Teachers, Meet Graphite

In education and technology, there is always the "new" thing that is out there. For educators to research products, see if they are worthwhile to use, check to see how they can align to the CCSS and then use it in the classroom can takes weeks, even months.

Graphite helps to solve that issue. Put out by Common Sense Media, Graphite collates and curates only the best, top rated applications and programs for educational purposes, reviews them, shows what grades they would be best for, and aligns them to the different ELA and Math Common Core State Standards. For educators, this is a win-win. You only get so much time with your students that you can't waste it searching for products that may not be a good fit.

Stop wasting time and start searching smarter. BTW - Common Sense Media ranks the apps by top picks and has a Teacher Center where teachers can share info about those apps right on the site. Check them out at http://www.graphite.org/.

iPad Summit Recap

"I don't know how to do this, I never received Professional Development on it" - said No Student, Ever. (Thanks +Tom Murray for the great quote)

iPad SUMMIT 2013

I recently held two summits in our district. These summits were designed to focus on learning and best practices with iPads, iOS, apps, and technology in general.

Many a twitter chat, blog post, and podcast as of late has been about a call to arms to actively take back PD (professional development) from the one hour, one day, one time slate of PD that has been given and change it into something more authentic and useful for teachers. This call to arms has also put its cross hairs on technology PD and the problems there within.

Technology has been one of the biggest criminals when it came to the one hour, one time sort of PD. I, myself, have been the victim and a suspect with receiving and giving this sort of tech PD. I'm not proud of it and of course, hindsight is 20/20; but now our foresight should encompass this as well. We shouldn't give PD about a what a tech is. Rather, we should be giving them all the time on WHY the tech is essential to unlocking learning and engagement in students and HOW it is transforming our culture, schools, and the way we teach/learn. My good friends at #edtechchat and #edchat have spoken about this at length with  +Tom Whitby and +Nancy Blair speaking about this specific change in their podcast.

If educators stop learning and trying new things, what message does that send to our students? Thankfully, I have some great educators in my district that are always willing to learn.

How can we make school look more like life? Summits like these help us mix the paints together. 

I wanted to take that model and truly help out my teachers. I wanted to make the technology less about the technology and more about the learning, engagement, and excitement that can come from it. I wanted to make this iPad summit about not just apps, but about the collaboration, creation, and communication that can happen with them and the transformation of student learning that can come from using them.

Using my trusty brain, my resources, and my PLN, here is the presentation:

We focused on three areas - function, purpose, and apps. This tiered strategy helped those who needed some basics with the iPad and gave those with experience some purpose: they helped out their colleagues who needed it, just like I would have my students do. 

To show off how to get to certain parts, I used AirServer via AirPlay. If you don't know what that is, take a look at my prior post about it - http://tinyurl.com/m64ptnj

We shared tips and tricks, looked at how to import and export and even talked about how the iPad can be used to help learners with disabilities by going through the accessibility functions within the device. We used the iPad as a document camera and shared what we were working on (we were all connected at once!) with the rest of the groups and some fantastic education ideas came out of just that. Imagine you students working on a document and then sharing it with the class. Have multiple students to this would truly bring communication and innovation to the forefront. Finally, we stopped at guided access, which really was a fantastic area for some teachers when it came to locking the iOS in a certain app to use during centers or the like. 

Finally, we looked at just a few apps that were really high on the SAMR scale. These included:

• Explain Everything
• E-Backpack
• Class Dojo
• Google Drive
• PuppetPals HD
• BrainPOP
• Google Maps
• and more... 

But it wasn't about the apps. It wasn't even about iPads. It was still about learning and the students. Shedding the light on why technology has failed in the past and where we need to go as a population of educators to prevent those pitfalls from happening in the future. I had teachers and educators of all content levels, backgrounds, and grades. Experience with tech, teaching, or iPads was not necessary and I had teachers that were vets and those who were new share ideas with each other. And that is the true purpose of PD. It's not about learning something once and never talking about it again, its about learning something, talking about it with your peers, and taking it and making it your own so that your students benefit from it. 

Truth be told, I didn't know how it was going to go. I thought the summits may have bomb.

After three minutes in each one, the educators in them let me know - they want more, they want to learn, and they are eager. 

In the AIR tonight...

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking of ways to bridge the gap between what people want and what we have. Its a tricky situation at times. For one, we have tons of iPads and iPod touches in the district but people also want document cameras and the like. 

I don't want to buy tech for the sake of buying tech (as some districts and people do). You know that person. The person who will wait inline for the new launch of something (hey, I've done it before. I'm not proud of it but I have done it).

After going to some Apple seminars and visiting the Apple store with our G&T students on a field trip, my mind began to spin with some new ideas. The Apple iOS devices are much more than just app-filled devices. The basic functions of it can be used by all teachers as a camera, recording machine, sharing and creation device. 

How could we stream what is on our iPads onto our SmartBoards? Currently, some teachers were using 30Pin to VGA connectors but that kept the iPad and teacher in the same location. I didn't want to do that anymore; plus, the cords and cables were expensive. Could we buy Apple TV's for each classroom? Sure we could, but at $99.99 a pop, money could have been spent better elsewhere. I couldn't figure this one out. 

So... as I do with many questions I can't answer, I turned to my collegiate friends and Twitter PLN. Thanks to my friend +Susan M. Bearden, I was able to get the answer I was looking for: AIRSERVER via Airplay. 

  No, not the 80's soft-rock band. AirPlay is something that gives us the ability to use all the technology in our classes concurrently to create a seamless class with endless possibilities for student-student create and interaction, as well as excelled lesson plans and ideas. 

Apple summarizes:


AirPlay Mirroring lets you show exactly what’s on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch screen to everyone in the room.2 Show web pages, games, photos, videos, spreadsheets, class material, and more on your HDTV via Apple TV. Zoom in and out and pause for applause. Rotate from portrait to landscape and your audience sees that, too. AirPlay does it all wirelessly, so you can work the room or sit comfortably among the crowd. If you see it, so can they.

Using a product called AirServer, which was about $3.99 a license for commerical and educational use, we will be able to give this great product to all our teachers who have staff laptops. This means that a teacher is no longer tethered to a certain spot in the room. It also means that they can use their SmartBoard while mirroring to their PC. It also means that they can use the iPad as a Document Camera, video camera, or picture editor. 

This has so many possibilities in the classroom. Mr. G summarizes quite nicely just some of the ways we can use this function:

• An ELA classroom where students can share their notes, collaboratively write paragraphs, edit shared texts and compare choices, or share drafts for others to read to feedback on, with the writer making real time changes as the feedback comes.

• In Math, where multiple strategies created by the students are shared simultaneously and discussed.

• Multiple videos showing different views of the same event or object.

• A music classroom using Garageband with children combining different instruments at the same time to create a digital orchestra,combine parts of the same song for harmonies or multitrack experimentation or simply share their individual creations wirelessly.

• A Science classroom where different observations, diagrams, videos of experiments are shared and compared.

• A video and text can be played simultaneously to compare and contrast how a particular part of the story is portrayed in different media.

• Ideas can be shared concurrently instead of waiting for turns, allowing students and teachers to focus on a specific point of their choice rather than waiting for turns.

• Collaborative teams presenting the work without having to spend time cobbling all their individual efforts together into a single PowerPoint/Prezi etc. Each student can just mirror their iPad on the screen at the same time and control a video, audio clip, slideshow, comic strip, ebook, themselves. 

Not all devices can connect to AirPlay or use AirServer. Here is a list of supported devices.

• iPad 2, 3, 4 or mini
• iPhone 4S or 5
• iPod Touch 5

This is going to change how we use tech and what learning will take place with it... and that truly is the most important thing we need. 

"Its not about the technology, its about the learning that can take place from it." - +Tom Murray 

Why do I need this? - Apples and iPads, a Crash Course

I've always been a proponent of gadgets. Even as a kid, I would fawn over the likes of the "Talkboy" and other toys that I could never, ever get. That was until 2003 when I got my hands on a third generation iPod. With the ability to carry all my music around and not ever have to purchase another CD again (lies, all lies - I just bought a CD last year), it was a revolution in my hand. 

Fast forward ten years, which in terms of gadgets and technology, is light years  and we have come to a common crossroads. Not only can we have gadgets that can hold all of our music, but we can have ones that can carry our lives. Our memories. Our future. iPads, tablets, and touch screen micro-conversion PC's (heck, even Windows 8, I guess), have changed the way we live our lives. We are no longer beholden to where things are in the world because these devices bring the world to us. This is especially true in education. 

We have been test-piloting Apple iPads and iPod touches in our classrooms for the last year and a half. While my inner geek wants to purchase the latest and greatest, I always want to make sure that everyone else feels the same way! The pilots have been going wonderfully - integrating them into different content areas and being use by over 150 students! Even better, we have iPads in our Media Centers that can be taken out for loan by any student - our Media Specialist scans them into the library system and away that student goes!

In any classroom, you need to try things out and play with them before you move forward. My hope is that we can move to becoming a paperless classroom and school. Notes, worksheets, tests, reports should all be delivered electronically and eventually, I hope to move to an electronic book. I understand that there will be a learning curve for the teachers and students who have not yet used an ipad or the specific apps that can be employed. It's important, however, that this process be as painless as possible, therefore, the plan is to introduce the most used apps one at a time. One or two days of practice with the app and then the "app questions" need to be held for the end of class or individual work time. You have to get in there and play around with it - think of this like anything else in your classroom. 

Unfortunately, with over 40,000 educational apps and many more for productivity use, it can be hard to narrow down exactly what apps to choose or which ones to use. Thankfully, Apple and many other sources have made it easy for us to figure this out!

Apple Education Apps - http://www.apple.com/education/apps/

(Good site that breaks down content level apps) (Not only that, but there are collections of free apps as well, which in a school setting, always makes life easier).

Ipads in the Classroom - http://www.schrockguide.net/ipads-in-the-classroom.html

(This is a mecca site - loads of information, plus help understanding how to integrate

 i-Products into your classroom).

(Also, this is the site that I pulled the video from at the start and this great poster to hang in your rooms!)

50 Tricks to use with the iPads - http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-u=1_328373&N-fa=3071669&N-s=1_3147560&N-f=1_3147560&N-p=24674436&N-play=1

More iPad Collections - http://ipadschools.wikispaces.com/home

Even more! - http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2012/12/04/45-teacher-recommended-educational-apps/#.UVh94ljCVtQ.twitter

So, what can we take from this? Some people still might ask - how do I use them in my class? Personally, I believe that to be the wrong question to be asking. How can you not? These devices and technology (especially the internet), have flattened the landscape of technology and allow students to learn on a one-to-one basis and can give the teacher more resources to use in front of and away from the classroom. Learning can become personalized with different apps and students engagement (a big, buzz word right now) will spike. As Kathy Schrock labeled it, iPads have revised teaching and learning and even Bloom's! No longer is there a hierarchy  but the cogs are all working together as our students create and learn.

Apple and iOs products can be used daily - they shouldn't be relegated to the side or a one day a week item. There has to be an investment made and a change of heart when it comes to delivery of material. With helpful websites and colleagues (and of course, your local Tech Department), cutting down the App-Jungle will be much easier and more fruitful. 

Be on the look out for the App-O-Da-Week and the App Educator of the Month!

For more questions or comments, leave them below or contact me via email at tcharleston@gbtps.org

iPad 2 Wi-Fi 16GB - White (Google Affiliate Ad)

iPad with Retina display Wi-Fi 32GB Black (Google Affiliate Ad)

Apple iPod Touch 64GB 5th Generation - Blue (Google Affiliate Ad)