Substitute teachers and iPads.

A few weeks ago, I met my substitute teacher for the day at my door. I was on site for meetings, but would not be in my classroom. In my plans and in our chat, I told her about how my kids would be using the iPads to work on two different projects that were in progress. She said, "oh we won't be needing those, I have other things planned."

Later that day I saw her and she seemed pleasantly surprised by my students ability to use the devices to meet their learning goals. It seems that despite her 'other plans', my kids knew what they needed to do and use to finish their assignments.

This week I'm out for a whole week for professional development. I have never, ever been away from my class this long and was quite worried about it. I made sure I had a sub who was comfortable with technology. She has been amazed by what the kids can and do accomplish.

It got me thinking about the first sub's initial reluctance to use the devices. I thought it was a generational thing. Although I am over 50, I've found most teachers my age are less likely to be flexible and adaptable to including technologies into their practices. I am an anomaly due to my first career in high tech. ( I really did work for a company that helped invent the Internet.) I realized it wasn't that my first sub was afraid to use the tablets.
It was more that she thought of iPads as a toy, something a sub might use to fill time, like a game of 7-up or a seasonal crossword puzzle. She hadn't thought of them in regards to their educational value. My kids use their iPads to create, collaborate, problem solve, communicate, research, and yes, to play games. But when they play games, it is with a purpose.

Their new favorite game site is SumDog. Sumdog's learning engine adapts its questions to each student's ability helping teachers deliver Common Core State Standards. It is a group of math games that help students learn and practice math concepts. To use the site with ipads, they need ro go through Rover since it has flash animation. I can target the kids activities to concepts we are working on in class. I am also able to gather data on their activities to see which concepts they are struggling with and where they have mastered concepts. they collaborate with each other and strategize how to play the games. They can play against and with each other. Last week we won a city wide contest! I actually had to tell my kids, "stop doing math and go outside to play!"

So yes, they do play games on the iPads, but there is always a learning objective at the heart of the activity.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Teacher Doc Management with and for the iPad

We have been talking, within the Academy, about creating, sharing and vetting lesson plans and other documents.  There are a number of sites and blogs out there, but we are thinking about how to condense, contain and organize the vast amounts of content out there. 
Escondido has a Google spreadsheet. Since it is in a spreadsheet, you could sort by subject, grade level or price (they are only reviewing free apps going forward).


Today I was thinking about some sort of tabbed web site with a tab for each month of the school year (I am trying to do some forward planning!).  But then again you could have other sorts... here are just a few I thought of:

• Grade level
• Content area
• Month by month

Then you have types of docs:

• teacher productivity apps
• student apps
• productivity
• learning games
• production
• portfolio
• processes and procedures
• lesson plans
• student work
• samples
• actual final product

If my 5th grade math serves me, that is 33 different combinations.  A clean looking blog is Apps in Education.

Lisa Johnson, who has the blog TechChef4u  offers some guidance and templates for iPad lesson plans. She sums up her process nicely and even has this graphic (created with an app) to go along with her ideas. She also pins a lot of ideas to Pinterest, which frankly gave me the idea that all of this information needs somehow categorized.

Cave Creek Unified in Phoenix created a website for teachers to celebrate learnings with their iPods. I love the idea of a site but like this one, I am afraid it would just be a list.  

Another review site is iear.org  . They also include student reviews which is a great idea.

Lessonopoly, a lesson planning resource from SVEF  has only 14 lessons that come up on an iPad search. I know the technology is fairly new to the classroom. I guess it is up to us!

I don't have an answer yet, but am putting it out there, in case anyone has any ideas they can point us to. Maybe we just find the one we like best and point to that. But I do like the idea of Academy teachers creating something local.

Wake up all the teachers, time to teach a new way!

I was driving to work the other day and thinking about a current discussion in my district about whether to improve our use of technology in schools. Some teachers think that the investment in technology is made on the backs of teachers. Some teachers see technology as one tool that teachers can us to improve their practice. Some of us feel that the integration of technology into our practice is mandatory as we educate 21st century citizens. I heard this song, sung by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and just said...yeahhhhhh!

Complete lyrics: http://www.directlyrics.com/john-legend-wake-up-everybody-lyrics.html
Wake up everybody
No more sleepin' in bed
No more backward thinkin'
Time for thinkin' ahead
The world has changed
So very much
From what it used to be
There is so much hatred
War and poverty, whoa, oh
Wake up, all the teachers
Time to teach a new way
Maybe then they'll listen
To what'cha have to say
'Cause they're the ones who's coming up
And the world is in their hands
When you teach the children
Teach 'em the very best you can
The world won't get no better
If we just let it be, na, na, na
The world won't get no better
We gotta change it, yeah
Just you and me...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad