geek.teacher

Part 1.

Warning in advance: This is the kind of boring, technical post. If you’re looking for apps and activities, come back in another post.

Back in November or so, my awesome district IT guys dropped off a couple of iPads for my school. Gifts from the district.

It was pretty awesome.

I know that in some buildings, it seemed like those devices went to administrators or other tech people. Fortunately, I’d already had the chance to borrow one for a few months earlier in the year, so I knew that I could certainly survive without one for the time being.

So my librarian and I got them into the system and started checking them out to teachers. I loaded them up with a bunch of mostly free apps and a couple of paid ones with a little bit of leftover gift card money from our PTO.

When I handed one over, I took about two minutes to show them the basics: turning it on, flipping through pages of apps, and using the home button. The base directive, implied if not explicitly stated, was to explore, discover, and think about how to use it in the classroom. The more common way I probably stated that was, “Play with it, and tell me what you think.”

They told me, and it was pretty much all positive. I encouraged them to not just play with it themselves, but to have the kids try it out, too. One of the teachers in my school has fourth graders, so she twisted their arms to play with it. Their feedback was encouraging and valuable.

The inevitable conclusion of teachers using these and bringing them into their classrooms was clear: we needed to try out a class set. Fortunately, I knew somebody who had one.

The Media Specialist at the Middle School in my district, Dennis Villano, is not only a great guy with a wealth of knowledge, he also bought 20 iPads or so with some of his budget. After asking, he was kind enough to let me pick a couple of weeks to borrow them.

I chose the end of March for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was immediately following the end of the marking period, so teachers wouldn’t be freaking out about grades. Secondly, while some classes would be dealing with standardized tests, I knew I could work around it, and that it might disrupt the normal schedule in beneficial ways.

Once I had the date, I needed a plan for how to get these out into the classrooms.

Some math: 22 classrooms divided by 9* days = just under 2 and a half classrooms per day. In my mind, while spreading the wealth equally, this system would do a disservice to actually trying to put the iPads through their paces. Every class would be more or less the same: “Hey kids, here are some iPads! Here’s how to use them! Let’s check out some apps quickly! Gotta go, kthxbai!”

In my mind, that would have been a waste of two weeks. So I came up with an alternate plan. For six of the days, I would spend a full day in one classroom, one at each grade level K-5. For the remaining three days, I’d try to get around to as many classrooms as possible. A few weeks before they arrived, I threw it out to everybody in an e-mail, asking for people who’d like to try them out for the day.

In every grade, I had one teacher step up almost immediately for the full day. Once those were full, I had a harder time immediately filling the remaining three days, although they did end up all booked in the end. In every grade, I got to at least two out of the three or four classes. In the end I was fortunate enough to not have to turn anybody away who requested to have them for at least a little while.

In my next and post in the series, I’ll do a breakdown of the activities we tried and the apps we used.

*As a warning, it takes a really long time to set up a bunch of iPads when you want them all to look and feel the same from positioning of apps. I created a base template iPad from oe of my own and backed it up. I then had to restore each iPad from that backup. When loading ~4Gb of apps, this takes about 25 minutes per iPad. It made for a really long first day with the iPads, and not having them get into the classroom. Luckily, I planned for this from the start.

Part 3.

On the positive side, I already wrote most of this post two years ago. All I need to do is edit it a bit for a new decade and state. Edits in italics.

Word’s breaking out on Twitter that Attorney General Martha Coakley has recently been saying some ignorant things.

Needless to say, I have a problem with this.  First, I will let it be known that my school district has a very progressive view on the use of cell phones in school. At the high school, students are allowed to openly carry cell phones and teachers are encouraged to use them in class. I was just talking to a high school teacher who referred to PollEverywhere as “the best thing ever.” That rule is a decision made on the local level, based on the needs and wishes of the building administrators and the school board.  I have no doubt that the rules could change over time or have some added flexibility for other new tools.  We already provide some of that, as students are now at least free to have their phones and use them after school as needed.  Martha Coakley’s proposed changes to the law would take that flexibility away from us.  According to this proposal, with few notable emergency exceptions, students would not be allowed to ever bring a phone to school for any reason whatsoever.

Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought this a big deal, but to take away the option of teachers allowing cell phone use in their classrooms to me now seems especially ludicrous.  Right now we are experiencing a major shift in computing resources available to students in their pockets, with phones as powerful as a computer from only a few years ago.  People who want to ban these tools really need to check out Cell Phones in Learning.  Honestly, if you think we really want you to take away more teaching options from us, you’re sorely mistaken.

As a starting point to work to stop this proposal, I recommend contacting your state legislator and the Attorney General’s office.

Here’s something to make you happy:

Before I kick off my 2011 in earnest, I figured I’d take a moment to just sit back and look at the holy crap, I can’t believe how awesome this year was.

So here’s a very random summation of my favorite things from the past year. No, you do not get a new car.

Favorite new job: Technology Integration Specialist at Pine Glen School. I really can’t believe I get paid to work with a bunch of teachers who really care about kids and are willing to try new stuff with their students. It’s not been without its challenges, but I really love this job.

Favorite city to move to: I still miss Philadelphia, but Boston is a great place to live. Great public transportation system takes me to work and frequently downtown into the city, which is an eminently walkable place.

Favorite conference to organize: You already know the answer to this is Edcamp Philly. Look for the sequel this year, as well as Edcamp Boston in May!

Favorite personal triumph: My photo hanging in an art gallery.

Favorite thing to find out I’m good at: I’m not terrible at providing meaningful professional development sessions.

Favorite city I visited: Washington, DC. I went twice, on the coldest days and the hottest days of the year there. I had a good time on both occasions.

Favorite new piece of technology: The iPad. I had access to one for a few months, and it took up almost all of the time I previously spent on my computer. I think that if the new version this year comes through with the hoped-for built-in cameras, it’s going to make for an incredibly strong learning device for the classroom that’s going to be hard to match at the price Apple’s selling it for.

Favorite books: For fiction, it would have to be the book that I just finished on New Year’s Eve, Cast of Shadows by Kevin Guifoile, a meticulously written near-future science fiction murder mystery about cloning and online gaming that repeatedly blew my mind. For nonfiction, Dark Tide by Stephen Puleo is actually both fascinating and has very strong writing. It tells the tale of the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, and Puleo smartly weaves the strands of American life in World War I throughout the story. I came for the molasses, I stayed for the tales of immigrants and anarchists. Special consideration goes to Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth-Grahame Smith for deftly blending fiction and non-fiction in the funniest thing I read all year. For children’s books, the best thing I read was Savvy by Ingrid Law, a book that reads like the X-Men meets typical Young Adult coming-of-age story, but with probably the most unique verbal style out of anything that I read all year.

Favorite movie: Other movies may have been better, but I most enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World out of any of the new movies I saw in 2010. It was just pure fun.

Favorite TV shows: Community is the funniest thing on television right now, and The Walking Dead smartly surprises even people who have read the comics by changing things up in smart ways.

Favorite album: Florence and the Machine’s Lungs is pretty much designed with me in mind. Female vocals, orchestral strings, unique percussion, and it rocks? This album grabbed me from the first listen and still hasn’t let go.

Favorite video game: Mass Effect 2. Pretty much every change they made from the first one was for the better.

My Ten Favorite Photos I Took: Click here to view the set on Flickr.

I’m kind of almost starting to get into the groove with this new job thing.

I’m now in week two as the Technology Specialist for a K-5 school after leaving my job of eight years as a Special Education teacher in Pennsylvania for the colder climes of Massachusetts. Major change? Understatement. Almost no aspect of my job here remotely resembles my previous one.

Me before: teaching the same group of 10 students for 5 hours a day. Responsible for all of their IEPs. Placating parents. Ignored by administrators.

Me now: Supporting teachers and their 400 students. Coordinating tasks with them. Frequent e-mails and meetings with administrators. Adjusting to the idea that I’m essential to the workings of the place.

Needless to say, I knew going in to the Summer that I would have to bring a serious upgrade to my organization skills. Here’s a rundown of the software I’m using to keep myself in check so I don’t collapse into a black hole of missed deadlines and forgotten information:

1. Spanning Sync*: Here’s everywhere I need to have my calendar as up to date as possible:

Spanning Sync ties all of my iCals into my Google Calendars, making sure everything stays current. It’s pretty awesome, because otherwise, there’s no way I could make sure that this stays all in one piece (never mind the calendars I’ve hidden from view for this screenshot):

If you don’t believe me, ask Harold Shaw. I told him about this a couple weeks ago, and now he’s a believer.

2) Evernote: Everything I need to keep in mind for my job goes into my Evernote account now. I’ve got a system worked out where it all goes into a central inbox, and then I periodically review the inbox to determine which tags and folders the item belongs to. This way I see things twice, which helps me remember them, and I can be sure to find things faster later. I scan anything important, and this is where I keep all of my notes from meetings from now on.

3) Dropbox**: When I need to make sure a file exists on all my computers, iPhone, and iPad, Dropbox is my solution. Once it’s installed, it’s pretty much as simple as save file to dropbox folder, magical tubes bring it to other computers.

4) E-mail: Inbox zero. It’s not quite a reality, but a livable aspiration. If I don’t need to look at something any more, it gets archived. I’ve been doing this for a while now at home, now I do it at work too.

Have any awesome organization strategies? Trying anything new? I’d love to hear about them.

*disclaimer: If you use that link, you save $5, which is awesome. i will also receive $5, which is, to me, even more awesome.
**double disclaimer: if you use that link, we each get an extra 250MB in our accounts.