iPod, therefore iLearn - How we're piloting them

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:

• e-Literacy and Literacy: Using iPods in the ELL Classroom - PPT
• Ipods and English Language Learners : A Great combination
• iPod in Education: The Potential for Language Acquisition
• iPods: A Key to Improving High-Stake States Scores

Harnessing The Power of My PLN : Part I

This summer, I made the decision to submit a proposal to present at my state's educational technology conference, which is something I have never done before. In truth, I never felt as though I had anything to offer. However, after attending GAETC last year and sitting through a less than accurate session about wikis and blogs, I felt almost obligated to present. I have learned a great deal about many different Web 2.0 tools, so the question wasn't "Will I?" but "What will I present on?".

I have become a fan of wikis in the past year, Wikispaces in particular, so much so that our district purchased a Private Label license for Wikispaces. Even though I am huge proponent of the technology, there are others out there, such as Vicki Davis, who I feel are much more versed on using wikis than I am. Also, I am not in the classroom and I feel the ones who can best speak on the classroom uses of wikis are those who use it with their students. So, perhaps after another year of using wikis in my district with my teachers, I might take up that topic an co-present with a panel.

Then there is social bookmarking. I have used Del.icio.us (now simply Delicious) for years until Diigo came onto the scene. Could I speak on Diigo for an entire hour? Sure. Do I want to bore them to death? No.

Then I thought about Twitter and Plurk, the latter of which I discovered this summer during the NECC conference as Twitter took a complete nosedive due to the high volume of traffic. Both are microblogging platforms, however each platform is a bit different. Could I talk about both of these for an hour? Yes. Did I really want to? Again...no.

However, what all of these had in common for me, plus a few other Web 2.0 sites, was that I use all of them as a part of my PLN (Personal or Professional Learning Network). When I created my it, I had NO idea what I was doing or how to foster its development, much less how to get started. It all kind of happened at random and had there been a "guide", I might have been able to gain so much more from my PLN earlier than I did.

So, that settled it for me. I was going to do a presentation on Professional Learning Networks and how powerful of a resource they could be. With that resolved, I turned to my own PLN for assistance, which is what I'll talk about in Part II of Harnessing The Power of My PLN.

Don't fail me now!

F

It had to happen sooner or later. Right when I needed the one web-based tool that I absolutely use more than any other, it dies on me. I sent a tweet asking who killed del.icio.us, but apparently I was the only one affected by this lovely error 999.

Yahoo, if you're reading this, please, please fix it and soon!
FireShot capture #19 - 'Yahoo! - 999 Unable to process request at this time -- error 999' - del_icio_us_techintegrate
Originally uploaded by cobannon71

Making time for R and D in Education - Response to blog post

I'm still a newbie to blogging so please humor me, but I think it's so amazing how reading a blog post can really make you take a close look at your own professional practices. Take this post from Jeff Utecht's blog The Thinking Stick. The title of his post is "Where is the R and D in Education?", which in fact came about due to a few comments from another of his posts. After reading it and some of the responses he received, it really got me thinking.

One of the first points that stood out was that teachers these days are taking fewer and fewer risks in their classrooms when it comes to trying new instructional ideas. These days our teachers have had to narrow their focus due to NCLB and all of the accountability that comes with that. I believe it has stifled creativity. They don't feel comfortable taking chances because of how it might impact them in the long run on the standardized test.

Having taught French for eight years before becoming an Educational Technologist, I didn't realize how good I actually had it. I was the only French teacher at both high schools where I taught, which allowed me a great deal of freedom. I didn't have to concern myself with keeping up with another teacher or wrestling with whether or not I should add in that extra culture lesson because the "other" class wouldn't receive the same material. I was also free to try just about any kind of instructional approach that I felt like. Yes, I fell on my face many times, but I was also learning right along side my students about which approaches best engaged them and had the greatest impact on their learning.

I think everyone in the field of educational technology would agree that we have to make time to take risks and for R&D. Technology evolves so quickly that if we don't stay on top of it, we'll be the ones left behind and thus leaving our teachers behind as well.

Reading Jeff's post had me reflecting on my coursework for my M.Ed in Educational Technology. At the time, I was incredibly impressed with the content of the courses and I learned so much, which I was immediately able to apply on the job. But now if those same courses were offered (and I finished four years ago this December) they would be seriously outdated.

I'm still amazed by what I'm learning is out there just through reading blogs. Out of touch doesn't begin to describe how I've felt from time to time. It's not that I've had my blinders on, but the time to stay abreast of everything is elusive. I spend the majority of my time supporting server-based software, answering technical related emails, and more for our sixteen schools instead of working more closely with teachers.

However, I've vowed that I need to set aside time in the future to ensure that I stay current with what's going on. Maybe that will be my New Year's Resolution? One specific block of time each week just to "play". That's how I got into using technology in the first place - playing. I suppose I need to take a lesson from my own kids and just sit and enjoy to remind myself why and how I became so engrossed in using technology in my teaching in the first place. Sounds like a plan to me!

First Web 2.0 Presentation!

In September I gave my first presentation on Web 2.0 tools to teachers at one of the elementary schools in my district. I have to admit to being a bit nervous about the whole thing. Right now access to technology is difficult and I feared that once they knew I was there to speak about using it, that they would tune out. Wrong. The main focus centered on defining what Web 2.0 is and then introducing wikis and the use of Del.icio.us. The seemed attentive and several people asked questions, which is always good! The teacher I worked with to set up my presentation reported that several teachers had created wikis that night! Now to spread the word to the rest of the schools!