1:1 iPads year 2.0

Today marks the beginning of Zeeland Public Schools second year with iPads in the classroom.  To say that we learned a lot last year about the role technology plays in learning is a total understatement.  To say that we will do everything right this year is probably even more so an idealistic overstatement.  However, as learners we are constantly making efforts to improve the infrastructure of our digital school environment so here a few things that we took away from last year and are trying to improve on this year.

1. Create a culture of responsible and respectful digital citizens.

Last year students participated in a 2 hour ipad set up that included email accounts, Apple ID accounts, and going through the settings. There was no talk of Internet safety, cyber-bullying, and what is known as Net-iquette. 

This year we are skipping over most of the set up stuff and trying to focus on the later of the above statements. We view this similarly to getting your drivers license.  Instead of just handing over the keys and telling kids to figure it out for themselves (causing damage to themselves and others along the way) we are starting the discussion (it must be ongoing) about what it means to "drive" responsibly and respectfully.  Below are two videos that we are using to start off this year.

The first video is a local lawyer talking about the dangers and consequences of sexting.



The second video is a small introduction to the topics of neteqqute, internet safety, social media, and setting healthy boundaries around using technology.



There are lots of great digital citizenship resources found here http://goo.gl/qfQIR

2. Professional Development of staff must be ongoing and well supported.

I don't know if anyone is ever "ready" to integrate technology into the classroom as there literally are thousands of choices to be made in this respect. Even for those veteren teachers who are content experts, when it comes to changing your instructional strategies around technology everyone feels a little bit like a first year teacher.  So professional development and ongoing support is an absolute must.
As for last year, we will just say there wasn't enough (not sure there ever is).

This year we are restructuring support so that each building has a tech coach that is there and able to handle to quick and easy questions. These coaches are full time teachers and are using the technology themselves.  In addition, there is one district wide tech coach fully devoted to working alongside and serving the teachers as they work to transform their instructional strategies.  Building tech coaches will point their staff to this person for more in-depth and ongoing projects. Together the team of tech coaches will keep their fingers on the pulse of classroom technologies in the district, provide teachers with video tutorials on how to created digital learning spaces & activities, and provide the district with guidance for sustaining technology use in the classroom.

3. Student Devices

I know there are lots of varying opinions on what the student device should look like or be allowed to do.  Last year we pretty much just put the iPads out there in the hands of students with very few if any restrictions. This was not a horrible thing in and of itself, after all this post is partly about reflecting on what we learned from doing what we did. However, there were many uncontrollable issues that came out of this. And, being teachers we don't like when things are "out of control".

This year in hopes of comforting our staff a bit and responsibly training our younger learners, we are placing a few restrictions on the device and offering performance based incentives to remove restrictions.  All students in grades 6-9 will receive iPads with a set list of apps on them and not have the ability to download apps of their choice from the app store. This decision was reached in part due to the age restrictions around creating an Apple ID, but also due to the fact that the majority of discipline issues around gaming on the iPad involved freshman students.  There has been no final decision made about when, or if, the app store will be unlocked on freshman iPads but an idea being thrown around is that students will prove being responsible and respectful with the use of their device and eventually it will eventually be turned on for them. I guess we will see how it goes.

Students using Showme to show the world.

My friend Kip introduced me to the Showme App this summer and right away I feel in love with the ability to capture screen annotations and voice narrations as the user is demonstrating something on their iPad.
Now in class I can demonstrate solving and graphing an inequality using Showme, and instead of not being able to hear or see that explanation again, the captured vodcast can easily be linked or embedded in a classroom website for later viewing and reviewing.
As my familiarity with the app grew I thought "wouldn't it be great for students to use this to help their classmates with difficult problems and demonstrate to me what they truly know." We distributed the free app to students and literally watched and listened as they showed me and their classmates what they knew.
However, an interesting thing happened the other day. Being curious about how I could use the showme website to support student learning I started clicking through some topics. After selecting Learn by Topic > Geometry I was blown away by what I saw. Here it is:


You see up until now students have solved problems for basically two people: themselves and their teacher. But now students are solving problems for an audience of millions. When I projected the website for them the other day and showed them how their works was showing up in just two clicks of the mouse their mouths dropped. They were blown away by the fact that their work was published and freely available for anyone to view and use. I wish I could have take a picture of their faces you could see the sense of ownership and pride in their work take on new meaning.

Student Conceptions Driving Instruction

One of the many great ways to transform our learning environment through iPad integration is in the way of gathering real time student artifacts and using it to direct face to face classroom discussions. Real time response systems, clickers, or classroom response systems have been around for awhile now and used to be tied to a remote control type device.

Since then this instantaneous response system has evolved to web-based response systems and iPad compatible apps. Using these sites and apps gives every student a voice in responding to questions and provides teachers real time feedback based directly on student understanding. Imagine how this can transform our face to face time with students?

Consider a few uses: students complete a lecture or video then navigate to a Google form and answer five questions based off the content. The teacher can pull up the spreadsheet of responses and see immediately what conceptions students are forming and can scaffold instruction accordingly.

Or perhaps students are directed to the teachers Poll Everywhere site at the beginning of class for a 5 question warm up based off of the previous day's content. In real time responses are aggregate on the screen giving the teacher data and understanding of what their students are understanding, from here teachers can regroup their class to spend more time with those who need it and allow those who don't need reinforcing the opportunity to work ahead independently.

There are many great ways to collect student artifacts and use them to drive your instructional time Survey Monkey, Question Press, Poll Daddy, and thatquiz are all web-site based tools that offer some sort of free or educational plan. As well there are iPad/iPod apps that provide similar experiences and student data. Try using one of the above sites or find a great app and see what it tells you about your students understanding. Or, even better, show the class results to your students (in a safe way) to allow them to see what they are and are not understanding. Let their conceptions drive your instruction and their learning.

Content consumption on the iPad

Last week, I suggested that the iPad was great for both content consumption and content creation.  Consuming content -- text, audio, and video -- seems to be what the iPad was designed for (and it allows for it to be done quite beautifully, I might add).

This short TED talk by Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book amazed me when I saw it.  Imagine student textbooks that could work like this prototype, allowing students to read, view both still images and video, and completely personalize their learning experience.

Just imagine...

Brave New World?

Recently, much has been made of the fact that a large percentage of the jobs that our students will hold in their lifetime have not been invented yet. I don’t know about you, but this initially struck fear in my heart as an educator. How can I prepare my students for a future that no one has conceived of yet?

Then I took a breath and realized, that even though I am in one of the oldest professions (not THE oldest), it is not the same job that I had even 10 years ago and certainly not the exact same job with the same tools that my teachers had back in the day (really old school). We have all adapted and changed to learn new tools. And have survived.

The question becomes, how did we do it? The speed of technological change has accelerated and we haven’t all completely answered questions about the intellectual and ethical implications of the change. At the same time, my great grandma lived during a time when there were no cars!

My proposal is that—like the granny I’m quickly becoming—I believe that we all have skills to offer young people to navigate change. Yes, they have skills to offer us—how to program our smart phones, how to play the latest games, how to customize an internet radio station. But we have patience, problem-solving strategies, and emotional intelligence (on our best days).

Let’s harness everybody’s strength to tackle the unknown—the mystery of the future is not a new challenge. Stay in conversation. The sum is greater than the parts. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what each generation has to offer the other and what we all have in common.