About this time last year, I first became acquainted with the concept of using iPods in the classroom, and the idea appealed to me very much. With the pressures from NCLB to meet AYP (don't you love those acronyms), we are always looking for methods to ensure student success. And how can success be defined? For some schools, even in my own district, that means pouring your efforts into those one or two sub-groups, which sometimes by one student failing, can cause the entire school to not meet AYP. Using iPods to support learning for the "bubble" students made sense. Technology engages kids, the technology itself is not terribly expensive, and the content can be readily available and easily adapted if you know where to look.
Although iPods are a less expensive investment compared to a laptop computer, with limited funds, I was only able to purchase five 80 gig video iPods for use in a pilot program. The question that remained was which group should be the focus of the pilot. Since I work in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at our Board of Education, finding that sub-group was thankfully easy, as well as choosing which subject area to target.
Image by Yum9me on Flickr
Our school system is growing. In fact, we have consistently been one of the fastest growing counties not only in Georgia, but in the United States as well. And with that growth, we've seen our ELL (English Language Learner) population follow suit. As ELL students are held to the same accountability standards for AYP as the rest of our student population, we chose this group to target for a pilot, especially since funding for these students is so limited.
This year, one of our elementary schools developed a Literacy/Technology Coach position using Title 1 funds. This is also the same school that has a significant ELL population, which made it a natural choice for the pilot. Given past performance on standardized tests, we chose to focus on math concepts and vocabulary acquisition for 5th grade students. Although other subject areas will be incorporated into the pilot, we are most interested in seeing how the use of the iPods may affect student performance in math.
Before beginning the pilot itself, I worked closely with the L-T Coach to determine the type of content available, how to make it work on the iPods, and how the students would use the iPods. It was always my intent to have the students take the iPods home for one night at a time along with some form of assignment that would correlate with what they watched. By having a structured pencil and paper activity that parallels a video or other activity, we would be able to determine which types of content reached students the best.
A parental agreement was drafted and approved by our board attorney, which outlined the guidelines of the program and expectations we had for the student and parents. This was presented to the parents at an evening meeting where we had two interpreters available, the ESOL teacher, the L-T coach, our Family Engagement Specialist (who is also a former ESOL teacher), and myself. The students were present as well and this was their first opportunity to actually use the iPods. For some students, they had never used one, but they quickly learned while the parents discussed the agreement. We had seven students in this pilot group and every parent signed the agreement allowing their child to participate. They were concerned about how they would reimburse the school system in case of damage or loss (which was part of the agreement), but we assured them that a plan could be worked out.
Image by Pedroaznar on Flickr
However, now that the pilot is underway, I honestly don't believe we'll need to worry about damage or loss. These students understand the responsibility of having the iPod when they take it home and guard it with their life. It's too early to make any assessments regarding student performance, but we can report that the students are very enthusiastic about using the iPods both at school and at home.
Our pilot program was recently featured in our county newspaper, which also talks a bit more about the type of content that is being used on the iPods. If you would like to read the entire article, it, along with pictures, is available here.
This type of technology can be applied in a variety of ways with many different children. What prompted me to write this post today was a link from Pat Hensley's (aka loonyhiker) Instructional iPods blog post where she offers some ideas for using iPods in the Special Education setting. In her post, she mentions Christine Southard's blog post Introducing Ipods into Special Education. As an aside, I love it when one blog post leads to another such as in this case. Christine featured the following video in her blog post, which really captures the power of this technology. In the near future, I will share this video with my own Special Education Director
(If you have any questions regarding the pilot, please feel free to post them in the comments. If I can't answer them, I will pass them on to Kristi Johnson and Sandra De Castro who are the two teachers implementing the program. )
Other Resources regarding iPods in Education:
Friday, January 16, 2009
iPod, therefore iLearn - How we're piloting them
Google Notebook Phasing Out? Say it ain't so!
I haven't had a lot of time in the past few days to catch up on Twitter or Plurk, but when I get the indicator on my Diigo tool bar that there is a new message available, even though I'm busy I will at least look at it. Today, I wish I had not because this is what I saw:
Yes, Google is halting development on Google Notebook. Here is the official word.
Usually Maggie Tsai of Diigo is the bearer of good news, and in this case at least she's (Diigo) is moving to assist those of use who are Google Notebook users when we lose that service. For me, it's not just about the ability to grab pieces of text and URLs. If that is all I want, I use Diigo's highlight feature for that purpose. Notebook is where I store images and text together.
Maggie linked back to Richard Byrn's blog post Free Technology for Teachers: Choosing a Google Notebook Replacement where he not only gave a few more details, but also offered some possible replacements as well. One solution a commenter suggested was to use Evernote, which does have a Firefox plugin. I have an Evernote account, but haven't really needed it since I had Google Notebook. I suppose I will begin using it now in anticipation of the day that I lose Google Notebook. For now, I'm going to start importing my Google notebook exerpts into Google Docs unless I'm able to easily bring them into Evernote.
For even more options, this Lifehacker post, Where to Go When Google Notebook Goes Down, offers some solutions as well.
Yes, I'm going to move on, but right now I plan on sulking for a bit.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
7 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Me
I've never been tagged for a meme before until one of my fellow Plurkers, Heidi chose me for the task. The purpose of this meme is to share with others seven things about me that you might not know. Here is Heidi's post about herself since she tagged me. The rules are simple: link back to the person that has tagged you and then tag seven other people. If you would put your name for others to see on this wiki then you can see all of the other social networking people that have done this so far :)
One: I love sci-fi movies and TV shows!! Right now I am anxiously awaiting January 16th when Battlestar Galactica will return for it's final shows. I hate that it's almost over. I remember watching the original series as a child, but this one is soooo much better. Luckily, my boys share my love for sci-fi or I would be the odd ball in the family.
Photo credit: scott.armitage on Flickr - click photo for link
Two: I'm a total sucker for reality shows. Not all of them mind you, but I do get caught up in them. American Idol, So you think you can dance (amazing talent!), The Amazing Race. There are more, but I think I've embarrassed myself enough.
Photo credit: 427 on Flick - click photo
Three: I scrapbook, make cards and occasionally other items. Right now I'm making cards more than scrapbooking because it's faster and I really need hours if I plan on scrapbooking. Why? Because I LOVE to spread all of my paper, pictures, and tools out everywhere. If I have glitter on my face or my fingers are stained from ink, then you know what I've been doing. I hate to admit this, but I'm something of a "paper whore(der)". That would be a person who collects paper with the intent to use in a project, but then falls in love with it and can't bring themselves to cut it. It's a disease that I need to get over. These are a sampling of a few things I've made, all of which are older items. I really need to take some newer pictures.
Four: I've been to France four times, although I can hardly count my first trip as having "been" there. I got to walk on a beach for all of five minutes and entered France via Calais on a crossing from England. The other three trips were much more significant compared to that. In college, I lived in Tours, France for two months while working on my BSED in Education with a concentration in French. I absolutely LOVED every day I spent there and was fortunate enough to be able to travel around a bit. I took a small group of students to France with me (again going back to Tours) after my first year of teaching in 1994. That was followed by two more trips with students in 1997 and my last trip being in 2000. After that, I left teaching French behind along with the free trips I earned for bringing the kids with me. It was great while it lasted though! Again, here are a few pictures from those various trips.
Five : I was a cheerleader in middle school in a tiny little town called Burlington, KS. I think the fact that I was the only girl who could do a front walk over was reason why I made cheerleader in the first place. That and I can shout really loud. Not exactly being athletically inclined, except for gymnastics, cheerleading was a great outlet for me. Sorry, no personal pictures for this one. 
Photo by Suessian on Flickr on Flickr
Six: I suffered from temporary insanity back in 2000 and coached a high school cheerleading squad. I have the utmost respect for cheerleading coaches as a result. Dealing with all of that estrogen made me very glad that I did not give birth to girls. Trying to "coach" these girls how to toss each other was a hoot considering I had no personal experience myself. I did learn a great deal about basketball though.
Picture by Eagle102 on Flickr
Seven: When I moved from Oklahoma to Washington in the middle of the third grade, I had a persian cat named "Snowy". He stuck around for all of two days in Washington and then deserted us. I didn't get another pet until my mom saw me "playing" with the fishing worms we kept in the refrigerator and that's when she took me to K-Mart and bought me a parakeet. His name was Daniel (after my first crush) and he lived for five years, surviving a move to both Kansas and then to Texas. Daniel was an incredible bird who had a healthy vocabulary of over 50 words! He even knew my name and yelled it whenever I brushed him off of my cup of sweet tea. The little devil would land on our dining room table where we had puzzle pieces spread out, pick one up, walk to the edge, drop it and then laugh. However, we were hardly amused. This pic below is close to what he looked like, but his head was yellow instead of white. I miss that bird!
Photo by Pliabletrade on Flickr.
Well, this ends my meme. Unfortunately, I think most everyone has already done a meme such as this or I would tag you myself. However, if you haven't done one, please let me know. I'll edit this post to tag you and then you can carry it on.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Plurk Inspired 365 Random Pictures Flickr Challenge
I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to challenges, I tend to fall flat. However, this one might be doable for me. How hard can it be to take pictures daily anyway? Yes, that statement might come back to bite me in the posterior later, but I'd like to give this a go.
I created a blog to feature my daily pictures along with a bit of text, but I have a photostream of the pictures embedded into the sidebar of my blog as well. By using my Blackberry Storm to take and upload many of my pictures, I hope that will enable me to be more successful .
Oh, and in case you're counting...I started a few days late.
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