iPadAPalooza
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 4/2/2015Today I was inspired by Cathy Hink at iPadAPalooza. She share some of the creative things she is doing with iPads in a Kindergarten classroom and I was so impressed. The things she has little Kindergartener's creating using their iPads is amazing. I was able to present at iPadAPalooza, which I love doing, but I love hearing about great things other teachers are doing even more. I was busy downloading great apps as she was sharing them. What fun I am going to have over Spring Break. ; )It has been a rough year with the passing of my father, all the things coming at teachers this year, and a difficult class. Sometimes it just makes me want to climb into a hole, but with my iPad of course. Think of all the wonderful things I could with the iPad while in a nice quite location. Of course, how would I be able to inspire young minds and bring a world of iPad possibilities to those little smiling (chatty) faces? It is an honor to be able to work with students in a 1:1 ipad environment. I am so blessed.I have many apps to add to my app reviews from this year and I will try to get to those soon. I will also have to give a quick recap of year 2 with the iPads. Right now though, I have to go grade papers. More to come...Overwhelmed
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 5/20/2014Things have been overwhelming this last month. I can't seem to get on top of it, so I am quite behind on my iPad post. We also have settled into some of our iPad routines without having as many new experiences. I actually think that is a bit of a problem. I would like to see us do more product oriented activities and research instead of using it as a filler. I think we are just trying to hold all the crazy together. It is nice to know that kids are always learning when they are finished with something and have some extra time.My extra iPad is still not working. We talked with Casper Focus to see if they could figure out what was going on. I sent my iPad to Joe today so he could work on it some more. Nothing we do seems to help. I loaded the new iPad update and now none of the apps are in self service. Before they just said pending, but now they are completely gone. Today Joe had me plug the iPad into my computer to see if he could work on it, but my computer doesn't have administrative access to this iPad. We think that will be fixed next year when Joe wipes the iPads.We finally added some new sight word apps. The Smiley app works fine. We have an app by SpriteLabs that has voice recognition. The room has to be quiet for it to work and currently we have to use iboss to override the filter. This is going to be a problem if we have to log in for each child every time they want to use the app. The district is working on it. The last sight word app is one of our favorites. It is an app by Terasoft. When we loaded the app it froze. Today Joe had to go in and wipe something. (I wish I knew what). The kids will have to go in tomorrow and add the app again.We did use ten groups for double digit math in number pieces and it worked beautifully. It is so nice to circle single cubes and see the app glue them together into a ten stick so that it is easy to see how 10 cubes makes a ten stick.My own sons have been playing a game called “If” that he loves. Kids travel to a fantasy world, where they story to master their emotions in different social settings. The app icon has a dog’s face on it. I am hoping to get the free portion of it added to student iPads, but it may not happen soon enough. At first I didn’t quite get it, but now that my boys have moved further into the game I can hear the different social situations they are coming across and how they answer them. Interesting!Both classrooms had a great experience with the app Ping Pong again this week. The kids did their math problems and then submitted them. We could instantly see who was having trouble and help those students. We also were able to take a screen shot of the classes work as a whole to take notes for future instruction.I have a note about something we did with inferring on the iPad, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it was. : ) Ha! Yep, overwhelmed.Calendar finally works- sort of & other stuff
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 4/2/2014I finally figured out a way to make the calendar work on the iPad. It is not perfect, but it is a temporary solution. From the very beginning, when I wrote the grant, I have wanted to find a way for the students to be doing the calendar work that is on the interactive whiteboard on their iPad. That way they aren't just sitting there watching. Last year I had a huge paper packet that they had to save all hear and that used tons of paper. I figured out that if I take screenshots and put them into Notability, the kids could then write on them. They can't move objects around on the board like I do, but it is a start. I contacted Joe about how to get the note on the student iPads. I am not sure how he did it, but he sent it out to all the ipads and it appeared as an icon on their screens. When they clicked on it, it asked them if they wanted to open in in Notability and they just clicked yes. I had to make sure that after it was loaded into Notability that they continue to access it through Notability and not by clicking on the icon on their screen. I realized that I needed to have Joe send it out each month with the new set of calendars or do generic pages. Today we used March's and did the main calendar screen on the board and everything else on their iPads. I haven't sent Joe April yet. The kids were much more focused. Notability does have some quirks about scrolling through the pages, but we seemed to work through it ok.Reflector has not worked for me twice now. I just restarted my iPad and computer and then it worked. I have not idea what is causing the problem.
The other day we were studying weather and I wondered if we had any weather skills in out new science app. Sure enough our new science app Clever Bird had 4 weather type lessons and one for solids and liquids. The kids start by reading information or having it read to them. Then they have to answer multiple choice questions. We figured out the kids have to click the done button at the end of the lesson to move to new questions. Otherwise, it just keeps giving them the same questions over and over.Today I was doing a lesson on stretching out words when trying to spell them. I took some really long words and showed the kids how to stretch the words out and listen for each little sound, blends, or small words that are in the big word. After the first word I realized I wanted them to try it individually instead of whole group. I had them grab their iPads and open PingPong. I had them use the drawing took so that they didn't have to spend time finding the letters on the keyboard. They then submitted their words to me. It was so great to see all their words and the trends in their spelling. It showed me the rules they know, but not which words to apply the rules to. We then wrote it as a class and they could see their mistakes. At first I was frustrated with all the kids coming up when they logged in wrong or it froze. Our quick app was taking too long. I knew I would lose the entire class. We stopped and I told them to ask a neighbor or just restart the app if it froze. I explained that they needed to start troubleshooting on their own. It went perfectly once they started fixing things on their own and they were perfectly capable of doing it. I love moments like that! Spur of the moment, it worked well and I learned a lot about my students thinking. I was able to move in the direction my students needed. I would never been able to do it without the iPad.My extra iPad is the one that other students use when theirs runs out of battery. I also use it to try things at home when I need a student iPad. It is the only iPad that goes home with me. Now I am having problems with it. It says that the server has not seen it since March 10th. The iPad has been there a lot since March 10th, so I don't know what is up. I noticed there was trouble when new apps would not install. Some say pending, but nothing is happening. The icon isn't even showing up on the screen. I have mentioned it to Joe and he asked if I had the iPad on the correct network. It is, so we are still stumped. I also made sure airplane mode was turned off and it is. Hmmm....Ping Pong
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 3/17/2014Last week I tried the app Ping Pong. It is a clicker type response system. The students sign into our "classroom" with a given code. I then ask a verbal question and the students respond with short answer, true/false, multiple choice, or with a picture. I like it because the questions doesn't have to be prepped and entered beforehand. You can move with the moment. The student responses then show up on the teacher iPad. On the true/false and multiple choice answers the teacher can sort by responses and see how students answered. The short answers and picture can give you a quick general picture of responses or you can have it show the student's names. The first go round did not go super well. Kids would hit the response button before I even asked the question. It also took them a long time for them to write their short answers and some of the submitted responses did not show up.I think it was because I wasn't doing things right on my end. In Mrs. Griffin's class, the response entry page would't even show up. She had to restart the process and then it worked. One of the parents who was in the room and is a tech guru said it would help if the automatic spell check didn't come on. The kids all want to fix their spelling and it takes more time. The second day I used the app, it went much better, but I am still not sold. The app takes longer than just getting verbal responses, but the benefit is that I can see everyone's thoughts instead of 1 or 2. I was super excited when I found this app, so hopefully we will get smoother with it.Writing app-oops & email
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 3/6/2014I have not disappeared, things just got really crazy this last month. Tuesday we were writing summaries, so I thought we would try using the voice recognition in the app Think About. I walked the kids through all the steps. !. Open the app and choose "New category." 2. Take a picture of the Dr. Suess picture on the whiteboard. 3. Click in the text box and write your name and the title of the book. 4. Click the microphone and speak your summary into the microphone. 5. Check the spelling and see if the speech recognition made any mistakes that need to be fixed. When they were finished I was going to have them choose the "Save to camera roll" buttons so they could then airdrop the image of their writing to my iPad. Turns out the students were making a writing prompt page, that then opened up to an area to do the actual writing. I thought they were doing the actual writing. I told them to save it when it was just a "writing prompt', but that means there was no "save to camera roll button." So, I taught them how to take a screen shot by pushing the home button and power button at the same time. Then they had to go to their photo app, find the picture, click on it, click on the send button, then hit the airdrop button and wait for me to accept their image. That is a lot of steps for a first grader. Our reading block took over our entire writing block by the time all the summaries were sent to me. On Wednesday I was going to just use paper until I find an easier system, but they all wanted to try it again. I figured it would be good to do a few more times and see if they got more proficient at it. They did a little better, but a bigger problem appeared. Yesterday some students had trouble with the speech recognition understanding them, but today 2 students had a swear word appear on their screen. One boy had it happen twice and his neighbor announced to me what it said and then another little girl had the same word appear. What shocked me the most was that all three of them knew this word. Today I decided not to use the app and Joe is contacting the company for me.One way to solve all the steps involved in getting me their summaries is by having a class email set up. I hear we are close to making that happen, but it hasn't yet. There are quite a few apps that use email. A class email would be set so that the students only have access to emailing me and not anyone else.Poor Pete was at our school yesterday to help figure out what is wrong with our mobile lab, but Chrissy and I literally hunted him down. Chrissy is having problems trying to update her iPads. They are just frozen and some apps say "waiting", but aren't doing anything. We also were wondering if he knew whether our new apps were coming. We spent 3 hours over vacation trying to get them picked out and sent in. I hope they come soon. : ) I do want to start incorporating more apps that have the kids creating things. That means I have to figure out how to get their creations to me, so I can look at them without having to get our each of their apps.Lack of Focus
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 2/9/2014The last few weeks have been a bit crazy. I can't even remember some of the iPad issues and discoveries we have had over the last few weeks. We have been so busy with holidays, non-student days, report cards and conferences that the iPads have been put on the back burner. We still use them during the day, but some of the work I would like to be doing have not happened. My dad had a negative cancer scan last Friday after we thought things were getting better, which makes the motivation lower than I like. I knew we were working on getting a class email set up, transferring files with an app, and adding some new apps. I am now confused about which apps we ordered, whether I asked Joe to put the transfer app on, and which new money apps I need Joe to add. I need to go back through and re-look at apps and emails to get thing back on track. There are also things I wanted to do when I wrote the grant, that have not worked smoothly. I am still working on the app for students to check out their books. They now have the app, but I still have most of the books to enter. After having an intern do it for a week and not get very far, I am overwhelmed by the thought of getting the rest done. I need to train a parent. I wonder if I could set up a way for the students to help out with the process. I don't want to have them do it incorrectly and then have to redo it with an even greater mess. I think we will take things slow this week and I will spend part of my vacation getting reorganized and reenergized. If you are about to embark on an iPad endeavor, just know that there are times when you just need to take a step back, take a break, and then jump back in. This week the kids need to install a few more new apps and we need to reorganize their iPads. We tried to make folders, but some of the kids put things in the wrong folders. I need an adult to just check them all and reorganize them with the new apps. I wish there was a way for Joe to set up an image like you do on a computer where you tell the iPad how to organize the iPad pages and folders. I also want to try the new app PingPong this week. I ask a verbal question (not one that needs to be entered into the iPad) and the kids respond on their iPads with a true/false, multiple choice, short answer, or picture. The teacher then gets a circle graph, bar graph or compilation of responses on their iPad. There is no set up for this app and you can use it on the fly as a question comes to mind. I can't wait to use it. The other thing I need to is get all the apps on my iPad evaluated, but I think I have around 164 apps and I have only posted about 60 of the evaluations on the website. I think Chrissy is feeling much like I am right now. It is not only the iPad that has felt messy right now. Usually January is when we hit academics really hard and the kids make so much growth. WIth the crazy new semester schedule, everything feels off. I suppose the Super Bowl and Seahawks parade also created a lack of focus, but some things in life are just more important. : )Assessment Time
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 1/25/2014We are looking at all our assessments right now. We are having the data coordinator from the district send us previous years of test results for first grade at East Ridge. Our principal said he would sit down with us and see if there are and trends or clear indications that we may be having greater success with the iPads. Realistically, we can't come to real conclusions because there are so many variables, but it will be interesting to see if anything really stands out. I already looked at the number of students who have completed all of the Dolch sight words as compared to last year. It was exciting to see that in January I have 15 students still working on sight words and in APRIL of last year I had 15 students still working on sight words. If we keep at this pace I am hoping that I will have a lot less kids doing sight words in April. I have not spent as much time on sight words this year, so I really feel like the sight word app has been a large contributor to this. After report cards are over I will spend some time looking at the students IRR scores. It is a lot easier to see growth in reading because we can monitor their spelling and reading levels. Math is a little more difficult because math is so conceptual and you can't see a one to one correlation as easily.Things that work!
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 1/19/2014We read The Little Red Elf on the blio app. It worked beautifully and it was especially nice to be able to zoom in on the small details of the pages. The kids loved the book and looking at the pictures. Chrissy will be getting a splitter to make all her audio work, but I don't think she has it yet. It does seem like the kids are progressing more quickly in their reading and sight words. I will have to check actually data, but right now I feel good about it.On Friday we had a few free minutes so I had the kids write something in the "Write About" app. I then had them take a picture of their page, go to their camera roll and airdrop it to me. I found out that the kids can not all try to airdrop to me at the same time. IT gets too confusing. It was also difficult for the kids to tell if their picture sent and so they would hit the button again and it would cancel the send. My reflector kept turning on and off as we were airdropping. The did find out that it says "sent" below my airdrop picture and will say "failed" if it didn't work. It was much easier when I told a specific kid to airdrop theirs to me. It was a little chaotic, but I would have a kid who was finished sending me their image help a child who could not figure out how to do it. I also learned to tell the kids that they can only put a checkmark on one photo when they airdrop it to me. I don't know how they did it, but some of them were sending me their entire album.At home on Saturday I accidentally figured out that I can turn reflector on and then just take a screenshot. It never occurred to me before that I could so it that way. I was trying to get some picture from my iPad that I needed to put into directions for how to use their iPad to do their Words Their Way sort.I spent hours last night analyzing apps and putting them on the website. It would have gone much quicker if my country internet wouldn't have kept shutting down. I did find a new app to use for polling students. I will talk more about it when we try it. I need to get the app on the student iPads.Poor Joe keeps getting more app request from me. Every time I think we are close to being done getting apps, I think of something else that would be useful. Chrissy and I are also going to test some new sight word apps, since our other one stopped working.It has been a bit overwhelming lately as our school was piloting the new district website. I have been giving tons of extra trainings and it has kept me very busy. With all the issues we have been having with the iPads these last two week, I was getting a bit drained. After looking at some new apps and spending some time figuring out routines for implementing them, I feel refreshed. I am excited for next week!Biggest complaint: NOT ENOUGH TIME! There are so many changes in education right now. I can't seem to keep on top of it right now. I did have to get this blog written today during the Bronco vs Patriots game, which is currently 19 - 3. There is no way I would be able to stay focused during the Seahawks game today. Go Hawks!!Meeting with Pete- solutions
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 1/13/2014Today Pete came to help Chrissy and I work through some problems. He figured out how to fix Chrissy's apple tv and will be sending an audio cord with a splitter so the sounds will go through the audio system.We are going to try uninstalling the sight word program and then reinstalling it tomorrow. We have to wait for it to show back up in self serve.Joe found us an called Printer Pro so we can print things off the iPads. It is quite a few steps for some of the apps, so we will see if it will work. I did get it to print out of Notability.I think I found a way to transfer photos and videos through a photo transfer app. I sent it to Joe and Pete to see if that would be a solution for my getting photos and videos off student iPads. We are also looking into using dropbox or a class email. There are legal requirements that we are looking into. I guess students can't have their own accounts under a certain age.We are having a great time with the app Endless ABC. It has vocabulary words that use an animation to show the definition. Before you see the clip you get to move the letters to spell the word. As you move the letters they make the letter sound. Each week we are picking a different word. We watch the app and then fill in our own book with a definition, sentence, and picture. We rewatch the app through out the week. The kids LOVE it!Last night I spent over an hour trying to get an ebook to work on my computer and then on my iPad. I tried Axis360, Overdrive, and Blio. i tried all of them and could not get them to work. Finally today Pete figured out that I could use Blio by turning the iBoss filter on first. It finally worked and now I can share the books with my students this week. Yeah!Today Chrissy and I both used Class Dojo as a behavior management tool. It worked really well. I have had it for a few years, but it was so much easier to use with the iPad.Update to iOS7 glitches?
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 1/9/2014It has been an interesting few days with out iPads. Chrissy and I are both having all kinds of snafus. Students thought they were losing apps, but it turns out they didn't know that when you put apps in a folder, you might have more than one page. Today I taught them how to swipe to a new page within a folder. We also learned how to close an app in iOS7 when it freezes. We had to double-click, and then swipe the screenshot up. The kids actually enjoy doing this and ask if they can do it at the end of the day. Number Pieces isn't working well this week. When you tap out sticks and one blocks the sometimes freeze and you can't move them around the screen. If you drag them out they work fine.Chrissy is having problems with both her apple tv and reflector app. Apple tv won't play sound and reflector keeps closing on Chrissy every time a student reflects along side hers. Hers then won't come back up to full screen. She turns it off and it won't turn back on.Our sight word app doesn't work anymore. It stays in portrait view and won't show the checkmark that shows if a child knows a word or not.I have spent the evening looking at new sight word apps. It's too bad because it was a really great app.Update class set to iOS7
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 12/20/2013Joe or Pete contacted me about updating the student iPads to iOS7. They were going to come on Friday, but I told them not to bother because we were expecting snow. They decided to come that day (Thursday) instead. Joe and Pete were there for about an hour updating the machines. Joe would have to explain more that process, because I have no idea how he did it. While they were working on the iPads, the kids were doing a writing assignment. I always play piano music while the kids write. Joe is also a pianist and has his own CD. I like to play his music, but now that Pandora is blocked, I can't. I will have to buy his album or I have him bring his piano next time so he can play while the iPads get updated. : ) The kids also had a shake break in the middle of it and immediately got back to their writing. I think I should always have "the tech guys" in my room. It keeps the kids way more settled. I showed Joe and Pete the Aurasma app with my Christmas letter. They thought it was pretty cool. : )The iPads worked great after they were finished. No problems with the update so far.Today we had a 2 hour delay because of the snow, so we didn't get the iPads out until later in the day. Parents and siblings came for a lunch feast as a culminating activity for our Holiday's Around the World unit. Kids got out their iPads after they ate and were able so show their families some of the apps they use.At the end of the day we had an assembly and the music teacher asked me to film the assembly with the iPads. She figured the transfer of information would be easier because we have had so many issues downloading videos from camcorders. I took 3 iPads because I wasn't sure how long it would record. I ended up using only one iPad. It was really awkward though. It was difficult to hold up the entire time, it doesn't zoom and it doesn't work as well in low light. It seemed a lot less inconspicuous than a camcorder. I didn't feel like I could just move around as well to get video footage. At least it will be easier to download, right? Nope, it turns out when I hook a student computer up to my computer, it won't let me access the data on the iPad. It gives me a message that the iPad is controlled by a different computer. I can see the iPad listed in iPhoto, it just won't show what is on the iPad. Here is Joe's response.This "feature" is caused by the old version of Configurator, which I used when I originally set up these iPads back in August/September. At the time the tool would only allow the iPads to connect to one "master" computer. The current version allows for connections to multiple computers, so Chrissy's iPads will be able to connect to any computer. Unfortunately, this feature can't be changed unless I wipe and restore the iPads :(One possible workaround would be to set up a Dropbox account and use the Camera Roll backup feature of the Dropbox app. There a few ways we can make this happen. I'll talk it over with Peter and we'll be in touch.I wonder how hard it is to wipe and restore the iPads, because if I have these iPads for many years, it will be a pain to get student projects and information off them. If dropbox is simple, then that will work. The music teacher is going to be disappointed. I hope dropbox will work soon as she wants to show her students the video of them performing so they can assess themselves.Aurasma
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 12/13/2013All week long I have been harassing our tech department, my mother (who is currently in Texas), and Chrissy to see if they can get Aurasma to work. Aurasma is an augmented reality app. I used my Christmas letter as a trial for this app. I wrote my Christmas letter and then chose some of the pictures in the letter to become triggers. With the Aurasma app open, I point my iPad at my Christmas letter and it it makes a video linked to the trigger play. For example. when you point the iPad at the picture of my boys playing a recorder, it opens a video of my oldest son actually playing the recorder. This way you don't have to send large video files.It works beautifully on my iPad and even on my phone. When I tried to have other people view it on their device it wouldn't work. I went online and read a lot about it. I finally figure out the best way to do it is make a channel in aurasma. I made the channel public and it still wouldn't work. Then after days of this, I noticed a "share" button. I called my Mom in Texas and had her and my uncle try it. He was a bit confused as to how this was all going to work and even which way to face the iPad. For a man who has worked in the computer industry for 40 years, it was quite humorous. I emailed them the link, he opened the link on his iPad and it automatically opened Aurasma and said it was connecting to the Erickson channel. My move loved it. My uncle was still confused as to why I wouldn't just send the file. So, I had to explain, which will also explain why I am so excited about this app.First of all you don't have to try and send giant video files over the internet. Then, imagine parents walking in to the school for an open house. On each classroom door is a picture of the teacher or an icon of their choosing. When the parent scans the image a video of a student or the teacher comes on and tells the parent a little about the classroom. During our art walk in May, parents can scan the art and a short video explaining the art work or artist is given. you could send home homework and the page is the trigger. A video then comes on to explain how to complete the homework. Students could do a quick video recap of their day and the parents just scan a piece of paper and the video plays. I can't even begin to imagine all the possibilities, but I am excited. I showed my principal earlier this week and he was trying to look under my iPad to see how the video was playing. I showed three parents today and they were all floored. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY... when it works. : )New Apps
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 12/13/2013Chrissy and I got together to figure out what new apps we want to get for the kids. One thing with having iPads is that eventually kids get tired of the apps. Most of the kids have all the stars they can for letter school and so they are done with it. They like the activities that have levels. many of them are still loving Math King Jr. and are constantly talking about what level they are on. It has been tricky for those who can't figure out some of the concepts. It really is a complicated app (complicated in a good way). It presents math in so many different ways and even though some of the levels have multiplication and division, it is in a way that they don't have to know the facts, they can figure the answer out with the pictures.Back to Chrissy and I getting more apps. We chose 7 new apps for the kids that they now have and one more that we will hopefully get soon.1st Grade Math: Splash Math, Sock Puppets, Complete Math Word Problems, Chicktionary, Endless ABC, Write About This, Operation Code Squad Math, & Addimals. Soon you will be able to read our evaluation of them in our iPad evaluation section. That is as soon as I find time to add them. : ) Joe sent us an email that the apps had been added and we just needed to go to self service. Chrissy's worked, but mine did not show up. Joe and I went back and forth on email, but it still wouldn't work. He finally called and the apps showed up in self service. I am not sure what he did, but it worked.Today I had the kids play Operation Code Squad Math. Four kids sit around one iPad and work together to complete a mission by answering math problems. It has a very mission impossible look and feel. They loved it. My entire family played it when I got home, even my 4 year old could play. It does addition, subtraction, mixed addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, & mixed multiplication and division.Updating to iOS7
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 12/13/2013Joe sent out an email to see if anyone would want to pilot moving to iOS7 on the iPads. Of course I said, "Me, me,me." Joe sent me the information and I glanced at it, but figured I would look at it when I got home. Well, that was a mistake. I was suppose to back up my iPad at school. Then I had to update it at home because the district filters currently have the option blocked until they get done testing the update. So, I went to school early and backed up my iPad. I then found a teacher at school who lives nearby the school. The teacher game me access to their house and I, and my two boys, rushed over there. It took longer than I planned, but it worked. When I went to leave the house the lock had a blinking light and I was afraid I would set off an alarm. I was locked in the house. : ) I called the school and asked for them to transfer me to the teacher. They transferred me to Paul instead. When I started asking how to get out of the house Paul got really confused and couldn't figure out why I was in his house. He told me later he thought maybe the boys and I had gone over to see his dog. I had no idea he had a dog or even where he lives. I finally figured out it was Paul, he got the teacher and the boys and I got out. Too funny! We made it back to school with 10 minutes to spare. I called Joe and he finished what he needed to do and the update was a success!BER iPad Training
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 12/8/2013Chrissy and I went to an iPad class last Thursday. We had to drive all the way to Renton, but it was worth it. We came back with more ideas than we can even process. There were so many apps that have amazing capabilities, but where do we being. There were a few that just seemed like a lot of fluff and a waste of time, but most were useful. I liked the fact that many of the apps had students creating instead of just intaking information. We right away asked to have Chicktionary to go with our phonics and words their way program. We wanted to add Word Warp, but it had a scary skull in the corner of the homepage that we didn't think was appropriate for first graders. We also loved Code Squad. Four students use one iPad at a time. They solve problems and try to beat the timer. It has mission impossible type music and the graphics match the music. It is a great motivator for students to have fact fluency. I am excited about a new possibility for a browser that shows flash. We tried Puffin, but you loose your filtering options with once the kids are connected to the web. Photon looks like it has an education piece that already does some filtering. Joe is going to look into it. There are so many great flash apps out there that we want to use. especially www.starfall.com.Some of the writing apps I already have on my iPad and just need to get them on the student iPads. Write About This is my favorite. I have the free version and that seems to be enough. I also learned that you can get some free children's books in iBookshelf. Then, you can push the one book out to multiple iPads and it will read a word, sentence or entire book to the students if they need support. I need to check with Joe and see if he thinks this will work for us. Another favorite app for vocabulary was Endless ABC. Right now Chrissy and I think we only need it on our iPads and then we can project it. The spelling feature and animation of the vocabulary word is fabulous.I also LOVED the apps that had amazing photographs to use, such as Fotopedia and Nature Tap, which also had audio files. National Geographic World Atlas and Barefoot Atlas were great. Barefoot Atlas was is made for young learners. The National Geo could be used with another app called Tiny Tap. This app was amazing because you can make your own little quizzes. The kids then tap on the part of a photo that answers the question. Kids could even use it to make their own quizzes for other students.I really wanted the app Sphere that gives you panoramic views of locations. I needed this now as we are doing Holidays Around the World, but you have to have iOS7. Sad, sad, sad. Hopefully I will get iOS7 soon as I need it for Evernote.Audio Boo was a great audio app for students to use when making a recording. I think this would be great for students to record their voice and work on fluency or send information to their parents. We realized we really need a class email account and the ability to print with some of these apps.Another favorite app was Bill Atkinson Photo Card App. You can make your own postcard. It is a great writing tool that could be used in many ways.I could go on forever, but I will wait until I try some of these apps out.Board and password issue
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 12/4/2013The school board and some other administrators came to our school on Tuesday and 4 of them came into my for about 10 minutes. I wanted to give them a little peak into how we use the iPads. I had my advanced readers scan a QR code on the board. It took them to IXL and they did 20 questions of grammar work. My lowest readers did some phonics work with Howie the Hungry Monster and Cimo Spelling. I put a timer on for 6 minutes. When the timer went off the kids put their iPads in their book box and began reading. Other kids went straight to their reading. I had the "Watch Dog" dad assessing kids on their sight words using the iPad. I then was able to meet with a small group for guided reading. It went really well and the members who came told my principal later how much they liked it. I need to do my reading lessons like this all the time. It was very successful and the students were engaged and learning because they had immediate feedback. I think I will let all students use their iPads during this time to study their sight words. Having a timer for them to know when to move to their book boxes was great
Later in the day we did work in Number Basics with ten sticks and ones. I put all the kids into the app with casper focus. I don't use it very often because it messes up my ability to use reflector, but I knew I wouldn't need it and the kids were a little squirrley and I thought they might need it. When we were all done, I had 3 kids whose iPads would not come out of casper focus. I had to put them into another focus and then take the focus off. I had one iPad that had a password keyboard come up. I could not even shut it down because it kept asking for a password. I tried putting it on another focus and taking it off, but it didn't work. I emailed Joe and he kept emailing me back, "try it now." I kept trying, but it didn't work. He finally just called and then tried focusing it on a different app again. This time it work and the password box disappeared. Strange. The kids favorite app is still Math King Jr. They have moved on from Letter School and some even ask if they have to do it when we do handwriting. I think they did it so much in the beginning, that they are done. That is ok though because we are almost done with letter formation and it was a favorite app for a long time.Kids Teach Me So Much
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 11/26/2013One of the kids called me over because his keyboard had split in half and moved to the sides of the iPad. I had never seen this before. Another kid next to him said he knew what to do. Then he seemed a little unsure, but pinched it back together. Sure enough, he fixed it and the keyboard went back to full size. Amazing!In the middle of the day I remembered that I wanted to see if Socrative was added to the student iPads. Socrative is an real time quiz app. I knew Chrissy had them, but I didn't remember seeing them in Self Service on my kids iPads. I tried to check, but it would not connect to the server. I emailed Joe and he quickly called me. He looked into it and sure enough the server was down. He emailed me later and said Socrative was now added to Self Service. I had the students download it and then thought, we should just try it real quick. The teacher side of Socrative had a practice quiz. I had never used it before, but we went for it. The kids side asked for a classroom number. I didn't know what that was, but quickly saw a number on my iPad and had the kids enter it. Then it tells the student to enter their name as the first question. All the names began popping up on the screen since I had reflector on. They then had a few questions that were more high school level, but the kids had fun with it. They also liked watching the graph on the board change as they submitted their answer. My favorite was that most of the kids said Socrates was a rapper. When it was all done I was able to send myself a report of their scores.I went home and created a lunch sign in system in Socrative. I will teach the kids after Thanksgiving how to use it and we will see how it goes. We didn't use the ipads much today as we are finishing up so many projects before vacation.Chrissy's Management, Math & Principal Visit
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 11/25/2013With the lingering hands on the iPad the other day, I wanted to come up with a quick saying which I could use when I wanted everyone to stop working and to pay attention. It ended up working really well so I thought I would pass it along.
Teacher says, "Hands-off in 3,2,1."
Then in unison the kids clap once and say, "Now!"
I would then have them continue to have their hands together while I talked or had another student explain their work. We did this for the last three school days and especially during the math section.Math Routine
We have replaced our white board practice time in math with the iPad. This week we used Number Pieces Basic. For the most part we were using the draw tools. In math, we have been working on addition and subtraction problem stories. In some cases the students need to find the total. In other cases one of the partners are missing.
After the mini-lesson, I had the kids take out their iPads. I also had them stay at their desk this time for easy access to an elbow partner. I displayed and read a word problem. I would then give the "Hands-off signal". The students would then share out with their elbow partner. During this time I monitored the room to see a few examples that I would like to have the children explain during their "math talk". After ringing a bell I have one to three children talk about how they solved their work. We are using Apple TV so it is quite easy for the children to turn on their mirroring. The next student automatically bumps the current student off so their is no need to turn off the mirroring on the original screen.
On Thursday I had my principal down to participate and watch. The children were so eager to coach him on the process. It was amazing to see what they can do with the iPads in their hands for a little over a week (at that point).
Cart, QR Codes, Head Phones, & Retriever Book Organizer
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 11/22/2013The other day I had the kids download 5 apps through self service. We had a big talk about the fact that they are not allowed to go into self service without my permission. Today I had a girl missing her sight word app and she came to me and said, maybe it is in self-service as she is opening it. "Look, there it is." So we downloaded it and she was good to go again.
I had one iPad that would not download anything. It just got stuck. We had to try it later and then it worked. Another student had one app that wasn't there later, so we had to download it again.
Siri comes on every once in a while when kids are flipping their iPad over or when they are putting it away.
Joe and Pete were here the other day. I was talking to Joe about the sight word app not working still and he said that the last update was in 2011, which means they will not be doing any more updates or even supporting the app. This is a great thing to look at when purchasing new apps. Is the maker still adding updates?
I realized the other day that I had a refund from some bookcases I ordered that then broke. I am going to use the money to get new headphones that don't have long cords and fit over the entire ear and where the cushion doesn't pop off all the time. Mr. Bodnar is going to get headphones for Chrissy's class. There is just no way to have a class set of iPads and not have good headphones. They are a must!
My cart, it is a beautiful sight!You can see my current headphones on top of the cart. These are 2 that need some help. : ) I am still training the kids on how to wind up the cord and unwind the cord properly so that it does not tangle. The pads on the headphones also keep coming off, so they put them on the cart to be fixed. The black container holds the pads and the camera covers. You are suppose to be able to swivel the camera cover, but they often don't get pressed all the way in and pop off when we are putting the iPads away or getting them back out. Joe said the kids could just leave them off, so I have just been keeping them when they pop off. You can see the stylus go in a container. We bought really cheap ones, which is good because we have had a few fall apart. I figured the expensive ones wouldn't last much longer in a classroom, especially with my stylus eater. Instead of having to replace stylus that are $13.00, I can just pay $2.50. Not all the kids even use a stylus, so it works out fine. I think we have 20 of the 25 left. I do want to order some more soon. I had one parent donate some multi colored ones, but then the kids will fight over the color. A single color is best.
My favorite part of my cart is the yellow stickers. It is the small things in life that matter. The cart is numbered, but it is numbered above the iPads and I could never quite tell which spot the number belonged to, so I added stickers.
Last week I had a great moment when I was in the middle of a math lesson. The kids were working and I wanted them to spend some more time on story problems, but make it more interactive. I hoped on the internet and found some story problems in the IXL website. Within 5 minutes I had made 6 QR codes to take them to different levels of story problems and had pasted them into a flipchart. As I tested it I realized the kids would have to stand in front of each other while they scanned the code. I went back and pulled each QR code to its own page and blew it up. The kids could scan the QR code from their desk. I showed them what to do and they were off running. Two downfalls- you can click on a speaker icon to read the story problem to you and that would not work. This made it very difficult for my struggling readers. Then the kids were only allowed to do 20 story problems before it kicked them off for not having a membership. I felt twenty problems was plenty. I think you get 20 a day. IXL also has an app now, so maybe we will just get the app. The experiment was super quick and the for the most part worked smoothly.
Chrissy had an issue with casper focus the other day. When she removed an app focus, it would not go off of 3 or 4 of the iPads. We had to change the focus to another app and then remove the focus. That worked.
A couple of features I would like to use is the print function and email. There is a great spelling app and the kids can then print out spelling homework, but I have no idea how to make that happen. There have also been numerous times when I have wanted to email from a student iPad. I can't for the life of me remember an instance, but I will write it down in the future. I use the function on my iPad all the time. I do know that the kids can send their word sort homework to their parents via email. Joe said we could set up a class email so that the students could only email to the class email. I could then forward it to their parents. They could also email me their sight word review they have been doing with the Watch Dog dad instead of me having to call kids over and try to quickly write down the words they are still working on.
On Sunday Chrissy and I are going to meet and go over apps because there just isn't any other time to do it. The days are full and we stay too late as it is. There is no Seahawks game, so we can make it work.
We really thought it would be good to meet with Joe and Pete sometime and brainstorm different apps or solutions to ideas we are working on. We decided we would have time on March 2nd at 4AM.
This week I have had an intern all week. She has spent the entire week trying to put my leveled library into "Retriever". It is a check out system, so the kids can use their iPads to check out books. It took her all week to enter A - E. There are tons of those that I will need to create barcodes for, but I need to be able to print from the iPad to do it. Hmmm… I will need to train a parent to finish level F - N. It might take all year. : ( I also home my intern is doing it correctly. She is as sharp as a tack, but people have different ways of doing things. I feel super blessed that she has started the process though because she has put in an incredible amount of hours on it.
I just found out the iTech actually reads this blog. Ignore the grammar errors and THANK YOU for this fabulous grant. Greatest concern-How will I ever teach again without iPads when these die or are no longer serviced?Chrissy has iPads! New apps, issues, Watch Dogs
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 11/13/201311/13
Chrissy got her new iPads yesterday and they are running OS 7. I like the new look. Joe is going to set something up, so that reflecting the ipad onto the whiteboard takes less steps with apple tv. They tried to put an apple tv in my room, but the wall port is too old. They discussed updating it, but I haven’t heard back. I am jealous, but in a super happy for Chrissy way. : ) There is a problem getting to airplay with the cases we have using OS7. You can’t use the home button and the case gets in the way of swiping up. It also won’t allow the reflector app to show up in Number Basics, which is the app I use for math everyday and the only app the kids use reflector on at this point.
We added some new apps this week and the kids are really enjoying them. They especially like Math King Jr. The goal is for the kids to get from being a farmer to being a king. As they move up levels in math, they move up in status. It has tons of levels and the questions are done in many formats with a quick answer. There is not a lot of celebration for correct answers, so the game moves quickly. I love that in one problem it will show dice and you have to pick the equation shown with the dice. In another problem it will show fruit and in another problem it will show fingers. The kids have to look at math in lots of different ways.
We are still having some issues with sound and that seems to be my number one problem. One headset actually broke. The sight word app is just finicky, but most of the time the kids just don’t have the sound turned on or up. There are 4 ways to troubleshoot, so it is complicated for the kids. There is the mute switch, the volume buttons, the volume on the headphones and that little issue of plugging the headphones in all the way. I would recommend getting headphones that do not have a volume controller on the cord. I also wish the headphones had shorter cords, although it has saved a couple of incidents when a kid has got up and walked away with the headphones on. Because it was a long cord, there was time to yell, “STOP!” : )
We have “Watch Dogs” at our school. (Dad’s who spend a day helping all over campus.) When the watch dog is in my room I have them test the kids on their iPads. They check off which sight words the kids know, then take a screenshot of the kids score and word list that shows which words the kids got correct or incorrect. I then look at the list to know which words they still need to work on. The Dad’s are loving it and it seems to be a nice PR piece. They are all amazed that the kids each have their own iPad.
Chrissy used her iPads whole group for Letterschool and then used Math King Jr. in a rotation she was doing. I think both went very well. She had one iPad that Letterschool did not get loaded on for some reason and it the app was not in Self Serve.
Great News! iPads for Chrissy
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 11/4/2013
11/4
Math was great today. I had the students write equations in Number Pieces. Once I had checked it, I had them flip their iPads over. I just walked around the table groups and said, “flip.” It was super quick and then I could see the kids that I still needed to check or who needed support.
Nathan Bruno used to be one of our tech coordinators and he has now moved on to creating apps. He was the one who encouraged me to apply for a class set of iPads when I brought the idea up to him. He has created an app that I have been using this week for running records. It has been on two different lists for top apps. One was the Scholastic list of top 30 apps for teachers. His company name is VonBruno and the app is called Running Record Calculator. I use it to record students during their running record and then calculate their fluency, accuracy, and self-corrections. You can also flag different parts of their recording to go back to later.
I put in an order for quite a few new apps, so hopefully that will help differentiate some of the learning.
Well, I have GREAT news! A couple weeks ago my principal said he had some funding to get a couple of iPads for my teaching partner Chrissy. When I contacted technology about how we could make that happen, they told me to hold off because they have something else in the works for Chrissy. Chrissy and I were absolutely giddy after we read the email. It was about a week and a half before I was able to find out what they had planned. They said they possibly had another class set of iPads for Chrissy. Chrissy just got the email today that her set will be here next Tuesday. We are over the moon with excitement. We already spent time after school getting her apps ordered. I am thrilled to work as team in creating lesson plans that integrate iPads.Multiple Issues & Success
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/24/2013
I sent out Joe an email about my sight word app issue. He wanted more info, so I am pasting the email communication here instead of rewriting it all.
When a student is in the "read" section of the app the sound will sometimes stop. We do have headphones, but I checked the connection, volume on the iPad, and volume on the headphones. Everything was correct, but still no sound. It happened to at least 8 of them he fist day. To get the sound back on I switched to the "spell" component on the app and then back to the "read" component. These are the 2 different sections the kids can work in on the app.
When the kids switch back the sound comes on.
The other problem is that when kids are in the spell function, they loose sound and the characters won't stop dancing. When a student spells the words correctly the little letters dance. Even when you go to the next word, the word is already on the screen and won't stop moving. One student didn't have dancing letters, but the word was already on the screen so he didn't get a chance to try and spell it. Every word was that way. That was the iPad I deleted the app and then couldn't reinstall it.
Let me know if you need more details or something is still unclear.
His response:
Thanks Tamra,
I just sent the developer a message. Hopefully they'll have a fix for it.
Also, try re-downloading that app again on the iPad that you deleted it from. It should be in Self Service now. What happens is if the iPad has the app installed, it won't show up in Self Service. If the app is deleted from the iPad, the server still thinks that the app is on there until the iPad checks in to the server again (iPads check in once a day, or if a command has been initiated from the server). So if you delete an app and want to reinstall it, you'll likely have to wait until the next day to reinstall it (or call me and I can force the iPad to check in with the server).
I checked the reinstall for the one student app I deleted and it loaded perfectly. He has had no issues with it.
I am having an issue with kids keeping the cords on the headphones wound up and the cushion part of the headphones keep popping off. I had a stack of about 5 on my desk to fix after school.
The great things that happened today were using Number Basics for math again. It really is a great tool. I am still working on my management techniques, but most of the kids are doing a great job. The sight word practice goes well when the sound doesn't break. I started testing kids again and it seems to be working. I love that they can practice their sight words daily instead of once a week with a parent. They still LOVE the handwriting app. I had a kid run up to me yesterday and say, "Mrs. Erickson I got a star!" That means he had completed all the letters and was going to do a second set. I showed my brother-in-law that app today and he really liked it.
We also did meteor math again. One kid hated the app. Every time I have them open it he says he doesn't like it. I finally asked him why he didn't like it and he said it was too hard. I showed him how to play it again and he walked off as happy as can be. I don't think he knew what he was suppose to be doing. It was a good reminder to slowly go through the app and then review it again. I still have one little girl who can't figure out how to play it because it goes too fast. When I got home I looked at some of my other math apps and realized I need to put ToDo math on their iPads. It is free and works at a slower pace. It has a lot of different levels and activities. I actually can't believe that it is free.Cart Issues & Handwriting
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/21/2013
We did not use our iPads yesterday as we had an emergency at the beginning of the day, so I missed my prep and I decided I just needed to focus on my day. Today we got them out first thing and I gave a couple of kids the wrong ipads. The numbers for the iPads are listed above their slot and I have to get at eye level to make sure I have the right one. I need to add dot stickers with the number on the cart right where they slide in. Two things that bug me, but certainly are worth the hassle are that the dividers in the cart sometimes pop out because they go in so tightly. Then I have to try to squeeze it back in while the ipad is in place. The charging cards also get in the way. I have to constantly move them out of the way as I put the ipads away. Certainly not deal breakers, but something to consider when someone is choosing a cart.
Today we used the ipads for handwriting. The kids were awesome. I told them to do the lowercase letter through one set and then get out their handwriting packet. They all did exactly what I said. At me time, most of them opened Letter School again. They love this app. They are constantly coming up and saying that they got another star for completing a set of letters or numbers. We did not use them during math because we had a test. The kids did pull them out when we had an extra 10 minutes to do sight words. This app is driving me crazy. Again the sound isn’t working and the app keeps getting stuck. I deleted it from one student thinking I could just redownload it, but when I went to Self Serve, it was not there. I contacted the district to see what they want me to do. We shall see.
I found a third broken stylus in the one students desk today. Good think a parent who did not sign up to donate styluses, donated 10 anyway.Sight Word App- Augh & Pushing Apps
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/18/2013The only issue we had with the iPads today was that the Sight Word app’s volume kept shutting off. The kids had to switch from read to spell and then back or vice-versa to get the sound back on. I also had some of the students using the spelling part of the app and the entire word kept showing up before they chose the letters. Then the letters would dance really fast. I need to see if there is an update for the app because it is a pain to have the kids all coming up trying to get their sound to work. It is the one app they have right now that actually needs the sound feature.
The kids LOVE letter school. Almost every single one of them were using it during their free choice time.
Today we had an extra 5 minutes and I had just got all the kids get our their Scholastic Reader magazine when Joe called. He asked if the kids had their ipad and if they could try something out. The timing was perfect. I quickly asked the kids to get their ipads out of their desk and counted down from 10 for them to have them turned on. Joe then pushed out the app I had requested earlier in the week. I told the kids to hit the install button when the it popped up on the screen and put their hands on their head when they had finished. It worked beautifully. No more going to Self Service and loading on each app individually. I realized that I still had one ipad on my desk that was not turned on and one in the cart. I turned the one on my desk on and the install button was there. The one in the cart did not have the install button. I called Joe back and he said “What happened.” I told him it worked beautifully, but that one had been turned off, When I looked down the install button was there. I told him, “never mind, the install button just showed up.” He was pleased because that was the test he wanted to run the next time. I love it when things work correctly.Drool, Reflector & A Little Math
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/17/2013
Well today was fun. One kiddo chewed on his stylus, ripped it and then slimed his ipad. I told him he was done with styluses for the rest of the year since this was the second one he ruined.
The kids are getting very comfortable using reflector and opening the appropriate app. I only had to ask a couple of kids flip over their ipads for not doing what I asked. It wasn’t major offenses, but continuing to doodle on their ipads when they were suppose to be listening. I always have my students turn their chairs to face me when I am instructing and it really works well with the iPads.
During math we used Number Pieces again and the student figured out some new features. One kid asked what the two arrows in the shape of a circle were for. I said I didn’t know and let’s just try it. It turns out it clears the entire board. Before we were having to select the place value blocks to delete them and then use the eraser to get rid of any thing made with the pen tool. It really helped speed things up. Then one kid figured out that when they hit the button right above the pen that the screen goes blank. When you hit it again, your screen comes back. This way kids can do their work, hide it so their neighbors can’t see and then hit it again when I walk by to check their work. We made a rule that the moment I come to their table group I should be able to see their screen so that I don’t have to keep reminding individuals to flip their screen back.Casper Focus Success
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/16/2013
Today was a very successful day with the iPads. We used them again as we did on Monday. During math I learned that they all have to be on before you can lock them into an app with Casper Focus. That explains why I had such trouble previously. It was pretty funny though because they were all working during “Me Time” and suddenly their app closed and the Number Pieces app opened. They couldn’t figure out how that had happened. The problem with being locked into an app is that they can’t use reflector then. Every time I want to show the kids work I have to unlock their ipad and then lock it back in after they use reflector. I think when we are doing an class activity like that, they won’t need to be locked in anyway, so I may stop that process. Casper also list way more apps that I have on my ipad, so it takes a bit to find the one I want the kids locked into when we are going back and forth between reflector and Casper. Part way through I realized that they are alphabetical, so that helped. I also remembered that I can just double tap the home button to see the apps I have open and can switch more quickly between Casper and the Math app (Number pieces). I was swiping the pages and having to open folders before.
I also thought it would be nice to have a class list in the cart with the ipad barcode number and student number. Then when an ipad is missing I can just see who has not turned theirs in instead of calling class numbers out.A Few Apps & Putting iPads Away
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/15/2013
We had a great day with the ipads. The kids are getting better about coming over quickly and quickly getting their ipads before we head out the door to specialist. The hard part of me is to lock the door when we head out. I don’t like having them just sitting on our desks when I am out of the room for 5 - 10 minutes. We first used them when we were doing handwriting. The kids did Letterschool. Later we used them for sight word practice using the app Sight Words by Hetal Shah. It uses the Dolch word list, which I use with my students. It differentiates and gives spelling practice to those who can already read all the words. During “Me Time” (10 minutes after recess to have to themselves, they can read, write, draw, or now do an app in silence) the kids could do Meteor Math, Letter School. or Sight Words. They loved it. Some kids still chose to write or draw. During math we used Number Pieces as our whiteboards. This is working quite nicely. We had a great day until the end. I had one student run out of power, so I was thankful for the extra ipad and we just swapped it out. The problem came when we went to put them away. I was trying to plug them in as they brought them to me. The kids got a little wild while they were packing up. It was way too noisy and they didn’t do a good job of cleaning the room. I am tucked down by the cart and can’t monitor the class as well. I need to plug them in as I put them in the cart because it is very difficult to get the cover off the port if they are tightly put in their spot. We were late out the door. It was such a mess that I forgot to plug the cart in and they were not ready the next day, so we couldn’t use them on Tuesday.Taking A Break
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/14/201310/7 – 11
It was conference week, so we did not get out our iPads. Short days and stress to get a lot done led
me to the decision to leave them in the cart.
I am still waiting to hear back form the Organized Classroom about their app. I would love to get
the check out system going in my classroom. I am excited for the iPads to become a natural flow of
class. Right now it is very clunky and a challenge to plan out.
I continue to study different apps, but am a bit overwhelmed. It is so hard to decide. I am trying to find some good apps for my more advanced students. Maybe some good reading comprehension apps.
I want them to help teach the kids comprehension strategies and not just ask questions at the end
of a story.Casper Focus Attempt
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/4/2013
10/4
The kids lost the privilege of using the iPads on Wednesday for leaving styluses out and inappropriate behavior. Thursday I had a sub, so we finally pulled them out today. I realized that Joe had put some new apps that I requested into Self Serve, so while kids were copying sentences from the board that we were writing together, I downloaded the app. I would go back to the board to write the sentence together and then add a few more. A few of the iPads stalled out for a while and then finally the install button would pop up.
I attempted to use Casper Focus to open up the app we were using, “Letter School.” It only worked on about 1/3 of the iPads. I think maybe some of them already opened the app. That will be something for me to test again. A few hadn’t fully install. There were also a few that would not quit the app when I told it to remove the casper focus.
I realized that when I am using reflector and my iPad goes to sleep, I need to mute my projector so that the kids can’t see the highlighted numbers as I put in my password. The code is blocked out with dots, but each time I press on a number it lights up, so the kids could just track the numbers that light up and learn my password.Math & Some Small Issues
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/3/201310/1
We once again did not use our iPads until math time. I might rethink when we are going to take
them out of the cart. It makes me nervous if I forget to lock my classroom door if I run down to
the office to make copies while the kids were at recess.
During math we turned on our iPads and used Number Pieces Basic, by the Math Learning Center.
I let the kids start by just playing in the app for a few minutes. When we first started I noticed one of
my students had ripped of the tip of their stylus. Augh. I took his pen away and decided he would
not be getting a new one. Although, I am not sure he even realized he was going it. The most difficult
part of using the iPads is making them keep their hands off of it. I told them they would put them away
and we would pull out whiteboards if they didn’t start paying attention. That helped. I don’t have my systems in place well enough yet.
The iPad size is also a little small for their motor skills. I think as they learn to draw smaller, it will work better. I also realized at the end that they could just use the “ones” cubes as their symbolic
representation of the equation. They did get to use Meteor Math if they got all their math done.
They were really excited about using that app again.
I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with the headphones. They get in the way when they
are in the basket in their desk. They were in a big box with all the cords tangled. I thought about
finding a place to hang them (towel racks), but am not sure where that would go. Each table group
has a bookcase that I put a decorative box on. They are going to put their headsets in there.
I taught them how to wind the cord around them today. I hope that works.
The camera cover on the case are still coming off. I only lost one today though.
Routines
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/2/20139/30 We have down a pretty good routine of getting our ipads out as soon as we get into the
classroom and check in. I have to help the over half the class, but after that they can get them out themselves.
They put them on their nametags face down. I was not very clear about this expectation, so I went
over it again when they returned. I have the kids put their iPad in their desk basket when they eat lunch. When I leave for lunch and the kids leave for recess I have to make sure I lock my classroom door.
At math time they pulled them back out and we used them as whiteboards. Notability is not the
best app for it, but since Educreations is still having pop-ups, we had to go with it. There were a lot of questions about getting set up, but we finally got started. I am having a hard time getting the kids
attention once the do their math problem and I need to have them make their pen size smaller so
they can fit more on the screen. I found an app this evening that I think will work better, Number Pieces Basics by the Math Learning Center. It is actually an app for place value, but will work as a whiteboard screen too. I had the kids try reflections and we learned that multiple screen can be on the board at
one time. I wish the screen would move out all over the screen, but instead they stay in one straight
line and each time a new screen is added, the other screens get smaller. The smallest screen is the first
one that had mirroring turned on. We also learned that after 6 – 8 screens on and other students trying
to get on, Reflections crashes. It completely disappeared off my dock.
I think the kids will get the process fairly fast, but we just need practice. I kept accidentally selecting Chrissy’s screen as the one to use with reflections. I can see that being a problem if she has the app
turned on. I could also have some fun with it and send her messages during the day.
Later in the day I noticed that Joe had put some new apps I requested into Self Service. I told the kids
that they could come over when they were done with their math and I would download some new
apps. It was spur of the moment, but we had an extra 10 minutes so I thought I would go for it. I downloaded 3 and told them they could use Meteor Math. I explained it to one kid and then they just showed each other. They loved it. I had to tell them numerous times to turn the volume off and they weren’t listening. I finally said if they don’t turn it down all the iPads would be put away. The sound
went off very quickly. One of the students I was working with laugh and said something to the effect of’ “That worked.” I think I am going to have to do the same with math time. I am trying to let them
explore and not being overly strict, but I think the hammer will have to come down tomorrow if
they are touching the iPad when they are suppose to be listening. We will get there. I am still
learning new management pieces that need to be put in place.
At the end of the day we put the iPads away. I call the kids numbers and they bring them over. One frustration is that the dividers sometimes move and pop out of their slot because the iPad cases are
so thick. They are then hard to put back in. because the iPad is in the way.Kids First Day with iPads
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 10/1/2013Today (Monday) was our first day with the iPads. I tried to let the kids pull them out, but it was just too hard. Afterwe got about a third of them out the kids were able to pull them out by themselves. We then looked over the rules for using an iPad. I started by trying to lock one of the iPads into the Notability app with Casper Focus and then realized if I wanted to share the screen with reflection that I would need to turn that off. I couldn’t remember how to turn it offand spent about 3 minutes trying to figure it out. I finally gave up and traded it with one of my students. She didn’tneed it to be unlocked, but I did to display the iPad up on the screen. It was nice to have a student one so that whenI put it on the screen it had the same look as theirs. I realized I needed to set up my iPad to match theirs. When wewere all done I had the students put home button to their belly button so then they new to reach in the top rightcorner to put it to sleep. I shared one person’s work on the screen and found out that when I put theirs up it didnot bump mine off, but shared the projected space.
We finally got going and I had to walk them through the steps of how to get to a blank page. I forgot how to do it,so we figured it out together. I showed them the main buttons and then just let them draw.
We put the iPads in the basket in their desks. I am not sure if that is the best solution, but I didn’t want to put themall back. During math we got them all back out. This time I decided to use Educreations because notability was a bitdifficult to navigate and we had to delete the note when we were done.
This was a much better choice although I would have liked to have shapes and not just a drawing tool. As we werelooking at some of the different buttons the kids started asking questions so I quickly tried the camera function tosee how one of the clear buttons worked.
The lesson went well although it took longer than normal. I think things will speed up once we get used to it.
I had 2 students who had to flip their iPads over. One was touching it when I told them to have their hands in their lap. Another student was flipping his back and forth really fast. He kept playing with the case after that, so it took himlonger to get to use it again. I must say when we tried to put the iPads away I was a bit of a mess because they weretrying to get things out of their baskets to pack up for home and I was afraid they were going to drop them or spilltheir baskets. One student also didn’t grip the iPad as strongly as I would have liked.
I had the students flip their iPads over whenever I was talking, otherwise they would keep drawing on them.
Tuesday I had a sub because the first grade teacher I work with (Chrissy) and I spent a day developing a reading remediation plan. We are using 2 apps as a part of that process.
• The Phonics Fun App (Beginning Sound)
• Sightcards App eFlash
As we were looking for these apps I found a great one for addition facts called Meteor Math. I loaded it onto myiPad and then used the multiplication part to trial with my son. He LOVES it!
While we were working Pete came to our school to install our Apple Tv’s. Yes, I said “our”. They are giving Chrissyone too. Another surprise. Turns out they couldn’t install mine because I have an old faceplate and they will haveto install a new one. Reflector is working just fine, so that is ok by me. The only issue is that the Apple TV willautomatically bump people off when someone else wants to project to the screen. With Reflector it will project both screens at the same time. This will be useful sometimes, but right now it is a pain because I have to go over andshut the mirroring off on the iPad I don’t want to show. I have trained the students how to do this themselves yet,but I will.
The following day Chrissy had a few students who were excellent while the sub was there. She borrowed 7 iPads touse as a reward for them. They all opened up Educreations and a message kept popping up. Even when they said toignore it, it would come back up. They all came over and stood in my doorway as we tried to figure out what to do.We decided they should just use Notability. They changed to that app and it went fine. The kids loved it.
Thursday we had a spare 10 minutes and I realized I had not used the iPads with them even though we had themout on our desk. I told them we could use the iPads, but forgot that Educreations was giving the pop-up message.I decided to open the Photobooth app and let the kids practice using the camera. I showed them how to switchthe camera from front to back and take pictures. The only problem we came across was that the Griffin case hasa cover over the back camera lens. When you pull that tab you need to spin it out of the way, but some of thekids pulled the tab all the way off. They are a pain to put back on. I had the kids leave a stack of iPads that I had tofix later.
Four parents sent in styluses for the kids and they are great. I found a website that sold them for around $2.50 andthey were decent ones for the price when reading an article that evaluated styluses. For $2.50, I don’t mind if theydon’t last forever. It was better than spending $13 and they have more of a rubber tip and not the foam ones thatshred.
Putting all the iPads away this time did go smoother. I just sit by the rack, call out a number and they bring it over.It went fairly quickly. I don’t think it its the best system, but I’ll get there. I do not plug them in because they toldme not to charge them until the battery percentage was in the single digits. I realized that there was no reason toplug them in then. Good thing I figure that out now and not after months of plugging every iPad in every night.
Friday I finally sent in a few apps to the district so they could load them on to the iPads. I have been very concernedabout picking the right apps and not wasting district money or the students’ time with an app that isn’t perfect.Joe told me not to be too concerned about the price because I am piloting this and they really want me to try lots of different things out.
Saturday I stayed up until 1:00 AM looking at educational apps and trying to find ones that will be the mostbeneficial for my students. There are so many apps out there. I need to try them all and test what happenswhen errors are made too. I am going to start a chart of apps I love and the ones that are getting kicked to the curb.iPads Have Arrived
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 9/30/2013 6:00:00 PMThe iPads arrived yesterday and the project manager (Joe) and my tech coordinator (Pete) came by to drop them off.They carried in three boxes and started to unpack them. I asked what they best way to number them would be andthey said to just write on the label on the back. Pete started numbering them and I learned my first lesson. Tell yourtech coordinator to label the numbers with a first grade 1 instead of 01. The Griffin cases are fantastic. They do makethe iPads really difficult to get in and out of the cart. I think I may have to pull them in and out of the cart each day forthe kids. I am a little disappointed about that, but it will be worth it. Joe was extremely excited about a new app hefound called Casper Focus. It allows me to see what app my students are using and the amount of battery they haveleft. I can also click on one iPad or the entire group and open an app for the kids. The app is then locked and theycannot leave it until I unlock it. Fabulous!
I am under the impression that any app Joe has put into “Self Service” (a software program any teacher in theentire district uses to download software, fixes, or apps) will have to be downloaded onto the app by me. I alsowill have to configure the pages of the app individually. Most of the apps on there are useless to my students andI want them all tucked away and on a back page. They don’t need things like calendar or settings. I am trying tofigure out the best way to organize the apps. I wish they would put color-coded folders on it. Right now I am putting common apps together and then just labeling the group. At least that is what I have been doing on my iPad.
Chrissy and I went to a training for all the people who received iPads through the district grant. We had so muchfun. Joe set us up with the Reflector app so I could project my iPad on the screen. He also was demonstratingthe apple tv that he would be placing in my classroom. They got the apple tv so we could also run the soundfrom the iPad. As we were playing I realized that Reflector was playing my sound. No one could believe it andwe joked about no longer needing the $100 Apple TV and sticking with the $8.00 reflector app.
Saturday I spent 2.5 hours going through each iPad downloading 2 apps that the district already had in out“self-service” app and then organized them all into groups. I also spent sometime with the app The OrganizedClassroom. It is a way to use the ISBN barcode on books to catalog your classroom library. The kids can then usetheir iPad to scan the book and check it out and in. I just scanned one basket of my books, tried it out, and gotfrustrated. The books already in their system work great. When I scanned a book and the title did not show upI had to enter it. Those books did not show up when I tried to check a book out. I have thousands of books andthere is no reason to scan them all if they won’t show up when a student tries to check it out. I contacted thecompany and they said they were able to find the titles, but can’t check it because they don’t have the barcode.I think I will take a picture of the barcode and send it to them. Then they can’t print it out and try it.
I had applied for headphones with the grant, but they did not inform me that they decided not to grant that requestfor hygiene reasons and because they were not sure who would pay for them if they broke. Headphones arequite integral to the grant because students have to be able to work on their apps without bothering others.When they are listening to sight words or directions are being read, students need not to hear their neighbors.I was a bit bummed and not sure how I was going to get headphones. I hated to ask the parents for one more thing. Thankfully I remembered that we had some in the computer lab. Turns out we had exactly 25 that were not beingused I think they were too big and so we decided to buy new smaller ones. I think I will just add foam to theheadphones.iPads are Coming
Posted by Tamra Erickson at 9/30/2013I spent many hours writing the grant for the iPads and was quite shocked when they said I had
received it. The application process was really long, but it made me think through just about
every aspect of using the iPads: how I would use them, what supporting tools did I need, how
would I get trained, how would the students get trained, who would pay for that, what support
did I need from the district, what apps would I need, how would I assess the students, and what
data did I need to show if the iPads were successful or not.
The closer and closer it got to my iPads arriving the more nervous I got. I didn't want to mess it up,
as I am the only 1:1 pilot in the entire district. There are other grants out there for iPads, but not 1:1.
I asked the team if my new first grade colleague (Chrissy) could come to the training so I could share
the iPads with her class. They liked the idea, but I never heard back. Then one day we both received
an email saying our training had been changed. When they came to the school for the initial iPad
training they had an iPad for Chrissy too. We had no idea she would be getting one.
Friday, February 19, 2016
iPad Pilot Blog 9/2013 - 4/2015
When I first received the 1:1 iPad grant back in 2013, I started a blog. I have copied that blog here for your perusal. The 2014 - 2015 year was extremely difficult and so the blog covers the first year with iPads.
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