Suzanne's Ed Tech Reflections

Heading to the airport for our flight to San Antonio. Looking forward to lots of great learning and making connections. Planning to attend some interesting learning sessions and presenting on Flipping the Elementary Classroom on Tuesday. Very exciting!

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.

After attending a presentation on Challenge Based Learning , one of our first grade teachers decided she wanted to "challenge" her students and develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills. After a brainstorming session, she decided to address the Big Idea of Sustainability with her class. Sustainability is a pretty big word for first graders - but Ms. Sleasman met that challenge. She very strategically taught students the word sustainability using the Morph House methodology. They developed a strong understanding of the word and used it very fluently in their conversations and presentations. After addressing some essential questions and brainstorming ideas with the students, they decided to take on the Challenge of recycling to reduce paper waste at their school.          They generated ideas on what they could do, who would be the "experts" at their school or in the community to help them, and how to best communicat...

Today, we had the privilege of presenting at the Digital Learning Showcase hosted by the Yavapai County Educational Technology Consortium. This is a two day conference being held in Prescott, Arizona including learning sessions covering a wide variety of topics with an emphasis on common core and technology. Our presentation was on "Flipping the Elementary Classroom with iPads" and gave attendees a glimpse into iAchieve's flipped classroom model in our 1st through 4th grade classrooms. I think those attending the session probably enjoyed our video clips the most as they provided a strong visual of what happens in a flipped classroom and how students are being engaged and reaching content mastery. The presentation was well received and good practice for us before presenting at the ISTE Conference in San Antonio next week.

One of the 8th grade units is an interdisciplinary study of WWII in both social studies and English Language Arts (Reading). The students learn from both a historical aspect and a literary aspect through the books and videos they read and view. This interdisciplinary study lends itself well to the creation of student projects. This year's projects were developed around the  theme of tolerance with a focus on the Holocaust. Students researched a variety of people and events that impacted WWII and the Holocaust. Students created their presentation using the Explain Everything interactive whiteboard app. They were able to add images, text, and video clips to the presentations. After narrating each slide they were able to save the projects as a video. Each group presented their research project to the class.        Project on the Simon Wiesenthal and the Simon Wiesenthal Center : Student WWII Presentation from Suzanne Sallee on Vimeo . The studen...

There are several Common Core State Standards apps available for IOS. While the Mastery Connect Common Core app is very popular, here are a couple of others we have been checking out this year Common Core Concept Bank  Click to download: App of the Week - Common Core Concept Bank Common Core Library Click to download: App of the Week - Common Core Library

Project iAchieve is expanding for the 2013-14 school year! We will have 18 flipped classrooms using iPads to facilitate the model.  With our new and continuing teachers, this arm of Project iAchieve will help meet the needs of students in grade levels from 1st to 8th grade. Teachers across the district submitted applications to participate in this component of iAchieve. The project application asked them to develop their own working definition of the flipped classroom after doing some research, reflect on how the flipped classroom model would provide more time for interaction with students, differentiation, and helping to close the student achievement gap. Applicants also developed a flipped classroom lesson that included the "at home" assignment and differentiated in class activities the following day. We will be providing 4 days of professional development prior to the start of school. The PD will include using iPads and Apple TVs in the classroom, setting up their stud...

One of the commitments for being selected as an Apple Distinguished Program is to host 3 Apple Site Visits during the year. The visits are sponsored by Apple but the design of the visit and presentation is done by the school or district. Attendees come to learn about your program and hopefully be inspired to add to or start their own technology integrated programs. We have completed two of our visits for this year - one in March and one in May. At both of these visits, attendees observed in some of our mobile device enhanced classrooms. They saw students using iPod touches during centers, teachers utilizing their iPad Media Kits (iPad, Apple TV, and HD projector) to enhance instruction and learning, and observed how iPads are used to facilitate the flipped classroom model. March 19: Our group of attendees was only about 10 but we made some great connections with them! Explaining and modeling the flipped classroom iPad Media Kit Lesson Kinders using their iPod tou...