Sheri+Barsottelli

9/27/2010-9/28/10

My role in the iPad grant looks a little different because of my position as a literacy coach this year. Since I do not have a group of my own students, I have been able to offer the iPads to teachers in my building that are servicing general education and special education students. I was very fortunate to have a teacher on each of the three inclusion teams, one for each grade level, invite me into their classrooms.

Although there was discussion about not having students take the survey on they iPads, I chose to do it anyway. The positives definitely outweighed the negatives. The only negative was getting the students attention to take the survey. On the positive side, the students were so excited to have an iPad in their hands, when promised with time to play after the survey they quickly got to work. They still seemed to be very thoughtful in their answers and although some finished quickly, many kept working on the survey even though other students had moved on to playing. Finally, it was much faster than pulling out laptops or going to the computer lap to sign on, get online, get to the survey, take the survey and THEN give them the iPads.

The students were incredibly excited to see the iPads, many were actually giddy! Luckily I have never needed a completely quiet classroom. Each class did get easier to manage the excitement and I learned which apps to wait to share until I didn't need their attention anymore. Many students told me they were adding an iPad to their Christmas lists, a few told me someone they know that already has one and one asked if I was seriously handing her an iPad. I was amazed at the ability of the students to type with ease, navigate the touch screen, as well as find the home, volume, screen lock and on/off button. There were a handful of students within the seven classes I was in that didn't know how to "slide" to the next question, a few that struggled with the touch screen, but mostly they would ask a question aloud and then figure it out before I got to them. The more experienced students were very helpful, but I had to keep reminding them to "teach not touch" (thank you Iroquois teachers).

My favorite student quote of the day though was "NO, thank YOU!"... said as I walked out the door and thanked the teacher and students for allowing me into their classroom. I've also had many students stopping me in the hall to ask when I'm bringing the iPads back to their classes. Luckily, I have heard from all of the teachers and we are planning lessons and units using the iPads. I'm looking forward to meeting again with the teachers to see how they've been used in other classrooms. The social studies teacher I am working with wants to know if there is a video creating app.

10/5/10

Today I created a lesson for a 7th grade ELA class focusing on the writing trait of ideas. The lesson incorporates using the Internet and iBrainstorm to brainstorm a story idea with a detailed setting. I was happy to see the survey results and was thrilled that the students were thoughtful about their answers.

10/6-10/7

On Wednesday I used the iPads in a group of ELA 7 classes for a brainstorming activity using iBrainstorm. Of the 5 classes I was in, only one took the survey and had a chance to previously play with the iPads, so there was a lot of excitement. The class that already used the iPads were glad to have them back and the other classes were thrilled to get the chance to use them for the first time. I did an informal survey with the 4 classes that hadn't yet used the iPads and all but 4 students (out of about 70) had used a touch screen before. One student even reminded me that the Nintendo DS has a touch screen. After explaining to the students how the school got the iPads, we started the lesson. The focus of the lesson was reviewing the trait of ideas in writing and adding details to a setting using the 5 senses. (i'll post the lesson after I revise it) The students were well behaved, attentive and worked hard throughout the lesson. When I needed their full attention I did make them turn the iPads over because we left them on the desks rather than put them back and forth into the cart. Just as in other classes, the students had few problems navigating the apps. When they did have problems, they were quick to ask for help and either another student or myself would be able to quickly direct them to the quick fix. Throughout the whole day, only one student completely lost their work and I still don't know how they did it! The post-it notes were still there, but the information on the notes were gone. After they finished, we used an gmail address I created just for the student to mail the brainstorming so I could open it on my computer and print them up for the students.

We talked about how the iPad is just one tool to use for brainstorming, but they could use the strategy (post-it notes, 5 senses to add detail) with a computer or with paper and pencil. The students of course reminded me that the iPads are more fun though!

When I went through the brainstorming sheets after printing them, the students did a nice job of brainstorming a setting for a story. Students will need further instruction on describing the taste, touch, etc. but overall I think the lesson accomplished it's goal for the majority of the students. I was impressed that they weren't distracted by the entertainment value of the iPads. Since most of the groups who were involved in this lesson hadn't had a chance to "play" with the iPads, I allowed students to come to my room during lunch to use the other apps and internet on the iPads.

10/14

Using ipads in a social studies class today. The teacher started with a journal response on the class wikispace. Then she had saved websites to her teacher website and the students are going to the different pictures, websites and using the constitution app to answer questions in preparation for their study of reconstruction after the civil war. The first class struggled a little bit getting to the websites because they did not read the directions carefully and some forgot their usernames and passwords for wikispaces. Other than that things have gone smoothly. Being able to enlarge and zoom in on the pictures has been a huge advantage. The more immature students struggled with staying on task and spent time playing with the zoom and scroll features. I feel these students would have struggled no matter how the activity was done (printed pictures and reading or laptops) because it's their nature. At least with the iPad there was motivation to keep working and see another website.

10/25

I've been thinking a lot about the need for more creating apps on the iPad. Many of the websites available for creating and collaborating are Flash based, so apps are the only other option. Will the next upgrade allow Flash? Although I struggled in the beginning with typing and creating in the beginning, the kids really don't and I feel like I'm getting better at using the iPad for creating. I'm going to add a few to the list that I've heard of and am trying on my iPad. Does anyone have any that they know about? I had a teacher specifically ask me for a video creating app. Are there any that are collaborate like websites?

11/18

I keep meaning to write, but never seem to find the time...here are a few thought from the last almost month of use of the iPads:


 * as I mentioned above we REALLY need to have more creation apps on the student iPads...I need to find another place on this wiki to mention this so it gets seen.
 * Wiki's are not easy to use on the iPads...it's okay for writing, but pictures are impossible to add. If someone else has been able to add a picture to a wiki using the iPad, I would love to know how.
 * without any pre-planning, I was able to copy and paste a news article into SpeakIt so a student to listen to the article and answer the questions about the article. It went really well. Unfortunately, I think some students are seeing it as a negative thing (listening to rather than reading), so I didn't get other opportunities to see if it made a difference in their comprehension. One student at first wanted to listen to it, but then changed his mind. It felt very much like avoidance of the assignment, so if he kept changing his mind he had an excuse for not getting much done.

11/23

Spending the day in an 11th grade social studies class. 95% of the students have used the iPads in other classes. They still find them entertaining, so there are always a few who spend more time playing games. With a few reminders they get into the research. This class is researching the federalists and democratic-republican parties and completing a chart about their positions on different issues of the time. The students had no problem using the iPads, any difficulties resulted from confusion about the assignment, difficulty searching for information and reading websites that they did find. They want the information to jump out at them rather than read through the information and pick out the pieces needed to answer their questions.

11/30/10

Comment from a teacher who used the iPads for the first time: The iPads worked well! I believe students gained valuable research material from them. Thanks again for your help. I will ask to use them again in the future.

1/18/11

Recent uses of the ipads include:
 * reading news articles as mentor text, finding the parts of the article and answering questions about the article to learn how to write their own new articles. A few students took the option of copying and pasting their article into the "Speak It" app to listen to their article to make it easier to answer questions. Unfortunately, many students who wanted to use the app had already found articles on a site that wouldn't let them copy and paste, so they decided to just read the article. Another student took the time to copy and paste, but then decided to read it anyway. I believe he was just avoiding the work altogether. So the more times he changed his mind, the more excuses he had for not finishing the assignment. Something that would have happened with or without the iPads. I was hoping to get an idea of how students were able to complete the assignment by listening to it versus reading it, but because of the lack of participation I don't have any new information.
 * looking at primary sources and research in social studies. The students really appreciate the zoom feature and ease of use of the iPads (no signing on, fewer internet issues). However, the lack of Quicktime and Flash eliminates some of the historical tours and videos students could view.
 * used the thesaurus to create better word choice. A big conversation became about word appropriateness as well as being a more sophisticated word. It's great to use "big" words, but if they don't fit the purpose and/or audience, then it's not better word choice. Then the students wrote their better words on DoodleBuddy and created lune poems with the iPads. Because of network issues and time, we will have to take the next step tomorrow. Students will go to johnjohnston.info/lunes and find a picture related to a topic they are interested and write a lune, save it as a picture and email it to themselves or to me to print.

Students are still very excited to have use of the iPads in classes. I like having the cases because they can easily be closed and students can't as easily sneak using them during instruction or being given directions. Continuing to look for ways students can create things with the iPads instead of just research with them. That's why I liked the lune "app"...it's an app that's on the internet and can work on the computer, but I can only get them to save on the iPad. Will try and post a picture of one of the Lunes I created in preparation for the lesson.

iPad Lune:

Lunes using johnjohnston.info/lunes

January-February 2011

Eighth grade students used the iPads as part of their book study. They used the iPads to record their discussions on their class wikispace. Students and teachers were able to read about their discussions and comment. In addition to writing about their book discussions, students looked up information about their books, read discussions about the books they were reading on websites such as Barnes and Noble and read about the authors.

February 2011

Students in 6th grade classes are using the iPads in a variety of ways throughout a persuasive writing unit. We began the unit by modeling use of the iPad with the document camera. I noticed a significant difference between the students who received modeled instruction with the iPads and those students who just started using them. I modeled using Safari, iBrainstorm and Notes, as well as emailing from iBrainstorm and Notes. Although not difficult apps, there are many tricks to using them successfully that is easier to model once and have to just review with a few students rather than individually teach each student because they struggled following the oral directions.

May 23- 2011