Suzanne's Ed Tech Reflections

On February 18, 2014, Brian Peterson and Karla Benge from Apple did an official presentation of the Apple Distinguished Award to the Creighton School District Governing Board and Cabinet. Mr. Peterson shared not only his impressions of iAchieve and how it is impacting students in the classroom but also shared many of the comments made by the reviewers of our application. We felt very honored. Part of the presentation was to update the governing board on how iAchieve has progress during the 2013/2014 school year. This short video shares some of those highlights. 13-14 iAchieve Governing Board Presentation from Suzanne Sallee on Vimeo . CSD Governing Board and Superintendent, Director of Technology, and iAchieve Staff Apple Representatives and iAchieve Staff

One of the apps we have been exploring recently is Write About This. The app is the brainchild of classroom teacher, Brad Wilson. He developed the app because the format was something he wanted for his students to help develop their creative writing skills but could never find. The full version of the app contains 125 images and 375 text and voice prompts. Each prompt includes three different levels to meet the needs of a variety of students and the prompts align to Common Core Standards. Users can also create their own custom prompts with image and text support. Students complete their writing assignments right in the app and can share their work in a variety of ways. We are currently using the free version of the app but are looking at purchasing the full version for our 1:1 iPad classroom Student Examples: In one of our 1:1 iPad English Language Learner classrooms, the teacher uses Write About This as a warm-up activity for writing. They have set up the app on each iPad...

iAchieve's Apple Distinguished Program designation was again renewed for 2013-2015. There is an application process for the renewal to ensure the project is moving forward and aligned to Apple's requirements of Visionary Leadership, Innovative Learning and Teaching, Relevant and Timely Professional Development, Compelling Evidence of Success, and Flexible Learning Environment. Here is the iBook created for the application: Project iAchieve Arizona . Part of being an Apple Distinguished Program is to host Apple Site Visits during the school year. These visits are supported and sponsored by Apple but hosted by the school or district receiving the award. Site visits typically include a presentation about the project, visits to project classrooms to see mobile devices in action, a student and teacher panel, and time for sharing and questions. iAchieve recently hosted a site visit on February 11, 2014: Several of the third graders were creating oral reading fluency recordin...

Once a month our flip classroom teachers participate in a professional learning community (PLC). At the PLC we discuss and share successes and challenges, share the different ways each teacher is creating their flip learning videos, and usually share some new apps, ideas, or practice using apps in different ways. We are working on ways to make the PLC's more interactive just like we would for students. Our September PLC was especially fun as we worked with QR codes. Most of the teachers were familiar with QR codes but many had never created their own or thought about the wide variety of uses for QR codes in the classroom.Before the PLC they were sent a QR code that took them to an online article about using QR codes in the classroom. Before they got to the room for the PLC they encountered a series of codes to scan. There were a variety different types of code - audio, text, links - to show them the variety. During the PLC they had a chance to scan a variety of codes for learnin...

What happens when you give an iPad to a PE teacher? We just issued an iPad to our first PE teacher and weren't sure how he was going to use it since he's not inside a classroom during instruction and would not be getting an Apple TV. Well, that question is quickly being answered! The first time I saw him after our training session, he was anxious to share with me how he is using Class Dojo. He has set up all of his PE classes in Class Dojo and created his own Behaviors. He is using Class Dojo as a way to collect assessment data on the students so his Behaviors deal with specific PE skills. For example, some of the classes have been doing Basketball in PE so his Behaviors have to do with skills such as dribbling and passing. Pretty clever!  He is also researching some playbook apps but until we find something that will meet his needs, he is experimenting with using Explain Everything. He has put in pictures of specific courts and fields and added names/positions. The next...

We don't have snow days here in Phoenix but we do get rain - occasionally. The rain is something we usually look forward to - unless you are a kindergartener getting ready to go on a field trip. Then it can be a very sad day. That is until a super teacher with 1:1 iPads comes to the rescue! Recently the kindergarten classes at one of our schools had planned a trip to the Phoenix Zoo but it rained and the field trip had to be cancelled. There were some very disappointed kindergarteners! The students in one of our 1:1 iPad classes had been working on animal research and developing presentations on their iPads. Their very innovative and creative teacher decided to put together a virtual field trip to the zoo with his students as the zookeepers and animal experts. The third grade students lined up along the walls outside their classroom with their iPads. They showed their visual presentations and shared interesting facts about the animals they had been studying while the kinderga...

iAchieve began in 2010, placing over 700 iPod touches in our third grade classrooms creating a 1:1 mobile device environment to support reading comprehension and fluency. They have been a very effective tool and our students and teachers love using them. We also have lots of iPads in the district but the iPod touches are a great tool especially for our younger students. The project began with Generation 2 iPod touches and they are still going strong. They just can't be updated or loaded with some of the newer apps. So last summer utilizing some year end funding, we were able to purchase a enough Generation 5 iPod touches for our third grade classrooms. The new iPod touches did not arrive until after the start of school and our teachers didn't know that they would be getting new ones. It was so fun getting them set up and surprising our teachers. There were lots of squeals of excitement when we met to give them the good news. We did have one big challenge. Our Bretford...