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.
