Tinkerbox -- An Intergrade Level Collaboration Effort

As the computer teacher I like to try to integrate my lessons with the regular classroom units.  So, I'll periodically send out emails to see what's going on out there.  When our second grade teacher told me they were looking at motion and force, I knew we hit a gold mine.

My seventh graders (who I see every day) recently did an app test drive on Tinkerbox, so I knew they could help me out.  Having a roomful of second graders on Tinkerbox with only one adult would be a headache for the teacher.  Having a roomful of seventh graders helping the roomful of second graders makes life easier and is great for older/younger student interaction.

During my middle school time slot today, I brought the seventh graders to second grade to show them how to play Tinkerbox.  It was great to see students clustered in groups learning how to use the app and exploring the different levels. 

We need to do this again.

New to Tinkerbox? Each level requires you to move various balls or boxes to different places on the screen. It's your job to place elements on the screen in such a way to achieve your goal.  It's totally a game, but the scientific elements are real enough.  For instance, look at the screenshot below.  The pendulum swings back and forth to hit the switch.  The switch dictates the direction of the conveyor belts. You have three balls, and each one goes in a different tube.  The pendulum acts like a real pendulum; each swing has a lower arc than the swing before. (By the way, I'm stuck on this level.  Can you help me out? Thanks.)

Confessions of a Bad Hurdler

I had a dream of running the steeplechase on my college track team.  I asked our coach, and he was agreeable to it, provided I figured it out myself.  You see, our college was so small we rented a high school track for practices. We really were a rag-tag group of non-runners trying to get into shape before summer break with only one coach.  The same man was my cross country coach and I'm sure he figured I couldn't do anything goofier than he saw in the fall.

So... I set out to teach myself how to steeplechase.  The first goal, learn how to hurdle. I called my high school coach, who agreed to help.  My roommate and I drove spent a Saturday morning at my high school where we learned the fundamentals of hurdling.

What happened is that I never once ran steeplechase.  My winter blubber never dissolved during the track season so that I felt comfortable running roughly two miles while jumping over obstacles.

I did however reach ROCK STAR status on my track team. I was a hurdler!  I ran in the 110 high hurdles and the 400 intermediate hurdles.  And I was bad.  Not only did I never win, but I'm not so sure that I beat anybody in any race I ran.  I was an out of shape distance runner trying to run sprint events...but my teammates thought I was a big thing.

I took a chance.  I learned a new skill.  I did something the other people around me were too intimidated to try.  To the others, it didn't matter that I was good or bad but that I took that risk.

Looking back at my technology journey the past couple decades, I see some similarities. You see, when I started teaching, I hand-wrote my own tests. Over the years, computers began to creep into my classroom, till I realized I had technology and had no idea how to use it.  That led to my Masters' thesis on the topic of technology integration (published in 2002).  From then on, I've been something of a tech integrator, but things really changed when I started teaching at a different school that had just rolled out iPads.  I responded to an email asking how we were using our iPads in class.  My list -- verbatim -- made it into a Head of School email sent to the whole school, and I instantly became known as the iPad specialist.

You can look at a hurdle and decide to either jump over it or not.  Same thing with an iPad or a computer. Use it or don't use it.  Those who do choose to jump over the hurdle are revered by those who don't (and frankly, are probably looked at as a bit nutty).  Those who chose to learn how to use the iPad and integrate it into lessons are looked as something special.  Why? Because we took the time to learn how to do something the other people didn't want to learn.

There are days I don't feel like I'm doing anything special.  I can still be a lazy teacher at times, but a lazy teacher who uses a cool tool with the kids.  There are days when teachers ask me for a special lesson idea.  I'm more than happy to help out.  I do a Google search, skim off the top 5 results, email it off, and look like I did something great.

What makes a great teacher is not the tools they use but how they use them.

I was a hurdler at one point in my life, but I was slow, out of shape, and really bad.  Wouldn't it have been cool if I went into my hurdling career at my best performance weight and really tried to learn the craft well?  Then again, it would be really cool if I attacked every day of teaching with the same intensity that an Olympic hurdler attacks the first hurdle of the gold medal race. THAT'S what makes a teacher worth remembering!

Maybe one day I'll tell you about my triple jump experience!

Native American StoryKit Projects

Our 5th grade history curriculum takes us through the entire history of the United States of America. Yes, you read that right. We start with a unit on geography, climate, and such. Then we delve into Native Americans. From there... It's Christopher Columbus to Barack Obama. In one year. As you can imagine, we can't stop on one topic for very long. I gave the students a research project for the Native American unit. Instead of a stuffy report or oral presentation, we went with StoryKits.

StoryKit is an iPhone app that simulates creating an eBook. Students can load text, pictures, and audio on each page.  It has more of an eBook feel on the actual iPad it was created on.  What you'll see on the links below will be more of a checkerboard of pages.  You just have to imagine it with me.  With my Apple TV and projector, students can show their projects to their classmates.

Here are some great examples.

http://iphone.childrenslibrary.org/cgi-bin/view.py?b=wqecdel4cflnfg5rvhx7
http://iphone.childrenslibrary.org/cgi-bin/view.py?b=qyemvl3e74wlcsatjquq
http://iphone.childrenslibrary.org/cgi-bin/view.py?b=6ma45iuahdxdbywb4ago
http://iphone.childrenslibrary.org/cgi-bin/view.py?b=jn3n6pn5f2hbfrjkab3d
http://iphone.childrenslibrary.org/cgi-bin/view.py?b=fquldi2zsp64m3br542z

How are you using StoryKit in your classroom?

How on earth do you...?

There is a question buzzing about my team wondering how to securely accept and respond to student work using iPads.  Currently, we have 54 students sharing a cart of 20 iPads for use with 4 different teachers.  I've begged and pleaded for a 1:1 program, but it isn't going to happen, at least not this year.  So, we're left to find another option.

Currently, we have one generic gmail account to which all twenty iPads are connected.  That means that students may email us their assignments.  However, should we respond, we would potentially tell the entire class the grade for that student. 

How do you do it in your school?

We have considered giving all students a gmail account and they log in to that account when they pick up the iPad.  That doesn't work because switching the account through settings is not password protected.

We have considered having kids log on to gmail through Safari and sending us emails that way, but not every app gives you that flexibility.  I'm sure that you've noticed that a number of apps will just send the product off using the "logged into" account. So, this won't work.

Our IT department is playing around with Google Apps for Education, but they aren't ready to roll it out to everyone yet.  I'm not sure if that will answer our question.

I think I'm at the point where I'll accept something emailed to me from the generic email account, type my response, and print a hard copy of the response to send home.  It's not perfect, and I'd love to be paperless on this... but I can't think of a better way.

Can you?

What do you do in your school?

Rover

I just found out about an app called Rover.  You can read the review that introduced it to me here. The magic of Rover is that you can use it when you are using Flash-based web sites.  When you first open up Rover, you will see a number of sites already programmed into it, which you can play with.  I choose not to bother with them but to put in sites that I'll be using in school really soon.

You'll see at the top of the page, a navigation toolbar similar to what Safari offers you.  I typed in a couple of sites and explored.

My take on it... It does the job.  It will show you the pictures and text.  I got sound out of it once in a while.  It's just slow though. The pictures come in all pixelated then eventually form the effect the creator wished for.  When I look at the same site on my Windows PC, the picture comes up immediately.  (Try it.  The site is http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/underground_railroad/.)

If you can live with the slower speed, then I say to go for it. I have four student PCs in my room and a cart of 20 iPads that spend most of the week in my room.  If I have my 12 social studies students all wanting to get online at one time, we can't use the PCs.  However, we can use the iPads.  Rover makes using Flash-based sites possible again.  I will definitely have Rover loaded on the student iPads really soon and train the kids one how to use it so we can have more possibilities in the future.  I'm sure that as time goes by, the quality will get better and we'll be glad we got in on the ground floor.

Have you been using Rover?

Good-Night iPad

As the father of a toddler, we have read Goodnight Moon more times than I would care to count.  That may be why I find this video so hilarious!  I guess sometimes we have to turn off the machines and say goodnight.

iPad Training, Round 2

Last week, we had more iPad training at our school.  I was excited to hear that it would focus more in depth in how to integrate iPads into our teaching.  Here are some good ideas I walked away with.

• StoryKit is a digital book creation tool.  You can type text, add pictures, draw pictures, and add audio.  The one drawback is that it's only viewed on StoryKit.  You can email a copy to your friends, but it won't be book like.  Here's my example from the Stamp Act. This version has less bells and whistles than what you would see on your iPad, but you get the idea.  
• Popplets is a graphic organizer creator.  I love it!  It's more fluid than the software our school requires, and students can even insert pictures.  You'll see my example also from the Stamp Act here.  My link is the free version, but our school is going to use the paid version which has more capability like putting a popplet in Drop Box.
• SonicPics helps you create stories using pictures and audio. I have the lite (free version) which only allows three pictures.  The paid version has more capability.  
• ScreenChomp is an interactive white board.  You can start with a blank screen or a picture background.  Then you draw on the board and talk at the same time.  I told my social studies class about it, and they looked at me like I was crazy.  I told my advanced math class about it, and they looked at me like I was crazy.  I told my regular math class about it, and they got excited.  I think they are excited to have another way (verbal) to explain how their understanding of math procedures.  I have not had the opportunity to use it in class yet, but I will soon.  I've had kids play with it already and the enthusiasm is  obvious.
• PhotoCard is a postcard app. I plan to do this on my next vacation. Take a cute picture of my daughter.  Put it on the app.  Write a neat note.  Email it out.  Cheaper and more personal than a real postcard.  However, this could be a good way to get a one short snippet of information out of a kid.  See my example below.

Funny.  I never was into professional development till someone handed me an iPad.  Now I love it! 

Consumption vs. Creation

How does your school use technology?  How do you integrate technology in your classroom?

I recently read this post, in which the author spent a bit of time on my soapbox.  As I see it, there are three ways technology can be used in schools.  Today I read this post about a fellow tech integrator who is just plain struggling to bring technology into his lessons in an effective way.

The more I research best practices in technology integration the more I get frustrated.  When I read other people's blogs or tweets, there is a lot of talk about how computers are going to revolutionize the education system.  The advent of the iPad raised this talk to a whole new level... so it would seem.

I just went to the App Store and hit the "Education" category.  Top six results sorted by relevance were... Color Mix HD (Fairy Princess), Color Mix HD (Dinosaur), If you're happy and you know it, Monkey Preschool Lunchbox, Math Puppy - Bingo Challenge, and Timmy's Preschool Adventure.  Raise your hand if any of those title get you excited to go to school tomorrow.  Next, I merely typed "Math" into the search window.  My top six results were mainly drill and practice apps. Math, Math (R), Motion Math: Hungry Fish, My Math Flash Cards App, and Motion Math Zoom are all some form of drill and practice.  I'm pretty sure that my school didn't spend thousands of dollars so my students can learn their math facts.  My mom spent a buck or two on index cards and few minutes to write it all down for me to learn my facts.

I was intrigued by the first result though.  It's called... Math..  (No, that double period is not a typo.  The name of the app is Math., and the other period is the end of the sentence.)  I installed it on my iPad, and it looks good. They work you through concepts step by step and have video accompaniment too.  Not a bad thing... but still a consumer product.

I may have rambled a bit getting to this point, by I do have a point.

My research is turning up two distinct categories.
1.  It's all focused on consumption products. I'm not poo-pooing consumption, but do we teach higher level thinking through these products?  Kids spend most of their life consuming technology: TV, video games, and music.  Do we need to overload them in school too?  Do we need iPads to do what my mom did with index cards when I was 10?
2.  "These computers are going to change everything!"... but very little practical application to go along with it.  There is a large group of educators out there who are itching to change the educational system and rightly see these electronics as the means to get there.  We all know that these tools can do something special we could not dream of when we were kids, but very few are giving practical suggestions of how to get there.

This summer I got my first iPad and started in on Twitter.  It wasn't long before I found @coolcatteacher and @thenerdyteacher.  I love following them because they give practical suggestions of what they are doing in class and how they integrate technology.  However, they teach high school, and I'm in upper elementary.  I'm still struggling to find someone in my grade level who is using these tools to do cool things (creation tools, not consumption tools).

So, here's my promise.  I'm going to keep plugging away.  I'm going to find ways for my students to create using iPads, and I'm going to post those projects here. If you or a friend are on a similar quest to use project based learning and creation apps in the upper elementary classroom, please send them my way.  I would love a buddy to bounce ideas off of. Imagine what we could do collaborating together.  If you stumble across this post and you realize that we're barking up the same tree, please send me your blog address, twitter handle, or facebook friend request.

I originally wrote this post over a week ago and stopped since it sounded so obnoxiously cocky.  I went back today and deleted whole paragraphs and tweaked a few things.  Please don't read this and think that I'm promoting myself or what I'm doing.  I'm just showing my frustrations and struggles to find what I'm looking for out there.  Instead of this blog being self-promotion, I'm getting my voice out there trying to find some sense of community so we can learn and grow together.

Thanks for listening to me ramble.  I'm not even sure if I ended where I started with the title, but I feel better now.  

 @kylepace

Technology Integrators (#2)

As I research and read articles, my goal is to type up a short summary of the articles I read and post them here.  There's a lot to wade through, but maybe this weekly post can be a way to keep you from spending a lot of research time too.  So, sit back and enjoy.

This article has been sitting in my email inbox for a few weeks.  The wonderful folks down under in Victoria, Australia, compiled a list of lesson ideas using apps that foster higher level thinking.  Rather than me give you a summary of each idea, just go on the link and see for yourself.  There are ideas for just about any discipline. http://www.education.vic.gov.au/studentlearning/elearning/ipads/classroom.htm

I'm catching up on my reading.  When I see an article that I think will be beneficial to my research, I email it to my inbox so I can read it at a more convenient time.  I figure that I'll eventually read it and put it in this section of my blog, forever enshrining it in my research.  I find that a lot of these articles are merely summarizing the wonders of the iPad and how it will transform education.  They offer very little in terms of HOW it will or specific IDEAS of how I can use it in my room.  Ho hum!  I almost linked one to this blog, but why waste your time?

Here is another great piece of writing coming from Victoria, Australia, this one talking about planning what your 1:1 classroom and school will look at.  I like this quote. "We should not be mapping the use of new technologies onto old curricula, rather, we need to rethink our curricula and pedagogies in the light of the impact that we know technologies can have on learning and meaning-making in contemporary times."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/54455120/iPads-for-Learning-Getting-Started

It turns out that someone adjusts Bloom's Taxonomy. Did you know that? How did it escape me? Anyhow this article is #5 in a six part series about the New Bloom's Taxonomy. Specifically this article looks at the creating (see synthesis) level. They split creativity into three levels (generating, planning, and producing). Schools do a disservice by sticking to the textbook instead of teaching them to create. What do you think of this quote?

"We are depriving ourselves of untapped resources of human ability and robbing children of their right to full development." (Quoting Bloom himself)

It deeply sickens me to think that in 2011, this still holds true. In a desperate attempt to deliver a mass consumption of content, too many of our nation's schools are requiring teachers to do little more than parrot published materials. Occasionally, these resources do provide opportunities for students to critique ideas, but rarely do they intend to foster creative thought.

This article continues by giving a handful of iPad apps that can be used to evaluate students' creative level on the taxonomy.  It even gives 10 criteria to look for in an creating app.  I plan to use this list extensively.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ipad-apps-elementary-blooms-taxomony-creating-diane-darrow

I have been using Wikispaces in my class for years.  It started with a country wiki project for my sixth graders.  They each studied a separate country, and we built a wiki site dedicated to the countries they studied.  As the years progressed, the wiki grew and was modified to address changes in the countries.  Now, I'm at a new school, and I'm using Wikispaces again.  This time, my fifth graders posted Native American facts on the wiki and are also using it to post journal entries for a book they read in Language Arts class.  Eventually, I would like to use this area to build something similar to the country wiki I had at my previous school.  We'll just see where our curriculum goes.  You access my current wiki here, but I no longer have access to my old account.

The fine people at Wikispaces wrote up an article about Project-Based Learning.  In it, they mention Edutopia, which I'm finding is a pretty good site for educators to hop onto every once in a while.
http://blog.wikispaces.com/2011/09/resources-for-project-based-learning.html

Speaking of wikis, here's a wiki site from the Palm Beach School District, listing all sorts of apps that they use in their schools.  I LOVE this quote... "Technology has been completely transparent to the Net Gen. 'It doesn't exist. It's like the air,' said Coco Conn, cofounder of the Web-based Cityspace project. MIT's Dr. Idit Harel, a professor of epistemology, agreed: 'For the kids, it's like using a pencil. Parents don't talk about pencils, they talk about writing. And kids don't talk about technology—they talk about playing, building a Web site, writing a friend, about the rain forest. . .To them, technology is like the air,'" (Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital)
This page is for the elementary apps, but there are apps for middle school and high school too.  I'll bookmark this page for future use.  

I think that's enough for one week.  I'll keep reading and sharing with you.  In the meantime, tell me what good stuff you're finding out there.

iPads and Parenting

I'm a father of a toddler.

I have an iPad.

This article made me stop and think. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/02/the-ipad-and-parenting/

Let's back up about a decade.  I was nearing the end of my Master's courses and it was time to think about a thesis topic.  They said to pick something that interested me, because I would spend a lot of time learning about it over the next year.  This was the time in education when schools would plop computers in the classroom and tell teachers to use them... with little guidance after that.  So, to me it was a natural fit.  How can I effectively integrate technology in the way I teach?  If you've been a student of mine since then or have had a student go through my class, you'll know that I attempt to use technology in many ways in the classroom.  Some attempts are a success, and some are failures.

Anyhow, one aspect of my research that stuck with me showed that technology for little kids (1st grade and younger) can be bad.  Young children think concretely, and they can't quite comprehend what's going on when images pop up on the screen and disappear and such.  Another concept was the idea of "screen time."  Parents are wise to limit the amount of "screen time" a child has per day, whether it be on the computer, playing video games, or watching TV.

I'm not telling you how to parent your children.  I'm just giving you some nuggets that I've learned.

Enter my new job and the iPad they handed me this summer.  Soon we'll be rolling out the iPads with the kids and using them in our instruction.  I've had an iPad since July, and Ava (that's my daughter) loves it.  When she sees the iPad, I can guarantee two things.  One, I'll hear the words Daddy, iPad, couch, and Elmo repeatedly.  Two, she will go lay on the couch as she's yelling them.  I've downloaded a few Ava-friendly apps (including an Elmo alphabet app) that she loves!  I set the timer for 10-15 minutes, and we snuggle on the couch as she plays with the iPad, going from Elmo to talking animated animals, to drawing apps, to Brain Pop, to the occasional Angry Birds.  She has become very good at navigating on that machine, knowing the function of the home button and how to adjust the volume.

Does this make me a bad dad?  Am I ruining my daughter's ability to think and reason?

This all started because of physical therapy.  For some exercises she needed to be "engaged" in an activity, and her PT handed her his smart phone.  She loved it, so we started using the iPad as a motivation for some harder exercises.  Imagine a two-year old being forced to do the wheel barrow walk down the hall and into the living room.  It's a bit more palatable having some angry birds at the other end to walk to.  Somehow, we morphed it into couch time. 

In the end, I'm feeling pretty good about things.  She never uses the iPad alone.  In fact, I use it as a chance for some snuggle time, something that can be rare with an active toddler. Finally, her time is limited.  With almost no TV/video time in her life (except NFL games) 10-15 minutes a few times a week isn't going to be detrimental. 

How about you?  How do you handle technology at home with your kids?  

iPad Discipline

I just sent my first iDiscipline email.  Boy #1 emailed me an assignment from his iPad.  Just as the email rolled in, I saw him leaning over and tapping another kids iPad.  I shot back an email, "Stopping messing with Boy #2's iPad."  Fun!

Pictures!

This may seem to be a simple use of the iPad, but you gotta start somewhere.  Behold!  My kids drew pictures of their favorite scenes from Hatchet.  Then, they took my iPad2 and took pictures of their pictures.  Fun stuff!

Technology Changes How We Teach

I wrote my Master's thesis in 2002.  The topic was professional development for technology integration.  Think about how technology has changed since 2002. It's mind-boggling!

The main aspect of my research revolved around ACOT -- Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow.  Around the turn of the millennium Apple selected a handful of classrooms around the USA to be ACOT classrooms.  Each teacher and student in these classes were given two desktop computers: one for school and one for home.  The teachers were not told what to do or how to teach, but of course were encouraged to use the computers as much as possible however they wanted.  They were to record their thoughts and feelings and frustrations and happy moments.  They also provided support and allowed the ACOT teachers to converse on a regular basis.  The Apple researchers just sat back and watched.

An odd thing happened that most people didn't anticipate.  Every teacher wound up changing teaching styles. Even the most traditional among their ranks became more and more progressive.  Instead of rote learning and teacher-led lessons, more and more project-based real-life learning was happening.  Students were collaborating together more than ever before.  

These iPad initiatives are really a lot like ACOT 10-12 years later.  Teachers are finding themselves with portable easy to carry computers in their hands.  Collaboration is easier than ever before with all sorts of social networking available.  

How will your classroom look different this year than it did 10 years ago?  Here's an interesting article to chew on... http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/03/students-and-ipads-acu-study-shows-positive-results/

Training Day 2

It's the last half hour of training and my mind is turning mush-like. I have downloaded so many apps these last few days, but I need time to look at each one and decide what I will really use. Not only is there an app for that, but there are multiple apps for that. So part of my learning curve is to decide the apps I really like and ditch the ones I don't.

I'm supposed to be lesson planning right now, but that's hard without actual iPads in the classroom, but I have ideas. Let me explain...

1. This weekend my kids will finish Hatchet which is a great book about a boy surviving a plane crash in the north Canadian woods.  As an end of the book project, I'm going to have them do a PowerPoint presentation.  (I know what you're thinking right now. PowerPoint isn't a Mac program; shouldn't it be Key Note?  Yes and now.  Since my kids do not have access to their iPads yet, I need to make this project PC user-friendly but make it easily transferred to iPad for next year.  May I proceed now?)  Step One is going to be including a picture of the woods in Northern Canada.  I'm going to give them the name Kesagami Provincial Park as a starting spot, but really I want them to see how remote the setting of the story was.  (For future years, I may start the book by having them create a Zapd site with this picture and a short description of the setting.)  Step Two will be picking one chapter from the book (I'll most likely give them a handful of chapters to choose from) and have them include 5 slides telling the story of that chapter using pictures and text.  The objective?  Sequencing, of course.  In future years, I'd like for this to be more interactive with audio and video included, but we need to start small.  Any ideas how I can take it a tiny step beyond this one?

 2.  A number of years ago, my wife and I devised Station Day to use in our classes.  Everyone raves about using centers, but how do you feasibly do that when changing classes?  It seems like a lot of work when very few kids can take advantage of it.  The answer?  Station Day!  Create 6 stations and give the kids time to rotate through all of them in the course of a class period.  Kids LOVE it!  This link will take you to an iPad version of Station Day.  I couldn't find two of the three apps named in the lesson plan, but that doesn't matter. Find three (or four or five) apps that allow them to do some drill and practice or create books or play a spelling game and they get all giddy with excitement.

3.  Picture Book!  What language arts teacher doesn't have their kids create books?!?  The Picture Book app enables kids to create their own book which they can later share with others.  The app is free and comes with a small variety of covers and characters.  Of course, you can purchase a boatload of other pictures and covers if you want.  Another fun alternative is PuppetPals where you can create a puppet show and tell a story.  Again, with the free version you're quite limited with what you can use and are more than welcome to buy more options.  In this case, you're only allowed to play in the Wild West. :)

Wanna see my first Zapd site?  Click here and be amazed!

As I stated in the intro to this post, I started writing this Friday afternoon toward the end of our training.  I finished it about 24 hours later during my daughter's nap time.  I can't seem to break out technology anywhere near her without her wanting to play with Elmo or watch a turtle video.

Last night, my friend Jon -- a former colleague and current tech director at a school in Massachusetts -- tweeted me a ton of apps.  I'll list them all here for you to peruse.  I have some on my iPad already.  Others are foreign to me.  My next step is to download them all, then I have to decide what to keep.  (Thanks, Jon, for the help!)

I want this blog to be a place where ideas can be shared.  If you know a teacher working with iPads, please send them here so we can all help each other figure out the best way to use them effectively.

Kinetik, Mobile Mouse, Dropbox, Inspiro, Zite, Editions, Good reader, Instapaper, Timer+, Appstart, Pages, iMovie, Garageband, TED, Doodle Buddy, ComicLife, WordWit, Motion Math HD, Qwiki, Skype, Evernote, Noteshelf, Popplet.

Finally!

Today is the day I've been waiting for since I was hired back in June.  When I went through the interview process I was told that the school was instituting a 1:1 iPad initiative in the middle school and high school and that the 5th and 6th grades would share a cart of 20 iPads to share.  In fact, it was because of my technology integration background that I was hired.  Initially my role at the school was partly to be a technology integration specialist, but that title got downgraded due to my course load.

Of course, there's one little problem.  Until July I had never touched an iPad and had no idea how to integrate it into the classroom.  Like most people who are remotely connected to the outside world, it wasn't too hard to read the writing on the wall.  The iPad was going to revolutionize the classroom like desktop computers did a dozen years ago.  I was excited to be hired by a school that saw this potential and wanted to get on board quickly.  However, I knew I had a lot to learn.

The school gave me an iPad midsummer to play with and I picked up a few apps.  However, until you see kids using the technology, it's all just theory. I was nervous to start a new year at a new school with new technology with expectations high that I would lead the way.  Then I discovered an odd twist... no wifi in the elementary building.  When I asked about it I was told that everything was in the works, but they had to hold off on the elementary angle of the iPads till October at the earliest.

What I thought was a negative turned into a positive in the end.  It took all of August and September to become comfortable at the new school.  Had I had to worry about iPads too, I might have had some serious health issues due to the stress.  Now that things have calmed down on other fronts I'm finally ready to tackle iPads in the classroom. (Though, they still aren't in the room, at least I'm ready.)

Today was Day 1 of iPad training.  The school brought in a rep from Apple to teach us how to use our iPads.  Tomorrow is the last day of the training.

The morning was, I admit, a bit boring. It was basically geared toward someone who just picked up an iPad for the first time.  I did learn a few new tips (like how to turn off an app), most of the morning was review of things I already knew to get everyone up to snuff.  I played a lot of Angry Birds and got caught up on some blogs and such.  Too bad Facebook, Twitter, and Words With Friends are blocked at the school.

The afternoon was a bit more informative and I walked away excited about a few things.  Here are some of the apps that we looked at and how I might be using them in the classroom.

• Scan: This is to scan a QR code, something that I had never done before.  For some reason this is something that is taking America by storm in the consumer world.  It's cool to scan the code and have a site pop up, but in the end it's just a fancy way to call up a web site.  It was suggested to use QR codes in centers, and that is a cool idea.  This would help re-engage minds into an activity.  However, I think my students will be using an iPad 1, so without a camera... Moving on.
• Alice in New York:  The link is for the Lite (free) version, and I'm excited about it!  It's an interactive novel based on Alice in Wonderland.  As our instructor said, the way books are being published is changing, and this app is an excellent display of what all books could look like down the road.  I would love to have the kids download this free version (for the whole story you need to buy the full version) and read it.  Then, I could have them create their own interactive novel.  Of course, they don't have the tools or skills to reproduce something this cool, but it could still be interactive.  Awesome!
• Zapd:  This app claims to help you build a web site in 60 seconds from your iPhone. I have a Google site which I like and is rather easy to work with.  Once you have been using Blogger for a while, Google Sites are easy to build.  However, I may give Zapd a chance.  Maybe I can coerce the kids to build sites with this.  Then, I have to consider their security.  Thoughts? 
• Maps:  This app comes with the iPad.  It is very much like Google Maps, which I've been using for years as a geocacher.  However, I guess I didn't realize that you could zoom in on the Sphinx and take a picture of it for a report.  That transforms what reports would look like.  I think of the Country Reports I used to do in my previous school and think of what kids could have put in there.  Why not do something similar with the Biography Reports my fifth graders will do this winter? A picture of the person's birthplace?  A famous landmark in his/her life?  It doesn't just have to be from the maps.  The possibilities are endless.  Oh, behold my Sphinx picture: 

• There are a ton of note taking apps out there, but one we played with a lot was AudioNote Lite, which allows you to type notes and speak into a microphone to record your notes.  This would be another great tool to create the interactive books I spoke of earlier.
• You know what I would love to do?  I would love to do an entire class novel unit on iPads... no paper at all.  Wouldn't that be cool?  We learned how to take notes on iBooks, and we were pointed to free books too.  Hmm...  

Tomorrow is another day of training, and I'm hoping that we get to learn more cool ideas so I can start prepping for the day when the iPads are unveiled to my 5th and 6th graders.

However, tonight is tonight, and my wife just came home from work.  I'm going to spend the rest of the evening with her because I enjoy her more than an iPad... even an iPad 2.  :)

Slow Start

As you know, I'm starting at a new school this year.  When I was hired I was told that all students from 7th grade and up would have an iPad to use this school year and that my 5th and 6th graders would have a cart of 20 iPads to share.  Cool!  I was excited, and it was one reason why I decided to sign on to the school.

The iPad2s are here.  A very nice and fun tool.  However, I'm missing a few things.  Basically, the infrastructure is not quite there yet for us to start the school year using the shiny new toys.  Instead, I must rely on the new computer lab right across the hall from me for the first couple of months.  As my wife reminded me, it's not such a bad thing.  Right now I'm overwhelmed with everything else being new.  It's nice to not have to worry about the iPads as well.

Since I'm also going to be a couple months behind the first wave of teachers starting with iPads this year, I'll have a glimpse of what works and what doesn't... at least I hope so.

For the time being, here are the apps I have downloaded that I think may help me be a better teacher or make my students better learners. 

Flipboard

Kindle

ShowMe

Dropbox

MathSnacksHD

IEP Checklist

Evernote
iBooks
Kobo
Kapesni

What about you? What do you have on your iPad?  What's working in your classroom?