As our world moves into technology implementation of electronics is critical in elementary schools. Yesterday George Couros posted about technology for the sake of technology as a means to engagement. His point was that just because students are using technology doesn’t mean that the actual performance task is legitimate. The vision at Crull is to create literate students in both technology and print. Combining a balanced literacy program with resources.
The iPad used with intentions has the capacity to provide both. Yet it is overwhelming to determine where to start. A brief synopsis of our evolution began with the adult learners.
- Our first move was to supply all teachers with one school issues iPad. As we first began we used one Apple ID and cloned all the staff iPads with the same apps.
- The second year we allowed staff the opportunity to take ownership and we used the voluntary one to one model. ( one Apple ID and one iPad) to continue to promote exploration iTunes cards were provided to teachers.
- Carts of ipads were introduced and with out applications instruction with the ipads was highly creative and productive for the students. We found when we added apps to the ipads (with ruthless abandon) that the ipads lost their instructional purpose and students became less engaged in learning and more compliant with sitting with technology. The dreaded “appsitter” (a glorified worksheet).
- Now in our third year we have moved to: each teacher issued an ipad, each classroom teacher has 5 ipads for use at all times in small group, 3 ipad carts for checkout, 2 one to one rooms (5th and 1st), and 90 laptops.
- We have also invested in Dreambox Math (personal math instruction), Lexia Core 5 (personal literacy instruction), RAZ kids (leveled books), AR on-line and Overdrive (on-line library).
Our instruction at Crull continues to evolve and change to combine the best of technology resources and the best of quality classroom instruction. A few of my favorite projects I have seen that reach higher level thinking using technology:
- “Fed Ex” days (Daniel Pink) where students choose what they want to learn and how they want to show learning
- Recording Reading using the video/camera tools
- Dragon Dictation for reluctant writers
- 4 corner math stations with different apps for different learners
- Using EduCreations for recording math problems and teaching other students
- Creating books or digital stories (Toontasic, Lego Storymaker)
- iMovies for presentations
- Using Notes on the ipad to type spelling words
- Exploring the internet for resources
- Blogging using Weebly or Kid Blog ( shameless plug for school blog >http://hdcrull.weebly.com/)
We are seeing great growth in our students with our technology differentiation and hope to continue to grow and challenge traditional education!
Christie
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