iPod Touch Schoolwide Implementation
There are a number of posts from individuals interested in using iPod Touches for teaching and Learning. At Culbreth Middle in Chapel Hill, NC we began a pilot this past August to place the iPod Touch in the hands of staff and students.
Our staff development for faculty to roll out the new technology centered on teacher coaches leading their groups in exploration through professional learning communities.
Our AVID students use the iPod Touch in the AVID classroom and in all other courses. They have piloted this program, using the iPod Touches daily for note taking, keeping individual agendas, translation for world languages, and accessing research through the Internet. In addition, our AVID students use many of the apps that teachers sync with these mobile devices. As student leaders, they’ve understood their responsibility to work and share this learning tool in collaborative groups.
This winter we were able to add iPod Touch labs for each of our seven interdisciplinary teams and two labs for our exploratory and resource teams. The interdisciplinary grade level iPod Touch labs are housed with each team and shared among the four content teachers (math, language arts, science, and social studies). These teachers plan together so that their students have access throughout each day. They access the internet as needed and use many apps as well.
Teacher current app favorites include: WordBook, Thesaurus, USA, Countries, Brain Tuner, Blanks, Whiteboard, CoinToss, Lose It!, Word Warp, FlipBook Lite. Of course they are using the included apps: Calendar, Calculator, Notes, Clock, YouTube throughout each day.
We held an iPod Touch Day last week with visitors from all over the state and from across the country. We even had a group from the UK come see our students and teachers in action with the iPod Touch. With almost 400 iPod Touches now in use at Culbreth, we’re happy to share what we’ve learned and what we’re learning.
Our staff development for faculty to roll out the new technology centered on teacher coaches leading their groups in exploration through professional learning communities.
Our AVID students use the iPod Touch in the AVID classroom and in all other courses. They have piloted this program, using the iPod Touches daily for note taking, keeping individual agendas, translation for world languages, and accessing research through the Internet. In addition, our AVID students use many of the apps that teachers sync with these mobile devices. As student leaders, they’ve understood their responsibility to work and share this learning tool in collaborative groups.
This winter we were able to add iPod Touch labs for each of our seven interdisciplinary teams and two labs for our exploratory and resource teams. The interdisciplinary grade level iPod Touch labs are housed with each team and shared among the four content teachers (math, language arts, science, and social studies). These teachers plan together so that their students have access throughout each day. They access the internet as needed and use many apps as well.
Teacher current app favorites include: WordBook, Thesaurus, USA, Countries, Brain Tuner, Blanks, Whiteboard, CoinToss, Lose It!, Word Warp, FlipBook Lite. Of course they are using the included apps: Calendar, Calculator, Notes, Clock, YouTube throughout each day.
We held an iPod Touch Day last week with visitors from all over the state and from across the country. We even had a group from the UK come see our students and teachers in action with the iPod Touch. With almost 400 iPod Touches now in use at Culbreth, we’re happy to share what we’ve learned and what we’re learning.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Julian Morgan on
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Just been introduced to this by Louise. (thanks Louise) I have just visited Brune Park in Gosport http://www.brunepark.co.uk. Ian Stapleton the vice principle has put nearly 400 netbooks into the hands of the their y11's, most of which were found around the campus in their free time all rattling away on their netbooks. None of them are bothered that it doesn't fit into their pocket. Brune has also utilised terminal services plus so that there is zero software cost for the devices as they use only open source software on the devices. Any prescribed software exists on servers. Their focus in on rights, respect and responsibility and educating students towards those aims.
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Permalink Reply by Deon Scanlon on
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Playing the devil's advocate - Brune Park is in the UK, and therefore will have just started it's new school year. The students have presumably only had their netbooks for a few weeks, so are still novelty items. I'm not surprised that they were using them during their spare time. I'd be interested to see what the use is like in six months' time! We certainly saw a rapid decline in personal use of iPods after about one month. But lunch hours are probably a poor example (which I used previously), as kids should be relaxing, not working!
Secondly, the S10e Ideapad costs £380, compared with an iTouch which costs £149. That's 5 iTouches for the price of 2 netbooks...
I love the idea of open-source software - but this requires time and money to set up, especially in terms of technical support. At our school, we have somehow survived this year with less than one day per week tech support (which includes the setup and management of our network, as our school is a brand new one). I believe that the only reason we have managed this is because of the simplicity and completeness of the Apple machines we use. Had we have had netbooks in every student's hands, running Windows/Ubuntu etc, and using open source software (or Microsoft packages) our costs would have been much higher for purchase of software, or set up and installation.
Tech support for iPod Touches is pretty much non-existent. The students know how to restore them and can do it themselves on any number of computers in the school; there are no user accounts on them, and students can set up proxy servers on their own devices, if for some reason they had to remove all their settings.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on
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It looks like you have been using the ipod touches for students to access information. Is there anyway for them to use the i-pod touches to interact with content and even using the content to develop new ideas?
Andrew Pass
http://www.pass-ed.com
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Permalink Reply by Shelia Buttle on
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A grant has become available in my school district which will allow educators to acquire iPods labs and use them within the classroom. After reading the posts on this site I am encouraged about implementing this type of program within my classroom also. Unfortunately, I have no experience using this type of technology and was curious as to how to begin.
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Permalink Reply by Susan Wells on
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Shelia,
Welcome! Apple itself has been slow to come out with resources specifically for the iPod touch in education but good news! They finally have posted a guide on their website, Getting Started with iPod touch, A guide for using iPod touch and iTunes for teaching and learning. It takes you through pretty comprehensively using the device and then the excellent resources iTunes provides for K-12.
Best,
Susan
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Eleven iPod touch demo across the content areas uploads on our YouTube channel now. http://www.youtube.com/greyculbreth
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Permalink Reply by Vicki Treadway on
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Susan,
Thanks for sharing your videos and knowledge. We currently have 2 iPod carts of 20 each (one set of 20 iPod classics and one set of 20 iPod Touches) in my high school. I just received 4 iPod Touches for teachers to sign out and use in their classrooms. I am hoping to get the teachers excited about this technology so they will push for mobile learning in the classroom. The way I see it, the teachers have to embrace and understand using cell phones and iPods so they can welcome them as part of their classroom toolbox. I have a wiki started with information for the teachers and will be documenting our use of the iPods as we go along. I will post the url when I have more information on it.
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Permalink Reply by Sandy on
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After viewing the video, I am confused about one thing in your program. AVID students have 1 to 1 Touches, but don't all your students have Touches as well? Can you clarify for me please.
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Sandy,
We started our pilot with our AVID students. We've now expanded school-wide.
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Permalink Reply by H Nelson on
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Susan, we are using your videos as part of our professional staff development in my district. As part of our required inservice hours, the district tech staff posts content to Moodle on a number of current educational topics; teachers can access this info any time. Thanks for all the work you put into sharing the iTouch use in your district. It has benefitted us greatly!
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Permalink Reply by Roland O'Daniel on
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Susan, I'm very impressed with the thread and the work your school is doing! I am actually working with a school in an affiliated project that just got a pilot project funded because of the work Culbreth is doing. (you should not only be proud, but deserve a HUGE pat on the back). From the thread I've been able to piece together a lot of information. Very impressed that multiple people from the faculty/staff/administration have posted to the thead; obviously a common vision throughout the school!
I also want to thank everyone else who added such awesome ideas (especially Deon, Jim, Kris, Ben, Gary, ...)
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OK, question to the forum:
I'm looking at the different ways teachers are using the Touches for increasing student-student and student-teacher communication:
What are the 2 apps teachers tend to use most for gathering response back from students during a class period?
What are the 2 apps teachers tend to use most for student to student communication during class?
What apps are teachers using for student to student communication outside of class? or are they?
What 2-3 apps are teachers using to produce student content? (What I'm really asking here, I think, is are they using apps routinely for blogging or document production or notetaking?)
Associated to the question above are teachers using any kind of developmental approach/common approach to developing student responses? In other words are they using similar expectations for how students respond to each other's writing or post to a blog or ...
Different tilt:
In your experiences, are teachers creating podcasts for routine use in the classrooms for providing content to students?
Thanks for your help, again great thread!
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