ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Walk in to Kristin Harrington's second
grade classroom at Palencia Elementary School and you will see
students working in pairs on school iPads. "If you learn on the
iPad it's a lot funner because you have a lot of apps like
Hungry Fish, or math or Tunetastic. You get to make your own
movie," said second grader Hunter Riedle. Today's lesson:
Comparing and contrasting, the comprehension skill of the week.
"They are using their digital textbooks. They are using an app
called Popplet, which is actually a free app if you use Popplet
Lite, where they are able to create their own graphic organizers
to compare and contrast which will later be turned in to a
paragraph," Harrington said. "So it just makes it a little more
fun, a little easier for them to use and more engaging for the
students." Palencia Elementary is the first school in the St.
Johns County School District to go completely digital. Students
at this school don't use any paper textbooks. "I'd say within
one to two weeks they were