Suzanne's Ed Tech Reflections

Day Four: Putting It All Together Day 4 was focused on two things: creating videos and lesson planning. Two very important topics for flipped learning! Video Creation: While we encourage our teachers to create their own flipped learning videos, we also know that there are some great pre-made video resources available. We explored sites such as Khan Academy , Math Train , and Sophia . To help teachers understand why we encourage them to create their own videos, we showed the Katie Gimbar video entitled " Why It Has to Be Me ". Katie has been flipping for some time and has a great series of videos and we used several throughout the training. You can access them here . Teacher created videos help students feel more like they are right there with the teacher and extends their in class relationship. While video creating can get pretty complicated, we encourage teachers to just do "one take" videos without retakes or a lot of editing. If you m...

Day Three: Technology Supporting Learning This was a long but very productive day for everyone. One of the most valuable things we have discovered for ensuring the success of a technology integration project is developing classroom procedures, consequences for misuse, and effective management. Working in grade level bands, the teachers each developed a set of procedures, classroom consequences, and management guidelines for their students. They included topics such as how the iPads will be distributed and returned to the cart, how they will be taken home each day, what happens when a student is using the iPad properly, and what they should be doing at home.  Afterward, the rest of the day was spent on configuring the iPads. Since the teachers will be responsible for uploading flip learning videos and sharing other content with students, they really need to have a feel for how everything works. Setting up the cart and syncing their own iPads helps develop a stro...

Day Two: Making a Dent in the Universe, Part 2 This was an exciting day for our new flipped learning teachers as they received their teacher iPads. We reviewed some basic operations, set up their district email on the iPads, and created DropBox accounts that they could access both on their iPads and their laptops. Having both email and DropBox set up on the iPads has really helped our teachers be able to access instructional content from the iPad, share with each other, and communicate with each other and their students. The rest of the day was spent learning about specific apps for instruction, including QuickOffice Pro HD and Explain Everything (our favorite whiteboard app for the iPad!). Both of these have DropBox and Google Drive integration making them very flexible for teachers.  iTunes U was introduced to the teachers and they got connected to our flipped classroom iTunes U course to give them access to the concepts and resources being used during the we...

Lots of new teachers are joining Project iAchieve for the 2013-14 school year. We have grown from 10 flipped classrooms with iPads to 18 and have added 10 additional iPad Media Kit (iPad & Apple TV) teachers. We have now deployed over 75 Media Kits with more to come as the year continues. While we haven't added additional iPod touch classrooms, we have several new teachers moving into those positions. And we have lots of continuing teachers that we want to support. Lots of summer training opportunities!! Our new flipped classroom teachers were invited to 4 days of training to get them ready to implement flipped learning and iPads into their classrooms this year. The continuing teachers joined them on the last two days. Day One: Making a Dent in the Universe, Part 1 Steve Jobs is quoted as saying that Apple was making a dent in the universe with its innovative products and ideas. We like to think that Project iAchieve is making a dent in Creighton's School District'...