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 Kathy Parker-Jones on
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Susan,
Thanks for sharing your project! Could you share some of your management techniques? Are you using a mobile cart for charging and syncing the iPods? Have you used Turning Point's ResponseWare for the iPod? I really like the idea of using the iPod touch for many different applications and it seems like a great idea of using it as a response system as one them. What app are you using for note taking?
Also in case anyone is interested.... you can have an iTunes account without a credit card, which is great for downloading free apps from the iTunes store. I have this and toher resources about the iPod touch on my webpage from a presentation I assisted at Ohio's eTech conference this past February.
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Permalink Reply by Susan Wells on
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We do use mobile carts to charge and sync. We have 9 carts now, one for each of our interdisciplinary grade level teams and two shared by our exploratory and resource teachers. I attached a photo of one of our carts in my initial entry. We don't use the responseware although we do use an app that can function as a "clicker" for group response. There are tons of notetaking apps out there but honestly most of our kids and staff are quite comfortable and functional with the included Notes. Thanks for the iTunes w/o credit card info. We too had discovered this and it is important when setting up multiple labs. Your webpage is great, thanks for sharing!
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Permalink Reply by Aron Sterling on
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Kathy,
I am also interested in the Turning Point app. Do you have any more information on that?
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I contacted a sales rep and am in the process of setting up a meeting to learn more. I'll share more once I know more.
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Permalink Reply by Sandy on
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I purchased the TriBeam cart which holds 30 Touches, syncs them to a single Macbook as well as charges them. Small compact and secure, this cart saved me $750 over the Bretford cart Apple resells. Through Tony Vincent's http://learninginhand.com/ website and blog we found a vendor for really really cheap siicon case and clear screen covers. And I do mean cheap: cases $.89! We've had our students sign a "contract" about handling and usage. Students are assigned a touch - the Tribeam cart has big numbers so students know which charging station to replug their Touch into.
Thanks for mentioning TurningPoint for the Touch. I'm looking into this right away as we use TurningPoint in our building exttensively.
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David,
That was a concern of course. We've had each iPod Touch etched with our school name and an identifying number on the back by Apple. When they arrived we label the cart "pocket" to the individual iPod Touch. With our check in/check out policy to an individual child its pretty straight forward. They do not go home this year, although that's something we certainly are looking to in the future. For now they're checked out to a single identified student and then checked back in from the same identified student. It's working well for us. Great question. Thanks for asking,
Susan
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Permalink Reply by Tom Olson on
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Hi Susan,
This is a great discussion you have going here. We have a request by our Middle School language department for "iPods" to record monologues and dialogs to model what takes place in our high school language program. Putting together the budget, I see I could buy an iPod Touch for less than a "Classic", add a $30 earbud/mic combo, add a $10 app like Poddio (has an Audacity feel, but I just downloaded it, so have no real experience yet) and you have a great little mobile recording studio. I've heard a high school student he doesn't like that they can't edit their audio on the iPods (he's an Audicity user I believe), they have to start over to deal with mistakes or room noise.
I'm already a Touch owner, so I'm impressed with this little computer, but wasn't sure of their utility in the classroom. Would the screen be too small, etc, etc. Could they, would they use it for notes. Would it be a distraction to download games, etc.
I'm curious of the concern by David Cox about them walking away, too. Has that been a temptation?
Thanks for some very cool news. I'm glad I found the discussion.
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Tom,
We're using the earbud/mic purchased through Apple but I'm pretty sure they we only $19.99. I can check on that vendor. We use them to do exactly what you're describing, and use them also with exceptional children when recording for them or having them record for differentiated lessons. There are many apps out there in the productivity category. We use iTalk for simple podcasting. It works great. We also do use our laptops and iPod Touches together with Garageband for our own recording studios, that's that whole school environment we want to keep. Although we were concerned with the distraction question that just hasn't happened. We introduced these to our kids as a very cool opportunity but responsibility too and they are really motivated to keep them. They do keep notes on them easily, I do too now. Very easy to email them back to home or office and have them waiting for you!
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We too are using iTalk. It work great for recording and syncing. We've used a the Macally iVoice III microphone with great results (The Macally iVoiceIII Microphone for iPod is a compact and convenient tool that adds voice recording feature to your iPod. Plug it into the 30-pin dock connector on your iPod and control all functions on your iPod. An excellent added feature of the iVoiceIII is that it also has a stereo line-in jack that lets you record from other audio devices. )
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We've been sending iPods home with elementary students in our district for 3 years now with great success. Three factors have helped our success: 1. they only go home for 1 night at a time, 2. parents have to sign a form stating their financial responsibility, and 3. we do not send home any cables with the iPods and tell the parents that they are not to connect the iPods to their home computers.
Our student population is very diverse and the iPods are going home with all students regardless of their socio-economic level. We've found a good success rate especially with our ELL/ESL population. We just started this year sending home iPod touches with our students, previously we sent home the classic/video iPod and the square Nanos.
Modeling expectations with students is a big factor in making sure students bring the iPods back and how well they takening care of the iPods.
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Very cool Kathy, thanks for sharing. I agree that modeling/discussing expectations is really important for use. As we planned for school-wide use there had been lots of concern at the onset. Clear expectations have made the work successful. At this point we are using the iPod Touches within the school environment but home to school is something we'd love to see to for all of our students.
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Permalink Reply by Brad Pascoe on
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Great ideas all.
Do you have a form or AUP that you can share?
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