Suzanne's Ed Tech Reflections

As the third year of Project iAchieve begins, several new teachers will be joining the team. Prior to the start of school we were able to provide two full days of training for both the continuing and the new project teachers. The two day training covered management of the iPods and cart, syncing, procedures, oral reading fluency practice, and using many of the new apps that were added for the year. The teachers were also given new document cameras to use in their classrooms, as well as a new teacher iPod. Everyone is very excited about beginning a new year with the iPods and all of the great learning that will take place in their classrooms.

Project iAchieve is really expanding for the 12/13 school year! In  addition to the 24 iPod touch classrooms, we will have 10 flipped classrooms with an iPad for each student, and about 45 classrooms with an iPad Media Kit to use as an instructional tool. An iPad Media Kit includes an iPad, an Apple TV, and and HDMI projector. The Media Kit teachers will utilize a variety of apps, such as Educrations and QuickOffice Pro HD, as well as web based resources to present their lessons to students. These Media Kits will take the place of an Interactive Whiteboard in the classroom but will also allow the teacher to teach wirelessly. They can walk around the room to monitor and assist students while modeling and presenting information to students. The flipped classroom teachers will also have a Media Kit as part of their classroom technology. It is going to be exciting to watch how these creative and innovative teachers will use these tools in their classrooms.

In previous posts I have written about iPad and iPod apps and their alignment to Bloom's Taxonomy and November’s Digital Learning Farm. There are several ed techers out there that have created charts showing these alignments. Another project based inquiry model is the 5 E’s: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. On her TL Under Construction blog, Teacher Librarian Cathy Hainstock has developed a chart aligning iPad/iPhone apps to each of the 5 E levels. She details her thinking during the creation of the chart and you can download a pdf version  from her blog: Click here . Another tool to assist us in using our apps to best support student learning. Thanks Cathy! Check out these sites to learn more about the 5 E’: http://waww.miamisci.org/ph/lpintro5e.html http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/5eteachingmodels/index.html http://faculty.mwsu.edu/west/maryann.coe/coe/inquire/inquiry.htm

Well, it's time to hit the road and head to San Diego for the 2012 ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Conference. This is the annual international education technology conference where thousands of people from across the globe attend to learn and share about education technology in our schools. I am excited about 5 days of learning from and with other educators and learning about new tools and best practices for technology integration. Hoping to share lots of ideas with all of our iAchieve teachers!

Alan November is an international leader who promotes improving teaching and learning and is a strong supporter of education technology. He has written several books (some of my favorites!) and presents and lectures at conferences across the country. A couple of years ago he came up with the concept of the Digital Learning Farm. He talks about a time when farming was an essential part of the American landscape and students contributed to the growth and success of the family farms. They had very specific jobs and were essential to the survival of their family. As society became industrialized, the work of children turned to schoolwork and they played a more passive role in society. Mr. November feels that as our society becomes more and more globalized it is imperative that students once again become strong contributors, especially within their learning communities. He promotes utilizing six jobs in the learning community that can accomplish this: ·   ...

A couple of weeks ago, Robyn and I did a presentation at the Southeastern Arizona Teacher Academy (SEATA) in Thatcher, AZ. This is an annual conference/academy held by the Graham and Greenlee Educational Service Agencies to provide professional development to interested teachers. We were invited to present specifically on using iPods and iPads to enhance reading fluency and comprehension. That is one of our specialties! In order to make our presentation interactive, we took a set of iPods loaded with many of the apps we use for reading including Voice Memos and K12 Timed Reading. Some of the attendees had never used iPods or iPads before and were truly mesmerized by them. We shared information about Project iAchieve and showed some video of students using the iPods. And then the fun began! Using the same type of lesson format we do with students, attendees learned how to create an oral reading fluency recording on the iPods using Voice Memos. After recording they l...

As we near the last couple of days of the school year, I have been visiting all of the iAchieve iPod and iPad classrooms. It's awesome to enter a room and hear the cheers of the students that "The iPod Lady is here!" they all know my name but I love the endearment from the students. So welcoming! Wonder if next year's students will dub me The iPod Lady for the third year? I'll let you know!