On its web site, Apple is featuring a piece on Macs in the Educational environment. The report reveals that some 21 percent of all teachers in the State of Maine graduate from the University of Maine’s (UMaine) College of Education and Human Development. These results were achieved thanks, in part, to a required-purchase program with Apple MacBook computers.

Apple reveals that, in order to ensure that the future educators are well versed in all fields, the first step was to provide the necessary tools to create the optimum learning environment. A program dubbed “MacBook Required” is what UMaine decided on. The program would prove extremely efficient emphasizing the use of application suites like Apple's iLife and iWork. These elements are the actual tools teachers-in-training at UMaine currently use to learn the skills they will need to become “innovative, successful education professionals,” the report reads. A statement coming from Tim Hart, Instructional Technologist, College of Education and Human Development, University of Maine, backs up the story.

“The Technology Committee […] really settled on the Mac platform because of its flexibility. It’s so easy and seamless for students to move between all of the Apple applications, like the iLife suite,” said Hart. “Mostly, it was the stability of the Mac that won out,” Hart added. According to the technologist, student teachers entering the MacBook Required program have the advantage of working with a computer that supports “classroom innovation”.

“We’ve seen the studies of the students who are coming out of the middle schools after working with the Apple notebooks, and how the scores and assessments on reading and writing are improving,” Hart explained. “A lot of that is due to the 1 to 1 access. But we believe it’s also due to the creativity the Apple platform provides. Instead of doing a boring paper, we have teachers who are doing podcasts of assignments, and sharing them online. iMovie and GarageBand and those applications are so easily accessible to most students; they can spend their time on the actual content versus trying to learn the programs.”

Sure enough, many Mac users have little clue to what potential their computer and OS of choice boast together. This story stands as a good example that the Mac can be a truly valuable learning tool out of the box. The full, two-piece article can be found here.