My Biggest Takeaway from LAUSD's iPad Problems - Put Students In A Leadership Role

Chris and Thabani were a critical part of our 1:1 Planning Team

There has certainly been a lot written in regards to the problems in Los Angeles Unified School District with their iPad deployment.  My intention in writing this brief post is not to point fingers at another district for their problems, but while reading a recent post written by Katrina Schwartz on MindShift I couldn't help thinking about one non-negotiable in setting up 1:1 initiatives for success. The post, How Students Uncovered Lingering Hurt From LAUSD iPad Rollout, highlighted the feelings of students from all of the negative stories about their district regarding the iPad initiative.

 “In the L.A. Times they did an article about us and about how the iPads were hacked,” said Mariela Bravo. “The comments hurt. I have pride in my school and it was really bad. We were the example of why they shouldn’t give [the iPads] to us. They have to trust us more, we could surprise them and they could see that we are good kids.”

When we started our 1:1 planning in Burlington more than five years ago, the first thing we did was involve our students on the planning team.  The input of our students helped put so many things in perspective for the planning team and saved us time and money. We saved time because instead of speculating about what students may or may not do with new mobile devices they would be receiving, we had students tell us firsthand what to expect. They saved us money because when we were talking about which case we should by for each of the more than 1,000 iPads that we would be purchasing, one of the students told us not to by cases. He told us that the students would take them off and buy their own cases and that we would be wasting our money.

This student input has continued to play a critical role in our support of staff and students with our BHS Help Desk.  As our iPad initiative has expanded to other schools in our district, our student help desk model has as well.   While I could go on and on about what I have learned from students over the past four years of our 1:1 journey, I will save that for a future posts. My main point here is to let school leaders know that the first step in a successful 1:1 initiative is to make students a formal part of the plan.

It's Time to End the Device Debate

This post orginally appeared on Edudemic

As a school leader in a 1:1 iPad district, I am always interested in the perspectives of those in other 1:1 educational settings. Whether they use iPads, Chromebooks or any other web-enabled device, there is something that can be learned by paying attention to the conversations in these environments. Two of the more thoughtful pieces on the topic which were recently written come from Tim Holt and Joshua Kim.

Image via blog.laptopmag.com/

The Device Debate: Creating vs. Consuming

Tim, a Director of Instructional Technology from El Paso, Texas, gives a strong account of how iPad can be used as a tool for creation. He clearly details some of the concrete ways that the often-defended tablet can be used to produce videos, music, drawings, and works of art that move well beyond consumption. Kim, on the other hand, offers a unique perspective as an educator who has recently transitioned from supporting an iPad environment to using a Chromebook as his primary device. In his post, 3 Reasons Why Chromebook Beats iPad in 1:1 Programs, Kim gives the following three reasons for the superiority of the Chromebook:

1. Chromebooks are for creating, and iPads are for consuming
2. The App vs the Web
3. The Google Ecosystem for Collaboration

The most viable of these three reasons from Kim is the final one, the collaborative tools that are inherent in the Google ecosystem can be accessed seamlessly on a Chromebook. While iOS device access to Google tools continues to become less and less of an issue, schools that want to focus primarily on Google tools should look no further than Chromebooks. However, I would like to challenge Kim’s first two points. As he notes in his discussion around his first point, the consumption versus creation debate with iPads and Chromebooks has been made countless times by those on both sides of this discussion.

Apps vs. Web

While I agree partially with his point that everyone he knows uses a laptop as a complementary device, I think that there is a line that we can draw here in regards to the age of the learner. From my experience, our younger students are less and less concerned about a laptop and much more comfortable with a tablet as their primary device. In fact “The App vs the Web” conversation is not as simple as purported. The point here implies that iPad is rendered useless without an extensive arsenal of apps. This implication falls short in a world where companies are doing everything they can to offer a web-based mobile experience. If the point here is that we need to encourage end-users to not become “app-dependent,” then I agree wholeheartedly, but the notion that iPad is not a multi-faceted device in the absence of apps is false.

This also goes for the idea that iPad is not valuable without internet access. Of course, it needs to be noted that the Google Chrome environment is also one that offers an endless list of extensions and apps. Personally, I have no strong emotion tied to one device or another. In fact, as a learner, I get a great deal of satisfaction by figuring out how I can get my daily tasks done on any device that is placed before me. In fact, my main takeaway from most of these debates regarding one device or another is that those of us in schools need to steer clear of strapping on the blinders that can come along with one platform or another. We need to ensure environments that are adaptable and allow learners to accomplish their tasks with whatever devices are available. For all intensive purposes, devices are now basically disposables after two to three years. It is time to dispose of the debate on devices as well.

Looking to learn more about iPads and Chromebooks? EdTechTeacher offers app recommendations for all devices. They will also be hosting a number of FREE, LIVE webinars for Back-to-School in the coming weeks.

Join Us For Our First Parent Technology Night - Elementary School 1:1 Program

From the BPSEdTech Blog

The Burlington Public Schools EdTech Team will be hosting a Parent Technology Night on Tuesday, October 1 at Marshall Simonds Middle School. Please join us for information about the BPS elementary school 1:1 iPad program. The session will provide an opportunity to learn about the iPad initiative at grades 1, 4, and 5 this school year. Our team will discuss Foundational Apps, student access to devices, student responsibility, and digital workflow.

Time during every Parent Tech Night session is also dedicated to technology related questions and support.

Top Post #9 - The iPad In Schools: Is It A Solution Or A Problem?

This was cross posted on Edudemic

As I look to unplug a bit during the first week of summer vacation, I am continuing to repost my top posts from last year. Below is #9 from April of this year.

  

Slide via Greg Kulowiec 

 The question above comes from Greg Kulowiec's Keynote Presentation last Thursday - What is the answer with iPads? - at the iPad Summit in Atlanta, and it is a critical question for educators involved in iPad initiatives (or any 1:1 initiative) to reflect upon. Thinking as a school administrator who pushed for the deployment of over 1,000 devices in his school, I have to admit that I initially responded somewhat defensively as I went with iPad as a solution. However, as Greg allowed the question to linger and began his rationale for looking at iPad as a problem for schools, I began to cast aside my blinders and look at this question from a broader perspective. When Greg asked the following question, "Are we just taking iPads and slapping them into our existing structure?" I knew I had blown it with my initial answer: Of course, I knew that looking at iPad (or any device) as the solution infers a pretty simplistic look at the issues inherent with our current educational system. It also takes away the ownership of the issues from the people in the system, especially if we think simply adding a thing will improve teaching and learning. But what about looking at iPad (or another technological resources) as the problem? How can this help us? Well, the slide below is just one example of what is happening within educational institutions due to the development of technological resources that can change the way we learn. The slide references a situation that occurred at Ryerson University in Toronto when students formed a Facebook study group to help them prepare for exams.

   

Slide via Greg Kulowiec[/caption] 

 This is just one example of the countless issues that not only crop up when we bring new technology into static institutions, but also when those who think about how they can do things differently are stifled by those who cannot immediately escape their traditional thinking. I believe that educators need to understand that their initial discomfort is not just about the technology, it is also about the fact that the way learners access information has changed forever. Due to these changes, educational institutions will need to look long and hard at their practice in order to assure the success of the students whom they serve. Justin Reich described this scenario last week in a post on his EdTech Researcher Blog titled The iPad as a Trojan Mouse :

“...what new technologies like tablets or laptops can do is open new avenues for conversation. In schools where every child has a portable, multimedia creation device, what can we do differently? What is possible now that wasn't possible before?"

In Burlington, we built a formal mechanism for the conversations with the formation of a 1:1 Implementation Team comprised of staff, students, parents, and community members. The ideas that emanated from this group have set the stage for our professional development plans for teachers and parents, leading to summer-long edcamp opportunities, our digital publishing collaborative, technology workshops for parents, and the BHS Help Desk student support team just to name a few. There is no doubt that the conversations surrounding the arrival of iPads into our classroomss have been about much more than just how to use a piece of technology. These discussions have opened the door to deeper insights surrounding student (and adult) learning that have begun to change the way we operate.

Here’s to hoping that more school communities open their doors to these problems as well as the meaningful conversations that follow.

Related articles

• Who Cares About Devices!? (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Guest Post: Thoughts on Year One of 1:1 in Grade One (patrickmlarkin.com)
• The Smart Way to Use iPads in the Classroom (slate.com)

Top Post #8 - Ignore The iPads! - Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part 7

As I look to unplug a bit during the first week of summer vacation, I am continuing to repost my top posts from last year. Below is #8 from last August.

The most common question we get regarding our 1:1 initiative (with (iPads) is - What apps do you recommend?

While I understand that it seems like  a logical question, I hate it. The reason for my disdain is that the focus of educators should be on outcomes first and not on devices or apps.  Before we can answer the app question, we need to have a bit more information about what the goals are for the class and how the teacher would like to facilitate the lesson (i.e. will students work independently or collaboratively).

So when it comes to the iPad, there are over 225,000 apps in the App Store. I am not going to even get into the discussion that we should stay away from becoming app-dependent and focus on digital resources that are free and will work on an platform. (I'll leave that for a future post).

Instead, we'll stay on the topic of not using technology for technology-sake.  We need to be careful with all of the excitement over bringing shiny new devices into our schools that we do not put gadgets before goals.

Here's a post from BHS English/Tech Integration teacher Tim Calvin (@nothingfuture on Twitter) that nails down this point clearly (from TimCalvin.com):

I ignore iPads. 

It’s true- I do.  Let’s sort this out, though. 

I like iPads a lot. They’re not the only decent device anymore, but they’re very good, and they’re not too expensive. Blah blah blah.  I love that my students have a device with them all the time. I can’t imagine teaching without it, at this point. I’d cry (and debate a change in location/profession) if they were taken away or banned. 

All that said, people keep asking me “how I use the iPads in the classroom.” And the answer- the honest truth in the answer- is that I mostly ignore them. The device isn’t the point. I’d never try to shoehorn a device (or tech of any sort) into a lesson. That’s all sorts of backwards. The tech lubricates the lesson. It allows things that weren’t possible before. It allows things to happen quickly. It smoothes the road. So when I design lessons, I just factor in the myriad things that students can now do. It’s like a bunch more colors got added to my pallet and the pictures I’m painting are that much more vivid. I simply factor into the plan that research/writing/notes/web work can all happen on the fly. That collaboration on an essay is not only possible, but is normal. That data isn’t lost. That the classroom can extend far beyond the 43 minutes I have. 

But I don’t know that I’ve ever told students to open a specific app. I know I’ve never demanded that they have an app. I know that I don’t really care about the apps that they have- just that they have apps that work for them to accomplish the tasks that I need them to do. 

I know what I’m talking about here is specific to High School. That’s what I do, and that’s likely to remain the focus here.

I think this point is relative to all levels and I think it's something we need to reiterate.

Thanks Tim!

Related articles

• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part One (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Two (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Three (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Four (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Five (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Six (patrickmlarkin.com)

Top Post #5 - Who Cares About Devices!?

This post was written back in April and was cross-posted on EdTechTeacher

So I received the tweet below from a friend in Iowa this morning:

Being one of the first schools in our region to go all in on iPads at the high school level, I am always interested in reading the perspectives of others on this topic.  I think that there are a number of questions that need to be addressed for schools thinking about increasing the number of devices in their classrooms or moving towards a 1:1 program.  The post referenced in the tweet by my friend Jimmy, a high school Principal in Iowa, is worth a read for people looking at investing in iPads (or going 1:1 with any device).

The post, Why most K-12 schools aren't ready for the iPad Revolution, cites four reasons that most schools are not prepared to purchase iPads for all students.  The four reasons cited by the author, Mike Reiners (CEO of Nomad), are as follows:

1. Teaching requires planning.
2. Consider where we’re spending our education dollars.
3. The iPad is primarily a consumption device.
4. Our students should be mobile multilingual.

Below are my thoughts on each of the points.

Teaching requires planning

Yes, I could not agree more. Our Superintendent is fond of saying, "Teaching is hard and Technology used to be hard. But even though the technology has gotten easier, the teaching is still hard and it will always be hard."  Despite the fact that the technology is easier, the sheer number of resources available when you add web-enabled devices to the mix can be overwhelming.  I agree with Reiners point that thought and consideration and support are needed so that teachers have opportunities to prepare for this shift. In Burlington, we spend a year and a half before we had iPads teaching staff members about a variety of digital tools that they would be able to access and integrate into their curricular areas with any mobile device. We also focused on resources that we thought would save teachers time and could potentially increase student engagement.

Consider where we’re spending our education dollars

This consideration is one that we actually utilized to help us purchase our devices in Burlington. I am pretty sure that many schools do not spend enough time looking at what they are spending their money on now. What are some of the annually purchases that we make that we just don't think about? (i.e. paper, printers, textbooks, computers, etc.) Our purchase of the iPads saved us in the vicinity of $100,000 due to the fact that we were looking at new options for a Foreign Language Lab and that does not take into consideration that most schools also add a para-professional to the mix to help maintain such a lab. We were also able to stop our annual expenditures on maintaining other labs in the building that were used primarily for word processing and research since the purchase of the devices allowed us to have this access in every classroom. Add in the fact, that we are no longer making large-scale textbook purchases for a course and we were well on our way to the amount needed to purchase our devices.

The iPad is primarily a consumption device

I've heard this one over and over, but I agree with the words of Scott Meech who hit on this topic a while back during the 2011 K-12 Online Conference in his session on "Purposeful Play:"

"Many argue that the iPad is the premiere consumption device at this time but it isn’t very good at creating. Is that accurate? I tend to believe that the iPad is an amazingly creative device and the user is the only limit for the device."

Adam Webster also wrote a post on Edudemic a while back titled 5 Reasons The iPad Will Stay King Of The Classroom in which he stated:

"The iPad, its workflow and its apps, allow for real change and makes it easy. Your students will create work that not only wasn’t possible before their innovative use of the technology, but that you as their teacher had never even thought of."

Our students should be mobile multilingual 

This definitely should be the goal for our students and I touched on this idea in a post back in January titled Is The iPad King? It Is For Us And That's All That Matters (For Now). My concluding statement in the post was - "While I believe that we have made the best decision for our school today, things change quickly and we need to create organizational and individual flexibility to adapt to these changes when they occur." 

Royan Lee wrote a wonderful post on this topic about a month ago on his blog titled "Why Mish-Mash Is Better Than 1:1."  In the post he noted:

"I prefer teaching with the limitations of no class sets, because it means we’re constantly reflecting on the merits of each tool for the given purpose."

The bottom line is that we need to make sure that the adults in the schools are modeling the flexibility and adaptability in their practice that our students are going to need to have to be successful. All of us who work in schools know that this is can be difficult since change is not something common in our traditional educational system and we have grown comfortable with many tools, workflows, and practices that are long outdated. 

In fact, the most important statement made in the post by Reiners is the one at the end which notes:

In summary, let’s think about what we’re doing. Blind, quick-trigger actions in education, especially expensive and invasive ones, have historically disastrous results.

I find this a bit ironic considering that some would say that we are exactly in this place with our mandated standardized testing and the development of the common core, two things that have certainly been expensive and invasive. While I could speculate on the results, that is probably best left for a future post.

The bottom line is that we don't need any new devices in our schools, what we really need is new thinking in regards to our purpose for having schools. Any implementation of new gadgets and gizmos which strives to simply integrate them into our "traditional system" with teacher-focused learning environments instead of learner-centered environments is destined to have "disastrous results."

Related articles

• Top Posts #1 - How Necessary Is Homework? (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Top Posts #2 - An Uplifting Video (Created By A 16-Year Old) (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Top Posts #3 - 5 Ways For Teachers To Get Quality PD This Summer (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Top Posts #4 - Is The iPad King? It Is For Us And That's All That Matters (For Now) (patrickmlarkin.com)

Top Post #4 - Is The iPad King? It Is For Us And That's All That Matters (For Now)

(This post originally ran in January.)

BHS students on their iPads

I have seen a few posts lately on the topic of which device is the best device for a school looking to go 1:1 and put a web-enabled device in the hands of each student.  One that caught my attention yesterday was  5 Reasons The iPad Will Stay King Of The Classroom which was posted on Edudemic.

The Edudemic post, written by Adam Webster, notes that the iPad has the following advantage over a laptop:

"The iPad, its workflow and its apps, allow for real change and makes it easy. Your students will create work that not only wasn’t possible before their innovative use of the technology, but that you as their teacher had never even thought of."

From my own experience in year two of an iPad 1:1 program here in Burlington, I agree wholeheartedly that the newness of this device and the necessity of creating new work flows leads to more innovative uses than we would see from a laptop.  However, this can only happen in schools and classrooms where students are allowed flexibility that is not common in many traditional classrooms.

My point is that neither the iPad nor any other new gadget or gizmo will allow students the type of discoveries that Adam describes in his post unless it is coupled with a mindset that is still atypical in most schools. This change I am talking about is one that does not lead students in step-by-step processes to complete the most rudimentary task, instead it is a learning environment where students have clear outcomes to achieve, but are left with many ways to achieve these outcomes.

So I guess I continue to worry about schools that gobble up iPads (or any other digital device) thinking that it alone will have a transformational effect on learning.  Greg Kuloweic made the point very well in answer to the question "Why iPad?" on the EdTechTecher Site.

"Fundamentally, I believe that an iPad can neither be good or bad. All it can ever be is an iPad. I argue instead, that when used effectively and with specific goals in mind, iPads can have a positive impact on education." 

So after a long lead in to reiterating the fact that people change schools, not devices, I am at my second and larger concern.  This one revolves around our ability and the ability of our students to think outside of the platform that we have chosen.  Personally, I love Apple devices and have a an iPhone, iPad and MacBook to prove it. However, when it comes to the iPad, I do worry about creating a school full of iOS "app-dependent" students and staff. I worry that our choice of platform will limit the thinking of our students down the road and box them in.

Adrianna (Photo credit: patricklarkin1967)

While I believe that we have made the best decision for our school today, things change quickly and we need to create organizational and individual flexibility to adapt to these changes when they occur.  So for the immediate future I  believe we are on the right path, but there is no discounting the fact that there are forks in the road that we will need to anticipate.  No King rules forever...

Guest Post: Thoughts on Year One of 1:1 in Grade One

This was first posted on Ms. Farmer's Classroom Blog:

One of the lucky ones?
Through a grant announcement at the end of last year, I learned that I would be one of four first grade classrooms in our district to pilot a 1:1 initiative with iPads this year.    I was excited and VERY NERVOUS to embark on such an endeavor.

Why Me?
I wasn't chosen to pilot the iPads because of my extensive knowledge and experience of iPads.  I had very limited experience through the use of a some school-wide iPads made available a few times the previous year.  The classrooms chosen to pilot this initiative were ones which taught struggling readers specific skills through targeted instruction.  My job was to learn how to use these devices to enhance their learning.  But how?  I needed answers -- and quick!  So I attended many summer workshops in preparation prior to the beginning of this school year.  And I consulted with the technology gurus in my district (there are many in Burlington -- thanks to our incredible Tech team!).  I also immersed myself in reading about the first scientific study which was demonstrating the success of iPads in improving literacy in kindergartens in Auburn, ME.  (To read more about this incredible study, click here: ipad-improves-kindergartners-literacy-scores )

I had so many questions, but the more I looked for the answers, the more questions I had.  Little did I know that I was to learn the most from simple exploration ... and from the students themselves.

The iPads Arrive...
The iPads rolled into my classroom around the third week of school.  I was still in the midst of teaching classroom rules, routines and how to take care of classroom materials.  Perfect.   They had some apps already loaded onto them, but we weren't going to start there.  The students needed to know how to turn them off and on; how to carry them; where to use them; how to plug them into the charging cart (still a challenge), etc.

OK, first item to check off the list was "Routine".  This took a week.  One thing I am sure about is the nature of a first grader.  If you don't teach them proper care at the onset, you are teaching proper care for the entire year...and not much more.  It's very similar to teaching them to put the cap back on a glue stick to keep it from drying out.  The difference being that this "glue stick" was very expensive!

Now What?
It took the children nearly no time at all to learn how to use the iPad.  In the beginning of the year, they would have to use the apps in a small group with a teacher present to make sure they were using the app correctly and not just pushing random buttons (it happens).  As the year went on, the app could be introduced merely by displaying it on my Smartboard through the use of "Reflection" on my laptop.  We would play a few rounds of an app as a class and then I would set it out as a station.  My wonderful colleague and fellow iPad pilot, Erin Guanci, then created (and shared with me!) many iPads menus with apps from which the children could choose.  Here is a sample:

I also used the Voice memo on the iPad to have the children record themselves reading.  The  student and I would then listen to the recording.  I would pause the recording when the child made an error and then teach the child how to use their strategies to self-correct their miscue.  The Voice Memo app became both an invaluable teaching tool and an electronic library collection of books which the children had read throughout the year.  (Plus I could now share the child's reading with their parents via e-mail and at parent-teacher conferences).

In Math, as in reading, the iPads were also invaluable in reinforcing skills.  Time, money and fact skills need repeated practice.  A teacher cannot teach a week-long unit on money, for example, and have first graders magically remember what a coin looks like, its value and how to add them together.  The iPads were useful in helping the children practice these skills for 10 minutes or so every morning during "free time" after I taugt the unit.  They loved it and it helped to reinforce these skills.  I could not have done this without an iPad.  No amount of "drill and kill" worksheets could give students the immediate response they need.  And I am only one person, so I certainly could not get to every child in the class on an individual basis in a ten-minute time frame.  Invaluable.

How Else Were The Ipads Used?
For more detailed information on how the ipads were used and what apps were used, click here: one-to-one-elementary-classroom by andrew-marcinek

This article details how Erin Guanci and I make use of the iPads.  More to follow on this subject in a future blog.

Now For the Big Question:

There is no doubt in my mind that the iPads have been effective and have increased engagement in a number of ways.  I know for a fact that all children are engaged when I am teaching a lesson as a whole group if they have an iPad in front of them and are working on the same task.  I can quickly glance around and see who understands and who is struggling.  My feedback can then be effective and immediate.  They are not daydreaming, rolling on the carpet or fooling with their friends.  They have a device in their hands and are very engaged.  By using the iPads to record their reading, students are increasing their reading fluency and providing me with a useful teaching tool.  

However, something continues to come up in conversations in regard to iPads which troubles me personally.  

I hear and read how educators need to teach 21-Century Skills and I agree with that 100 per cent.  But I have also read and heard some discussions (in casual conversation) about how districts may consider using less construction paper, markers, glue, building blocks, etc. since we have iPads.  This goes against every fiber of my being!  I am totally on board when it comes to making technology accessible to every child at an early age so that they can not only learn how to use the devices and learn from them but so that they also may be able to make educated and responsible decisions in regard to technology in their future.  However, I do not agree with reducing the use of paper, pencils, crayons, markers, paint, construction paper, scissors, building blocks, etc.  

What I do support is providing every child with a rich array of experiences -- both technological and traditional.  In my view, balance is key.  Choice is important.

I have a simple observation to share.  Occasionally, when our school has indoor recess due to inclement weather, I invite the neighboring classroom of children who do not have iPads to come in and share iPads with my students.  In the beginning of the year, every child wanted to use the iPad and they had the opportunity to do so.  As the year progressed, however, and the novelty wore off, the childrn were given the choice of staying in my room to use the iPads or going into the neighboring classroom to draw, read books, play with blocks, paint, etc.  Can you guess what happened?

As the year progressed, the number of children using the traditional materials of paper, pencil, glue, paint and building blocks become equal to that of the number of children choosing to use the iPads.  I counted and it was equally split.  Choice had won.  This  has since happened on numerous occasions, so I'll consider it my "informal" research.

How can children choose or gravitate toward that which they love and are passionate about if they are not given the opportunity to explore all paths of learning?  Should you sacrifice some traditional opportunities in lieu of technology? Isn't it our job as educators to provide the landscape which allows choice and provides varied experiences?  Where are our future budding artists, builders and craftsman without tactile experience of paper, scissors, construction paper, paint, blocks, etc.? Also, what will lack of these hands-on experiences do to their cognitive and physical (fine motor) development?  What is wrong with providing it all?  It is possible.  I can attest to that.  As much as I am open to the idea of providing technological opportunities for our young children, I am closed to the idea of taking the other more traditional opportunities away.  I consider myself a very open-minded educator who embrace change.  Am I being too "old school?"  What are your thoughts on this?

If It Aint Broke, You Still Need To Try Something Else

For the last two years here in Burlington, there has been a great deal of focus on our integration of iPads into our classrooms. It has been an exciting time where many people have changed their workflows and started to rethink what learning environments can and should look like.  But even as I witness the excitement from students and teachers as we continue to add devices at the middle and high school level, I am always wondering if we are going to remain open-minded to other possibilities that may come along.

A recent post by Royan Lee on his must read blog, Spicy Learning, got me thinking more about this. In the post, titled "Why Mish-Mash Is Better Than 1:1," Royan states the following:

"I prefer teaching with the limitations of no class sets, because it means we’re constantly reflecting on the merits of each tool for the given purpose."

As I think about the skills that our students will need most, I am sure that flexibility and adaptability will be at the top of the list.  I think the best option for students would be a buffet of options where they can choose which option is best for them and the task at hand.  I am worried that we will be handicapped by traditional thinking and forget that the question of which device is best or which tool is best to perform a particular task will never again have a static answer.

This whole thing is a moving target that I don't ever see stopping. We need to make sure that we are helping our students see beyond the device or resource of the day and keep their eyes open for what comes next.

A New Blog From Richard Byrne...Focused On iPad Apps!

Richard Byrne's Free Technolog For Teachers Blog has been one of the top resources for educators trying to integrate technology into their classrooms for quite some time.  In fact Richard's blog was again selected as the Best EdTech Blog in this year's Edublog awards. What makes Richard's blog so useful is the fact that he reviews all of the resources that he posts and also has a number of publications and videos that can help teachers in their efforts to utilize more digital resources.

Well, Richard has added to his web-presence with the creation of a new blog geared towards educators looking to implement iPads in their classrooms.  At the beginning of December, Richard started a new blog called iPad Apps for School.  I have already made it a must follow and added it to my RSS feed.

Thanks for the early Christmas present Richard!

Here are a few recent posts from the new blog worth checking out:

10 Great Apps for a Teacher’s New iPad

An Augmented Reality Math Game
MeeGenius Puts Great Children’s Stories on iPads
Maily for iPad Gives Students a Safe Place to Learn to Email

7 Reasons iPads Rule?

English: iPads offer a variety of software (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some impressive facts from ign.com on the impact of iPads:

• Over 100 million sold 
• iPad sales topped all other PC Manufacturers in the second quarter of 2012
• 94 percent of Fortune 500 companies use iPads "in an official capacity."

Despite these mind-blowing numbers, I am always interested in the discussion of what device is best in an educational setting.  Audrey Watters wrote a post this week asking, "Why Tablets?" that got me thinking about this a bit more, especially given the fact that we currently have over 1,200 iPads in Burlington, a number that will soon be over 2,000 as we deploy iPads at the middle school level.

Audrey wrote the following about iPads:

 I was struck once again by the abundance of hype over tablets. I confess, I just can't do the work I need to do on an iPad, but I don't want to suggest that that means they're useless for others. It does make me wonder about what I'm missing by being a skeptic, as well as what students are missing when we give them tablets and not (my preference) laptops.

While I love the iPad myself, I too find myself utilizing my laptop first in many cases.  I feel quite guilty sometimes by the fact that I can pull out my MacBook Air to accomplish many tasks while students only have an iPad to access.   While I have tried at certain points to put away my laptop and get through my day with the same device that our students have, I have not been successful in doing this for more than a day.

Thinking back to our 1:1 planning meetings, I remember our main issues were cost, battery-life, and ease of use.   We looked at laptops and minis for a while and then the iPad hit the market it quickly moved to the top of the list (since we could not afford MacBooks for everyone).  Of I wondered if we were just buying the shiny new toy that the novelty would wear off quickly.


While we certainly did buy the shiny new toy and yes the novelty has warn off a bit, our satisfaction with our choice has lessened little.  The main reason is that for even the most techno-phobic user the iPad could not be easier to utilize.  There is no complicated operating system to deal with or software to learn. The ease-of-use allows us to focus our time and energy on the numerous resources that we now have at our fingertips. Instead of training on the device, we are spending our time referencing our learning goals and pulling in from the plethora of resources that allow us to reach them in new and engaging ways.

In regard to the list of reasons that iPads rules, I really don't have a list of reasons.  Honestly, it's up to learners to find out which tools/resources work best for them.  Make your own list! It's a lot more fun than using someone else's! 

Edutopia Blog Highlights Work of BPS First Grade Teachers

A blog post by Andy Marcinek went up on Edutopia's Site this week highlighting the efforts two Burlington Public Schools First Grade teachers have made this year to integrate technology into their classrooms. The two teachers, Irene Farmer from Francis Wyman and Erin Guanci from Pine Glen, are part of our first grade iPad pilot and they shared their insights from the first few months of the school year with Edutopia.


cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by flickingerbrad

From the Edutopia Post 

In my last two posts, I detailed the iPad initiatives at Burlington High School. I talked about what we learned after a year of a 1:1 iPad environment and dispelled some myths surrounding iPads in education. Recently, I had the opportunity to connect with two of my elementary teachers at Pine Glen Elementary and Francis Wyman Elementary schools. This year, four first grade classrooms will be piloting a 1:1 iPad environment. The iPads stay in the classroom and are only used during class time. Two of the teachers involved, Irene Farmer and Erin Guanci, sat down with me and answered a few questions about their expectations of the initiative, how they are using the device at the moment, and how they feel it will work in an elementary classroom.

Read the rest of the post here

Breaking News From The BPS Ed Tech Team! - Google Drive iPad App Update

From The BPS Ed Tech Team:
By Andy Marcinek

After a long wait, Google Drive is now available for the iPad with the full functionality of the web-based version of Google Drive. To refresh, Google Drive is the new name for the Google Docs Suite. This suite includes Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Forms, and Folders.
The updated version of the Google Drive app allows you to create, collaborate and edit documents with ease on the iPad. Before, this process was rather cumbersome through the mobile view and desktop interface on the iPad, however much has changed with this update. Users can also upload photos and video right to Google Drive directly from the iPad. This will allow students to upload video projects and photos immediately.

The home screen for the Google Drive App

The best update to arrive in version in Google Drive version 1.1.0 is the editing option. Users can edit much easier and with a cleaner interface. Plus, the editing and collaboration features are much faster through the Google Drive App. Users can also see who is editing on the doc at the same time. In addition, docs can now be accessed offline as well. Users can edit a doc offline and once it hits a wi-fi connection, the doc will sync with Google Drive and save in the cloud. This feature will happen automatically or via the refresh button in the upper-right hand corner of the home screen of the app

Editing view in the Google Drive App

The Google Drive app also gives users the ability to organize their entire Google Drive. Users can create and share a folder as well as create and share a doc through this app (at this writing only docs can be created directly through the app). Also, users can move docs to folders and organize their entire Google Drive from the iPad app.

Create a new doc, folder or upload media

While creating presentations, spreadsheets, and forms is still unavailable, I imagine this feature will be added soon. Even though you cannot create presentations, spreadsheets, and forms directly from the app, users can still view these documents within the app. In addition, users can open a Google Spreadsheet and access the “open in…” feature from the app that will allow users to open the spreadsheet in supported apps (such as Notability, Evernote, Dropbox, etc.). For presentations, users can view and present from the app, but not yet create a presentation directly from the app. Again, I imagine these features are not far behind this update.

Open spreadsheets in supported apps

Users also have the ability to share a doc directly from the app and can access a populated contacts list from simply typing in the first letter of the email. The share feature also allows the doc owner to set permissions for “can edit”, “can comment”,  and “can view”. The doc owner can also toggle viewing permissions and completely remove a user from the doc.

Share docs, view and toggle permissions

If you’ve struggled with Google Docs on the iPad in the past, this is update will make your life and classroom work-flow more enjoyable. This is not a perfect update, but it is a giant step in the right direction for those of us using Google Apps for Education in a 1:1 iPad environment. If you have any questions about this update, please visit the help desk for assistance.

Trusting Students (and Staff) - Looking Back At Year 1:1 (with iPads) - Part 8

BHS staff member Andrew Marcinek, who blogs  regularly for Edutopia, had a great reflective post regarding our first year as a 1:1 school with iPads.  It is extremely helpful for me to see the reflections of staff and students from the past year. One of the major points I take away from Andy's post is the focus on trusting students.

Trust students.

"One of the best decisions we made before we deployed 1000+ iPads to our student body was to create a student-run genius bar. With this decision, we were putting a lot of trust in the hands of our students. However, it turned out to be a core component of the launch...

...Aside from simply troubleshooting, our students help their former teachers at the middle and elementary levels as well as create how-to scripts and videos for students, faculty and the Burlington community. Our students have not only helped within the BPS community, but have helped our Tech Team organize two major conferences in the past year..."

Beyond the student help desk, I think the trust of students in regards to access of social media sites and other apps and sites that can be used for non-educational purposes allowed our efforts to focus more on supporting educational uses of the technology. We did not go into this undertaking with a mindset of blocking and denying access.

We went into this with a mindset that we are preparing our students for life after school where they are going to have to know how to make choices about appropriate use of apps and sites that do not apply to their work. We felt strongly that the conversations that need to take place and the authentic experience of making choices about what to access and when to access it is not something that can be replicated with theoretical conversations.

As an organization, we do not feel we can have the type of learning and interactions between learners that we envision if our default reaction is that the individuals who inhabit our school will choose to do the wrong thing.

We trust teachers and we trust students. Then on the rare occasion that someone misuses that trust, we address the situation with that individual.  Should it happen any other way?

Related articles

• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part One (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Two (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Three (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Four (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Five (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Six (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Seven (patrickmlarkin.com)

 

Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) - Part 6

ipads with students (Photo credit: patricklarkin1967)

So it's time to look at the feedback from 177 of our students who responded on our brief end-of-the-year survey asking about some of their impressions after a year of 1:1 with iPads.  For today, I would like to focus on the responses to the three questions below:

While others may not think this is important data, I think that we have to take some time to look at this data and recognize the fact that most of our students and staff managed to alter their workflow to incorporate the new tools at their fingertips in a very short period of time.  I think this is a credit to the work of our staff and the support provided by the adults and students who make up our BPS EdTech Team.

I love the way that Bernajean Porter describes the technology integration process as one that contains the three distinct steps described below:

Literacy Uses: Student uses are described as technology storiesAdaptive Uses: Learning is telling the same stories with new toolsTransforming Uses: Learning is creating new stories with new tools

It is exciting to see that we seem to be moving well into the adaptive uses in just one year. While it is important that we look for an even higher percentage in this area in year two, the focal point also must move to transforming uses and ensuring that we are supporting a learning environment in which these types of opportunities will be prevalent. 

It reminds me of an excerpt from Cathy Davidson's Now You See It:

"What if instead of telling (students) what they should know, we asked them?"

We need to continue to learn from and with our students as we continue to seek to maximize the potential of our devices. While some people are quick to question the cost of an iPad and whether our money was well spent, I believe they are missing the point if they are only focusing on the technology.

This quote about iPods could easily be transferred to our iPads initative:

"The iPod experiment was not an investment in technology. It was an investment in a new form of attention, one that didn’t require the student to always face forward, learn from on high, memorize what was already a given, or accept knowledge as something predetermined and passively absorbed."

Related articles

• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part One (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Two (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Three (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Four (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Five (patrickmlarkin.com)

Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (with iPads) Part Five

As we begin to look at the data from our students at BHS on their thoughts on year one as a 1:1 school, I thought it would be interesting to look at how teachers and students from other schools who also just completed a year of 1:1 felt about the impact made by putting a web-enabled device in the hands of each student.

I found the following information which was posted by Ian Jukes on the 21st Century Fluency Project's blog very relevant:

Data Brief (from Digital Wish):We surveyed 30 teachers and 465 students participating in 1:1 computing initiatives this year:

• Student Engagement - Student engagement increased 140% in word processing and writing, creating presentations, and video production.  52% of teachers now feel that the majority of their students are highly engaged as opposed to only 37% pre-initiative.

• Problem Solving - Students who say they can “figure out just about anything on their own” increased from 38% to 51%, a 134% increase.  The number of students who say they have participated in ten or more technology projects that required them to solve a problem, gather information, or draw a conclusion, has nearly doubled, from 23% to 42%.

• Creativity - Teachers now say that 46% of their students are experts or peer coaches in creating a new idea or original project using technology, a value that almost quadrupled the pre-initiative’s mere 12%.

• Students becoming Tech “Experts” - The majority of students say they are experts at digital media, word processing, making presentations, safely and responsibly using the internet, solving problems using technology, and researching a topic on the Internet.  At the beginning of the initiative, almost 50% of students said they didn’t know how to do these things.

While the questions on our student survey at the end of the year may have been a bit different, I think there are equally positive data points. We will look at these tomorrow!

Related articles

• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) - Part One (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Two (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) Part Three (patrickmlarkin.com)
• Looking Back At Year One of 1:1 (With iPads) - Part Four (patrickmlarkin.com)