Getting Set Up

Day 1 of our iPad pilot:

Is this what herding cats feels like?

I'm being dramatic. 😆  Today was the first day students were able to hold and log in to the iPads.  Part of that process included logging in as a "shared user" with an Apple ID and a temporary password (rife with with a mixture of capital letters, lowercase letters, and numbers), and downloading apps from a selection of district-approved choices.

One thing I love about teaching three periods is improving my instruction throughout the day.  For first period, I put together a quick Google Slide to guide students through each step.  After I explained each slide, I gave students a few minutes to follow my directions.  By slide #4, kids were all over the place and some kids went ahead while other kids asked me to go back a few slides.  It was a mess.

For second and third period, I learned my lesson and went through all the slides before letting the students loose on the iPads.  It went a touch better than first period!

During first and third periods, the Director of Technology, himself, came to my classroom to see how it would go setting up the student accounts.  Aside from the chaos in first period, students were able to get logged in with minimal problems.  During second period, when the DoT left, there were some (unconfirmed) wifi issues that prevented a little less than half my class from logging in to their iPads. Of course. Hashtag-Murphy's-Law.

While it turned out to be an annoying setback, I've now been through the set up process roughly 2.5 times, and I'm confident I can get the second period kids on board in no time on Monday.  Wifi-willing, of course.

My biggest challenge now is preparing lessons and "learning work" for students to do using the iPads.  I might take it easy on myself and start at the bottom of the SAMR model and work my way up (or top-down in the illustration below).  Substitution is easier to begin with because I can take existing lessons and transpose them into digital files.  But eventually I want to be at the redefining stage where students are crafting and demonstrating their own learning.

I was thinking today about worksheets and how they get a bum rap.  The worksheets THEMSELVES are not bad.  It's the rote memorization and repetitive yet meaningless "practice" that makes a worksheet bad.  The reason why I was thinking about this is because I gave an assignment a while ago where I put a quote up on the smartboard.  I asked students to get a sheet of paper and explain the quote in a paragraph.  Since the end of the grading period is coming up, I decided to just put the quote at the top of a Google Doc with a bunch of lines, and give one more chance to the students who never turned this assignment in.  Was it a worksheet?  Yes.  Was it making them think?  Yes.  Was it an example of "Redefinition"?  No, but who's to say we can't build on this in the future?

I think a lot of teachers are under the impression that you have to use every bell and whistle that technology has to offer.  NOT TRUE.  If you're a good teacher, you know how to engage your students and get them excited to learn.  The technology helps!  Instead of this worksheet on the quote, I could have put it into Padlet or started a discussion in Google Classroom.  Then students are showing off their thoughts and thinking through their ideas with feedback from peers.  While the "dream" is always to go big and have students create the next self-driving car, there are times when it's enough to just dip your toe in the water.  That is OKAY.

Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself this week :D

Almost There...

The iPads are here!  They're encased in a (seemingly) military-grade cart and each iPad has its own bar code sticker and durable case.

We haven't used them, though.  Apple has some type of education setting where students can log in and log out of their device.  It's a complicated process to set up, so I'm waiting ever-so-patiently for the amazing Director of Technology to get everything square away!  He said it was not easy, so I dropped some doughnuts off at his desk last week :)

In other news, I've been mulling over the way I take grades (see previous post), and I've started to make some changes.  We used to start class every day by reading silently, and then one of our Daily Three rotations would be writing a reader's response.  At the end of the week, I would have students grade each other's Daily Threes and students would read aloud the reader's responses that were well-written.

One problem I didn't even realize is that I never really gave feedback about the reader's responses that weren't well-written.  If there was an obvious mistake, I would write a note; but I'm not sure if many students scour their already-graded assignments looking for meaningful feedback.....

So, now I check the students' reader's responses on Monday.  If they are able to produce a well-written reader's response, they get a stamp!  Students who have a stamp don't have to write any more reader's responses for the week.  Instead, they get a free rotation to work on something else (most prefer to play a word game like Bananagrams or Apples to Apples).  For the students who don't have a well-written reader's response, I give them verbal feedback ("Needs more details," or "I see the cause but not the effect," etc.) which they USE to write a better response tomorrow for another chance at a stamp.  Even the students who don't get a stamp until Thursday are pumped that they get a free rotation on Friday, even though there are students who have had a free rotation every day almost all week! :)

The best part, though, is that the students are not just churning out blah work to satisfy their writing requirement.  They are actually trying to write their best work the first time, and they are receiving and using meaningful feedback to develop their writing if it needs improvement.

I changed my mind.  The best part is actually THIS: I have already graded a reading/writing assignment for the week, and I can put it in the grade book as a skill grade... WITH NO WEEKEND GRADING.

This is in no way a perfect system.  The whole reason why students write reader's responses is to prove that they read during silent reading, and that they comprehend what they read.  Writing one response a week means that students don't technically have to read for the rest of the week when they've received their stamp.  Maybe instead of writing a response for the rest of the week, students can record a quick video recapping what they've read.

Anyway, it's so nice having more options simply because we have technology in the room.  Yay!

In other news, there are some changes on the horizon and I feel unsettled and a little scared about the future.  I have to remember, though, that I've always had people to help me through life, and I'm sure that won't change any time soon. The educators in my building are truly top-notch, and I'm grateful every day for their influence on me as a teacher.  💗