Chris and Jeff-
I wanted to introduce you to each other and give you a forum to exchange comments in order to avoid redundancy and working at cross purposes. Here's a place to share ideas or comments and I can chime in if needed.
Jeff will be coming to our school for 2 after-school PD sessions to discuss classroom pedagogy, subject specific apps, and assessments.. He will also come to our school for 8 half days to work with teachers inside their classrooms and provide planning and observation feedback.
I am hoping Chris will come back for more presentations to teachers and other tech support for us.
Chris, how does your school manage work flow from student to teacher/ teacher to student (assignments)?
Thanks.
Alex
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to working with you guys again.
Jeff, good to "meet" you.
As for work flow, we don't have much. Currently our iPad cart is only in the Science labs and the teachers use them primarily for research & investigation. They use some whiteboard apps for sketching out Rube Goldberg inventions (a big focus of the curriculum). Those sketches are saved in the Photos app. The cart never leaves the lab so it hasn't been an issue.
iPads that are in the classrooms are either the teacher device the teacher allows the students to use, or they are additional devices cloned to the teacher iTunes account. Either way, the work is essentially on the teacher's iPad, with unique student names on files, and there is no "work flow" to speak of.
Keep in mind we are an elementary school so the assignments & work/work product will be slightly different than in high school.
One thing a lot of teachers do is manage class blogs. The teacher poublishes the assignment as a blog post and students turn in the work by commenting (all done on the iPad via the Blogger app for publishing and Safari for commenting).
I am working on testing out some work flow ideas as we are about to get 15 new iPads to distribute to classrooms specifically for student use.
I see. We'll have to work something out for us for turning in work. Question- I can't seem to figure out how to add Jeff in as a reader. Where do I find that function?
ReplyDeleteWe can definitely figure out a solution for turning in work. First task would be to come up with one or two apps you want students to use, then we can figure out the best work flow.
DeleteI already have a few ideas I'd love to try out...
Add Jeff as a reader? You mean as an author? You shouldn't have to add him in order for him to read (unless the blog is private, which it isn't). The blog is public, he should have no trouble reading it.
I meant as an author. I just figured it out. I also just made it private to authors. Not sure I want other readers yet...
ReplyDeleteI added Jeff. I also learned how to add an attachment of a document (thank goodness for YouTube!) and posted my student contract draft.
Is there a way that i, as the blog administrator, can get notified when a new post or comment has been added by an author?
Alex / Chris
ReplyDeleteHave either of you heard of Gaggle (www.gaggle.net)? Their iPad app claims to solve the problem of shared iPads. Here's what they say:
Gaggle has released their new App for the Apple iPad, solving the dilemma of shared iPads in a mobile cart environment. With Gaggle’s iPad App each student sharing an iPad logs in to their own account allowing users to share the iPad while still keeping files, images, videos, and email private for each user.
The issue is that Gaggle is a paid service, I think about $4 per student per year. However, they also do offer some free acounts to schools on application and approval).
I've heard of it, don't have any experience with it.
ReplyDeleteI'll check it out. Cost would probably have to come from grant money since I doubt they are a DOE approved vendor (but if it looks good this could be an opportunity to get them to pursue DOE approval)
I'll look in to it