ipads

Goochland’s 1:1 Program Recognized

by John Hendron · Oct 22, 2015

I’m proud to announce that our 1:1 program with iPads has been recognized as an Apple Distinguished Program for 2015-2017. Roughly 300 schools and districts have been recognized around the world; beyond the U.S. in places as diverse as Singapore, Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, Malaysia, Thailand, and Brazil.

Goochland’s program began in 2013-14 as a pilot program in grades 3-5 at Goochland Elementary School before expanding to additional schools. This school year the program provides iPads for students to take home across the division in grades 4-7, in addition to the third grade at GES. Next year, the division plans on expanding the iPad program to grades 3-8. Creativity, personalization, individualization, and student passion are at the heart of Goochland’s approach to learning with individual technology. With iPad, teachers and students are working together to redefine learning, as it supports achieving the division’s mission of maximizing the potential of every learner.

The Apple Distinguished Program designation is reserved for programs that meet criteria for innovation, leadership, and educational excellence, and demonstrate a clear vision of exemplary learning environments.

This designation will place us in contact with other schools implementing 1:1 programs so that we may continue to grow and learn in this evolving process. It also opens up the opportunity to host other educators from across the region to visit Goochland and see our environment and work towards deeper learning.

At the start of November, we will publishing an interactive ebook in iBooks format that communicates our vision for the program and highlights the components that we believe make a strong 1:1 program. Stay tuned to our homepage for the publication of this book.

Thanks go to our teachers, school board, and technology staff for making the dream of a 1:1 possible!

For examples of other superlative programs, visit Apple’s iTunes portal for other iBooks-compatible resources that share stories from other schools and programs.

Focus on iPads: Screentime

by John Hendron · Oct 5, 2015

Recently, at one of our parent nights for our iPad 1:1 program, a mom approached me about my thoughts on screentime, and specifically, what did the research say about it? Were kids possibly being put at jeopardy with too much time in front of an iPad?

I have a couple thoughts on this, that I have shared with a number of parents. Some of these thoughts were also echoed by our teachers in the program.

Our iPad program does not prescribe students being actively in front of, and using, an iPad all day long. It’s hard to say how much time per day a student is looking and interacting with an iPad (or laptop for that matter), but within a 1:1 environment, that time might range from between 60 minutes to 3 hours per day.
All screentime is not the same. We have traditionally thought of screentime as time spent in front of a television. Later, video game systems were lumped into the concept. Now, it’s any time facing a backlit screen. We know that your brain is doing very different things between watching a television show (passive) to working out a puzzle game on an iPad (active). So, if we think if “screentime” as a way to kill off brain cells and waste time, video games, Google searches, and creative pursuits using software on a device are all actually brain-developing pursuits of time. That said, we do be believe there is a healthy balance and we hard to maintain that at school. It’s important for parents to help with that when the iPad goes home. Students still need active time away from all electronics, and hopefully interacting with peers and family face to face.

On the side of research, this study recently came out specifically looking at younger children from the American Academy of Pediatrics. They seem to echo my sentiment about choosing brain-active activities.

This 2008 report details how families used technology in the home, and more recently, this 2015 report details how teens are relying upon technology for romance. Both articles do not make a case whether or not technology as a whole is good or bad, but its presence in our lives is changing the way we spend our time.

There are two difficulties I see in proving or disproving whether or not technology use by younger students is appropriate or not. The first is that looking online will reveal a range of opinions. For instance, this blog post is in support of technology being a part of an early childhood education program. And research studies, like this dissertation, don’t exactly answer the question, and may be difficult for everyone to understand. The second issue is that because technology use is so ubiquitous today in many American households, it would be hard to conduct a true comparison study to look at child development with the absence of technology.

In the end, our 1:1 program is being developed to stand on a foundation with a few core beliefs. Among those is that the use of technology in a classroom should aim higher than simply replacing a the types of tasks that were undertaken by students without technology being present. Using the SAMR model, our aim is to provide, invent, and design new types of tasks that take advantage of ways of learning that would not have been possible without the technology being present. Another belief that does not parallel the first, is that technology can be used to make learning more efficient–both for the instructor and the student. We do not emphasize this, but tend to think of it in more student-centered ways. For instance, if assessment of student needs and strengths can be streamlined using technology, it can equip our teachers with more time and ability to individualize learning and based on a student’s needs.

Our final iPad Night for parents is tonight, Monday, October 5, 2015. We have loved the opportunity to engage with parents and love all the questions.

iPad Deployment SY 15-16

by John Hendron · Sep 10, 2015

We’re almost done with iPad deployment this year, and coming up, we have some parent nights for learning more about the iPad program.

Our technology team, headed by Peter Martin, has been responsible for the behind-the-scenes work in setting up and configuring iPads. I know Ginni Nichols and Mike Arrighi have been helpful leading up to handing out iPads to students. Our library media specialists have also been instrumental in making sure iPad deployments ran smoothly.

We continue to struggle with Apple ID requirements for students. I want parents to know we regret the process has to involve coming to our schools and spending time creating these accounts.

I am looking forward to where we are 3 weeks from now – when the real exciting things really start to take shape with deeper learning. As I watched tonight at home the new Apple announcements for the iPad Pro, the new iPhones, and the Apple Watch, I was less impressed by the hardware or Apple’s new software. What stood out for me was what people were doing with these mobile tools. We might not yet be at the level that doctors, engineers, artists, and photographers are yet on the professional level with these tools, but there is something to be said about the inspirational notion of a tool doing something well and effortlessly to help us achieve our goals. Please know our team of educators this year is dedicated towards making these tools work for kids to help them realize their full potential. Through apps? Yes, but more through creativity, innovation, and hard work.

Tricorder in Hand

by John Hendron · May 1, 2015

In high school and into college, a friend of mine piqued my interest in a sci-fi television series called Star Trek: the Next Generation, and like the original series, the characters living aboard the Enterprise used small, hand-held computers called tricorders. According to the Wikipedia, this device was focused on sensing, computing, and recording things.

More recently, I visited Mrs. Kass’ classroom at GMS and students were learning about the quilt designs used during the time of the Underground Railroad to communicate. A whole collection of designs were used, and some can be seen here. While originally unplanned, students were using their iPads to “record” these patterns as they came up on the projection via the Promethean board. Designs would be used later in an upcoming project.

Having the tool in hand, students could immediately utilize the camera to record these images. Earlier in the week, Mrs. Kass’ students from her science class were doing something similar, recording images of their environment. Students collected a number of fascinating things from around the school, in areas just beyond the tennis courts. Mrs. Leiderman led the expedition, and later shared with students her own foraging artifacts in the form of bugs and flowers that have gone to form the virtual pages of several ebooks.

This is interesting. A small, hand-held device can be used, almost just like in StarTrek, to sense, compute, and record things. These examples have been light on sensing (and perhaps, fitness trackers or the new Apple Watch might be better examples of how we will use technology to sense things), and the computing part happens too, but more often later in the classroom as students re-mix the recorded photographs in a way that helps them better understand what was captured.

I recently learned that some teachers were exploring research that articulated what can go wrong with an iPad deployment, as published in a research article about a school iPad deployment in another state. For anyone who might point out what could go wrong with behavior, perhaps even amplified bad behavior with a powerful sensor, computer, and recorder, the potential for deeper learning using such a device will likely always outweigh the negatives. I don’t really care so much that the iPads I see in our classrooms remind me of the future foretold in StarTrek, but sometimes you have to marvel at how that vision from just a few years ago has the potential to change the ways in which we get to learn and grow.

U-bi-qui-tous

by John Hendron · Jun 19, 2014

This week we had our second 1:1 computing training, ever. Sometimes this is called ubiquitous computing, meaning “the technology is everywhere.” For SY 2014-15, we are expanding our 1:1 program with iPads to Year 1 – with 5th and 6th grade covered across the division.

Teachers from all of our schools save for GHS attended for learning about our 1:1 program. I’d like to say it was all about using the iPads students will receive in the fall, but it was not! It was focused on deeper learning, engaging students through instructional decisions, and some theoretical concepts like SAMR, TPACK, and more.

I had a lot of fun watching Zoe Parrish, Bea Leiderman, and Joe Beasely work with our teachers in an effort to allay fears and prepare them for delivering the best learning opportunities possible to students next school year.

We also looked at Schoology as a learning management solution for use with the iPads and with laptops for next year. A few core apps, QR codes, and some experience with Google Drive rounded out the experience.

Our next and final summer training is in July: 28th, 30th, and 31st!

As I shared earlier in a tweet, this was the first training session I’ve ever participated in where teachers wanted a hug at the end. I was moved by the commitment of our teachers to inspire our students and to prepare them for their futures.

Early, Friday one morning…

by John Hendron · May 23, 2014

It’s not often we meet before school at 7 AM. But today was one of those days…

Dr. Geyer and I met with a number of teacher leaders from across the division about needs for digital content connected with the next phases of our one-to-one program. It was a great opportunity for dialog and I appreciate each teacher’s time this morning. We detailed our plans this week to distribute iPads to some of our 1:1 teachers at RES, BES, and GMS; we talked about the use of a learning management system to deliver content to students, and a commitment this summer to begin building a student-facing curriculum. Mr. Joe Beasley and Ms. Krystle Demas shared some of their experiences from GES this year with their iPad pilot in grade 4.

Writing for Others

by John Hendron · May 20, 2014

Writing, as a pursuit, can be a private pursuit. Writing on a blog is not private, it’s public, but the funny thing is, you may not always feel you have an audience. One person could read your blog post, or 100s, and you don’t really get a reaction unless you have comments turned on and people have something to respond to. Writers also have more established forms of public sharing, through books, magazines, the newspaper, etc. Finally, a lot of writing that takes place in schools is not public nor private, it’s what we might call semi-public. Your teacher and maybe a peer would read your work. Often that writing is to a certain specification, to ensure you are practicing the craft of writing towards improvement.

So, it’s not often that we get to write in school. Illustrate our writing. And, have a guaranteed audience that we know will read our work and give us immediate feedback. But 4th graders at Goochland Elementary recently had this opportunity through a collaborative effort of ITRT Zoe Parrish and classroom teacher Krystle Demas. Demas’ students had the opportunity in class to help Ms. Parrish define what an ebook was, then they were told they would be writing their own! And then they’d have the opportunity to share their ebooks on their iPads with preschool students next door.

The books were created with an app we installed as part of our 1:1 pilot called Book Creator, which allows students to create ePub “books” with multiple pages, text, images, and you can even insert video and audio. Students added sound files to each page so that preschool students could be “read to” when the students no longer were there. Ms. Parrish has since loaded the eBook collection on the iPads used at GES specialty center so that the preschool students can continue to enjoy the books created for them by Ms. Demas’ fourth grade students.

The books can be read on a variety of platforms. On the Macintosh, you can use iBooks in OS X Mavericks, and on iOS, you can use iBooks. Access all the books and materials used to deliver the lesson here. Kudos to Ms. Parrish and each and every one of Ms. Demas’ students for their problem solving and application of very creative skills! From what I hear, the preschool students enjoyed the experience immensely.