After much internal struggle, I decided to test using paper and pencil for the first unit test. Why? Frankly, I've been spending hours and hours writing plans, and I just don't have another 3 or 4 hours left to transcribe each question into a new format-cut and paste is infinitely faster...and I mean literally cut and paste. I thought about scanning it, but then the whole question of test security enters into the equation..and I just didn't want to pull out every iPad and make sure it was deleted. I already did that this morning after I accidentally downloaded a silly mindless game to my school account and synced it to every iPad. Oops.
Welcome to an exciting iPad classroom...
Monday, August 27, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Why I am dumping Voicethread
So, after a fairly dismal showing last week, I decided to try again today....I attributed my problems to my inexperience. For my second try, I uploaded a world map and wanted kids to research a the weather in a Spanish speaking capital (assigned by notecards), which they would then use to create a short weather report. They would draw an arrow to their country while recording the weather and hi/lo temps. In theory. Since it wont let me get a copy of the shared link, i sent an email to myself, then opened the VT, then copy and pasted into an edmodo post. A few students managed to follow the link and record successfully. Several got stuck in a never ending loop of nothing, requiring a log out and in in order to function. A couple were so confounded by the steps that they gave up. Others wanted to edit, which you can't do. You have to delete then start again. But, you can only delete the comment in the VT while clicking on your comment. I just was starting to feel like I was getting it down when I tried to create another VT for third block.
IT WOULDN'T LET ME.
A small message said I Had to UPGRADE. And how does one upgrade, you ask? By purchasing 5 more VTs to the tune of $2.99. By that time, I had already written the plan and implemented it in first block so I PAID IT. When I went to upload my world map- the SAME ONE from first block, it acted as if it was thinking about it. The VT was eventually created but NO MAP. At this time, I told them to record anyway but it kept losing the comments that I watched my kids record and SAVE. Smart me, I decided to log out myself to see if it would reload properly. AND THEN IT WOULDN'T LET ME BACK IN. I tried several passwords and logins to no avail. I thought, maybe I need to look up my password. IT HAS NO WAY TO DO THAT. So, I directed my browser to safari and entered the web version so figure it out. AND GOT STUCK IN A LOOP OF NOTHINGNESS.
It was awesome when I used it via the web several months ago but I will just have to give up my 2.99 until they come up with a better version of this hideous app.
IT WOULDN'T LET ME.
A small message said I Had to UPGRADE. And how does one upgrade, you ask? By purchasing 5 more VTs to the tune of $2.99. By that time, I had already written the plan and implemented it in first block so I PAID IT. When I went to upload my world map- the SAME ONE from first block, it acted as if it was thinking about it. The VT was eventually created but NO MAP. At this time, I told them to record anyway but it kept losing the comments that I watched my kids record and SAVE. Smart me, I decided to log out myself to see if it would reload properly. AND THEN IT WOULDN'T LET ME BACK IN. I tried several passwords and logins to no avail. I thought, maybe I need to look up my password. IT HAS NO WAY TO DO THAT. So, I directed my browser to safari and entered the web version so figure it out. AND GOT STUCK IN A LOOP OF NOTHINGNESS.
It was awesome when I used it via the web several months ago but I will just have to give up my 2.99 until they come up with a better version of this hideous app.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Honeymoon is over *sigh*
Tomorrow will be the first day I have to give consequences for inappropriate use and violating the responsibility contract. Grr.
Monday, August 20, 2012
How I love thee, Edmodo, let me count the ways...
Dear Mr. Edmodo,
I can no longer deny my feelings, I am overcome by the " depth and breadth and height" of my growing regard. In case you need specifics, I made you a list.
1. I can access it on the school server since it is an approved website
2. I can post whatever I want, in whatever form I want
3. High level of student engagement since it looks just enough like Facebook
4. I can create a group of my students, who join using a code
5. I can create subgroups within that group.
6. I can assign work, with due dates
7. It prompts a user who's work is late, automatically-my kids HATE it. (Major like points for that one)
8. I can import my entire google drive to the library
9. I can pick and choose which docs to keep private
10. I can interact with educators in my district and around the world by joining or following an interest group; Spanish teachers for example.
11. It's iPad friendly in most things.
12. I can assign badges to students.
13. I can make my own badges with my own images
14. I can assign work, give copies and communicate with a student on a cruise to the Bahamas
15. It plays well with Quizlet
16. It is ridiculously easy to use
17. I can assign grades to students
18. I can use in the app or online
19. i've only scratched the surface of what I can use it for...
There's just one thing, if you could stop crashing randomly when my students are trying to access our materials-that would be great. Thanks.
I can no longer deny my feelings, I am overcome by the " depth and breadth and height" of my growing regard. In case you need specifics, I made you a list.
1. I can access it on the school server since it is an approved website
2. I can post whatever I want, in whatever form I want
3. High level of student engagement since it looks just enough like Facebook
4. I can create a group of my students, who join using a code
5. I can create subgroups within that group.
6. I can assign work, with due dates
7. It prompts a user who's work is late, automatically-my kids HATE it. (Major like points for that one)
8. I can import my entire google drive to the library
9. I can pick and choose which docs to keep private
10. I can interact with educators in my district and around the world by joining or following an interest group; Spanish teachers for example.
11. It's iPad friendly in most things.
12. I can assign badges to students.
13. I can make my own badges with my own images
14. I can assign work, give copies and communicate with a student on a cruise to the Bahamas
15. It plays well with Quizlet
16. It is ridiculously easy to use
17. I can assign grades to students
18. I can use in the app or online
19. i've only scratched the surface of what I can use it for...
There's just one thing, if you could stop crashing randomly when my students are trying to access our materials-that would be great. Thanks.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Sample Activities From the First Week of Spanish I
PicCollage
PicCollage: Students making an "ideal" classroom.
Skitch: learning the body parts
Notes: writing the numbers rolled on dice, they create simple addition then record themselves reading it
Skitch: students had to write the dialogue they practiced when creating videos
(i created this using Bitstrips.com)
Skitch: students wrote the answers to an audio activity identifying greetings vs. goodbyes
Skitch: I folded an actual paper then took a picture. Using Dropbox, I shared with everyone, who saved then opened using Skitch. They added the names as they went around the room and asked "como te llamas?"..."me llamo...". When they had a full grid, they saved again as a picture, then added their game markings which they could erase at the end of each game.
Pinch Me, Or, I FEEL LIKE TALKING IN CAPITALS
My first full week of iPad implementation is complete. In between chatting with returning students, troubleshooting, syncing, reading, researching, planning, cleaning, and a hundred other things...I'm teaching with iPads. No, really-- I. Am. Teaching. With. iPads.
You might need to pinch me, just so I can wrap my brain around that fact.
In the past few years, I've been learning to teach online and have done what seem like a million staff development hours on COOL LEARNING TOOLS ON THE INTERNET. I've used what I had available--one iPad, a smart board, and some aging laptops-- in order to make my class as engaging and relevant as possible. While they have been better than nothing, the smart board is actually old technology and the laptops--well, some of them might have been older than my students (ok, not really, but close). And regardless of their age, they ACTED like they were from sometime last century. They were fickle and didn't work all that well with new internet-based gadgets and apps. Never mind that I wasn't allowed to update any plugins without driving the stack of them over to the IT department. Ridiculous. It was really frustrating and I felt like we were stuck watching the 21st century speed by us while learning opportunities and students were being LEFT BEHIND. We were drowning slowly in our own inefficiency...And then, suddenly, there was Mr. King.
After taking over mid-year, and beginning his first full year with us, my principal put iPads into our hands as teachers. He got us the adapters for use with LCD projectors; he fought the county for our ability to have control over downloading and apps. He got us training and made it seemless. He gave us a special account that we could use to pay for any apps we thought we'd need. He gave us room to use them as we wanted with no pressure other than the request to show him that we were using them. When he came to me and proposed a class set of iPads, I think I died and went to heaven, just a little bit. (My principal ROCKS!)
I spent all summer researching and reading and trying out different apps. I started following other blogs, registering for a scoop.it weekly digest, investigating and following online magazines with any interest in iPads. Ok, I know. I am a little bit obsessed. It just that it is a bit daunting to have such a big investment riding on my shoulders. I want to do it justice.
I'm striving for substance not quantity. I really want what my kids do to be RELEVANT. The iPad, after all, is a TOOL.
If you want to look at my first week plan, you can CLICK HERE. I updated it, but like a novice, didn't save to a permanent file so I am trying to get back my changes...stay tuned. I have been using Edmodo (more on that in a later post), Youtube, Dropbox, Skitch and Quizlet, among other resources. To call my brief foray into using VoiceThread an EPIC FAIL might be a bit harsh and will require a tweak or two. I plan on trying again this week. My kids used some storytelling apps, including Sock Puppets.
It is pretty amazing to watch EACH student engage with the material in a personal way although it is somewhat messy. At any given moment some kids are finishing an instructional reinforcement video on Youtube while their colleagues are recording a soundtrack for their Sockpuppet cartoon. Others are trying to best our Scatter champion on Quizlet and still others are practicing vocabulary through the dictation feature of Speller. It can be loud but it is very cool.
Before you accuse me of being a Pollyanna, not everything has been stellar. Although everyone has been very forgiving when something didn't go as planned, being one of two teachers implementing iPads has helped. Mr. P. and I talk or text several times a day to discuss how things are going. I've been struggling with document management, especially since two or more students share an iPad over several classes and each has access to the work completed by the others. He's been having issues with annotating presentation slides and note-taking. When he tested the Notability app, he went a long way to solving both of our issues. It is already Dropbox-friendly, so we had our kids set up their own Dropbox and had them share a folder with us. Adding a step to our process in class-deleting work saved in the app and on the photo stream, once it has been saved to Dropbox, has helped with document management. Still working on the grading and return of said document--but I have to save something to focus on THIS WEEK, right????
Still. Overall, I am really pleased with how our first full week has gone. Just in case I really am dreaming, WAIT UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY TO PINCH ME, OKAY?
You might need to pinch me, just so I can wrap my brain around that fact.
In the past few years, I've been learning to teach online and have done what seem like a million staff development hours on COOL LEARNING TOOLS ON THE INTERNET. I've used what I had available--one iPad, a smart board, and some aging laptops-- in order to make my class as engaging and relevant as possible. While they have been better than nothing, the smart board is actually old technology and the laptops--well, some of them might have been older than my students (ok, not really, but close). And regardless of their age, they ACTED like they were from sometime last century. They were fickle and didn't work all that well with new internet-based gadgets and apps. Never mind that I wasn't allowed to update any plugins without driving the stack of them over to the IT department. Ridiculous. It was really frustrating and I felt like we were stuck watching the 21st century speed by us while learning opportunities and students were being LEFT BEHIND. We were drowning slowly in our own inefficiency...And then, suddenly, there was Mr. King.
After taking over mid-year, and beginning his first full year with us, my principal put iPads into our hands as teachers. He got us the adapters for use with LCD projectors; he fought the county for our ability to have control over downloading and apps. He got us training and made it seemless. He gave us a special account that we could use to pay for any apps we thought we'd need. He gave us room to use them as we wanted with no pressure other than the request to show him that we were using them. When he came to me and proposed a class set of iPads, I think I died and went to heaven, just a little bit. (My principal ROCKS!)
I spent all summer researching and reading and trying out different apps. I started following other blogs, registering for a scoop.it weekly digest, investigating and following online magazines with any interest in iPads. Ok, I know. I am a little bit obsessed. It just that it is a bit daunting to have such a big investment riding on my shoulders. I want to do it justice.
I'm striving for substance not quantity. I really want what my kids do to be RELEVANT. The iPad, after all, is a TOOL.
If you want to look at my first week plan, you can CLICK HERE. I updated it, but like a novice, didn't save to a permanent file so I am trying to get back my changes...stay tuned. I have been using Edmodo (more on that in a later post), Youtube, Dropbox, Skitch and Quizlet, among other resources. To call my brief foray into using VoiceThread an EPIC FAIL might be a bit harsh and will require a tweak or two. I plan on trying again this week. My kids used some storytelling apps, including Sock Puppets.
It is pretty amazing to watch EACH student engage with the material in a personal way although it is somewhat messy. At any given moment some kids are finishing an instructional reinforcement video on Youtube while their colleagues are recording a soundtrack for their Sockpuppet cartoon. Others are trying to best our Scatter champion on Quizlet and still others are practicing vocabulary through the dictation feature of Speller. It can be loud but it is very cool.
Before you accuse me of being a Pollyanna, not everything has been stellar. Although everyone has been very forgiving when something didn't go as planned, being one of two teachers implementing iPads has helped. Mr. P. and I talk or text several times a day to discuss how things are going. I've been struggling with document management, especially since two or more students share an iPad over several classes and each has access to the work completed by the others. He's been having issues with annotating presentation slides and note-taking. When he tested the Notability app, he went a long way to solving both of our issues. It is already Dropbox-friendly, so we had our kids set up their own Dropbox and had them share a folder with us. Adding a step to our process in class-deleting work saved in the app and on the photo stream, once it has been saved to Dropbox, has helped with document management. Still working on the grading and return of said document--but I have to save something to focus on THIS WEEK, right????
Still. Overall, I am really pleased with how our first full week has gone. Just in case I really am dreaming, WAIT UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY TO PINCH ME, OKAY?
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
To Google or Not To Google-Doc, that is...
Finished our acceptable use guidelines. you can access my google doc, CLICK HERE to view it. I borrowed shamelessly from quite a few other schools/districts and added some specifics of my own. I may need to add one more bullet about saving work every day and uploading to google docs. I'd like to thank Jonathan, Jamie and Marcus for their insight and suggestions.
so, to google or not to google. we've been discussing today about the best way for students to be able to access their work at home since the iPads stay at school. we proposed having students submit by email-but whew, clogs coming up! I think I'd like for students to keep their docs in google docs and then create a blog page or wiki page as a portfolio as a summative activity.
P.S. I'm still transitioning my unit to electronic format--and adapting it heavily as well. One of my first new assignments is to log into Edmodo and watch a video I posted, then reply about what they learned about...I would rather they posted to Voicethread or something more sexy, but I am afraid I will blow their minds with too much too soon! I hope i can get a least a little ahead by the first actual classroom day on Monday! Actually, have to turn in plans by Friday, so getting ahead will come sooner rather than later.
Speaking of transitioning to electronic format...i've decided that ibooks author SUCKS, i mean, really, I can't add a youtube video without having a Ph.D?
so, to google or not to google. we've been discussing today about the best way for students to be able to access their work at home since the iPads stay at school. we proposed having students submit by email-but whew, clogs coming up! I think I'd like for students to keep their docs in google docs and then create a blog page or wiki page as a portfolio as a summative activity.
P.S. I'm still transitioning my unit to electronic format--and adapting it heavily as well. One of my first new assignments is to log into Edmodo and watch a video I posted, then reply about what they learned about...I would rather they posted to Voicethread or something more sexy, but I am afraid I will blow their minds with too much too soon! I hope i can get a least a little ahead by the first actual classroom day on Monday! Actually, have to turn in plans by Friday, so getting ahead will come sooner rather than later.
Speaking of transitioning to electronic format...i've decided that ibooks author SUCKS, i mean, really, I can't add a youtube video without having a Ph.D?
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Implementation Day
This is it. The week we implement iPads in the classroom. Last minute to do:
1. Edit policy/rules/guidelines to be "signed" by stakeholders including:
2. try this for accessing work on ipads
3. convert all unit 1 content to digital via ibooks author
4. create a google doc correlating standards to content in ibooks author
5. decide: to cover, or not to cover?
6. work on a plan b in case the network is ever down...
7. buy app "magicalpad" for all ipads (notetaking, etc)
8. Set up itunes account with basic money for starter apps
oh, and
9. actually bring ipads down to my classroom :)
Kind of important. :)
1. Edit policy/rules/guidelines to be "signed" by stakeholders including:
- turning in work
- using byod
- consequences for misuse
- who uses what
- basic instruction for access
2. try this for accessing work on ipads
3. convert all unit 1 content to digital via ibooks author
4. create a google doc correlating standards to content in ibooks author
5. decide: to cover, or not to cover?
6. work on a plan b in case the network is ever down...
7. buy app "magicalpad" for all ipads (notetaking, etc)
8. Set up itunes account with basic money for starter apps
oh, and
9. actually bring ipads down to my classroom :)
Kind of important. :)
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