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 Sandy on
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You might also want to look at Turning Technologies, TurningPoint. They have an Touch/iPhone app for free download. You do have to pay for polling space on their webserver, and its best to get a quote directly from them. We have a big investment in TurningPoint hand held response system, so it was a great transition to the Touch for our pilot to have this app already to go.
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Permalink Reply by Bo Bailey on
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I would love to try. District now owns over 400 and each school carries 120 or more.
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Permalink Reply by Susan Wells on
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Bo,
Is your district using these at every level?
I'd love to keep compiling lists of apps by level our teachers are finding useful.
Best,
Susan
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Susan,
Yes, at the end of last year I went before the admin to request 15 for students with disabilities. They got excited and went to Apple (we are a HS of 1:1 Macbooks) When I got back in July they had bought 11 Carts of 40 each. 3 carts at each Elementary, 4 at the middle and one at the High School.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Degener on
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Bo - Great. Email me at alan_degener@gci.net for information and I'll get you set up.
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Permalink Reply by Kris Felicello on
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Here is a list of educational aps with brief descriptions I have created. i hope you find it useful.
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I.doc, 60 KB
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Permalink Reply by Jim Hoffman on
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Thanks for the list. It is very good. I would like to share our list and hopefully some of you will also share. My 'most used' apps are
Bargain Bin
Math Tables
States & Capitals
several apps from Clay Cat Designs
Algebra apps from Pearson
Bell Curve (normal distribution and standard deviation)
Diamath (good for math facts and teaching algebraic factoring)
iFitness (several exercises listed for all major muscle groups--PE teacher loves it)
Lose It! (tracks calorie intake and output according to food and exercise)
ESPN Radio (just for me--not the students)
Just Fraction (calculator and tutorial for +-x/ fractions)
Obviously I teach math thus the abundance of math apps. - Attachments:
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ipod app list.xls, 36 KB
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Permalink Reply by James Renuka on
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Kris - I am test driving a cool one at www.mobl21.com, allows me to create my own lesson plans and share with my class.
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With at least 3 Bradford carts of 40 iPod Touches(iPT) each at middle and elementary schools, I am looking for a way to manage 25-30 teachers checking them out and using the cart. I have come into some areas of problem where this planning may require some deeper thought. Today I'm looking at how to share the cart with only apps that teacher wants to use that day. I could just let every app rest on the cart Mac and upload to all 40 iPT at once but the problem might be in the Elementary school and the number of pages to flick through when needing an app for say a 1st grader. The question at hand is with iTunes 9 and 40 iPT is there a way to sync all of them at once (or at least 20) and only select apps on it without clicking on each iPT and selecting the app you want to sync?
(More background if needed... When you connect a Bradford Cart to a Mac using iTunes 9 so far the only way to sync all iPod Touches at once is to precheck the sync ... check box in each tab (ie. apps, music, movies, podcasts..) on every iPod Touch. Once this task is set once you can just plug in the usb plug and it will sync what ever is in each of the areas. If you wanted to get rid of say an app the only way I can figure is delete it off the whole apps list or go to each one of the iPT and uncheck that apps box in the sync settings.)
I'm hoping there is a way to manage what is in each sync-able area????
Thx
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Permalink Reply by Deon Scanlon on
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I haven't used the Bretford cart, but know that each individual iTouch
maintains its own settings when connecting to sync (I use a USB hub, and when kids plug their iPods in, it remembers how they last synced (I can't stand that word!!!)).
You could use coloured silicon cases for the iTouches, to code them so that
teachers knew which colour to choose (green = early elementary, red =
middle school etc). This way, there would be something to cater for everyone.
If someone wanted a set that wasn't there (ie all the green ones were gone), they would have to choose the set they were after.
Another option would be to organise your apps into year levels - each page on the iTouch contains apps for a certain year group. That way, all could be synced the same way, and teachers would easily be able to find what they are after.
With the cart, is it a one click task to sync all? Or do you have to
click to sync on each iTouch in iTunes?
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Ah, just realised that you check the "Automatically sync this iPod" button, so no clicking is required.
We use 'manually manage music and videos' so that students can keep their own music on their iPods, but still allow class content to be added.
In situations where the school owns the iPods, it would be much easier, as syncing is more efficient, as it doesn't require a user to do anything other than plug the iPod in.
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This sounded good when they laid the sales pitch on us but they forgot to mention that it's pretty much an all or nothing process when syncing. Such as apps. I have two choices that I can figure will work.
1. click on each iPT and select the apps to add and take off.
2. check the add app on each of the iPT once with auto sync set. Then when you add a new app and then connect the usb plug, the cart syncs all the apps onto the 20-40 iPT.
The second is the way its set at this time but the problem will come later when 30 teachers start finding apps they want. Even if I went with a 2 app min for each teacher I now would have 60 apps on the screen. Oh yea if I want to put it on a certain pages of the iPT in iTunes 9.0 I would have to select each iPT and manual place it there. With 120 iPT in the school I would have to hire one person to manage just the carts. lol...
There has to be something I have not thought of. Like placing apps in file folders and sliding folders in to itunes based on need?
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