App Overload at Sullivan Heights.

The following link is a google doc that has all the apps that we have on our iPads, some we've already removed.  Our iPad cart (consisting of 31 iPads, a LCD projector and an Apple Talk box) is considered a moving cart, one that anyone can sign out at any time.  So when we had a 1/2 day of looking at apps we were inundated with apps the teachers wanted to try.  We loaded them all, and then had 4 iPads for teachers to sign out and use.  We've been slowly but surely going through them.  As you can see, many of them have been evaluated, over 80 of them.  As stated before in a previous blog entry, unless we solve the problem of having generic emails set up for these iPads, many of these apps are useless to us.  The apps have to be like Blogger, where the person can put in their email address, then take it out when completed.  This is the only way a cart of iPads can be shared among all the staff and students.  We need to look at our emailing system once more.

So take a look at what we like, and don't like.  You may be surprised.  We were.  What we liked the most were any apps that had a web site online where you could save your material there, so you did not need to email the work to the teacher.  

Anyone know of a comic maker that does this?

Incorporating Technology in the Dance Class

C. Yahn is a dance teacher at Sullivan Heights.  Even here technology was looked at to improve the learning.  Yahn's write up is short and to the point, but there is way more then that to her learning, she's being modest.  Here is what this guest blogger believes her learning was this year due:

Worked:  

Recording routines and watching them as a class - students were able to see where they had already improved both individually and as a group and where they still need to go from there.

Didn't work: 

Posting routines on youtube - all students did not have their media release form signed so I was unable to do this.

What my fellow colleague did not tell you was all the work she put when doing a web site for her students to follow.  

See this link and you'll understand what I mean. She would put the music that the students would learn to dance to on her site so they could practise at home.  She highlighted the students' achievements on her site.  Due to Job Action and the difficulties of this year, many teachers took a break from the web sites and online courses, but the learning continued.  

She did help students to create videos for their routines and she was the lead in entering the Future Shop Grant (we didn't win but we sure worked hard).  The learning curve for all involved was huge, but we'll do better the next time.  This was a great year of learning!!!!

Using Learn 360 for Social Studies

Ann-Marie Harris is this blog's Guest Blogger.  She was a reluctant "tech" learning but now, she'll try anything within reason.  Ann is not afraid of asking for help or asking for training.  When she doesn't know something she has no problem asking  for a session of learning.  She and Stevens worked with R. Hayward, our school librarian, on incorporating Learn 360 due to the damage to the old VCR movies, finding the videos they found useful, seeing new ones, and downloading what they need.  What Ann did not say in her writeup of what work and what didn't was the fact that she also asked for a document reader and learned how to use that as well.  Once, when something went wrong with the technology, she put it aside the technology, said we'll do something else, and then emailed me and asked to meet so we could discover what it was.  I didn't get the message for a while and Ann troubleshooted the problem herself, came up with the solution and voila, used the same technology again in the next block. 

One of the biggest problems with most teachers is that if technology fails the first time, they give up completely with it.  Not my Harris, when it failed, she waited patiently and then tried again.  That's the sign of a teacher determine to learn something.  But her final comment is very relevant.  Here is her review of what she looked at this year:

1.  What worked?   Using Learn 360 to show clips of Gothic Cathedrals.  Worked because it was EXACTLY what I needed.  There was a complete film but it was too long and most of it may have been above the gr.8 level.  The clips gave the students a good visual of the Cathedrals as well as information about their construction.  In searching Learn 360 for this information I also found relevant clips on medieval castles which I will use another time.  I can also use these clips for Comp Civ 12.  Another thing I have learned this year is more about organizing and storing photos that I have taken on visits to historic sites relevant to the courses I teach and how to store them on a hard drive.  Finally, I have learned more about I-tunes---how to find and organize music from various historic periods relevant to the courses and how to have the music accompany showing the photos.

2.  What hasn't worked?  The first time I used the Cathedral clips I showed them to one class and left it set up for the next class but when I tried to show the clips it didn't work.  I found out later it was because the computer had gone to sleep in the interim and I had to shut it down and start over.  How would I have known that?  Lost about 20 minutes of class time.  Very frustrating.  Also need to learn more about organizing and storing videos and clips from Learn 360 for future use.  Still haven't had time to learn more about "Discovery Education".

This was the frustration of most of the teachers on the staff.  What they loved was getting time after a Professional Development day to continue the learning.  What they disliked was not having enough time with everything else their job entailed.  My frustration exactly!

Co-Chairing the Grant for Sullivan Heights.

Jennifer Spain is well known online tweeting and in the district as one of the leaders of Web 2.0 tools for languages.  She was also a presenter at the STA conference for using the Internet and concepts to consider when doing so with students.  You can follow her on the blog listed below and read all about her learning over the past year.  Please read it and follow her on Twitter.

http://digitallanguagelearning.blogspot.ca/2012/05/evolution-of-spains-french.html 

Gizmo Viewpoint from another teacher.

This post guest blogger is from the Science department, a teacher that team teaches, and likes trying some new stuff.  Mrs. N. Gill 

I wanted to incorporate more technology in the classroom and one of the ways was by using gizmos. Using Gizmos in class first semester with grade 10s worked well.  Lots of animations to visually represent what is happening with atoms to form molecules and a simulation of how mutations affect generations as they reproduce.   Some of the issues that I encountered were techinical difficulties - slow or nonfunctioning computers.

I wanted to use SMART board more in my Sc 10 class.  I was only able to do this once or twice limitations in time on working on this goal.  Again, this allowed a better visual as to what happens when plotting a velocity time graph and this is affected when you increase or decrease the velocity.  Limitations of what is available for science.

Blog owner's comment:

ALthough the school loves Smartboards, unfortunately our boards are mobile, which means setting the board every time you start it up.  This doesn't take much time, but a small tap of the board or a small shift will cause major problems.  So we looked into mounting them and we saw it would be over $1000.  When you compare this to getting a new computer for students to use which one do you choose?  You can use the board in one classroom, with 120 kids, or you can use another computer with the "Computers On Wheels" and reach all the students in school.  It's terrible how things come down to money sometimes.

The Law of Learning ;)

Guest Blogger - Ms. Law

Plugged into technology

Ms. Law teaches a number of subjects in our school.  Like many teachers in the district, she's vesitile, but also very flexible.  She's also the best teacher I've seen in any subject matter.  She's imaginative, willing to try new things, and works hard to make things innovative and fun in her classroom so students respond with enthusiasm to her lessons and to the learning.  To see more of what she's done in the classroom go to her school site at http://ms-lawswebsite.webnode.com/archive/news/ You can also follow her on twitter at @klaw6.  Below is her summary of her learning this year.

My goals sort of evolved over the course of the year and became multifaceted, all related to integrating tools and technology into my class in more of a long-term way instead of one-off activities. To be honest, I ran into a lot of roadblocks with regards to the room I was in and equiptment I had as my laptop frequently drops the wireless connection and the room set-up makes it difficult to hook up and display material. I also did not have a document reader or even a working overhead for the full year, so a lot of my work on my goals was theoretical and planned, tested and put aside for future use, not necessarily implemented this year.

What did work, however was using twiiter to connect to and with the school community and building a class website/blog that allowed for easier, smoother and more frequent dialoges with students and parents. Finding time to work on it has been challneging so it is an ongoing work in progress!

Learning in the LST room.

Guest Blogger:  Ms. O'rourke - LST

Ms. O'rourke is an excellent LST teacher who's caring and passion for helping her students comes out strong and loud.  She's tech savvy, using a number of programs on the computers to help support her students.  She also knows how to take care of the technology, and considering the expense of it, this is a good thing.  There was no hesitation in giving the LST department two iPads 2 to test out with students, we're hoping to get more in this department next year.

What worked and why?

Ipads worked very well. - In particular, we regularly use flashcard apps in conjunction with quizlet, and introduced them to students who had the technology already (on their ipods/iphones/ipads).  Most of our students are using flashcardlet regularly at home now.  While these work well for all, this works particularly well for the disorganized student who loses paper.  This also works well for students with writing difficulties because they can download the quizlet flashcards and easily adapt them to fit their needs for studying.

Other Apps of note that are used regularly to support students, both at the school level and at home include Khan Academy (for direct instruction), and interaction language apps like Mindlinks which include language pronunciation, which is something you don't get from paper.

I moved my First Class website to a web based format, and it worked somewhat well.  The information was there for students to access

What did not work and why?

• My blog - I only contributed once, and I will probably not continue it since I have been introduced to sharepoint which lends itself better to my needs.  I will start using sharepoint soon which seems quite intuitive to me.
• I wish I had not bothered moving my First Class website to a web based format.  The first class website was still accessible this year, and sharepoint next year will suit my needs well.

As I'm sure the district is saying right now, welcome to Sharepoint.  

Running a Network at School.

Our Physical Education Department at Sullivan Heights have been a very active group in the area of our grant and learning. Truth be known, they were the leaders in getting our staff participating in twitter and networking to the far reaches of north america and oversees.  Ryan Neufeld, our expert on twitter spent a lot of energy and time training our staff, encouraing them to tweet, and then encouraging students to follow the different tweets of the athletic wiki, and the different teachers that use Twitter to post work, keep in contact with students, and inform teachers and studetns of what was going on at our school.

It was he who enspired the Twitter account for the School News section with it's own twitter feed.  With his encouragement of tweeting "cool things of Sullivan Heights" and more by a number of big tweeters at our school:

@Phillipskerri @MrBrownPE @teacherneuf @kpederson15 @klaw6 @SusiQ25 @garr_s @SullivanHeights @SullivansBarry @CareerEdSHS @Phillipskerri @msfree1 @Ms_Sommerfeld @painchaud_n.  Follow any of them online - you'll learn a lot, I know I did.  

Here is the summary of the Phy Ed Departments research:

http://sullivanathletics.wikispaces.com/Ryan+Neufeld 

Learning Summary of an innovative teacher

Davis is new teacher at our school that fully embraces technology.  He has used the iPads, the COWS (computers on wheels), the library, working hard on engaging students in his Language classes with the use of technology.  He uses the technology for assessment (oral composition online), making an oral assignment fun instead of just memorization.  You can see much of his work online on his wiki at http://mrdavisfrenchclass.wikispaces.com/ and you can see his summary and assessment of what he's learned this year at Sullivan Heights.  Even better, follow him on Twitter.

 What Worked:

Ipads: fotobabble App.

• Easy to create an account and use
• Take a picture and record voice over picture
•  Can sign in on the fotobabble website to copy and paste the link of the conversation and upload it to a wiki
•  Some issues with uploading the conversation on the app. Have to test it at the start of class and if it doesn’t work, sign out and sign back in and it should work

What didn’t Work:

Ipads: garage band

• Couldn’t save the files anywhere besides on the app
• Couldn’t transfer the conversation file to an email, wiki or itunes

Ipads: email

• Couldn’t sync any student emails to any projects
•  Only capable of storing one email address
• Overall I think the ipads and the fotobabble app is better than using a PC for recording conversations. Students are able to receive such quick feedback while playing back their conversations. They can also get the app for their iphones, ipods or itouches which gives them access to the tech on their own.

Overall Mr. Davis' innovative methods of differentiation with students, engagement of activities, and just plain putting the fun back into learning a language has the students clamouring to learn more.  Excellent work Mr. Davis.

An English Summary of Learning

My guest blogger is a teacher who is in the basement of our school (yes I know that does sound bad but she's OK, the chains don't hurt her;)  When I talked to Mandy she told me she did not have a lot of positive things to say but I said good, lets tell the truth, and be honest.  So here it is.  I'm proud of how she keeps on trying technology.

My experience with technology has not been so great. My first experience with technology included video taping students acting out their character skits. The camera battery died. Students then suggested I use my Iphone to record these skits. That part worked out well. Initially I was quite disappointed because I really wanted to video tape my students and they were looking forward to watching themselves. 

I have used the document reader several times. However, setting it up can be time consuming because I have to move the desks in order to connect my laptop (cords not long enough and not enough space on the trolly that the document reader sits on). I am hesitant to bring the Ipads downstairs to the basement for two major reasons. First reason being that it is too time consuming and a hassle bringing them down. I have to go through 2 floors with separate elevators. Secondly, the wifi connection is very weak down here. So I would hate to go through the hassle of getting the ipads down here and then the internet not working. Students in the past have brought their own laptops or have tried to use their ipods; and have constantly complained about the wifi connection. Myself I have my laptop plugged into the direct internet connection. I am also making good use of Facebook to update students on homework, assignments or announcements I may have. Students have been responding well to this idea. I am finding that students are responding well. They are using this venue as a place to ask questions--and if I am unable to answer questions, students are answering questions for each other. Students are able to use Facebook to engage in discussion and collaborate with each other on certain projects/assignments :)

From a Science Teacher Department Head.

Guest blogger:  Mr. Edwards - Science Department Head.

Positives:

• The kids seemed to really excited about working with the gizmos.  This helped increase the enjoyment of discovery learning, and/or the re-enforcement of what was already taught.  (ie the students were truly engaged).
• The level of difficulty of the different gizmos was in some cases challenging, but students were still able to work through the activities with some guidence.  Thus this tool is as effective as long as the teacher is prepared and has done the work in advance as well.
• The instant feedback of the five follow up questions both for the teacher and the students was nice to have, provided the students did it themselves and not copy what their partner had as their responses.
• The student worksheets provided had insightful questions, and followed a logical order in investigating the activity.
• The gizmos are versatile for either review, or discovery learning.

Drawbacks:

• Some students could not complete the online assessment at home if they did not finish in the time provided.
• Some students simply saw what the other students answered in correctly, and thus had an advantage, making the formal and informal assessment questionable to whether they understand it.
• We could not get the gizmos to work on our iPads, due to unavailable software, thus we were limited to the laptops, which were not always available.
• There are no gizmos written specifically for the Earth Science 11 curriculum here in BC. 
• Some gizmos are more useful than others, and are too simple.  They would ber better as a demo, than as an activity.

Suggestions to the district coordinator:

• Different versions of the questions to help minimize copying.
• Try and get the software for iPads, or make them compatible with the existing software.
• Try and get gizmos for both Science and Tech 11 and Earth Science 11, as these courses could really use an engaging means of learning. 

There will be contunued use of the gizmos for next year, provided we get accounts by the district. 

Learning from a Science/Math Teacher - Mr. Mitchell

In the last few years I have been working on simplifying my life with technology.  Being a seasoned teacher and technology user, I have used many different programs and methods that may or may not have made my life simpler, for example, 4 or 5 different mark programs:  Grade Master, Master Grade etc etc . I have learned 10 Statement Fortran, Basic, Latek and most have gone by the wayside, let alone SIS and then BCeSIS.  Many of these programs were so poor that the work and frustration levels actually go up instead of going down.

It is finding of things that just make life easier, that can be used without the rel-earning curve that I look for at this point in my career. 

One item that I have adapted to in the last year is the Document Reader.  I was given one to attach to my projector and have moved up one level to the newer version of this device.  The ability to show demonstrations of magnetic fields right onto the screen, the effects of electricity on magnets directly onto the screen as well as just not having to stare into the overhead projector light 5 hours per day has been a boon to me.  Writing notes in multiple colors and being able to keep them as is afterwards is great.  I find that showing errors and corrections by taking a students’ test or worksheet and examining their steps and errors without having to make a transparency is a great thing.   As an academics teacher, I would be hard pressed to move away from this system. . There are functions that allow it to overlay onto the computer, that allow you to save screen captures and video. While I have not used these functions beyond ‘playing’ with them, I see these as future developments in my teaching style.

In order to simplify the giving out answer keys in my Physics 12 class, I have also used DROPBOX.  Dropbox is a cloud computing system where I can place PDF files that the students can then access from their own accounts.  This replaces the old photocopy the answer keys and either post them on a bulletin board, or to photocopy them and hand those out. I have also used this to get students to make up answer keys for the questions that I then scan and   Next year I plan on expanding its use to Physics 11 as well as Physics 12.  The new Sharepoint at the district level may make this much more available for all staff in the district.  It will be interesting to see.

These are two of the technologies that I have found in the last year that have actually made my life, or I believe, will make my life simpler as a teacher as well as improving my abilities in my classroom.  A win-win situation.  

Learning from the Home Economics Department.

Guest Blogger - S. Blackwell - a wonderful teacher who believes in working with students on their individual levels, being there always for kids, and a truly caring person.  Thank you Ms. Blackwell for participating in this learning experience.  This is her department's learning for the year.


Goals this year: 

1. to use LCD player to show powerpoints and foods dvds in class
2. to use the document reader in Junior and senior home economics classes ( Foods 8 -12, Tourism 12, Sociology and Human Behaviour 12)
3. to video tape teachers with the document reader and video recorder and reflect on their practice
4. to develop more assignments using technology.

The limitations of the two Foods Rooms for technology equipment needs to be noted.
The physical space in both rooms -can not maintain the equipment's location, let alone the crazy cords that are all over for the VCR, document reader and plugging in the computer to a power source.   -  Unfortunately the position of dem table and document reader do not align for showing a demo.  In all overhead is still easier because

• the equipment cannot be not mounted
• set up time takes too long
• Document reader recordings lack personal interactions and connections, a well as spontaneity.
• Document reader does not allow for students to help with the demonstation.
• Because of space considerations,

Some members will continue without technology in the Textiles and smaller foods room because of difficulty with equipment and set up.  We need to mount this equipment, but we have been told that it is too expensive.

Many assignments have been developed and created using technology such as glogster, prezi, websites, the internet, face book, you tube, learn 360 and discovery schools at all levels of the Home Economics Department.


Goals for next year:

1. to develop lessons  to enrich the Home Economic curriculum using applicable food and health applications on the IPAD
2. to continue to use technology in the classroom

An English Teacher's Journey of Learning.

Guest Blogger - @msfree1:  

In Sept I began my journey with adding more technology into my lessons.  I began by creating Live Binders for all my classes with links to websites and pictures that I use from time to time.  I also have used it to post student work.  My goal with this was to eventually add my lessons and Word documents so that I could share ideas with my colleagues and students, however as time went on, I never got around to fulfilling this goal.  The reason being I ventured to conquer more technology uses in my class, such as document readers, Twitter and Blogging.  I feel comfortable using the document reader with my class and will continue to do so.  Live brain storming, editing and assignment explanation are some of the ways I utilize my document reader.  In terms of Twitter, I began tweeting homework for my students, but now I find myself mostly following other educators from around the world to help broaden my knowledge about education.  My students used Twitter during a character assignment that they were really engaged with, and I will do it again.  The one goal that I started but didn’t get into as far with as I hoped was blogging.  I have only done two posts and my goal was to write a post every month, but somehow between teaching and everything else the time got away from me.  So now my new goal with writing blogs is to do one every month and maybe start blogging with my classes, especially with Writing 12, but this will happen next year.

On a Note of this Blogger's viewpoint:

@msfree1 is being extremely modest with her accomplishments.  She has had a number of great ideas that you can see on her blog - http://englishsullivan.blogspot.com/.  She has used twitter for quick assessment - asking questions of book characters online, students asking each other on the plot, she has used a number of iPad apps, but soon discovered that if you do not have an email account on the iPad the teacher cannot assess the learning at a later date. She's had successes and failures but always, she goes back to trying the technology to engage the students.  @msfree was the first to embrace Livebinder at our school, and she has collected a number of web sites and assignments with her English Department, to have a centralized area of work.  She has also held a couple of workshops in regards to Livebinder and has the staff developing their own work.  If you don't follow her on twitter, I suggest you add her to to list, she's a fantastic teacher!!!

TECHNOLOGY and the BASES Classroom

By:  Sue Fuller - guest Blogger

‘Buzz in BASES’ BLOG was born on September 1, 2011 at a Professional Development workshop .  I was a new staff member to Sullivan Heights and had heard that it had been one of the schools which had received the Technology Grant.  We were asked to put forth a personal technology goal to the school’s IT person.  I was surrounded by a combination of colleagues whom were quite well versed with Twitter, BLOGS, Wikis and webpages and others who didn’t seem to have very many skills in the area of technology.  I would have to say that my abilities were probably right between the two groups.  I was affected, however, by the enthusiasm and encouragement that was almost palpable in the room.  This became infectious to me and I decided that my goal would be to create a class BLOG and become a Twitter member. 

         Fortunately for me, the colleague sitting next to me; Alyssa Becker was very skilled with her use of technology.  I told her about my idea of creating a class BLOG and that I wanted to call it ‘Buzz in BASES’.  Within a few short minutes, she was able to create the BLOG page and post the very first BLOG!  I would write the BLOG entries for the next few months and Alyssa would post them on the BLOG.  Then, a quick tweet would follow that alerted Twitter followers that the BLOG was up.  At the beginning of 2012, I took the plunge and ‘Buzz in BASES’ was passed along to me and I began to post!  Looking back now, I’m not sure why I was so nervous about posting and managing the BLOG as it is fairly straightforward.   I am grateful to my colleague; Alyssa who took the lead initially.  Nicole Painchaud; IT Teacher has been along for the ride and has often troubleshot when I have needed it.  

         Buzz in BASES blog has taken on a life of its own since its birth.  It has been an ideal vehicle for the BASES Teachers to communicate to parents and inform them of the activities and events in the BASES class.  I wouldn’t be able to count the number of times I have referred a parent to our blog for the purpose of conversation starters with their children.  The BLOG shows classroom themes and ongoing projects.  It often includes excerpts from students in the ‘Students Speak’ area.  Subscribers to our BLOG have even posted personal comments for our students, which has been exciting for them.  On our BLOG, we have the opportunity to display student work and include highlights in BASES from one week to the next.  There is also a ‘Teacher’s Corner’ which I found to be invaluable!  As educators, there are so many moments which move us and inspire us and I was able to capture some moments in writing.  They are on the BLOG so won’t be forgotten.  We have included our favourite recipes from our cooking and baking programs.  Having a class BLOG keeps me conscientious of finding the balance between sharing and showing the efforts of our students and maintaining the integrity of our students. 

When it came time to report writing, I had multiple pieces of information in written form to refer to, just from writing BLOG entries.  Finally, information about upcoming field trips and community outings is shared.  Most importantly, Buzz in BASES allows subscribers to catch a glimpse into the wide variety of learning and fun we have on a daily ‘basis’. 

I would strongly encourage any teacher who has thought of creating a class BLOG to take the plunge!  It is something that I look back on with pride.  The students love it and the parents appreciate it!  ‘Buzz in BASES’ will always remain at Sullivan Heights.  BASES students have taken ownership of it.  They are the ‘buzz’ in the classroom!

Ipads and the BASES Classroom

The BASES classroom was given 2 ipads to use.  Another one of my professional technology goals was to become familiar with and be able to use an ipad.  Students quickly showed me that they were quite savvy with the ipads and were way beyond my scope.  I had no choice but to catch up and gain some ipad skills.  One of the first things that is done in the morning when students arrive to the BASES class is to take the ipads out of the cupboard and put them on the table to be ready for use.  Some of the areas which the ipads have been used for are:

• calculator feature for Math
• perusing our class BlOG; buzzinbases.blogspot.com
• you tube, Fruit/Veggie Ninja, other games during Brain Breaks
• Science experiments; searching for information
• Current Affairs/News Stories;  searching for and reading news
• reading stories during Silent Reading Times
• having stories read to student (for nonverbal/non reading students)
• research purposes-for various class projects
• internet surfing-information gathering
• field trip planning
• virtual field trips

The ipads have been invaluable tools in the BASES class.  It has shown a commonality among our special needs students and their peers.  It has levelled the playing field for them by demonstrating that BASES students are equally as talented with technology and its use.