Two Other Projects for the Year

Interestingly enough I left off two other major projects I'll be working on this year. First is our conversion to a new student information system. We decided last year to go with Veracross as our SIS and the implementation begins now. Our initial meeting with the project management team was last week. This should be interesting.
Second, I am taking a course with the Online School for Girls called Charting a Direction for Your School: Online Learning. This is basically a year-long course that will help school leaders determine a course for implementing online learning into the fabric of the school. I expect this to be an incredible learning experience and fully expect to increase my knowledge base about online education.

The one-on-one meetings with teachers have been progressing fabulously! I admittedly was initially skeptical that teachers would want to be obligated to a class period with the technology integrator one day per week, but I am happy to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by not only the response to the time commitment but also the desire to learn! Many teachers come to the meeting with lists of topics and questions they'd like to cover, and others are so very open to learn what they don't know to ask about. One-to-one instruction has always been a part of the total technology integration model, but I have not experienced it to this magnitude before now. The time required of me to be able to meet with everyone has been considerable. I have begun to consolidate meeting times by scheduling a least two teachers in one period and with the plan of possibly alternating each appointment every other week. In the off-weeks, the intention is that the teachers will work on projects and goals we've set up together either on their own or with another teacher partner. Currently, we are still in the start-up stage and in the process of establishing the goals and projects.

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The iPad program is expanding almost exponentially! We have added three library skills classes to the "pilot" and will soon make an all-school announcement that the iPads are available for any class if they are available. Additionally, we are adding 5 new iPads to enable more teachers to get their hands on one to explore and consider for their curriculum. Because there is one set of iPads that students share, we needed to establish some standardization of the organization for the iPads. I created a "page" for each subject area and placed the app icons in the same locations on each iPad. This way students will basically know where to go on the iPad to locate the apps they need regardless of the specific device they pick up. With the announcement of the iPad mini last week, perhaps we will test a few of those out in the near future to see how they fit in our environment.

Welcome Back to School!

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Welcome back to school! Yes, it has been anywhere from five to nine weeks since school started, depending on what region of the country you are in, but things have been so busy that I am only now able to stop long enough to post! The summer was busy with developing processes for maintaining the backend technology at my school as well as developing a strong teacher training program, reviewing and evaluating the results of the previous school year's initiatives, and determining a process for creating a vision for technology for the school. As usual, the summer went by quickly and here we are: five weeks into the new school year.

An Update

My previous posts have included the mention of an iPad Pilot Program. I would like to offer a "report" of how that initiative fared.

We began the initiative with 15 iPads for an eight grade science class with as many students. The teacher of this class was very diligent about the use of iPads in her curriculum and made sure that it was the central tool for her course. The students used many science-specific apps like Pig Dissection, Chem Lab, and Quiz Chemistry, as well as some productivity and creation apps like Explain Everything and Evernote. I sat in on many classes and was witness to the excitement the students exuded when producing video explanations of the parts of the body or a chemical reaction. In the end, the pilot was a success. All of the 15 iPads we began with are still with us and in great condition! We used the ASVPP with one Apple ID so we still have all of the apps used last year to continue to use with this year's eight grade science class. In addition to continuing the Science 8 initiative, our middle school French teacher has been added and we are now exploring expanding the program to 6 more classes. We have graduated our classroom-sized pilot into a middle school pilot. A new adventure for a new school year.

Posts to come

I plan to continue to report on our iPad program this year. I am certain there will be a lot to learn from it. We have also begun a new initiative surrounding teacher development. The school administration has decided that integrating technology and supporting teachers as they learn to do this is so important that time has been allocated on their weekly schedule to devote to this endeavor. I have been meeting with every teacher weekly (our faculty is small enough for me to - barely - do this) to work on developing their technology and integration skills and knowledge. Again, I am certain there will be much to learn from this endeavor and I plan to update this blog with the progress. A third major project this year is the work of establishing a technology vision for the school. This is an exciting step forward as we think about and mold the future of our school.

So, please continue to read and I hope that you can glean something useful from the posts. As always, please share your comments, thoughts, and questions with me and other readers. Discussion is always welcome!

Thanks for reading!



Links to apps mentioned in this post:
Pig Dissection
Chem Lab
Quiz Chemistry
Explain Everything
Evernote

iPad Pilot Program Launched!

We finally launched the iPad Pilot program in eighth grade science on Monday! Many of the students had not before used an iPad and were very excited to use one in the classroom - one student even wanted to continue to work on his class project during his free period today so he could finish (I wonder if the iPad influenced him?). 

The teacher has big plans for this class - she is using several Apps that together help to create an interactive learning experience for the students. mTouch+ enables students to access their Moodle content from the iPad; Explain Everything is an app that lets students create content for the class - they can draw and type as well as record the screen and their voices while drawing and typing! A powerful assessment tool. Another App they are using is Evernote (a personal and professional favorite of mine!). Evernote enables the students to take notes on the iPad, personal and group, and share them not only with their classmates, but also between any devices they have. Evernote syncs between mobile and desktop devices as well as with the Internet. You should definitely check it out! Here is the link to their website: http://www.evernote.com/ 

Of course, there are several Science Apps they are using. Chem Lab, VideoScience, and QRC Elements are a few of them!

Final Setup of the iPad Pilot

I spent Thursday and Friday of last week setting up all of the iPads for the classroom. It was a tedious process - we have 15 iPads to set up. One thing I did not realize about the case for the iPads is that you can not sync and charge at the same time! If the sync cable is attached, then the iPads will not charge. Other than that glitch, the set up went well. I had to touch every device because out of the box, the iPads have to be configured at the hardware level as well as the software level (you know, all those questions that came with iOS 5?!).

See my next post for what is happening in the classroom with them!

Using Moodle to Conduct Professional Development

Moodle (or Blackboard, Vista, Haiku, etc. for that matter) is a great tool to use to deliver learning content. About a year into my role as an academic technology integrator and as a Moodle administrator, I decided to use Moodle not only to administer my classes to students, but also to deliver technology training to my faculty. I've actually used Moodle to teach...Moodle! Course delivery systems provide a great way to augment the classroom experience. In the same vein, they also provide a great way to deliver content, interact with participants, and assess learning. I upload short videos to demonstrate how to execute a specific skill, or I link to videos I find on the Internet. Any instruction sheets that I create I also upload to Moodle for my faculty to access.

This year I am going to try something new with my faculty - we are going to actually try running a course. In the past all of the content has been up on Moodle for reference. This year I am going to interact with the teachers as if they were taking an online course. I plan to keep the learning online, but to offer as much contact time as possible. I welcome any comments on experience you have had or any advise you'd like to give me!


iPad Pilot Update:
We finally got the covers in and we are still waiting for the cart!!! We've had some problems with inventory being available (covers) and we changed our mind about the original cart we bought and changed to a desktop model (as opposed to a rolling cart). This put our project back a bit, and we had to return the original cart and purchase the new one. Oiy!

Selected a "cart" for the iPad Pilot Program!

I continue to call it a "cart" because I don't have a short name for it!

We decided on the Ergotron 24-237-085 Tablet Management Desktop Module (see how long) to charge, sync, and secure our iPads.

The module is small enough to place on the counter in the science lab and will provide the security we need.

Just ordered it yesterday, so, I'll keep the blog updated on the progress.

iPad Covers and Carts

Today I shopped for iPad Carts & Desktop models and iPad Covers.

We decided to go with a "cart" that enables sync and charge for at least 15 iPad 2s. Instead of using a floor model we decided on a countertop model. I found two models that provide security and perform the sync and charge asks effectively - and simultaneously.
They are made by Ergotron and Datamation. [see my google spreadsheet of my research: iPad Purchases]

I'll decide on which one to purchase tomorrow.

Covers for the iPads are necessary. We are looking for a cover that is not expensive and also covers both the front and back of each iPad - they will be used primarily in a chemistry class/lab! I chose a cover that fits the bill; I decided on the covered pictured on the left, $23.98 each at buy.com.



I also attended a webinar on Google Chromebooks today...but that's another post!!

Setting up the Apple Volume Purchasing Program on the iPads

Today we began opening the boxes containing the 15 iPads recently ordered for the iPad Pilot Program at PCS. The iPads are not loaded with iOS 5 and we do not yet have the sync/charge cart set up. Sooo, I connected two iPads to my laptop (MacBook Pro) and commenced to see what would sync.
The big task was setting up the iPads with a single Apple ID. I signed up for the AVPP and already had a Program Manager account and a Program Facilitator account. What I did not have was a user account. So, we figured out that A minimum of three Apple IDs are needed to participate in the program - one for the management of the program, at least one for the purchasing of apps, and at least one for the iPads. To create the iPads Apple ID I used the instructions to create an Apple ID without a credit card [see: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534] and then successfully downloaded apps and even shared downloaded apps between the two iPads I connected to originally.
OH - We finally figured out that both devices would sync simultaneously using a USB hub, and are therefore confident that using a sync cart will allow us to sync multiple iPads at the same time.