Introducing the AMAZING iPad!

We have had iPads in our school for all of 3.5 months. We are certainly not experts with them yet but we are trying different things and have some ideas for other schools wishing to deploy these amazing learning devices.

Our Experience So Far

First of all we borrowed some iPads and iPods from our Innovative Learning Commons with their Explore program. We had them for about 8 weeks and during that time we explored possible uses for iPads and/or iPods in our school. We decided to go with iPads due to the larger screen size and the possibility of more than one student working with the device at a time.

We created a website of our exploration during those two months. Find it here.

The website focuses on the Apps that we experimented with when deciding on what devices we would buy.

We quickly realized that the iPad is more than a game device, where students play game style, or drill and practice style Apps. What we found out was the iPad's most powerful tools came from the camera, speakers, microphone and also the ability to manipulate something on the screen.

With our new found understanding of learning this tool fits perfectly into today's classroom. The iPad allows students to focus of their strengths by utilizing them to express an understanding of what they are learning about.

Kathy Schrock has collected a lot of information about 'the best Apps' for learning. She shares and organizes them through Bloom's Taxonomy. Click here to see her other recommendations for mobile devices.

This is Kathy Schrocks revised 'Blooms Taxonomy' guide to possible learning tasks.

Here is a link to some of the favourite Apps compiled by teachers from our school as well as a few from colleagues that wanted to contribute to our list  (via Twitter). If you would like to contribute to this list, please fill in the form below.

There are many other versions of Apps aligned with Blooms Taxonomy. A quick Google search will bring up many different recommendations.

We have also shared more engaging and exciting learning projects that may or may not include our iPads, or mobile devices from other schools we're connected with. Find them on our collaborative Learning Commons blog - Area III Learning Commons.

Management of iPads

Managing a set of iPads has its challenges that's for sure. We bought 32 devices. We currently have 29 in our iPad PowerSync Cart by Bretford (which we also purchased).

We chose the PowerSync cart as we do not have enough iPads to go around the whole school (although I would definitely entertain the idea of a 1:1 ratio with iPads). We also want to keep them secure and also manage them easily from one computer. Pedagogically, I believe this is not the best idea as an iPad is designed to be an personalized mobile device as opposed to one that is used by a wide range of people. 

Because a lot of different people use each of the iPads, at different time, and for different purposes, they all fill up with different work pretty quickly, and therefore are hard to keep streamlined and 'clean'. In our building, we are working hard to educate our students to erase their work after it has been exported from the iPad.

Change of Plan

As our understanding of the value that iPads will bring to our students, we have decided to make a few adjustments to the way we deploy them. Just this week we decided that we will put one device into each classroom and leave the remaining 18 devices in the cart so they can be booked by classroom. The idea at this stage is to have the classroom teacher manage the Apps and settings on their classroom iPad. This means they will be able to build up a collection of Apps to use in their own classroom and help personalize learning for students in their own class. Obviously, one iPad doesn't go very far, but we hope this will help teachers gain a deeper understanding of their value.

We still need to work out how we will will manage the buying of Apps.

• Who will pay for Apps that cost?
• What happens when the teacher leaves the a school - What happens to the Apps if it was their own account that purchased Apps
• How can we keep control of the 'buying'?
• How do we encourage the buying of 'good' Apps?
• What is a 'good' App?
• What email will we use for the iTunes account?

There will be other questions that will arise, for sure. We also have some answers to the questions above that we will explore in the coming days and weeks.

Have I missed anything? Probably.

I am excited to see where our journey goes next with iPads in learning. I look forward to sharing our journey. I welcome any questions or comments that others may have.

That's a Wrap: #30DayChallenge and Year End Post

Wow, where did that 30 days go?


I feel this is going to be a fairly lame post. I have nothing except excuses for the my lack of posts for in my first 30 Day Challenge.


At the end of May, when a couple of colleagues (and fellow PLN members - who were half way through their own 30 day challenge) encouraged me to get going on my own 30 day adventure, I decided to take the plunge and challenge myself.

What an awesome concept! 30 solid days of reflection and delving into my own practice (and in my case, the practice of colleagues) to find things I liked, didn't like, things I did well and things I could improve on.

I decided to focus on engagement through inquiry which has been my personal professional focus for more than half of the school year. The inquiry portion of my focus came from working with other Learning Leaders from Area III and also with The Galileo Network and Amy Park (@amydawnpark). From day one I was so inspired by this new understanding of what inquiry based learning actually is. Rather than just big projects and always having a big umbrella question to explore, inquiry as I know it now, is a dynamic and engaging way of teaching and learning. It's an intentionally planned learning process by looking through different lenses/disciplines such as the following:

• Authenticity
• Academic Rigor
• Connecting with Expertise
• Appropriate use of Technology
• Active Exploration
• Elaborated Communication
• Beyond the Classroom
• and Assessment

As a staff, and through out PD with Galileo, we have learned to assess our IBL projects through the Galileo designed Discipline Based Inquiry Rubric.

Over the course of my 30 Day Challenge, I tried to look into the projects I was involved in and find elements and disciplines of inquiry. While it was hard on some days to find my way into classrooms and actually be a part of the learning,  I did see that the people in our building are now trying to incorporate some of these disciplines into their teaching. As we have found out, we're not going to get this over night. It's going to be a long process to change our way of thinking from the teacher always being the holder of knowledge and transforming it so that our students become the experts. They become scientist, authors, mathematicians and historians and in turn become totally engaged in their learning.

For a while now my strengths have been in the use of technology in the classroom. My passion is finding new ways of presenting and expressing an understanding of concepts. What I have really learned by thinking about my practice, is that I need to ensure that the technology we use in the classroom matches or compliments the concept, or idea that students are inquiring into. I have begun to think entirely differently when it comes to the use of technology in the classroom. I now think about what I want the students to know or understand and then think about how technology will help them throughout the learning process. Sometimes, it might be to help understand how a concept works, or how to express an understanding of that concept at the end of a project. Sometimes it might be to communicate with others, in the their own classroom, or from outside the school and on the other side of the world. Teachers might also use technology (and this is my new personal favourite) to give students critical feedback. My enthusiasm for technology as a learning tool is stronger than ever!

This past couple of months we have been exploring iPads as a learning tool. These powerful little devices have really blown me away. They really enable teachers and students to do everything I mentioned in the above paragraph. The other cool thing about iPads are that they are so new in education that we are learning more and more about them as a learning tool everyday. Through an exploration program facilitated by our [CBE] Innovative Learning Commons (#cbeilc ~ twitter conversation), we were asked to share projects, student work, examples of Apps and anything else we could that may help others understand the value of the iPad in the classroom. 

We decided very early on that we would steer away from drill and practice style Apps. I realized that the iPad has way more potential than game based applications and that the students plays and then forget about. We focused on Apps that used the camera and audio capabilities. Most of the Apps we liked and have explored thus far use one or both of these iPad features. The Apps we have enjoyed using so far as follows:

• ShowMe
• Stop Motion Studio HD
• Comic Life
• Skitch
• Voice Recorder for iPad

For more information on our exploration with iPads please visit the website I made to showcase our learning ~ http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/marlborough/mobile/Exploration/Home.html. We have got more plans to develop this site next year. I will more than likely change domains due to the discontinuing of iWeb. I will post any changes to the domain as they happen. 

This year has been an amazing one for me. I have never finished the year off so excited to come back in September. Don't get me wrong, I am loving my summer and spending time with my wife and kids. However, I look forward to the challenges ahead.

My next post will be about my wishes and aspirations for the 2012-2013 school year!

Mobile Learning: An Exploration

Here is web site I have been working on. We have just begun exploring the value of iPads as a learning tool.

My impression so far is - AWESOME!!

http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/marlborough/mobile/Exploration/Home.html

Google Form for Recommending Apps

This is a form I made for our staff to fill out throughout our exploration time with the CBE ILC iPads and iPods. The results of the survey/form can be found in this Google Spreadsheet. Please feel free to give your two cents and also to share with others!

ShowMe an Awesome App

ShowMe

Over the past few months, we have been exploring the what possible uses and value that iPads and iPods could could bring into our building. Apart from the buzz that each and every student had whenever these mobile devices were in the classroom, we have found some amazing Apps that could be so valuable in the classroom.

One of those Apps was one that a colleague found in her personal exploration of iPad resources. That App, called ShowMe (ShowMe on Twitter - @showmeapp), is an amazing way for students to show their understanding of a topic or concept, or share an idea by drawing and talking about it. It works somewhat like Smart Recorder does for a desktop computer. It records whatever you do on the screen as well as your voice. You can also record your voice over the top while playing back.

An account does need to be created in order to share www.showme.com recordings. An account is free and very little personal information is shared. Students under the age of 13 would need to have an account ShowMent made for them (either one that a parent acknowledges or a teacher created account). I would try to make an account for my class to access.

However, a way around creating an account is to playback ShowMe's directly form iPad. With a Apple VGA adaptor cable you can mirror whatever is on your iPad screen through a data projector.

Here is a link to the ShowMe website with some of their ideas for using the App in the classroom - http://www.showme.com/about_classroom

During the City Planning Project students were given a plot of land and a question:

• You are given a piece of land for sustainable and responsible development.  How can we organize this area while meeting the diverse needs of plants, animals and humans?

Groups of students then worked together to plan out their piece of land. Through the discussion of ideas and sharing of opinions each group designed their plan together. Groups then shared their plan to the class using ShowMe. This was an amazing way for students to plan, collaborate, draw and colour their ideas, change and adapt their work and finally present.

Thanks to Laura Hildebrandt and Kate Logan for sharing this App making learning more engaging for our learners.

This video shows the Recording being shared. I speed the video up through the middle to show more progress.