Thoughts from our Teachers

 

 

We have been working on getting some thoughts together from our teachers on the iPad pilot.  We have been collecting thoughtson how the pilot has been going, things they have learned, and what they hope will come in regards to iPads in the future.  Enjoy!

7th Grade English:

iPads 1:1

As the middle school considers going to a 1:1 program, there are many benefits that would enhance our teaching at the middle school as well as the middle school experience for our students while setting Valley Christian Middle School apart from schools in our area.

The iPads would allow for a reduction in paper waste. Our students could submit work digitally, which would allow for quicker turn-ins and less paper use. Students have already been practicing the process of digital turn-ins with projects like our podcasts, Writer’s Workshop assignments and by using Google docs.

As I have many avid readers in my English classes, books are readily available using the iPad. Kids could build a digital library, keeping them engaged in books.

Our school could save money from buying and lugging around textbooks. We could purchase digital texts, which would keep information current, while also keeping textbook storage at a minimum. Textbook damage would be a thing of the past.
Another great reason to move to 1:1 would be teaching the students how to use technology responsibly. We have been working to teach our kids the importance of positive digital citizenship through the footprints we leave using technology. It would be a good transition for our classes as we would teach our kids to make sure they are caring for their iPads as tools, but also caring for their digital identities by using the iPad as a tool for education. Technology would be more accessible, therefore allowing for us to look things up readily. In teaching history, as we explore the inventions of the Chinese and a student asks a question about the yo-yo, he could immediately look up the information and provide it with the class. The iPad would provide great exploration for students in their learning adventures. The curriculum would go more in depth.
Because each student would have their own iPad, watching videos would allow for students to repeat portions that they may have misunderstood or missed. Students that are absent from class would have access to the curriculum and assignments for the day without falling far behind. This would also allow for teachers to possibly assign videos to be watched at home before the class period so that more instructional teaching time is available in the class period.
We would not have to depend on sharing the computer lab for technology. We would use iPads freely according to our own schedules in class without losing time traveling to the lab or needing to cram an assignment in based on the time available for the iPad cart.
A concern in going 1:1 would be that we would have plenty of technical support. It is important that we are ready for this change, but that teachers can be encouraged and supported in this new exploration. Ensuring that we have technology expectations would be key in allowing this program to succeed.
As technology advances, I think that it is a wonderful opportunity to teach our kids how to use it well, but also to find a balance between using them and learning from a more traditional standpoint.

Science 7:

I am blown away by the complexity of many of the iPad educational apps. As a science teacher, I see apps that will change the way I teach. For example, the frog dissection app will allow students to learn in ways that haven’t been available to them before. Our world is changing quickly and it’s great see opportunities in technology for education to not only keep up – but jump ahead.

History 8:

I have really enjoyed using the iPad cart this year in American History.  It has allowed me to create a lot of different projects that keep the students engaged while learning  different applications.  The U.S. History textbook in on the iPad also so one reason why it would be beneficial to go to the one-to-one program is that each students would have their textbooks for all of their classes on one device; no more lugging around all their books and stopping at lockers.  I have also enjoyed the ability to do all aspects of a project in the classroom, instead of moving to the computer lab and dealing with other classes using the lab.  For example, earlier this year I did a project on people from the Revolutionary War.  Students were able to research their person using the iPad, type out scripts describing who they were and their importance using the iPad, make a movie about their person using the iPads, and also editing that movie using iPads.  Students really enjoy the ability to do all tasks using one device.  iPads make a more efficient use of time and allows a wide variety of capabilities which makes learning a lot more enjoyable for students.

A Few Lessons on iOs Management

We are now just past the 1/2 point of our 1st year trial program with an iPad pilot.  There have been a lot of lessons that we have learned.  These lessons are not just about the iPads in the classroom, but also the management of the devices and our configuration profiles that manage the permissions and settings for the iPads.  In this post, I am going to share some lessons learned on best practices for the deployment of enterprise/educational use iPads.

First, back up your profile and your iTUnes library.  We had been using a 13″ MacBook Pro to manage our iPad cart.  On the computer we stored all of our purchased files and our textbook pdf’s that we have permission to store on the iPads.  Lastly, the computer also stored our configuration profiles, which were used to restrict specific applications, changes, and settings that we needed to have set on all of our iPads.  Initially, I believed that restricting the use of the video camera, photobooth, changing email account settings, setting the wireless connection to our network, and enabling a passcode lock could be done on one configuration utility.  Caution-do not do that!  When our primary computer, the macbook pro went offline, we were no longer able to enable and disable the individual features without simply disabling all of the settings.  To enable the camera to work for iMovie as an example, I had to remove the configuration profile which setup all of the settings on the iPads.  There is a better way.

We have replaced our 13″ macbook pro with a 13″ macbook air (I will add a post on my thoughts about macbook air’s for those that are interested at a later date).  In our situation, Apple’s iCloud re-downloading all of our purchased apps was quite simple.  I was able to go through my purchase history and download all of the apps that I wanted within a rather short amount of time.  By going to my iTunes Store, there is a new link on the right hand side “Purchased”.  Inside of this link you are able to see all of the music, TV shows, Apps, and Books that you have purchased with your iTunes account.  This is a great feature!  In situations like ours, we purchase a lot of free apps to test out and frankly several of them have not been what we hoped them to be.  In particular we tested some dinosaur apps before finding what we really wanted.  To solve the issue of the unwanted apps showing up in our history, Apple has added a new feature here too.  When looking at your purchased apps, you can move your mouse over an app and see a little “x” appear in the top left corner.  By choosing this “x” you “hide” the app from your purchase history.  This does not delete the app from account all together, but simply hides it until you wish to re-enable the app.  The app can be re-added on your account information page.  This helps in several ways.  This keeps you from being reminded to download updates you do not need and allows you to navigate your purchase history with greater ease.

With the opportunity to start anew, we made some significant changes, I would like to share.  First, I cleaned up (this means, deleting individual student files from pages, keynote, numbers, iMovie, the camera roll, etc…)  After being satisfied with the settings, I connected the iPad to the Air, renamed it a generic name, and created a “master backup”.  Now getting the iPad to take the same app arrangement (folders, page layout, app location, etc.) required a bit of a trick.  I connected the iPad cart to a separate laptop, did not back them up, and restored all of the iPads to factory settings.  Essentially wiping the hard drive clean.  After starting fresh, I restored the iPads from the backup on the Air.  The process does take a little time, so make sure you have at least a day to do the full cart.

Now, back to iPhone Configuration Utility.  This time, I set four different configuration profiles.  I created a unique profile that gave the iPads access to our schools wifi, another for the email account settings (I am not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but I setup email accounts that are “send only” from the iPad, by manually entering a false password for the incoming mail server), a set of restrictions for video/youtube, a separate set of restrictions for making changes, and lastly a simple passcode requirement.  I also set a password for removing the configuration profiles, making our data inaccessible by anyone else.  This allows for a lot more control of the iPads and a more simple management structure for disabling and re-enabling specific permissions.

To close for this post, I would like to apologize for infrequent posts lately.  The program has been going really well, and frankly, having the iPad cart has saved us in a number of ways over the past couple of months.  I mentioned briefly earlier, that our macbook that controlled the iPad cart went out of commission, the same issue happened with our entire computer lab, and required a lot of extra time and effort.  Being able to use the iPads in the classroom for so much more than just typing and research enabled a lot of great learning to occur, despite the issues with our computer lab.  I taught a video production class for 5 weeks using only iPads and had a rather successful experience.  I will post more on the experience from that at a later post.  At this point, everything is up and running and we are loving having both our lab and the iPad cart.  Check out the attachment, our iPad informational brochure, we are very excited about what we have found so far with the iPad program and are looking forward to where it will take us in the future.

iPads at VCMS