How to setup iPads for school rollout

In September 2011, I completed a roll out a complete class set of iPads for use in Social Studies, History and Astronomy classes. The big question that I have sought to figure out is how do I setup these tablets in a quick and efficient way.
Here is what I have learned so far:

How I Set them up
1. I got a Bretford iPad cart to charge and sync all the iPads. This cart arrived in one piece, no assembly required. It is made of solid steel and has heavy duty castors that enable it to be moved around easily. This car has one electrical plug to go into the wall, very convenient. It also has all the slots and cables ready to go for all 30 iPads: they are even laser engraved with numbers 1-30 to organize and keep track of them easier. There is also a shelf inside to hold your laptop. What I loved about this cart is that it is all pre-wired and ready to go; except for plugging in the power supply for the laptop...but this was easy.

Recently I got some vinyl numbers and put them infront of the iPad slots because I found students had trouble matching up the laser engraved numbers above.

2. Next a 15" Macbook Pro computer was purchased. A Macbook is required to use for syncing to the iPads, a PC won't do. My understanding is that only a Mac computer can sync 30 iPads simultaneously to one USB port. I went through the setup on the Mac and charged it (its really easy). Then I had my school computer tech to setup some logins and printers to access. I love this computer. If you get a Windows computer then you will have problems syncing multiple iPads at once. So insist that you get a Mac so you don't waste your time syncing and upgrading.

3. Next I setup a school itunes account. You need an email address to setup this account, so I had a special school email account created called itunes@myschooldistrict.com
I think this is the best way to proceed since you don't want it linked with your personal account. I also bought some itunes gift cards and loaded up the account with some money to purchase apps. Mostly we are using free apps and they will sync automatically to all devices with easy account management. I await the App Store Volume Purchase Program for the Canadian market.

4. Open up itunes on the Macbook and sign-in to your newly created itunes account. Then I started to download apps that I wanted to use that fit with the teachers and classes that will use them. I will be doing another post later that will go over my app choices and reviews. I tried to keep my choice to mostly free apps, but I have a few exceptions.

5. Our school district requires all technology to be bar-coded and serial numbers recorded for inventory purposes. This was handled by our library and didn't take too long. These codes will be covered up when we get the Incipio iPad 2 Smart feather Ultralight Hard Shell Cases. Eventually we will get matching SmartCovers for them, but they are too expensive to afford at the moment.

NGP Matte Semi-Rigid Soft Shell Case

UPDATE: These Incipio Smart Feather cases started to break. Incipio took them all back and swapped them out for another model. I think that this new model is much better to protect the iPads. I ended up getting the Incipio NGP Matte Semi-Rigid Soft Shell Case. This case does not work with the SmartCover, but we have now decided we don't need it.


This is mostly all I did to start. Then I waited for the iPads to arrive.

Now when the iPads finally arrived.

I waited with anticipation for the first shipment of iPads to arrive. We waited about 2 months for the first 8 iPads to arrive. The rest of the 30 arrived a couple of months later. Once they arrived I was eager to get my hands on them and begin the setup.

6. The first thing that needed to be done was to get the iPads inventoried, labeled, and bar-coded. This again was done by the library. The serial numbers are really small numbers and hard to read on the back of the iPad, so I recommend that you read the number off the iPad box instead.

7. Now the iPads are all mine to begin to setup. The first thing I did was to unpack them and take off the protective plastic cellophane wrap. Since I don't have hundreds of these to do, I don't need a big production line. I got some help from another teacher who will be using them also.

Example of background image I used.

8. What about numbering the iPads. Originally I was hoping to be able to have Apple do free engraving on the back with "Property of School District# " and also add a unique number to each. But, this was not possible because purchasing of them was done at the School Board offices and I had no control over where they would buy them. Also, If I put a number on the back of the devices, it would be likely not seen because they would be covered up by a case. So what do you do?
I ended up setting the lock screen image to be different on each iPad and contain a unique number with the school logo. Then I  put a passcode lock the device with that same number. This, I think will make the iPads easy to identify because they will fit into the Bretford sync cart's individually numbered slots.

This will make it clear to each student and me what number each iPad is. This will be important because students will be required to use the same numbered iPad each day.

9. The iPads are really easy to setup. You just plug them into your Macbook via a USB sync chord and follow the onscreen instructions. Unfortunately, you need to do this individually for each device for the 1st setup. Once I did the iPad setup and logged into the itunes account, I was able to do my first sync of all the devices at once.

10. I have found that for major iOS updates that you can't use the Bretford Cart to sync and have to plug in each device one at a time. For more thoughts on this I did another blog post that you can read here.


Conclusion:
Now that the iPads are fully setup, the most difficult part is integrating them into your everyday classroom. What will you change? How?
You can't keep doing things the same way that you always did in your classroom. But, on the other hand you don't want to over rely on the device and loose focus on curriculum and instead put all your focus on an iPad.


Here are some really good sources that I consulted before starting:

A ning page with info on iPads/eBooks in education
http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/preparing-your-school-for-an

Managing a Major Deployment
http://wiki.canby.k12.or.us/groups/ipodusergroup/wiki/98ee1/Managing_a_Major_Deployment.html

3 Ways to Manage Student iPads in the Classroom
http://www.techchef4u.com/?p=1557

How to setup iCloud for "Find my iPad"
http://www.apple.com/ipad/find-my-ipad-setup/

39 Sites for using iPads in the Classroom
http://mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com/2011/10/38-sites-on-using-ipads-in-classroom.html

iPads in the Classroom Resource Page
https://sites.google.com/site/schrockipad/

iPad App Tracker
http://www.padgadget.com/ipad-apps-tracker/

Sites for Using iPads in Education
http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2011/05/sites-for-using-ipads-in-education.html

Wiki on iPad in Education sponsored by the Department of Educational Technology in the School District of Palm Beach County
http://palmbeachschooltalk.com/groups/ipadpilot/

iPads in School Wiki - Huge resources on all areas
http://ipadschools.wikispaces.com/

Great Question Checklist from Palm Beach: Preplan List
http://palmbeachschooltalk.com/documentsharing/Document_Sharing/Main_files/iPad%20Implementation%20Planning%20Worksheet%20Reduced.pdf

Oct 21 Pro D @ WSS

Some ideas for interested teachers at WSS: Agenda

8:30 to 10:00 watch the live stream of CUEBC (Computer Users Educators of B.C.) keynote by David Warlick.

Other ideas for the AM & PM:

• Using Moodle to have a classroom Website (Jenn)
• Using Collaborative Classroom in their teaching (Jenn)
• Using and setting up Prezi's for the classroom (Jenn)
• Interested in seeing how iPads are being used at WSS (Jeremy)
• Pearson E-Text
• Internet access at seat
• iMovie
• Pages & Keynote
• Twitter for the classroom & for Pro-D or alternate backchannel: Soapbox
• Moodle & iPads
• WSS's Media Wiki Server: our own Wikipedia (Jeremy)

Some student ipad created video's
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAS9ruZG6Os


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqe7Y6JJjE4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVF81jwz4dA


Movie Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yjz3bdU7bg

iOS 5: is it for the Classroom?

I was eager to upgrade to iOS5 this week and foolishly tried to download it minutes after it was released on Wednesday. Well it took forever to download and since it was a large file I had overloaded the capacities of my schools WiFi. Although the download problems may be more from too much demand on Apple's servers.  I ended up having to continue the download and install on my iPad at home.

I though the next day at school that I would try to sync all 30 iPads at once in the sync cart. Why not I though, it normally works like that for all other updates. Except I found out that it would only start to do the iOS upgrade one iPad at a time with someone having to keep clicking buttons throughout the install. After waiting over an hour for the first iPad, it all ended with "unknown error occurring" message where the upgrade failed. Then the same thing happend with the second iPad. So at this point I gave up on a mass sync, and plugged in a single iPad and went through the upgrade...close to 1 1/2 hours each...I am still not finished upgrading and will slowly work on them next week. Apple needs to have better and less time consuming ways available for the education market.

I had my hopes up on the iCloud as a way for students to store and possibly hand in their completed work. However during the setup it appears that the iCloud is setup with your iTunes account. This is a problem because we have all the iPads setup with the same iTunes account (or Apple ID). So for the time being, until I research it more myself, I turned iCloud off.

UPDATE: I slowly upgraded each iPad one at a time and it took me about 2 weeks getting about 5 done per day. I hope Apple comes up with a better way to do these major updates in the future because this is really time consuming. What if I had hundreds to do?...


Initially when we got the iPads we bought the Incipio Smart feather for iPad 2, we were planning to eventually buy SmartCovers for them later when we had more money. In the mean time, this past week we noticed that 3-4 cases broke in the top corner and would not stay on the iPads anymore. As I looked at other cases closer, the majority of them had micro-fracture cracks and would eventually break also. I contacted Incipio at the start of the week and today I got an email that they are replacing all of our cases with another model that is softer and more malleable. I think this might be a better option for us since we  decided that we no longer want the Smartcover. Thank you for some great customer service from Incipio, you don't often get that from many companies today.

Week 5 of iPads in the Classroom: Video Editing

This week has gone quite smooth overall. The students are adapting well to using the iPads daily in our classroom and I find that I have to spend less and less time on the basics. They are becoming more proficient in moving from app to app and website to website. I think we are learning together to be more efficient.

This week I decided to try out some video authoring on the iPad. So I had some assignment for two of my classes one using the Animoto app, and the second using iMovie.

Prior to having iPads in my classroom I was enjoying using Animoto.com in our computer lab with students to put together some small presentations and for them to showcase their learning. Now with iPads, we decided to try the Animoto App. I should have known not to try it because it is written for an iPhone and projects small on the iPad screen. I had students follow these steps for their short animoto presentations

1. Get your pictures and save them to the camera roll
2. Create some images on your camera roll with some text ...they could use any apps they wanted.
3. Open up Animoto app, login to the account I created. Then start by adding the pictures and putting them in the order you wish.
4. Choose your music from the selections built into animoto.
5. Then publish and upload it to animoto.

All of these steps went well except for #5. The Animoto app seems to be really prone to crash and did so numerous times, it really impeded the flow of the project for some. Those who finished and then hit publish found themselves waiting forever (it appeared to be frozen) for the video to upload and render. I think this may be that our WiFi system hit its limit. However, I really don't think it should be so easy for it to freeze up. I managed to create a quick video myself on my iPhone and it uploaded quite fast on 3G. So I am not sure why we couldn't get this working so well. Another WiFi infrastructure issue maybe?
I ended up having many students switch over to iMovie where we had no problems...I just had to give them a quick tutorial on how to insert images and sound.

My recommendation is to NOT use the Animoto app any longer until they release an iPad only app.

Another group of my students did some great work in iMovie this week. They easily figured out how to add photos, video, text and music to create some very nice group videos. The only issues that surfaced was that there seems to be no way to divide video clips into shorter segments so they can insert pictures. This is easy to work around by not filming longer segments. Again, I had some difficulties when students went to upload to our class Youtube account. It was slow and I basically tried to only have one student at a time upload. This ended up stalling many groups from uploading their finished video, which is why I am still waiting for some. These technology issues are not the best use of my time, but I had no choice.
I will definitely have students use iMovie again and I think their proficiency with it will make it go faster.

This week I also did some experimenting with a backchannel conversion using SoapBox. I heard about this from someone on my PLN: twitter. Anyway all I did was create a free account with Soapbox, then create a new Box for my class. Then soapbox displays an event code that students enter to join the Soapbox. Now I had students logged on to this on their iPad while we watched a video. I posted questions here as the video went along and encouraged students to chat, ask questions, and answer other students questions.

Beside a few off topic posts by students (which I could delete while the event was open) it went really well. I am going to experiment with this some more in the future and encourage more participation. One thing I liked about Soapbox was the fact that the chat was not public like twitter and is really easy to use for participants.

Well it had been a good week and as alway, I expect I will learn lots more next week.

Week 4: The Good, Bad & the iPad

This week has not been all that revolutionary in using the iPads in class. But I have found out some ways of using them and some limitations.

I am finding that I have trouble getting 2-3 iPads to automatically sync when I plug them into the Bretford Powersync 30 iPad cart. I have not figured out why yet, but I just have to plug them in separately, so its not that bad of an inconvenience. I probably should call Bretford up about this.

This week I spent alot of time trying to get the School District mail setup on all the iPads with a generic "no-return" email. However, to date all I have is some frustration, wasted time, and no ability to have students email from their desk.

One of the problems that I am having is getting student created work off of the iPads for me to assess. I have been involved with a great discussion on this over twitter with some tweeps and this has given me some ideas.

So far I have used the following techniques to get student work:

• students enter their work directly into a Moodle forum, this works well and is easy for me to access and mark. The only problem is everyone in the class can see each others posts...might be okay for some things, but some copying can occur.
• students create their work in the Pages app and then copy/paste it into a hand-in folder (called: assignments-online text) in Moodle. I used this for the first time this week and it worked great. Students posted a historical letter they wrote, it was private and I could easily mark, assess, and write return comments for them. I plan to continue to use this method.
• I had students setup Evernote accounts this week for them to enter notes into and be able to access them on the iPads at school and at home on their own computeres. But, the sharing features really only work on the paid version, so this won't work for sharing files. If I want to share some files with students, I can put them up in Moodle in less than a minute. I love Evernote, but for class its only good for student to keep notes organized.
• I have attempted to get students to put a Pages file into dropbox, but you can't do that... Too bad because this would have been a convenient way to have a "hand-in" shared folder.
• I have also resorted to walking around and physically viewing and assessing student work right off the iPad. Not very efficient and it interrupts their other work.

Here are the ways that I would like to be able to receive student work on iPads:

• via email, it should be easy to setup, but no I am having infrastructure issues with IP ports blocking connections. I might resort to setting up a generic hotmail account to test and see if students can just email me content.
• Google docs....but its relatively incompatible on the iPads. Why can't Apple and Google just get along.
• I would like to be able to have students be able to print from their iPads. I am not sure how to go about this and what it might cost though. I do know that we can get a WiFi printer or we can setup dedicated print-servers. But again not sure how to go about this?
• Blog. Waiting for word on the setup of Wordpress accounts for every student at my school. We will be piloting this for the district. I am wanting students to reflect on what they are learning here and comment on other classmates work. We have the Wordpress app on the iPads and will be able to post content easily once setup.
• Wiki. MediaWiki is already setup and I will shortly begin having students develop our own school-wide wiki. This will be all student created content. I just have to teach them some of the coding before we start. 
• Video. I am hoping there will be no problem posting to Youtube from iMovie on the iPad at school. I have a project starting with my Grade 11's this week. So my fingers are crossed here also.

I am looking forward to the October 4th Apple event where they should release new products and especially iOS5. I will be upgrading to this new version right away and hoping that some of the difficulties mentioned will evaporate away.

Third Week Using iPads in the Classroom

Nowthat the third week has passed, I have decided to do a quick postwith my thoughts on using the iPads in the classroom. Really it'sjust been two weeks of using them in the classroom since the firstweek was spent getting them properly registered in our librarytechnology tracking system. Then there was some time taken to get theWiFi setup on them by our local tech guy. I was inspired to blog weekly because of posts from KeithRispin, another B.C. educator doing a iPad pilot.

I have approached this newschool year with both excitement and nervousness. Excitement with thefact that there are 30 shiny new iPads waiting to be used whileteaching Social Studies. Nervousness mostly with the fact that I knewthey were not fully setup and I felt there was some technologyinfrastructure issues that were unresolved.

How I have used them sofar:

I have started my studentsoff on using the iPads slowly trying to use their strengths andfind out their limitations. I am currently using them in a Grade 8class, Grade 11 class and a Grade 12 class.

With my Grade 8 class I usedthem for web research at their desk. Students were able to go beyondtheir textbook and find more details. This went really well andintuitively the students knew how to use the web browser knew how tonavigate on the devices. I had pre-selected some links for them tovisit and posted them on my Moodle page. I also had students doingsome map review by using a few different map quiz apps.

I think that this is wherethe iPad really shines, we can do extended individual research rightat our desk. No more leaving the classroom, going to the computerlab, students find seats, start up the computer, login, wait, then goon to research. With the iPads it is becoming way more efficient andwe get to work quicker.

With my Grade 12 Historyclass I dove right in and we tried all kinds of different ways to usethe iPad in class. They were kind of my guinea pig class totry things out. The results have been hit and miss, however thelearning immeasurable. I wanted to really try to reducepaper usage in this class and do much more work on ouriPads. I am posting notes, handouts, and web links all in my classMoodle page. I have experimented a few different ways for students tocomplete some class work. I posted a PDF up on Moodle and they had towrite some answers...this turned out not to be that great becauseeven with the GoodReader app...it was hard for them to edit and typein the blanks. Mostly we waisted a bunch of time and the student werefrustrated. If I only wanted them to highlight then PDF format mightbe okay.

Next I posted a Worddocument on Moodle and they were able to download it into the Pagesapp. This worked really well because the students were able to get towork and answer questions right away. However, I think I want to getPages on my Macbook and post documents on Moodle in that formatinstead, there were a few glitches with the formatting ofthe MSWord document. I am having trouble getting the finisheddocument from students because our WiFi won't let us email from thedevices...frustrating, I think it has to do with the proxy server orfirewall. Not sure, but I am trying to get our Tech guys to fix it.

I also had student post someof their work onto Moodle directly in a Forum. This was terrific andI am leaning towards this type of entry in the future. Also thinkingabout EverNote, but this currently doesn't sync to the cloud. Mightalso be a proxy server or firewall issue.

With my Grade 11 class wehave had some issues and this last week did not go as well as I wouldhave liked. We just used the iPads basically for the first time thislast week and we were using the Pearson e-Text app. When we weretrying to download the chapters it ended up completely bogging downthe school WiFi network and no one was able to download theirchapters. I tested the WiFi that the iPads connect to and it showedaround 4Mb/s for speed. Is this fast or slow, I don't know? It mightbe an issue; however, we won't be downloading stuff like thiseveryday. The next day I had two students at a time download, I couldonly get 6-8 students to download the current unit...owch.Fortunately, the chapters are also available in the app

In the Grade 11 class I havealso been posting work in Moodle and have used MSWord format thatallows students to edit the document in Pages. I will be making alotof use of Moodle forums also in this class. I am waiting for all mystudents to get Wordpress accounts hosted on our server- our schoolwill be piloting this. I am hoping to use this for students to postonto and create a sort of e-portfolio to showcase their learning overthe term.

Conclusions:

It has been a good week,still some glitches to work out with the district tech guys. I amgetting alot of support from my principal and district tech staff, soI am hopeful the these issues will work themselves out over the nextweek.

Literature on teaching with Video Conferencing

My Annotated Bibliography of some literature on teaching using Video Conferencing (VC) over multiple campuses.

In SD73, we have at least one VC equipped classroom in each high school. These rooms are used for teachers to teach with students in front of them and also at other campuses. Additionally, the rooms are being used to connect to other content providers to open the doors of the classroom. This is like a virtual field trip.
Here is one example where our district is using VC to connect with experts around the globe.

One of the best resources to connect to content providers is to visit http://www.cilc.org/ where you can search content providers you can dial into for virtual field trips.

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Armstrong-Stassen, M., Landstrom, M., & Lumpkin, R. (1998). Students' Reactions to the Introduction of Videoconferencing for Classroom Instruction. The Information Society, 14, 153-164.

This article by Armstrong-Stassen et al.(1998), examines how university students react to videoconferencing as an instructional form. Students perceptions are taken at various stages in the completion of their course to gauge their acceptance of this as an instructional medium. It is a good study because it deals with many concerns that learners have related to videoconferencing. Although videoconferencing technology has changed alot since this articles publishing date, I still think this article's four major areas of concern are still true today.

Gill, D., Parker, C., & Richardson, J. (2005). Twelve tips for teaching using videoconferencing. Medical Teacher, 27(7), 573-577.

As the title of this article suggest, it gives the reader twelve tips for using videoconferencing from an instructors perspective. Videoconferencing is being used more and more across wide geographical sites to deliver courses. Gill et al (2005), breaks down many lessons that others have learned and put these tips together in a well organized list. The authors are very positive about videoconferencing and believe that teaching sessions can be delivered effectively and enjoyably.

Knipe, D., & Lee, M. (2002). The quality of teaching and learning via videoconferencing. British Journal of Educational Technology, 33(3), 301-311.

Knipe and Lee (2002) discuss how it is “naive to assume that merely linking distant groups or individuals at different locations creates an effective learning environment.” They are concerned that quality of teaching and learning is not always being considered when videoconferencing is introduced to an educational institution. Knipe and Lee examine diaries that students of a videoconferencing class kept to record experiences in this classroom situation. From these diaries, they conclude and explain why local videoconferencing students had a higher occurrence of learning over remote students.

Freeman, Mark (1998). Video conferencing: a solution to the multi-campus large classes problem? British Journal of Educational Technology, 29(3), 197-210.

This article found benefits to the use of videoconferencing, but his main criticism was that students and staff felt that lecturing learning activities and interactions were not improved by this mode of delivery. Freeman looked at videoconferencing and discuses the problems that staff encountered that led to distractions at the remote site. Concluding the article he outlines four recommendations that need to be resolved by technical staff and administrators.

Dreyfus, H. (2001). Disembodied telepresence and the remoteness of the real. On the Internet (pp. 50- 72). USA & Canada: Routledge.

Telepresence is an answer to the impersonal nature of distance education according to Dreyfus (2001). Using telepresence or videoconferencing, a teacher can change and acertain what is working or not working in a lesson and respond accordingly. This ability for a teacher to be able to notice social cues like mood, give them the advantage to respond and perceive the class environment more skillfully.

Saw, K.G., Majid, O., Ghani, A., Atan, H., Idrus, R.M., Rahman, Z.A., & Tan, K.E. (2008). The videoconferencing learning environment: Technology, interaction and learning intersect. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), 475-485.

Saw et al.(2008) look at videoconferencing classes by examining the interactions that occur. They looked at teacher initiated interaction to whole class, teacher initiated interaction to a specific student, student initiated interaction to the teacher, and student initiated interaction to other students all via videoconferencing. The large amounts of data that is collected leads the researchers to three major findings that deal with technology configuration in a videoconferencing classroom.

Anderson, T., & Rourke, L. (2005). Videoconferencing in Kindergarten-to-Grade 12 Setting: A Review of the Literature. Canadian Association of Distance Education Research: Centre for Distance Education at Athabasca University, Athabasca: Crown in Right of the Province of Alberta.

Anderson & Rourke (2005), conducted a literature review of Internet Protocol videoconferencing from kindergarten through to grade 12. They look at six topics: outcomes, learning activities, interactive learning processes, keys to success, special populations, and equipment and technology. In their government conducted review, they attempt to collect information on videoconferencing for policy makers. They do conclude that the literature on Internet Protocol videoconferencing from kindergarten through to grade 12 is still relatively new and in the early stage of implementation.

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My Conclusion

Distance education via videoconferencing is promoted as a way to free up students from the constraints of time and place to allow them to have easier access to education no matter where they live. Videoconferencing is being used to link rural learners with teachers and classroom communities. We really can't expect that just because learners at different sites are linked together with technology, that this will create an effective learning environment. There needs to be a number of things that are considered. Instructor and students need to have proper training and have timely access to technical support when problems arise. Instructional methods, strategies, and course planning need to be considered if they will function properly in a VC environment. Teachers need to make sure that they make connections with students at the remote site to make them feel as though they are part of the class. The technical setup and structure of the VC equipment needs to be done in a such a way as to make both sites feel included and part of the class. Videoconferencing will continue to change over time as the technology gets upgraded and there is no doubt that some of the concerns with VC will be overcome. But the most important piece to me is that VC create a cohesive classroom of students and a good learning environment.

Digital Learning Using Animoto

My Grade 8 Socials has just finished learning about European explorers. In the past I have had my students create trading cards for some explorers; much like hockey cards.
This time I wanted to teach them to use Animoto and be creative in making videos. They found Animoto easy to use and I really didn't have to help them much on the tech side of things. One of the limitations of Animoto is the number of characters they can add into the presentation (its less than twitter). I told them to be careful with what they say and to be concise with their message. I actually found this to be good because they had to summarize very carefully; they could not copy paste from websites.
I was thinking of getting them to make graphics and add text by using the Gimp image software program. This image then could be imported as a .jpg into Animoto. This would allow for more detailed text to be added to the video. Its and extra step and I might integrate it when I use Animoto next time.

So below are a few of the animoto videos that students created.
The class is seeking comments on their work.

Explorer John Cabot


Christopher Columbus


Ferdinand Magellan

Student projects using Animoto

Well the class has just finished learning about the involvement of Louis Riel in the Rebellion of 1885. The students were in six groups researching the individuals on both sides of the rebellion. From their research students then showcased their learning in an Animoto video that they created. Initially, Animoto was not working at our school because of the proxy server restrictions that were set. However, with the help of the district tech guys, we got this working. The only part not working is the ability to listen to the music choice in Animoto...somehow you can't listen to your music before you select it. Hopefully we can get this resolved soon.

So below are the six animoto video. The class is seeking comments on their work.

Group 1





Group 2




Group 3




Group 4




Group 5




Group 6




Thanks for looking at them, please leave some feedback below!

Five ways to get iPads for your classroom

I have had many people ask me what I did to be able to get a classroom set of Apple's newest tech gadget: the iPad. How did I do it? If you want to hear about what the project will involve, check my previous blog post.

The big reason I was able to get 30 iPads (along with other complementary equipment) for a pilot project approved in an era of declining school funding are:

1. I am passionate about school technology and have been an early adopter of using computers and technology in my classroom; from projectors to Smartboards, to clickers. And, I have always been trying new Web2.0 tools with my students.
2. I have been a technology leader and advocate at my school.
3. My principal caught the vision for what I wanted to do with iPads in the classroom...at least to some extent at first. I convinced him and he became an advocate to the school board.
4. I put together a very detailed plan and analysis for the project using the Bates and Poole SECTIONS model that I submitted to administration (copy below).
5. I did not give up and take no for an answer. I was tenacious.

I have always been interested in technology and getting students using technology for projects in the classroom. Before I was a teacher I was a computer sales person and technician; so I was really comfortable around technology. I am also currently working on my Masters in Educational Technology and this has got me researching and thinking more about technological changes in education.

It is important for you to have a clear plan and explain how you are going to use the technology or device. Next don't give up, keep trying and telling others about your plan.

Here is the detailed plan that I submitted using the Bates and Poole model that was developed to help education planners to analyze new technology for implementation.

iPad Pilot project for Kamloops SD

I am awaiting the hardware arrival of the first batch of Apple iPads to WSS in Kamloops, BC. They are going to be used mostly for Social Studies and for Astronomy classes. Our schools new and improved WiFi network will enable this project to go ahead.

It was really a surprise that this project was approved and that the funds were somehow found. In a later post I will explain how I got it approved.

I am also planning on using this blog to chronicle the implementation of a class set of iPads on the school and learning of students.
Also we will share our experiences and best apps around for educational use.

How are the iPads going to be used in the classroom? Again a future post. Sorry you will have to wait, but I wanted to start the blog somewhere.

Jeremy Reid