Thursday, August 2, 2012

Summer Update


Hello out there! It's been awhile since I've posted, but the new year is right around the corner so I wanted to get going again. Summer was so busy! Here's a look at what happened in our iPad world:


"Getting Started with iPad" was the theme of June. We took up our temporary residence at Smithton Middle School and began the 9-12 grade deployment. We designed a rolling training that started every 30 minutes and covered three rooms and a total of an hour and a half. Buttons, settings, Safari, camera, and App Store were all covered. The feedback was great! 95% of teachers said they felt comfortable with their iPad after the training. I'm not sure the final number, but the last I heard, we had moved over 300 teachers through the basic training! I really enjoyed getting to meet so many secondary teachers.

In addition to "Getting Started" training, we also put on inservices that covered some great integration ideas for iPad. Kerry rocked Evernote and file mobility. Ken tackled using QR codes and YouTube. I took on creating with apps, iWorks (iMovie, Keynote), and my personal favorite, "iPad Teacher Testimonials". I invited some master teachers from our district to share how they've used iPads over the last year. Heather Lang (Benton), Tyler Simmons (Cedar Ridge), Jill Kiley and Anna Osborn (JJHS) were awesome! They shared great ideas for using the iPad to increase engagement,  monitor progress, and develop higher-order thinking skills. The participants were flooded with great, real-world applications for their iPad.

I'm really excited about getting going again this year! There are so many schools doing different things with iPads, not to mention the 400 secondary teachers. My goal is to post at least once a week to our two blogs to keep you up-to-date with what's going on in our district. Hope to see you soon!


No comments:

Post a Comment