom at Adams Elementary has a set of six, according to Principal Jed Grunig. Grunig said that as a school, they decided to purchase iPods for every class. Those arrived in December. "It's highly engaging for kids," he said. "They get really excited to work on them." Dave Anderson, who teaches technology at Mount Logan Middle School, uses an iPad in his classes. Some of the apps Anderson uses include Google Earth, Wikipedia and a white board. He said an iPad "allows the mobility to answer kids' questions on the fly." Whether out in the field or in the classroom, it allows him to promptly answer any questions students have.

=What do you think are the PROS and CONS of Ipods and Ipads in the classroom? List ideas below!=

Food & Health
[|San Francisco bans Happy Meals] San Francisco lawmakers have given preliminary approval to a law that would prohibit fast-food restaurants from putting toys in children's meals unless they include fruits and vegetables and don't have too many unhealthy calories. A committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 3-0 Monday to pass the proposed ordinance on to the full board. Santa Clara County supervisors adopted a similar law in April that banned all fast-food freebies. Several doctors testified in favor of the San Francisco law. One recalled seeing children in hospital waiting rooms carrying McDonald's Happy Meals. Under Supervisor Eric Mar's proposal, McDonald's and other restaurants could only include toys in meals that have a half-cup each of fruit and vegetables and limited amounts of sugar, sodium and fat. //- Posted on October 5, 2010// //What is your opinion on this topic?// //Miss May- I think that it's important to teach kids to be healthy eaters but it seems a little ridiculous to limit happy meal toys.// //he looks funny-drew//