This was my 'final post' that is really an extension of my last post! So, worth the wait I hope, here are my final thoughts...

I think the potential 'issues' still exist and would need to be considered
when beginning a 1 to 1 program. I was interested to hear how an International School in Hong Kong
facilitates it's 1:1 Program. It seemed a lot 'tighter' than the way our
trial was structured and I wonder if this is a good thing or not? The
speed at which my children picked things up, escalated with the
opportunity to take their computers home. However, as it was optional to
take the computers home, it made it difficult to assign homework tasks
involving the computers when some children would not have them. Just
watching their confidence in themselves as IT users was probably the
biggest 'up-side' for me. Since reverting to the older computers, shared with three other classes,
we have daily 'longed' for our laptops back. They are faster, more
reliable, less likely to fail us and best of all, they were ours which
meant in addition to our school server, we were able to just save to the
hard drive if the server was slow or busy. Having our own internet server
was also amazing and we loved how fast the internet was. As a creative outlet, I feel like I have lost a lot with not having the
computers. I was so impressed with many of the tools the students were
using to organize their thinking or share their work, including short
clips via the Photobooth into explanations of their work etc. The quality
of the computers, the time constraints associated with sharing and the
lack of reliability mean some of these ways of sharing our knowing are no
longer available to us. I would be interested in seeing how the iPad compares. I think as
feedback goes in to Apple about use in schools and more apps are made that
will make it more of a tool and less of a toy, it would be a very
economically and educationally viable option to consider pads over books. The addition of a webcam would be a start, along with a way of syncing the
iPads simultaneously as this could be a very time consuming feature of the
iPads. Overall, I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to trial
this 1:1 program. Yes, I am a strong advocate for IT integration in
education, however I think we still need to make sure that we are
introducing these programs with the appropriate support and training for
teachers and students (and parents!) who are less familiar and comfortable
with a Mac platform. As with any new scheme, it is not just the initial
financial obligation, but the ongoing commitment to upgrade, upskill and
support through dedicated IT personnel or IT training for all staff. We
would also need to consider parental 'buy in' as lack of this will
negatively impact the success of the scheme.

 

Transportation....adding a computer to the backpack of a third grader is a
significant increase in the weight of their bag! Many of our students
travel on public transport to school or walk/bike to school and the
addition of a computer is causing the need to rethink how this will work,
logistically. Some children are choosing to leave their computers at
school or are requesting to not take them home each night. From the
beginning, we said that it would not be necessary to carry the computers
home every night, and that still stands. However, when planning home
tasks around the idea that each child will have their computer at home but
not all children are taking them home. Hmmmm.....need to keep thinking
about this.

Exercises....some children have mentioned aches and eye strains which
could be associated with increased computer use. As a rule, I do not use
the computers for more than two periods in row. If they are used before
snack, then between snack and lunch, we will do other parts of our program
which do not require computers - group work, art projects, reading books
or inquiry tasks associated with our unit. I shared my concerns with
Christine and she was quickly on to this, providing us with a range of
child-friendly ergonomic exercises:

http://yisapple.pbworks.com/Resources-for-Families

Internet connectivity...this has caused a few problems with some families
which we are trying to resolve. Making sure each computer is capable of
communicating with the internet provider in the homes of each child is
obviously a priority. Again, Christine has been very proactive in her
approach to solving any problems that have come up, in a timely manner
that has been well received by the parents.

IT Support...we have been very lucky to have dedicated times when
Christine is exclusively available to 3S on a daily basis. I am
relatively competent when it comes to introducing and using IT software,
applications and web-based programs, however it is nice to know another
'expert' is at hand on a regular basis. I have recently started keeping a
record of the applications I am using and evaluating these via the
attached form: "Evaluating Software for Kids" by K. Haugen of "Kids Can!".
I am finding that there are a wealth of tools for kids to use - and am
increasingly impressed with how quickly my students are able to figure out
how these programs out!

So having seen Prezi a few months ago and being reminded of it again at
our staff meeting last night, I decided to revisit and give it a go. This
Thursday, I am presenting to our MS/HS students for Bridging the Gap and
so wanted something interesting and fresh to keep the attention of
teenagers (probably less easily impressed than my third graders who think
font changing and adding color to a text box are pretty high end skills!).

It really is quite simple. Within an hour (from sitting at a blank canvas
and just having an idea in my head) I was able to come up with this:

http://prezi.com/u_qnlws-whvn/

Pros:
It is like brainstorming but better. You can throw your main ideas down,
add details, add graphics and then put a frame around it all to 'group' it
as one 'thought'. Within that group, you can select particular parts that
you would like to zoom in on. The 'zebra' tool is very intuitive and even
my kids figured out that the plus sign would give them more information
(when we wanted to re-order the position of some items in our frames). I
particularly like that unlike a Keynote or Powerpoint, you can keep adding
and your brain is free to think of ideas, worrying about the order of
these ideas at the end of your creative spurt. The ordering is
particularly easy and add the pizzaz to your presentation.

Cons:
None really. It saves as it goes and if it does 'freeze up' a quick hit
of the refresh button will see you back on your way.

Having been shown Creative Commons by Christine, the students were armed
with all they needed to start documenting their thinking about our current
unit of inquiry. And with online storage, these can be easily added to
and updated as our unit progresses. A great way to encourage students to
think about how ideas connect and the cause and effect of different
elements.

Today we were exploring a range of videos selected by one of the teachers
in our Grade Three team (thanks, Julian!). As they watched the videos,
the children rated them for their relevance to our unit and then began
using key words to search for other videos they thought would be relevant
to our unit and interesting to Grade Three students. As they found their
own videos, they cut and pasted the link into an email to the whole class.

As I am new to Posterous, I am now experimenting: Christine and I believe
we may have read somewhere that if you include a link to YouTube in your
post, Posterous will embed the actual video. I have chosen my favorite
from the initial list of videos. Here's hoping it works!

Hard to believe a week ago, was Day One! Many thanks to Christine for her help thus far and for capturing some of the highlights in an Animoto movie.

Click here to view

For me, the highlights have been:

• Seeing the enthusiasm students have for using the computers

• Having peace of mind regarding the speed, security and reliability of computers for my students

• Listening to the language that the students have been using to teach and explain to their peers

• Seeing ways of integrating the old and the new - such as rehearsing the poetry recitals into the webcam

I am looking forward to seeing how I can use the computers as a tool to move learning forward and to provide more individualized opportunities for students to learn and develop their understandings.

So far, the key sites and applications we will be using:

Mathletics             www.mathletics.com

Mindnode             www.mindnode.com

Reading A-Z         www.readinga-z.com

Animoto                www.animoto.com

Posterous             www.posterous.com

First Class            www.yismail.com

Comic Life            Word Processing software

Inspiration            Mind mapping software

Photobooth           Video recording/Photo software

iWork:                   Pages, Keynote, Numbers

iLife:                     Garageband, iPhoto, iMovie

I can not speak highly enough of this program! My students are loving it
and as a teacher, I find it to be one of the most effective tools in terms
of motivating students and providing instant feedback to both the students
and myself on the progress being made. The thing I like the most, is that
it is not a 'put the kids in front of the computer and leave them to it'
program. It is a great tool for teaching the strands of Number, Pattern
and Function strands of the curriculum at a level appropriate to
individuals. I can see it being an excellent springboard for inquiries
into Data Handling, Measurement and Shape and Space when used in
conjunction with manipulatives and real-life, 3-D experiences. The
function that is most exciting is the Mathletics Live, where students can
compete in basic facts with students around the world. Just this week
after three days of use, we already have two students in the Mathletics
Hall of Fame; indicating they are in the top 100 Mathletes around the
world. If you have t
he opportunity, check it out. Brilliant!

 

Today was a fun and busy day.

We began with our first post to Posterous and then learned how to take a screen shot of some of the photos taken by Mr. Unno and use these in our student blogs. Some of this was familiar to the students and others were doing this for the first time.

We began our trial of Mathletics today and from a teacher's perspective, I would say it was brilliant! There was instant monitoring of achievements and I was able to immediately see who was needing further help or a greater challenge and immediately alter their course work to suit their level of need. The added dimension of being able to 'play live' with children around the world just made the whole experience all the more exciting. Many of the children have eagerly taken home their login information, keen to keep working on their math! How great is that? I like the 'instant feedback' component - instead of me marking the work as it is completed, the students are getting that information directly. I am able to intervene by checking in with students who are working at a slower pace and adjust accordingly. Two huge thumbs up from me!  

We ended the day with an introduction to Photobooth. As part of our unit "How We Express Ourselves" we are looking at the genre of poetry. This week, the home task has been to choose a poem and to practice reading it aloud to an audience. Today, the students used the video feature on Photobooth to record their poem presentations and then play them back to themselves to see how they could improve their performance. I am really looking forward to seeing them 'go live' tomorrow! I had always thought of Photobooth as just a fun toy, but used in this way, it really added a new dimension to our unit and again, was invaluable in providing instant feedback to the students.

The class ended the day with a little photo fun, culminating in dragging their favorite PhotoBooth photo to the desktop and then putting it into an email and sending it to me.  I have then uploaded them to this post for your viewing pleasure and amusement! 

Another great day!

 

I can already see that it is going to be hard to give these computers up in two months and 28 days (but who's counting?).

 

Today was Mathletics training with Jenny from Mathletics.  www.mathletics.com  It looks awesome.  We are excited to try this out and see if it lives up to our (high) expectations.

 

Today we started an email post to our individual blogs.  This will be finished tomorrow.  During the email we learned how to bookmark a website. And that was about the day finished!  

 

 

Just in case they got lost in the comment box of Day One, here is a link to the photos taken today by Mr. Unno.

Thanks to Genki, Brian and Christine for giving up so much of their time to 3S today!  

http://tinyurl.com/ykqtzkk

Looking ahead for what we might achieve this week...

ACADEMIC activities are in regular font.

TECHNICAL activities are in bold.  

 

QUESTION:  How much input do you think Grade 3 students need to or should have in the setup/installation of programs and drivers?

Please post your responses below!  

 

Wednesday

• Each student has their own Posterous site.  Tomorrow, I would like them to reflect on the fun and excitement of today and add some photos to their site.  Wednesday is our 'busy day' with not a lot of time in the classroom, so this will probably be all for today.