iPad apps for the classroom: Striking a balance

This year I am lucky enough to be getting six iPads for my classroom. This will give me a ratio of 1:4. If I use my personal iPad and my iPad mini, this could give me a ratio of 1:3 when I need it. (Plus one student brings his own iPad. Someone heard that iPads are good for kids with special needs so some kids have their own. That's another post for another time.) 
So I have come to the exciting part of the iPad journey - deciding which apps to load on the new iPads from the hundreds of thousands of apps available in the App Store.
I haven't got an unlimited budget but I don't want to download too many apps because it gets overwhelming. (To be honest, I'm not sure what my budget is, but I know it won't be infinite - I am lucky that I have been given the money for the iPads - I don't want to push the limits too far!)
Some of the free or cheaper apps are great and have been my "go to" apps up until now. (See my post on Sonic Pics and Pic Collage) Sometimes the old adage "you get what you pay for" really comes into play. The convenience of a good quality app that doesn't keep trying to sell you things is priceless.
Costs aside, I want to provide my students with a good range of apps so they can select the right tool for the right task.
I will provide them with some "drill and practice" and content type apps, and, of course, some logical thinking and strategy games, but the main purpose of the iPads will be as tools for learning, creating, sharing and collaborating. I want my students to be creative producers of knowledge, not passive consumers.
To assist in my quest for the right balance, I have started a Pinterest board for iPad apps for Year 2. I have put the links to the iTunes store and a brief description of each app. Hopefully this will make it easier next week to find them again and to select the ones that I decide I want now, or down the track. I am also hopeful that people will stumble across my Pinterest board and leave useful comments about how they have used these apps in their own classrooms.

I am working on a concept map that will hopeful clarify my thinking about how I intend to use the iPads with the students and which apps will best meet these needs. I will update this post as I go until I have worked it out.

Does my classroom reflect my teaching philosophy?

Last weekend on Twitter, @whatedsaid tweeted an excellent question along the lines of "Does your classroom environment reflect what you believe about learning?"
At the time I thought this was an excellent question and wished I had time to do it justice in a reflective post.
As luck would have it, this week I was asked to give a presentation on a similar topic so I managed to create time to reflect on what I do and whether this matches what I say I believe.
Here is what I found:

Even though what I do, I could do successfully in a different system, my philosophy of teaching is based on my foundational belief in the dignity of the human person. I believe that every child is made in the image and likeness of God, and that every child deserves to feel safe, have fun and to enjoy learning experiences that suits their needs.

 Learners in my classroom are usually busy doing. Of course there are times when they gather to listen, reflect and recap, but I try to allow opportunities for hands-on exploration, discussion and experimentation as much as possible.

 I am very proud of the way that my students are able to speak about their own learning and why what they are doing is of benefit to their learning needs. This year I have implemented the Daily 5 program for the first time. I have found that this program which fits my philosophy well, provides a structure for my practice in Literacy, and that the students and I have been able to transfer the best parts of this practice into other curriculum areas.

 Right from the beginning of the year, I work hard to establish a sense of community through special shared experiences, predictable routines that highlight the identity of our class community and behavioural expectations based on mutual respect. A few years ago I convinced my school administration to allow us to move to a resources levy system instead of a text book list so that I can set up shared resources in my classroom. When students have individual belongings and pencils cases I find that usually by the end of the first semester, many of the twist-up crayons have been turned into pea shooters and half the class can't seem to find a pair of scissors when they need them. Since moving to the shared tubs, I have discovered that students are more responsible for the resources since they don't see them as belonging to them, but as necessary for our class community.

 If you spent a week in my classroom you would notice how much and in how many ways technology has transformed the way that I work with students in my room. I use my projector and laptop as an essential part of many of our routines. I use a bank of student laptops (shared among a few classes) for individual and collaborative activities. I use a set of shared iPads for a range of purposes, and use my own personal iPad and iPhone for capturing student learning on a daily basis.

 I try very hard to allow all learners to engage in challenging activities at an appropriate level by providing differentiated learning experiences and open-ended tasks. I use K-W-L charts and pretests to determine the students' individual and collective knowledge and interests prior to learning experiences and use this information to guide my planning.

 The General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum are at the heart of what I do. I regularly reflect on how I am offering my students opportunities to develop in these capabilities.

Although I am restricted to the furniture I was given and a reasonably small classroom with no "break-out" space, I have tried my best to arrange the furniture to suit the kinds of experiences I want students to have in the room. I have set aside a large carpet area so all the children can gather in front of the IWB and so there is enough space for games and movement. I have arranged the desks into pods and students know that even though they have a "home desk" which houses their books etc, they can work in a variety of spaces within the room, sometimes for flexible grouping, sometimes by their own choice. In the corner, I have had the old whiteboard installed at floor height so that students can use this space to write questions, reflect on learning, practise their spelling or express ideas in pictures. The PE teacher has loaned us an exercise ball and students love to sit on this either at their desks or around the room. My teacher desk is pushed right into the corner of the room so it doesn't take up more space than it must. I rarely sit at it anyway. My students sit on my "teacher chair" more than I do. I'm always on the move!

I really do think that my classroom reflects my teaching philosophy. Of course it is a "work in progress" and changes as I reflect on how I can improve, and when I am inspired by other great teachers who share their ideas.

Does your classroom reflect your beliefs about learning? I'd love to see more ideas!

Express Yourself!

In any classroom attempting to hear everyone’s point of view is a challenge. In a class discussion only a small number of children can share before the responses are exhausted or the attention has dissipated. Attempting to visit each individual to hear discrete responses is time consuming and impractical. Individual interviews also rob the students of the opportunity to learn collaboratively. By the time I get around to my fast mathematical thinkers and ask them to explain how they reached their solution, the moment has passed and their responses are usually along the lines of “I just knew it”.

This project aimed to explore ways that digital technology could be employed in an early years classroom to allow gifted learners to express their knowledge and understanding in different subject areas by capturing thought processes and ideas in a timely manner and establishing a means of sharing ideas.

The group of learners targeted in this project are capable young students with an energetic thirst for variety in their learning experiences and a cheeky sense of creativity. These students are keen to share their opinions on issues and are capable of lightning fast thinking, particularly in Mathematics. Without a challenge the have the propensity to become challenging, hence, their super-powers must be harnessed for good, not evil.

My challenge became discovering ways that I could capture my students’ thought patterns and opinions and provide them a platform for sharing their thinking with an audience beyond their teacher.

Through this project, I experimented with a number of hardware and software options in order to discover ways that the students could successfully communicate their ideas. Often the first experiences needed to be heavily scaffolded, but the idea behind the project is to assist the students in developing the skills so they can work more independently later.

We used laptops, digital cameras, microphones, and iPads in our experiments but the iPad became the tool of choice due to its ease of use, portability, and availability in our classroom.

Two projects were most notably successful in allowing the students to express their ideas with a degree of independence: an enhanced poster with a short persuasive video embedded via a QR code, and brief explanations of mathematical thinking captured using the Explain Everything app.

Our first success was the result of a great number of failed attempts. As the teacher I was definitely in the learner seat on this project. The children were enthusiastic about learning and were happy to be part of the experiment. They were not easily put off by our setbacks. The process which eventually resulted in success involved the children combining quite a number of the skills they already had as well as integrating a few skills that were new to me as well.

The students had been involved in a whole class inquiry into how people, pets and native animals can live together sustainably. Towards the end of our investigation the students suggested a number of ways that we could change our behaviour to make our school and home environments more friendly for native animals.

Working in pairs, students selected one of the class suggestions and came up with three supporting reasons for their proposal. They created a visual image using a free iPad app called Pic Collage.

The pair of Year 2 students then worked with some Year 5 buddies to turn their ideas into a short persuasive speech. The Year 5s had developed some good persuasive writing skills due to copious amounts of NAPLAN preparation earlier in the year so we decided to put these skills to a much better use.

The Year 2s then used the iPads again and an app called Sonic Pics to record their speech using the image they created earlier in Pic Collage app as an illustration.

The students have used Sonic Pics for a number of projects throughout the year so this was a more practical choice than iMovie or other similar apps.

Once the students had created their recording I helped them upload the file to my YouTube channel.

Since it was the first time I had created QR codes with the students, I assisted them in doing this, but now they know the process, they may be able to do this step themselves in future tasks.

The students designed posters to promote their message and painted these. Once dry, they fixed the QR code onto the poster.

We displayed the posters around the school, and as part of the Australia Post Kids Teaching Kids Week activities, the Year 2 students demonstrated to a class of Year 1 students how to use the Scan app on the iPad to read the QR code and watch the movie they had created.

The students were so proud of their achievements that we later showcased this work again for our parents. If you would like to see their work, visit our class blog. The students love to receive comments about their work!

This experience with flexible and creative technology will now allow me to set more interesting challenges for the students, with confidence that they have the technical skills to share their ideas and thoughts with others.

Our second project involved a small group of students who are particularly talented in Mathematics. These young students competently add three-digit numbers requiring regrouping in their heads and have developed their own strategies for dealing with more complex calculations and larger numbers.

Even though I have worked with the whole class on using a variety of addition strategies in Mathematics, these students had difficulty explaining how they were getting their answers. Their responses were either: “I just knew it” or they would give me the name of a random strategy that we had discussed in class but couldn’t articulate why that had helped.

I was keen to assist these children in developing some skills in explaining their thinking because I know that they are going to be asked to “show their working” many times in their schooling.

There seemed little point in holding them back with the regular Year 2 curriculum when their mathematical reasoning appeared to be beyond this level, but I also wanted to be confident that their methods were grounded in logic and that they had a variety of effective strategies for basic calculations.

Rather than limiting their thinking about addition to one rigid algorithm and subjecting them to hundreds of repetitions, I encouraged them to use a variety of strategies and to attempt to explain what they were doing to demonstrate their mastery of the basic concepts.

At first the explanation process was awkward and slow, often not making sense to anyone but themselves, but since they were able to capture their thinking using Explain Everything on the iPad and play it back, as well as access the thinking of other students in the group, they eventually improved.

The next stage of this project will be to give these students an audience and purpose beyond having to justify their thinking to a teacher.

I plan to use the QR code idea again to create a series of “help posters” that can be used by other class members who might need further explanation on a particular strategy. Another future project might involve creating a “Maths Expert” blog as a platform for the students to showcase their thinking but also provide a service to a much wider audience.

The challenges in exploring this project were not related to the students but involved the limits of the technology in the setting. With no carpet and an unsealed dividing wall, the classroom is not the ideal location for creating good quality recordings. I experimented with many options for improving the sound quality and have still not discovered the ideal solution. Also, since the iPads are shared across the school and we get access to different iPads at random, tracking down the students work or continuing on saved work presented a number of challenges.

Despite these limitations, the project was successful in discovering new ways of capturing student thoughts and ideas and in empowering young learners to express themselves.

Toys Past and Present

Our History study this term will focus on how toys have changed over time.
This investigation will address the third point in Historical knowledge and understanding in the Australian Curriculum for Year 2:
The impact of changing technology on people’s lives (at home and in the ways they worked, travelled, communicated, and played in the past) (ACHHK046)
The children have written letters to their own grandparents, posing questions about the past, and tapping into their grandparents' wisdom as a source of historical knowledge.
We have also borrowed a collection of "artefacts" from the museum and of course, are using books and other written resources as further sources of historical knowledge.
One web-based resource which has been very useful in introducing some basic concepts is the Welsh produced web site: How toys have changed.
I have created a number of worksheets that I have used with differentiated groups to collect information from this website.
These worksheets are accessible from my google docs.
Worksheet 1 - Simplest sheet - scaffolded sentence writing.
Worksheet 2 - Collecting information about one toy from one period
Worksheet 3 - Collecting information (writing keywords) about a variety of toys from different times.
I hope these resources might be of use to you.

iPads in the Classroom PD

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go to an excellent PD presented by Spectronics about the use of iPads in classrooms, particularly for differentiating instruction.
I was really, really lucky because my wonderful principal let me take along three colleagues.
I am an iPad convert. I have been using Apple products since I was seven (that's over thirty years - wow - I am old!) and as each new innovation has been launched I have been lucky enough to have at least been kept in the loop by my father, who lives and breathes Apples.
But the iPad has me really interested. I truly hope that it is the tool that will help me to become a better teacher. I want to transform my teaching so I can take my students on learning journeys we never before thought possible - and I think the iPad might help me do it.
I will admit that before I went along to the PD yesterday I was a little afraid it was going to be an "iPad for Dummies" session and that I would come away without learning anything, but Greg O'Connor managed to engage his audience that included everyone for self-proclaimed "iPad virgins" to techno-geeks.
He was honest, interesting and intelligent.
He said out aloud many of the things that I have been thinking for a while. He even said many of the things that I have been saying.
After about an hour, I was very impressed, very glad I came along and very happy that it turns out I am not as crazy as I thought I might have been.
Greg demonstrated a few simple things that could be done with an iPad - not too much to overwhelm people who were just starting out, but enough to inspire thinking about how else these devices might be useful.
He was upfront about the limitations and challenges: ICT stands for "It Can't Teach" and quality teachers are more important than ever; It's the pedagogy, not the tool that makes for good learning; learning to work with new technology is hard work.
Tomorrow my colleagues and I are planning to share some of what we learnt with other staff at our school. We all came away from the day inspired to keep on learning, and I think that is the mark of a quality PD!

Black Hat, Green Hat: Thinking about 1:1 iPads

For the past few months I have been exploring the idea of 1:1 iPads in my classroom. I have read articles, listened to podcasts, played with apps, attended PD sessions and spoken with colleagues at other schools and institutions doing or considering similar programs. The recent QSITE conference at Coomera was an excellent opportunity to engage with other like-minded professionals and helped me to feel that maybe my dream is not as crazy as it seems.

My own friends and colleagues remain skeptical about the necessity of such a huge leap. My proposed experiment (and that is how I see it since we don’t yet have enough experience or data to prove that 1:1 iPads will have a positive impact on learning outcomes) is expensive. At about $500 for each student (to get a basic iPad2, a sturdy case and a handful of apps) could run to $12,000 for a class of 24 students.

Genuine questions arise about why do I think I need 1:1 (rather than a shared class set between a few classes or a small bank in my own class room – two legitimate alternatives that might be somewhat less expensive). Other intelligent queries relate to what would I do with all these iPads that I can’t do already, and is the teaching and learning in my classroom going to improve enough to justify the expense.

I have been grateful to my colleagues and friends, as well as parents in my current class and my principal who have asked me so many “hard” questions over the past few months as this “black hat thinking” is critical to me when I am refining my ideas and formulating my plans.

My principal is reasonably supportive of the idea but has many way-too-sensible questions about where the money is coming from and who is responsible for insurance, breakages and other problems. Those are the really “not-fun” parts of the project, and probably the reason that I am the teacher and not the principal, because at the end of the day I can hand those problems over to someone else (I hope).

So, to answer “That’s a good question” Number 1: Why 1:1 iPads?

Essentially, iPads are a personal device. Once you own your own iPad, you personalise the device to your settings, assign it your email, sign into your DropBox, Evernote, Twitter, Facebook etc. When you play a game with multiple levels, the device saves your settings. Due to the options that most apps provide for sharing files and creations, it is way simpler (particularly for young students) to have a personalised device.

A shared set of iPads is problematic for a teacher trying to do many pedagogically sound projects with students using iPads. In order for a student to continue working on a project they have started, they need to get access again to the same device they had last time. This can be problematic, particularly when different children require different amounts of time for completing projects.

Excellent applications for the iPad2 potentially use images, movies and sounds which are all saved on the individual device. Remembering exactly which device was used to take a photo three weeks ago at an excursion could be problematic.

To me, one of the biggest advantages of 1:1 devices would be that students would have access to the tools when they needed them. In a learner-centred classroom in which the teacher is responsive to the needs of individual students, the ability to use the right tool at the right time is paramount. I don’t always know a week ahead, a day ahead or even an hour ahead when my learners are going to be ready to use the device and for how long they might need it. Sharing the devices across many classes and being restricted by booking regimes and timetables can take the flexibility and spontaneity out of the classroom. If the devices are seen mostly as a “toy” or and “activity” then it is possible to “book in” some time but if these devices are seen as a “tool” to allow for learning, creativity and problem solving, then sharing the devices across multiple classes is inadequate.

Many people assume that “1:1” means that all students will be using the devices almost all of the time. Anecdotes and evidence from classrooms involved in 1:1 programs indicate that this is far from the truth. A 1:1 program allows teachers and students the flexibility to choose the right tool for the task at hand. If the iPad is the right tool for that student for that task, then they use the iPad; if another tool is the best choice, then that is what is used. It alleviates the over-use of the devices for meaningless or inappropriate tasks when teachers and students use the device for a task simply because “this is our hour with the iPads this week”.

iPads used effectively in learning are tools for discovery, creativity and communication. Students are not just game-players or users – they are designers and creators.

To get the files they create to the teacher from a shared device from many great apps can be a very complicated, multiple step process which means that with younger students, particularly, the teacher ends up with the job of chasing down the device, searching for the file and uploading it to the correct place. If this process took about 5 minutes for each of the 24 students each week, this time quickly adds up, and as they say in the business world, “Time is money.” I know my time is valuable and I want to make sure that the time I do have with students is spent on quality teaching and learning, not organising files.

Other “maintenance” issues such as uploading apps, maintaining the camera roll and daily charging are onerous tasks when needing to be done on multiple devices and knowing who is responsible for this maintenance on shared devices could cause some issues.

In a 1:1 program, these tasks could be passed onto the individual (with assistance from parents where necessary). Individually the tasks are not cumbersome, but en masse they are tedious.

I would propose that the 1:1 iPads were the responsibility of the individual (even if the ownership is retained by the school). Anecdotal evidence from the early 1:1 iPad trial in Victoria suggested that the introduction of the iPad program was a fantastic conduit for improving home-school relationship because the parents became very interested in what was happening in the classroom and were happy to assist in installing new apps and ensuring the iPad was sent to school charged.

Assuming that we were to purchase the base model iPad with 16GB of data, if every iPad needed to have every app that might me used by different students in different classes and year levels, and students and individual teachers would not be able to delete movie files and images that didn’t belong to them (in case it was something important), the devices could fill up quickly. Personal devices would assist students in establishing more thoughtful approaches to file management, even from a young age.

Personal devices would also allow teachers to install apps for particular students on the individual device only. Specific apps may be extremely useful to one or two children in a class but irrelevant to others so it doesn’t make sense to have a “one size fits all” approach to purchasing apps, because even at only $1.99 each they can add up quickly across a large number of devices.

That brings me to “That’s a good question” Number 2: Wouldn’t it be cheaper to have 1:2 or 1:4 or some other system?

After reading, reading, listening, discussing, reading, thinking, reading, discussing, listening and thinking a lot about the cost of a 1:1 Program compared to other models, I have come to the conclusion that once everything is taken into consideration, the cost of 1:1 iPads might not be that much more than the alternatives.

Schools instituting 1:1 programs usually have some kind of cost to the parents. Sometimes the parents are expected to buy the device themselves for specific use by the student at school (at least one Gold Coast school is using this model). Other schools charge a levy that means that the parents are paying for all or some of the cost over a number of years. Our initial survey of parents suggested that the majority of parents would consider paying some cost towards a 1:1 program for their child. Anecdotal evidence from colleagues at other schools is that most parents are generally happy to subsidise the program in some way.

I am not sure if as many parents would be happy to subsidise the program if the access to the device was shared.

My second point to defend the cost of the program would be to point out the “uncharged” cost on teachers in file management issues and maintenance like charging. Making sure that the iPads are locked away securely and being charged each night would be just another task to add to my never-ending list of things to do each day.

I would also suggest that the ability to purchase only the apps that are needed for a particular child could save money also. New apps could be purchased by a small group of children who are using it for a specific purpose and if the app is found to be useful to others, they can purchase it later. This could save buying apps that look good at first and then turn out to be not all they seemed.

Charging 100 or so iPads each night might not cost a fortune but I am sure this cost would add up over time. In a 1:1 program, iPads would be charged at home, meaning a small saving for the school in the electricity bill.

Not so silly question Number 3: Why use iPads with early years students?

My response to this question depends on the alternative being offered or the question behind the question. Some people think that technology use is a higher priority for older students; they should get access first. Many people are concerned that the students are too young for the responsibility that comes with using or owning an expensive device that allows them access to the big, wide world of the Internet. Some people think that laptops or iPods might be a more suitable alternative; and of course, for many purposes they might be right. Some people are concerned that when students have greater access to ICT they will not develop other skills such as reading, writing and the art of conversation.

I think that access to appropriate technology, when coupled with excellent pedagogy, is important for all students regardless of age. By suggesting that we use iPads in the early years (as one tool for learning) I am not detracting from the importance of technology for other learners. I’m advocating for the nurturing of responsible digital citizens and implementation of quality pedagogies that utilise technologies in meaningful ways.

The “fear factor” when it comes to trusting students with expensive hardware and access to the world of the web is massive amongst both parents and teachers. Some of us seem to cling to the hope that if we delay and limit access to ICT for as long as we can we will protect them (and valuable equipment). I am not proposing open slather and no supervision. I believe that as educators we have an important responsibility to teach (this is why we are called “teachers”) our charges to treat the equipment with care and respect, and to develop skills and awareness that will put them in a better position to make responsible and safe decisions when using the Internet. I fear that if we don’t take the opportunity to educate our students about Internet etiquette, cybersafety and responsible digital citizenship before they begin to access these things on their own, we are letting our students down.

Why iPads over laptops or iPods? iPads are a happy balance between being small enough to be easily portable and big enough to do some great stuff. They are reasonably affordable and quite robust. Having no keyboard or hinges means less parts to break. iPad apps are well-priced and easy to access. There is less “wait time” when powering up and the battery life is comparatively good. There are some things that are best done on a laptop or an iPod but the iPad offers enough flexibility for some very creative applications.

I would relish the opportunity to “play” in a 1:1 iPad classroom so that I can learn and discover some of the possibilities with my students. The “black hat thinkers”, while necessary and important, are not asking the “green hat questions” that plague my mind. What can I do with these devices? How can I embrace this technology to challenge and transform my own teaching so I am improving my own pedagogy, and therefore opening up a new world of possibility for my learners? How useful are these devices in monitoring the learning of my students? How will a 1:1 environment enable me to differentiate learning experiences for individual students? Which apps are going to help me provide opportunities for my students to think, create, design, develop, collaborate, explore and learn?

These are the questions I really want to answer. Now I am just asking for a chance.