Elementary, My Dear Reader...

I was excited when talk of my joining this TLLP project began.  I differ from the other members in that my teaching area is in the elementary field.  I had, at one point, considered myself a fairly tech-savvy person, but I lacked either the creativity to adapt technology into my daily practice, or, I didn't have the technology available to me.  I transitioned to a new school last September and, by some accounts, it is one of those schools facing the "app gap."  I tried making use of the Smart Board on the rolling cart but the lack of wireless connectivity, the need for a 50' ethernet cable, and the logistics needed to move desks and kids to enable the movement of that juggernaut around the classroom proved difficult.  We also have one computer lab shared with approximately 600 JK - Grade 8 students.  How could I help my students bridge into 21st Century Fluencies when I was lacking the technology piece?

Fast forward to this summer.  I began to look at the functionality of 1 tablet in the classroom.  Luckily for me, I had accumulated an array of people on my Twitter PLN (professional learning network) who had experience with tablets in the classroom.  There were also several people posting links to "1 Ipad in the Classroom" websites on Pinterest and other social media venues.  When the opportunity to utilize more then 1 tablet presented itself, I felt like I could embark on my own learning journey, help others in the same situation, and more importantly, help my students.

My focus for the use of the tablets in the classroom is two-fold.  First, and probably least important, is to cut down on the amount of paper used, and hanging, in my classroom.  I love chart paper but, being an adult with attentional and distractibility issues, it can overwhelm me.  If it has that impact on me, I can imagine what it means for some of my 9 and 10 year olds.  With students creating, solving, and sharing on the tablets, and recording or saving these endeavours, I could have evidence of their curriculum and learning skills progress that would be of benefit during reporting.  

The most important reason, and also the main focus of my contributions to this blog, is for me to increase the amount of feedback and assessment my students experience.  The more they are able to engage in that feedback loop of teaching and on-going assessment, they are bound to make stronger gains.  I was familiar with feedback early in my teaching career but it was certainly improved and heightened by this summer's reading of How To Give Effective Feedback To Your Students by Susan M.  Brookhart (2008, ASCD).  My goal is to give my students more, and better, feedback this year and it is my intent that the use of tablets will help me in this endeavour.  I look forward to your reading about my journey and welcome your comments and questions.

Brian      

To Tweet or Not To Tweet

Well, I guess we know where this is going. By now, most of us know what Twitter is, or at least we know that it exists. Like Facebook, and MySpace before it, Twitter exploded onto the psychic consciousness of my students far faster than I could adapt. Leave it to the TLLP to bring me into C21!

As part of this project we have added a Turning Point twitter account (@TPointHWDSB) - and we have been slowly learning how we can use this. Fortunately, the Twitter app for iPad is extremely easy to use and we have learned how to "socialize" without too much trouble at all.

For now we are using the Turning Point twitter account as an announcement tool - since we are only two classrooms within a much larger college, and since our alternating schedule means that we don't always see every student everyday, it can be difficult to inform all of our students about upcoming events. So, we use Twitter for that - with it we can 'tweet' out to quickly advise students about changes to the day, to celebrate milestones (credits completed, OSSDs earned, etc.), and for various community notices (job postings, college presentations, etc.). Since most of our students have either a smart phone or a computer (often both) at home, and because Twitter is used on both devices, it's a fairly simple way to get ahold of our hard to get ahold of students!

We are also considering using it as another curriculum delivery tool, but we have some reservations. Because it is such a new medium, the board is not yet equipped with a Twitter policy, and the only advice we've received from the scant teachers using Twitter in class is that it's important to ensure students only 'tweet' the school account with a 'professional' Twitter account. Sadly, because our students are often transient and usually scattered, this extra step has the potential to slow this process down to the point of making it cumbersome.

Thoughts? Any advice on using Twitter as a curriculum delivery tool would be welcome. 

Where to Begin?

These iPads sure are great...there are so many features, so many APPS, so many nifty things you can do with them to enhance both your work and play. But that's actually my problem. There are almost too many options! Actually, take out the almost...there are too many options. I do use it for administrative tasks, and have found it to be very user friendly and helpful, but in trying to figure out how to incorporate these iPads into my teaching I have come to feel overwhelmed and even lost, at times. I don't know where to begin, mostly because I feel like I need a year or so to get a handle on everything this spectacular little machine can do. And we all know that in a year, these will be obselete anyway, so I'd better get a move on.

I guess the best way to begin is just to begin. But then I get caught up again at 'where'? Searching, reviewing and rating APPS that are useful to my subject is an easy one, but that doesn't feel like I am taking full advantage. Another initial idea is to use Educreations to have the students teach me what they know on the topic...but I'll have to master that myself first. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about using the iPads. I just feel a little 'behind the 8 ball' so to speak, and I want to be able to maximize their use in my class. So it seems like the only thing to do is just to dive in. By the end of the month, I vow to have used an iPad with my students, to enhance my teaching. There, I said it. There's got to be an APP for that...

Gauging Progress

How do you know if you're getting enough done?

This is a question that is floating around the front of my head today. I suppose it's proof that the TLLP project is truly a rich learning experience; I am learning about a new technology (the iPads), I'm learning more about my students (how, specifically, they learn best), and I'm also learning about the specific tasks of completing a project like the TLLP.

We had a good meeting today. We stuck to an agenda (sort of), we divided up duties, we made action items, we attached completion dates to tasks, and we came up with a comprehensive list of future meeting dates (weekly updates and monthly/bi-weekly task specific meetings). But is this enough? For some reason we all generally feel somewhat frustrated that we are not further along.

Part of the problem may be the fact that our project is somewhat dependant on purchasing technology (iPads and the gizmos and gadgets that will maximize their utility as well as keeping them safe and secure). We've had the pads for a few weeks now, but until we get cases and keyboards we are reluctant to begin using them with our students yet. In the interim we have been getting to know the hardware and software, but there is still some disappointment that our students have not yet been able to weigh in on the usefulness of this new technology.

So here is our question: how do we know if we're maximizing this great learning opportunity? We've set a deadline of November 1st to get the pads in he students' hands, and between now and then we will work to develop iPad based experiences/lessons.

If nothing else, we are receiving a great lesson in empathy - our program is self-paced, which means that students are responsible for determining due dates for their work. Many struggle with this new task and struggle at the beginning until they learn how to be the masters of their own time. The fact that we are now struggling with the openness of the TLLP process is it's own valuable learning experience that will only help us better know our unique learner.

Just curious - is anyone else going through this?

TeacherKit, the almost perfect teacher app!

So we've just finished the first week of school, and so have wrapped up our first week of using the tablets in the classroom. So far, the iPad is performing well - great even. Battery life, functionality and portability are all even better than anticipated. Last year we were using a combination of paper files and Lenovo laptops to do the same job - and the weight and battery life are both night and day improvements (no offense to Lenovo. They make a great product but it's apples and oranges).
So far, the app I've been using the most is a free one from ITWorx, it's called TeacherKit. It's a slick looking teacher app that will hopefully replace my paper attendance as well as my mark book.
So far I have set up my classes and entered some marks...manually entering each student into each class is tiresome, but we usually have to do that anyways in our alternative setting since we are not directly connected to a school board server. One of the many joys of working in a satellite site.

Also proving frustrating, I can't figure out how to produce any reports with it (monthly attendance reports would be great) but otherwise it works very well. The interface is very nice looking and so long as my pad is not loaded with excess stuff (I had to delete some movies) it runs well with little to no lagging. It would be nice to be able to move students from class to class, but the grade book is super easy to use and allows for a much more portable platform - useful for observational reporting (the bread and butter of the alt ed classroom.
I'll report back in a while, but so far this app gets a level 3. ;)

Networking for Dummies

Now that we have the pads and we've started to cull through the app world for useful apps for our program we are now preparing to sync our pads to iTunes accounts. The question remains, how and how many. If this process proves cumbersome, or unwieldy, it could stall out the project and in truth if this process gets in the way it may prove too much.

That being said, it seems straightforward from this vantage point. Our setup is as follows: we have a few desktops in our classrooms on which we have loaded iTunes (we don't want to have iTunes on the pads because it may prove too tempting for the students (and staff) and we want to keep the pads uniform, fast and uncluttered) and will hopefully be able to load books/apps onto those accounts. Then, the process of moving the chosen and vetted content onto all of the pads begins.

It remains to be seen whether or not we'll be able to accomplish this easily. It also remains to be seen of we'll be able to share a few accounts for 20 iPads. We've been told by other colleagues already working with iPads that apple is pretty good; that 10 pads per account is generally permissible. That would be great, but of not, it would be expensive and tedious to manage 20 accounts. We'll keep you posted, and if anyone has any advice/experience to share please let us know.

Math Ref

Math Ref is an app that contains 1400 mathematical formulas with explanations. Very handy app that includes calculator. This app could be used with any subject that includes math.