iPad Orientation with Parents

Thanks so much to everyone for coming to the orientation this evening!! Our goals were to 

• Inform you
• Not bore you
• Not keep you too long!

We hope we accomplished these!

We are very excited to have the ipads go home so that students and teachers 

can quickly get to the next level of integrating ipads into their teaching/learning.

Here is a link to today's presentation if you would like to review all we covered.
Here is a link to the Document on Purchasing/Downoading apps to the iPad

A few things that we wanted to make sure we covered about our session today

1. Wireless Networks.
               Feel free to join your home or other public wireless networks

2. iPad Chargers at School. 
           We spoke with your students about the fact that a fully charged ipad will probably make it          through the day without being charged.  SO we don't believe that your students will need to transport their ipad chargers and cord each day. BUT we will find out as our pilot continues if this is, in fact, true.  We do plan on having chargers available in the ML core classes.

3. The Handout. 
          The handout you received in the Media Center includes your student's school Apple-id and password as well as instructions on how to download paid or already-purchased apps.

4. Appropriate Apps/Downloads. 
            Please work with your child to determine what apps they are downloading so they make good choices. Remember that this is a school iPad and the focus should be on education. Games are not discouraged but this is NOT the focus of the iPad.

5. Personal Music/Movies/Photos
Students can put music on the iPad but please be aware of that the iPads are only 16 GB. Once we really start delving into electronic textbooks these can often be 3 to 4 gb for each ebook. If there is a space issue, we will have to remove personal music/movies/photos. To check the amt of space available on your iPad, go to Settings-General-Usage

6. Student Apple-ids and passwords.
           We want to make sure that Parents had PRIMARY access/control to the student apple-ids and passwords. You can find this userid and passcode on the paperwork from this evening.
             Parents, if you feel the password has been compromised by sharing it with your student or otherwise, contact Laura Maroon at lmaroon@sau45.org to reset the password.

7. Printing. 
If you would like to print at home, this is a great article to read about the different ways you can do that. http://www.macworld.com/article/1160312/ipad_printing.html

iPad Orientation with Students

It was clear to our 7th grade teachers that their students needed to start using their ipads right away to take advantage of all the plans that the teachers had for their use in the classroom. We saw no point in starting out with the old way and then switching to a new way in a few weeks. Some of the ipad uses in the classroom include Edmodo LMS (learning management system), the Upad app for sharing and editing of PDF', Note-Taking for organization, Access to First Class homework calendars, iTunes books created by our Math Teachers.

With this in mind, we met with the 7th grade students for the first three days of classes to Review Agreement and iPad Usage and to setup their iPads for Google Docs, Edmodo, Dropbox and First Class. After the 3rd day, students were picking up their ipads at A block and returning them to their A block room after G block. We have asked students and their parents to purchase an ipad slip sleeve so help with distinguishing ipads as well as protecting them.

We had several discussions with the students about what a pilot is and that we are all learning together. We talked about appropriate apps and we even made some changes after talking with the students. Our plan was that the safest place for the iPads was with the student so that they weren't having to run back to their lockers to get their iPads. We talked about what the students would do with their ipads during Lunch or Break and on our second day of meeting, we all decided that we should have a place in the cafeteria for students to put their iPads. We moved a cart up to the cafe and it is full of iPads during these times.

So far the students have been great. We look forward to this continuing.

Aw Summer!

Now the work really began.

Planning, Re-Planning, Writing, Editing...

6 Middle Level Teachers attended a 4 day workshop on iPads in Education at New Hampton School. 
As we start this blog, I look forward to adding the ML Teachers as editors so they can share the real experience and point of a 1:1: EDUCATION.

These teachers and tech/media personnel met afterward to focus on the plans for the year
These included:

• iPad Agreement
• iPad Letter
• iPad Curriculum Plans (A list of ipad Apps to start the year was part of this)
• iPad Management
• iPad Implementation Plans
• iPad Orientation with Parents
• iPad Orientation with Students

The Tech Team had a huge job of figuring out the management of the software, the hardware, rolling out almost 50 physical devices. We attended iOs management webinars, workshops and had emails with other schools rolling out 1:1 ipads with Middle School Students.

 I won't bore you with all the full details here  but we started the year using the following: Meraki's Mobile Device Management, Aerohive, Apple's VPP, Google APPS accounts, and  iTunes.

This seems like such a short post for how much effort and time we put in this summer...

Where we started...

What a road it has been.....

We started back during the budget cycle of 2011-12 when an Ad-Hoc Technology Committee was created to make recommendations to the School regarding Hardware purchases for the 2012-13 budget year. The committee of educators, administrators and ABC (Advisory Budget Committee) members created a report on June 4, 2011. These recommendations included

• moving towards a 1:1 ratio of students to devices 
• upgrading our technology infrastructure 
• Professional Development for our teachers. 

Of course, we did more then just come up with this list, we looked at what does 21st Century learning, living and teaching look like, what are the benefits for our students in their learning. Part of the recommendation included asking the School Board if they wanted this committee to move forward in planning a 1:1 in more detail.

 They did! 

The Committee met several times and on May 5, 2012, made recommendations for 2012-13 school year which included a pilot for students in grades 3 and 7.

Read the AD-Hoc Technology Committee

Recommendations (June 4,2011 and May 5,2012) 

Presentations, Presentations, Presentations:
School Board Meeting,
At the May 5, 2012 school board meeting, this video was shown as well as the above recommendations. The motion was tabled.  Another meeting/presentation was scheduled with two school board representative, ABC representatives, administrators and the technology/media personnel.

Technology Budget Sub Committee: Technology/media personnel with Mike Lancor, our superintendent met several times to prepare for this presentation to focus on specifics and ipads in education. Our discussion was lively and productive. Our two school board representatives and our new superintendent were present and all in favor of moving forward.

This presentation can be seen here. The presentation was designed to be seen an ipad/ipod and if you would like to view it on your ipad, go here 

 The School Board then approved the 1:1 pilot and then the fun REALLY began...