UNA senior Kaitlin Ashley won first place in the Education and Pedagogy category of the 47th Annual Conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC).

Ashley’s research, titled “Integrating New Technologies in K-1 Classrooms: iPads and Literacy Centers,” began during the spring of 2012. One of Ashley’s classes attended Kilby School twice a week, and she said she spent a little extra time for her research, which included using in-class assessments and survey feedback to determine how well iPads help young students understand concepts and develop storytelling skills.

“I’m an honors student and we have to do a project,” she said.

When the research began, Ashley had no idea how grand it would be.

While searching for a topic for her project, she found out about Dr. Katie Kinney’s ideas of a project with iPads in the classroom. She said she spoke with Kinney and they began planning soon after.

Ashley started this project before she even owned an iPad herself. In order to start this research, she took the initiative and emailed the president of Apple. The president was so impressed with her email that he loaned her an iPad. A lot of people loaned their iPads or donated so the students would have them to use.

After the first portion of research with the kindergarteners concluded, she moved on to first grade with the same students.

“Since I have the same group of kids, I know them; it was fun,” she said.

When the research began with first grade, she was back to square one with no iPads, so Ashley once again took the initiative to apply for a grant from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

“It was a long process to get it, but we got a grant for six iPads and somehow wound up with two more,” she said.

When the time came to enter the competition, Ashley had to write a proposal and create a poster. At first her proposal was declined, but she received an email the next day saying she had been declined on accident.

To her relief she was off to Boston for the competition.

After the competition was over she found out via email that she had been chosen as the winner.

Ashley said she would like to use iPads in her own classroom when she becomes an educator.

To her surprise the kindergarteners were eager to learn on the iPads. She said there were times when they wanted to play games, but they really enjoyed using the educational apps.