The school year has ended and I do not know where the last couple of months have gone. We are going to go to 1:1 with our 48 eighth grade students next year and it is now time to plan that (and blog about it) and review what we have done to date.
The previous post detailed the basic classroom agenda and I have put up a video to summarize where we ended – the first video was the first couple of days and the new video shows a more tested approach.
Click here for video
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
3-30-11
A few pictures from the class along with a video (not too exciting but captures a typical lesson)
VIDEO - a few clips from class
3-29-11 Tuesday
Today the class enjoyed meeting the family that donated the 10 iPads, cases etc to us. I met prior to the class and I explained how exciting it was to be able to teach with tools like the iPad that are at the front of the teaching curve. The family was incredibly humble and explained that they were excited to be a part of the project.
The class arrived, sat down (along with the contributing family, our PR person, the headmaster and our website consultant – almost more adults than students), downloaded the lesson, opened up their homework from the night before, placed it in their dropbox folder (which is shared with me) and we began to review the assignment. Things went smoothly and we moved on to the day’s lesson. I handed an iPad to the family and explained the fundamentals of using Noterize – they worked through the lesson and picked up on it just as quickly (if not more quickly) as the students. They were really taking notes and solving the problems! This was truly exciting.
The slides, notes etc went well and there were no tech glitches - which is a good stage to be at. We now are to the point that we can begin experimenting again, finding “apps” to use in the classroom – I am considering creating an assignment to have the students find, download and review an application on their iPads – Not too sure how to support this as we have to pay for it – maybe they find it, select it, then we download it in class, at which point they can then try it and review it.
Other apps and uses for the iPad – So far we have been trying to focus on the mathematics instruction and typical note taking procedures that we have used in the past – supplemented by having a graphing calc built into the iPad. The next step is to find new methods of instruction – at this point I am looking into apps that can be used in algebra – At this point I know of only one Alg textbook that has been created for the iPad. This might be useful as it contains instructional videos etc. but the material is not quite as rigorous as we would like – we are continuing to look.
The other day I described the classroom procedure but I should elaborate on the tools- below is a more detailed explanation:
Pre-activity – I create the lesson on the Smartboard, save it as a pdf and upload to the school website under my class (this takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours – it will get faster and better as I get better and the lessons semi - repeat from year to year)
The additional time spent downloading, opening, and closing etc. does not seem to be any more than the time it takes for students to take out their homework, me collect it, take out notepaper for notes, then for homework etc, In fact overall it may save time. Until of course we introduce a new app.
The class arrived, sat down (along with the contributing family, our PR person, the headmaster and our website consultant – almost more adults than students), downloaded the lesson, opened up their homework from the night before, placed it in their dropbox folder (which is shared with me) and we began to review the assignment. Things went smoothly and we moved on to the day’s lesson. I handed an iPad to the family and explained the fundamentals of using Noterize – they worked through the lesson and picked up on it just as quickly (if not more quickly) as the students. They were really taking notes and solving the problems! This was truly exciting.
The slides, notes etc went well and there were no tech glitches - which is a good stage to be at. We now are to the point that we can begin experimenting again, finding “apps” to use in the classroom – I am considering creating an assignment to have the students find, download and review an application on their iPads – Not too sure how to support this as we have to pay for it – maybe they find it, select it, then we download it in class, at which point they can then try it and review it.
Other apps and uses for the iPad – So far we have been trying to focus on the mathematics instruction and typical note taking procedures that we have used in the past – supplemented by having a graphing calc built into the iPad. The next step is to find new methods of instruction – at this point I am looking into apps that can be used in algebra – At this point I know of only one Alg textbook that has been created for the iPad. This might be useful as it contains instructional videos etc. but the material is not quite as rigorous as we would like – we are continuing to look.
The other day I described the classroom procedure but I should elaborate on the tools- below is a more detailed explanation:
Pre-activity – I create the lesson on the Smartboard, save it as a pdf and upload to the school website under my class (this takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours – it will get faster and better as I get better and the lessons semi - repeat from year to year)
- Arrive in class and download lesson –
- Safari – log onto Whipple Hill website (students have individual logins), find the lesson for the days and click it (takes about 2 minutes – logging on + time to download)
- Noterize app - Once the file has been downloaded, the pdf opens in Safari and at that point you can choose to “OPEN IN” Noterize. (30 seconds to 1 minute)
- Dropbox app and Noterize - With the lesson downloaded – place the homework assignment in the Dropbox app which I can access as it is a shared folder with my Dropbox - I created a new account in Dropbox which they are all logged into. (3-4 minutes)
- Noterize – Return to their homework assignment and correct in class – also take notes on (30 seconds)
- Noterize - Open up the lesson for the day and take notes. (30 seconds)
- Lastly – I open up the homework assignments from dropbox – HOWEVER I have been using Note Taker HD. I correct and comment on then EMAIL back to them. I have to email the files as the notetaker HD app does not support placing it directly into the dropbox app – I need to think of a workaround for this.
The additional time spent downloading, opening, and closing etc. does not seem to be any more than the time it takes for students to take out their homework, me collect it, take out notepaper for notes, then for homework etc, In fact overall it may save time. Until of course we introduce a new app.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday 3-11-11
I spent the last few days attending the CUE conference in Palm Springs. I attended several seminars on the iPad and a few that spoke to using the smartboard in the classroom. I have so much information that I am trying to sort it so that I can begin to use it. Once I have completed that task I will post anything that we are thinking about using in the classroom.
On par with the seminars learning value were conversations with those in the lines waiting for the classes. I made it a point to ask whether they were using iPads, what role they played etc. One thing that is certain is that the interest in the iPad is huge. Any seminar that had the word iPad attached was packed with many standing for the typically 1 hour session.
Back to the classroom.
It was time to set up the emails for the students – steps
1. Write email AUP addendum
2. Define email format – gradyearfirstnamelastinitial@harborday.org - ex 11jamesg@harborday.org (this one is not active)
3. Have students create password
4. IT looks over password to make sure it follows rules
5. Have IT dept. create the addresses and passwords
6. Create and test the emails in class
Items 1-5 worked well and took about 2 days (except the creation of the AUP which took about 1 week but can be used from this point on). Everything was great until #6. The first mistake was entirely mine in that the iPad seems to automatically define the email as IMAP. So we entered them all this way and none of them worked. Later that day I was working with IT and we discovered that we needed to change the accounts to POP. This required us to delete the old version and create a new email on the iPad.
I allotted 10 minutes in class to have this happen, too much I thought, but of course for the ONLY 7 students it turned out to be not enough. Some went quickly through the screens, others slowly, some listed to details, some didn’t. Lastly and as it turns out most importantly is some remembered the capital letters in their password, some didn’t (really no one remembered the capital letters its just that those whose emails worked didn’t have any cap letters).
Next time I will take screen shots (Hold down power button and home button at the same time until your see/hear a flash – then it goes into the photos folder) and display them on the smartboard.
Outside of that we have been working through the class rather effectively with the students focused on math and not on the tech (until of course I think of some idea which takes us off track again).
Again the method used to turn in the homework assignments has yet to be decided on. The dropbox app had begun to work well but sometimes the students have trouble accessing and remembering to save the file with their name on it. With the emailing of homework it would be attached to the email and name included. I anticipate that the email version might be harder to keep and access the files. We will see.
On par with the seminars learning value were conversations with those in the lines waiting for the classes. I made it a point to ask whether they were using iPads, what role they played etc. One thing that is certain is that the interest in the iPad is huge. Any seminar that had the word iPad attached was packed with many standing for the typically 1 hour session.
Back to the classroom.
It was time to set up the emails for the students – steps
1. Write email AUP addendum
2. Define email format – gradyearfirstnamelastinitial@harborday.org - ex 11jamesg@harborday.org (this one is not active)
3. Have students create password
4. IT looks over password to make sure it follows rules
5. Have IT dept. create the addresses and passwords
6. Create and test the emails in class
Items 1-5 worked well and took about 2 days (except the creation of the AUP which took about 1 week but can be used from this point on). Everything was great until #6. The first mistake was entirely mine in that the iPad seems to automatically define the email as IMAP. So we entered them all this way and none of them worked. Later that day I was working with IT and we discovered that we needed to change the accounts to POP. This required us to delete the old version and create a new email on the iPad.
I allotted 10 minutes in class to have this happen, too much I thought, but of course for the ONLY 7 students it turned out to be not enough. Some went quickly through the screens, others slowly, some listed to details, some didn’t. Lastly and as it turns out most importantly is some remembered the capital letters in their password, some didn’t (really no one remembered the capital letters its just that those whose emails worked didn’t have any cap letters).
Next time I will take screen shots (Hold down power button and home button at the same time until your see/hear a flash – then it goes into the photos folder) and display them on the smartboard.
Outside of that we have been working through the class rather effectively with the students focused on math and not on the tech (until of course I think of some idea which takes us off track again).
Again the method used to turn in the homework assignments has yet to be decided on. The dropbox app had begun to work well but sometimes the students have trouble accessing and remembering to save the file with their name on it. With the emailing of homework it would be attached to the email and name included. I anticipate that the email version might be harder to keep and access the files. We will see.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Ipads 3-15-11
We finalized the email AUP and handed it out to the students today. The hope is that now we can more easily turn in assignments and communicate with the students. Up until now we have not really had much of an alternative to using the website to download the lessons, hand in homework or communicate with the students. In fact today, for some reason (we have yet to figure out why) one of the students could not download the lesson from the website and he really had no alternative. Certainly something on my mind is creating the “plan b and c” for technical issues with the equipment. In the end he left the computer with me, I placed the Dropbox app on the iPad and he now can access the lesson. More on dropbox in a minute.
The class moved ahead and with the lesson downloaded we move to check on their homework assignments on the iPad. As we have yet to create a format for turning in the assignments, I manually went around the class and looked at their homework slides. Next step is to correct the homework problems and review any questions. For this they do not use the downloaded lesson from earlier. It is a little different than the order for the paper class and I am working on the sequence. I think that this is the best.
1. Arrive in class and download lesson
2. As the lesson is downloading – place the homework assignment in the Dropbox app
3. Open their homework assignment and correct
4. Open up the lesson for the day and take notes.
Outside of the download issue we all worked on practice problems and the class went fairly smoothly.
DropBox app – one of the issues here is that they all log on under the same account and can all access the folders and files and therefore copy/change them. Therefore the best thing to do is to turn in homework immediately upon entering the class, then I can place it in my folder because it is shared.
One of the inherent dangers of this electronic distribution is the ability to share. If one student completes their assignment in the afternoon then he/she can immediately send it to friends to be copied. I am unclear on the solution and perhaps it’s as easy as that now anyway. I will certainly need to be careful about putting tests on the computer as it could be distributed while they are taking the exam.
The class moved ahead and with the lesson downloaded we move to check on their homework assignments on the iPad. As we have yet to create a format for turning in the assignments, I manually went around the class and looked at their homework slides. Next step is to correct the homework problems and review any questions. For this they do not use the downloaded lesson from earlier. It is a little different than the order for the paper class and I am working on the sequence. I think that this is the best.
1. Arrive in class and download lesson
2. As the lesson is downloading – place the homework assignment in the Dropbox app
3. Open their homework assignment and correct
4. Open up the lesson for the day and take notes.
Outside of the download issue we all worked on practice problems and the class went fairly smoothly.
DropBox app – one of the issues here is that they all log on under the same account and can all access the folders and files and therefore copy/change them. Therefore the best thing to do is to turn in homework immediately upon entering the class, then I can place it in my folder because it is shared.
One of the inherent dangers of this electronic distribution is the ability to share. If one student completes their assignment in the afternoon then he/she can immediately send it to friends to be copied. I am unclear on the solution and perhaps it’s as easy as that now anyway. I will certainly need to be careful about putting tests on the computer as it could be distributed while they are taking the exam.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Friday 3-11-11
Over the last few days the class/my teaching has felt too fragmented. We are constantly solving problems with the technology while at the same time introducing new apps all while teaching a class. I have been too excited about pushing the envelope and perhaps lost focus on the fact that we are also learning Algebra. As a result today was a pure lecture without new tools/toys/experiments with the iPads. We downloaded the notes, went over the homework and work through the problems together. Things went well and the students learned about graphing, slope intercept and all those good things. I will begin to meter the new apps/ideas out more slowly and keep the focus on the class.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday 3-9-11
New app today – GraphCalc HD – a graphing calculator
We have been talking about slope etc in algebra so after looking around I found the app “GraphCalc HD”. I worked with it for a while and decided that we should download it to all the iPads. After the students walked into class and had finished downloading the lesson I announced that we would be downloading an app today. I had downloaded the app to the master iPad computer and decided that syncing each to it should be the most effective method. So I announced to the class (just 7 students) “please bring up your iPad and place them on my desk”. I plugged in the first one and noticed that I could not sync the apps – the button was dimmed. I had disabled the iPads app store and I assume that must have disabled the sync option. I changed the setting on the iPad and still the sync option was disabled. OK, I decided that wasn’t going to work so I decided to download it to each iPad. I thought this was a good idea too so that each app would be paid for vs. the master computer sync which doesn’t cause the user to pay for each iPad app synced. In order to do this I had to (on each iPad)
Disable the app download restriction – go to settings, type in password
Find the app in the app store
Download the app – again type in password for iTunes account
Once the app was downloaded we had to back in and enable the restrictions to not allow the downloading of apps. The whole process took about 15 minutes and really disrupted the class. I am sure there is an easier way and I will have to find it.
Note: one student had synced with their iTunes on the computer at home and therefore the wrong account was open and I had to log off etc. We explained that the students should not sync with their computers at home to avoid this.
Given the app download and syncing with another computer issue I wonder whether it is worth regulating it so much. Maybe we should allow connection to another computer as well as opening the app store. From what we have done so far the apps are associated with the account that they are downloaded from and the two can coexist on the same iPad.
We have been talking about slope etc in algebra so after looking around I found the app “GraphCalc HD”. I worked with it for a while and decided that we should download it to all the iPads. After the students walked into class and had finished downloading the lesson I announced that we would be downloading an app today. I had downloaded the app to the master iPad computer and decided that syncing each to it should be the most effective method. So I announced to the class (just 7 students) “please bring up your iPad and place them on my desk”. I plugged in the first one and noticed that I could not sync the apps – the button was dimmed. I had disabled the iPads app store and I assume that must have disabled the sync option. I changed the setting on the iPad and still the sync option was disabled. OK, I decided that wasn’t going to work so I decided to download it to each iPad. I thought this was a good idea too so that each app would be paid for vs. the master computer sync which doesn’t cause the user to pay for each iPad app synced. In order to do this I had to (on each iPad)
Disable the app download restriction – go to settings, type in password
Find the app in the app store
Download the app – again type in password for iTunes account
Once the app was downloaded we had to back in and enable the restrictions to not allow the downloading of apps. The whole process took about 15 minutes and really disrupted the class. I am sure there is an easier way and I will have to find it.
Note: one student had synced with their iTunes on the computer at home and therefore the wrong account was open and I had to log off etc. We explained that the students should not sync with their computers at home to avoid this.
Given the app download and syncing with another computer issue I wonder whether it is worth regulating it so much. Maybe we should allow connection to another computer as well as opening the app store. From what we have done so far the apps are associated with the account that they are downloaded from and the two can coexist on the same iPad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)