PA District Turns Students into Published Authors

This week at ISTE, Shutterfly is sharing how a rural district turned students into published authors. A dozen teachers from Blairsville-Saltsburg School District, a western Pennsylvania district with 1,600 students in PreK-12, used the Shutterfly iPad app for its districtwide literacy initiative.

Students practiced reading and writing skills with Shutterfly Photo Story for Classrooms, while also applying 21st century learning, collaboration, and problem-solving techniques. The subjects and grade levels that used the iPad app varied: kindergarten through fourth grade, middle school reading and writing, art, Spanish, Algebra II, child development, among others.

“A lot of the students talked about how it was a better way to measure their understanding, rather than just having quizzes and standard assessments,” said Trisha Kaylor, a high school math teacher at Blairsville-Saltsburg School District. “And they were really excited to see the final product – that they had created something so professional looking.”