Health Grade 7

During the current nutrition unit students are and will be using their iPads for a variety of activities. Students recently used an application called Inspiration to a create graphic organizer involving their favorite fruit and the many ways it can be prepared as well as some recipes it can be used in. This is designed to encourage them to "think outside of the box" when it come to ways they can get more fruit into their daily diets.
Students are currently analyzing the food choices they make when eating at fast food restaurants (we are using the McDonald's application) and looking at how they can modify those choices to be healthier while still satisfying the students desire for fast food.
Coming up students will be asked to create a 3-day healthy menu using the Pages application on their iPad.

Math students have used the iPad in the following ways:

TenMarks: With the iPad, students have easy access to this tutorial math program. Teachers are able to assign individual problem sets to students and to follow students individually on their progress.

Dropbox and uPad apps: Teachers upload pdfs of math worksheets to Dropbox. Students then download the pdfs and are able to import them into the uPad app where they can then make personal notes and marks on them before turning them back in to the teacher electronically.

iBook: Mrs. Law and Ms. Touhey created an ibook using ibook author for the first part of the math program. The students are able to access the book, make notes and personal entries all while Mrs. Law can make changes and students receive the updated version instantly.

Other Apps:  Students have used a variety of apps that allow students to enhance their math skills and increase their levels of understanding. These apps include Math!!!, Math7, Ooops (order of operations), tangrams, stopwatch and calculators.

How we are using iPads in the Classrooms.

A quick update on how the iPads are being used in the classroom is below. It is amazing how quickly everyone has adapted to the iPads. Students seem very respectful of their responsibility and following rules on caring for them. We have done one survey of parents and students which I hope to post soon and met with a small group of parents one evening. 

Social Studies (Semester 2)
We are very excited to be having 7^th grade students use the online textbook this year with student subsciptions The textbook is the same as we have used in the past. You can read more about it here:
http://www.teachtci.com/programs/middle-school/geography-alive-textbook/regions-and-people/
The textbook aligns with the NH Common Core Standards as well. http://www.teachtci.com/programs/middle-school/geography-alive-textbook/regions-and-people/standards-correlations.html
Student subscriptions are iPad friendly. Students can read the text for their class, reveal main ideas, add notes, and listen to the text read aloud just as they would on a regular PC browser. 
Students can do Reading Challenges, and complete their Digital Interactive Notebook Activities online as well. The Digital Interactive Notebook drawing features are now fully functional with iOS 6.

Music

In 7th grade music class, they use the note taking application to write and organize their listening logs every Wednesday (this past quarter class was the first class EVER in which all students in the class were able to turn in ALL of their listening logs at the end of the quarter).  They also use the iPads for the weeklong garageband project.  This quarter I am going to experiment with the "jam session" option on garageband and make the garageband unit a bit longer.

Art
MS art has used iPads with the seventh graders a few times.  Using Studio kids have explored use of line as an expression, they have used it as a white board to write bell work answers on, and they have used them for research for their cultural masks and then presented the research and images using the reflections app. 

Math

Math students have used the iPad in the following ways:

•              TenMarks: With the iPad, students have easy access to this tutorial math program. Teachers are able to assign individual problem sets to students and to follow students individually on their progress

•              Dropbox and uPad apps. Teachers upload pdfs of math worksheets to Dropbox. Students then download the pdfs and are able to import them into the uPad app where they can then make personal notes and marks on thembefore turning them back in to the teacher electronically.

•              iBook: Mrs. Law and Ms. Touhey created an ibook using ibook author for the first part of the math program. The students are able to access the book, make notes and personal entries all while Mrs. Law can make changes and students receive the updated version instantly.

•              Other Apps:  Students have used a variety of apps that allow students to enhance their math skills and increase their levels of understanding. These apps include Math!!!, Math7, ooops (order of operations), tangrams, stopwatch and calculators.

Science

Students in Science are using Edmodo, Dropbox, uPad app to access keynote lessons used in class. Students copy keynote presentations right into the uPad app and then add notes as needed.  In addition, students are using the camera and video abilities of the iPad to record observations on labs and import these into their notes as well. Truly students have moved beyond just taking notes in hand as they use the multi-media feature of the iPad into their learning.  Having the features of the  iPad gives the students so much more ability to access the science currriculum in their individual learning manner.  Mr. Vienneau has noticed that students are able to follow lessons more quickly and that having access to the lessons and their personal notes has increased their understanding. Next week, students will be using their iPads to design keynote presentations to describe how the digestive, respiratory, excretory, and circulatory systems interact in the breaking down of a hamburger/vegieburger, the delivery of nutrients and removal of wastes from the the body.

English

Mrs. Diener uses Edmodo as the online classroom where she posts assignments and students turn in assignments (via Google apps). She can make notes and margins and share comments with students in the Edmodo classroom. A true advantage is being able to have access to student work and see their growth in writing and understanding

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...