Augmented Reality Arrives in SD Primary School

Recently I attended the Computer Using Educators (CUE) conference in Palm Springs with three of my SD colleagues. Among the new educational technologies I learned about at CUE, I was most impressed with apps that integrated augmented reality.

Augmented reality associates objects or images with a video or other media using image and object recognition technology. Objects come to life when a digital device (such as an iPad) recognizes them through one of these Apps. Some of the apps I saw included Aurasma, Elements 4D, Anatomy 4D, and colAR Mix. 

I decided to use this technology in my teaching because I thought it would be a very effective way to engage both the young learners in my class and other teachers. For my first experiment I used Aurasma. 

The goal of this project was to review turning fractions into decimals. 

I provided each student with a different fraction. Students created videos explaining how they solved the problem. They uploaded their videos to the Aurasma cloud system.
Students then made an “aura” of their equation. The aura can be either an image or a three dimensional object. In this case I had my students make a small drawing of their equation.

Students used the Aurasma App to associate their video to their aura. Their aura became the trigger that launched their video in which they explain their thought process of solving their equation. 

Each “aura” and video is unique to the students’ iPad so that they are only watched with the student's permission.  Students were able to show off their work to adults visiting on Grandparents and Special Friends Day. The fourth-graders were beaming when showing their videos and it was amazing to see them take such pride in their math work!  

I definitely plan to use this app again for a geometry scavenger hunt. I can't wait to see how my next experiment goes. It's also great to hear that many other teachers plan to start using Aurasma as well so that we are able to collaborate and come up with new ways to incorporate this technology.

Ryan Hopper

Math Teacher

Primary School Technology Facilitator 

Using Book Creator For 8th Grade Spanish Cultural Reports

For several reasons, time with my 8^th graders in the fourth quarter is scarce. I always wonder how I will fit it all in! Projects tend to be time consuming. Sometimes I am forced to omit a valuable project. In this case I used a time-saving App called Book Creator so that students didn't have to miss out on a chance to demonstrate their progress in pronunciation and to learn about Puerto Rico's rainforest.

With Earth Day approaching I also felt it was the perfect opportunity for cross-curricular learning.

Book Creator made this project quick, easy, and fun. Creating an e-Book allows students to express themselves creatively and quickly in the actual design of the book. They can make choices about what to write and narrate in Spanish. I like the fact that Book Creator allows them the opportunity to record their own voice speaking Spanish. Using only their iPad, they accomplished this in two class periods.

Assessment is an important aspect of project based learning. My eighth graders strive all year to speak with an authentic Spanish accent and pronounce unfamiliar words correctly. This app made assessment easy. By listening to one or two short passages, I am able to pinpoint problem sounds and make recommendations for each student.

Submitting work can be a challenge when doing digital projects. I developed a simple digital work flow where my students share their e-Book with me in Google Drive. I download the book and open it in iBooks to listen and assess. iBooks allows me to file and organize student projects by class sections.

Although reading and writing in Spanish about the rain forest were desired outcomes for this project, my main objective was to assess their pronunciation and reading abilities. Book Creator was a perfect choice to achieve this goal.

Deborah Fugate

Middle School

Spanish Teacher

iTeach, Therefore I Am

Several years ago I attended the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) Northern California Regional meeting. I attended a session on teaching animation in primary and middle schools with Barbara Cohen who, at the time, was Director of Technology with the Marin Country Day School.

Barbara Cohen

Barbara began her workshop with introductions and went out of her way to explain to all the other people in the room that she'd known me for a very long time. She added that I had taught her everything she knew about teaching video production with students.

I was a bit embarrassed about this introduction to the group. After all, the work I did with Barbara was at least 10 or 12 years earlier. We worked together on a project I created that taught students video production with VHS camcorders and linear video editing equipment. That process became obsolete long ago.

It occurs to me now that Barbara was really saying I had taught her an important lesson about the power of teaching with multimedia in the classroom. More specifically, I had taught her the value of engaging students in media production in the classroom.

Student video producers circa 1994

Classroom media production projects create an environment that promotes a deepening of student understanding of the content in their classes. Student media projects are also an integral part of student assessment in the modern classroom -- especially in 1:1 schools.

However, today students make their own videos on tablets and cell phones, and publish it for the world to see -- without the help (or even the request) of their teachers!

Which brings me to iTeach 2014.

At San Domenico School technology is a vital tool in the entire educational process. Teachers use it for their own personal productivity and for managing their educational resources and student grades and information. More importantly, because we are a 1:1 iPad school, we are engaing our students with technology every day. Having a powerful research and communication device stuffed in your backpack provides amazing access to information. These devices also include a variety of tools we now call Apps. Students use them to collect, analyze, and produce their own projects based on their research.

This is all fine, as long as everyone knows how to use these tools.

In a recent survey of San Domenico teachers, 82% said they publish course materials online using a variety of "cloud" resources including Moodle, Blogs, Google Sites and Drive, Box, Turnitin, and our Library web page. 93% of our teachers say they engage their students with digital tools in their curriculum 25% of the time or more in class. Almost 40% of our students are required to complete some sort of digital portfolio as part of our curriculum.

92% of our teachers say their comfort level with using technology in their classroom is 5 or higher on a scale of 1-10. 68% said they were a 7 or higher. On the same scale, 77% of our teachers answered 7 or higher when asked how important it is to continue to expand the way they integrate technology in their curriculum.

When teachers were asked to name the most important areas for us to focus when thinking about ways to improve technology integration in our curriculum they answered:

   "More professional development"
   "Technology specific curriculum development"
   "Time to collaborate with my colleagues"

Whether it be regular faculty meetings, one of our school level technology committees, outside conferences and workshops, or the creation and delivery of  iTeach 2014, our teachers want to learn from and teach their colleagues what they know about teaching with technology.

Sharing what you know, and being willing to learn from others is certainly a hallmark of teaching and the teacher very often becomes the student when it comes to technology. Now, with  iTeach 2014, San Domenico teachers and other leading technology using educators come together to teach and to learn about using technology to enhance student learning.

Thank you Barbara for reminding me that engaging students with technology on a regular basis is a powerful way to deepen their learning. I look forward to learning with you at iTeach 2014 this summer.

Brad Lakritz
Director of Technology

RenWeb Password Reset

With so many places to log in to on the web these days sometimes we forget our credentials. Credentials are the information we need to access secure areas on the Internet. That may be an e-commerce site like Amazon or social media such as Facebook.

Credentials often include a User Name and Password. But they may include other information such as "secret questions" that are used to verify a persons identity when they need to change a password or can't remember the password.

San Domenico families and staff use RenWeb to view student information. If you need to reset your password for any reason here are a few easy steps to take in order to update your log in credentials on your own.

1. Open the RenWeb home page:  http://www.renweb.com. Mouse over the "Logins" button and click the ParentsWeb Login option.




2. In the upper left hand corner of the screen you will see the credentials log in fields. Click the "Forgot User Name/Password?" link in the middle of the log in area.

3. Enter the District Code and your E-mail address and click the "Reset Password" button.




4. This will generate an E-mail message with a link to a password reset page on the RenWeb site.

5. Click the link in the E-mail. This will take you to a password reset page. Enter a new password and confirm the new password in the two available fields. Click the "Save user Name and/or Password" button to complete the process. Once you complete the process the RenWeb site will confirm that your password was reset.

Many of our students are accessing cloud services as part our educational program. These sites include our San Domenico Moodle learning management system, Turnitin.com, GMail, and Box. Each of these sites offer similar methods for changing and updating your password and log in credentials.

Please note that using secure passwords are an important part of computing and communicating online. Regular updates to your passwords are a good way to keep yourself and your data and identity secure. We encourage you to be vigilant with this information and not share it with anyone, even close friends.

Please let us know if you have any questions or need any assistance with this process. You can always reach us via the San Domenico HelpDesk E-mail.

Brad Lakritz
Director of Technology

EdSurge Summit 2013 Review

On Saturday, November 2, I attended the EdSurge Summit with Middle School teachers Ryan Hopper, Sally Jaeger, and Jain Pak. The EdSurge Summit Conference was a showcase for 30 vendors and their newest Ed Tech wares.

Several new products were completely amazing and one was, I have to admit, kind of creepy!

This is a list of the vendors broken into categories, which makes it easy for one to check out these new Ed Tech tools:

I found an interesting trend of products designed for tracking and collecting student and teacher data while providing a service. This includes flashcard review for students, classroom feedback for teachers, patterns in attendance, proficiency in math – if you can think of it there was something out there!

I will highlight five products that impressed me the most:  Zaption, LearnBop, Knowmia, Lumosity, and Globaloria. Some, but not all, require a nominal, annual fee.

Zaption - http://www.zaption.com

This is a site that allows you to make video clips literally interactive! You can transform a video from YouTube, Vimeo, your personal library with embedded questions, comment sections, multiple choice and multiple answer to share a few features. It turns the passive act of watching a video into active learning that helps students focus on the most important parts of the content. It also records your students’ answers for your review AND it works with Moodle! Great for a flipped assignment at any level.

LearnBop - http://www.learnbop.net

This is a math site for students in grades 5-9. It was created by math experts to “uncover knowledge gaps” while tracking your students’ progress. The tracking allows the teacher to hone in to specific areas of need for each student in the class. The part that I thought would be useful is that it collects learning data for teachers to use and be able to perhaps better assess curriculum effectiveness. (There is an elementary math service as well called Motion Math but I don’t know much about it.)

Knowmia - http://www.knowmia.com/

This is another great flipping the classroom, video tool that some folks have used already but it allows a teacher to make a video, and include (or not) a face recording to make it a bit more personalized. They also have over 19,000 teacher made videos in a searchable library. A cool feature is that it also provides teacher data in that it records student use: how many times did they watch the video, and for how long.

Lumosity - http://www.lumosity.com/

Many folks already know of this one but it is a host of scientific “games” that increases cognitive function. No, seriously! I am smarter already! Some of them even focus on avoiding distractions and improving focus.

Globaloria - http://www.globaloria.org/

This product uses laptops to teach students in grades 6-12 how to code and design educational games. We heard from a history teacher who uses it to teach his content and reinforce student learning. Students must learn and show mastery of the content to be able to design a rich game. Thankfully, Globaloria also provides teacher support.

Now for the creepy one (my opinion only!): 

ObserverNet -

As far as I understood it, ObserverNet installs a 360-degree camera into the ceiling of your classroom. Teachers may record a class and then upload the media to a panel of expert educators who provide feedback on content and classroom management. The idea of feedback is awesome but the whole camera in the ceiling of the classroom just seemed over the top to me.

Creepiness of ObserverNet aside, I left EdSurge Summit Conference overflowing with information and excited about how many new things are out there. However, as I shared with my colleagues, if you just take away one or two things to try out in your curriculum that is a successful conference.

by Kali Baird

Earth Science Teacher
Middle School Science Leader Teacher

Middle School Technology Coordinator

New apps and new opportunities

One of the great advantages of utilizing the iPad as a digital tool to enhance student learning is that the iPad is an incredibly flexible tool for both teaching and learning.  Teachers can prescribe specific apps and steps to support the design of a lesson.  At the same time, students are empowered to use apps that help them organize their own learning and extend that learning beyond the initial learning situation.

What are the apps that help students organize their work?  When we launched the one-to-one program at the beginning of the 2011-12 year, we found answers that worked for us at that particular moment in time.  Almost a year later, we have learned about new tools and have new insights into how our students use the iPad.  While it is still early in the school year, here are some of the tools that our students are using this Fall:

7th Graders in Annemarie Wheaton's Life Science course
use iPads.. with lots of other tools and media!

Notability - At this time last year, we rolled out Noterize (now rebranded and upgraded as Paperport Notes) to support annotating documents, completing handouts, organizing PDFs at other documents, and -- for some students -- taking handwritten or typed notes.  This tool was particularly used by high school students for most note-taking and by middle school students working with PDFs.  Noteshelf was an app used by middle school students for taking handwritten notes.  Throughout the school year, we kept hearing from friends at other schools about the merits of a $0.49 ($0.99/individually) app called Notability.  Notability integrates handwriting, PDF annotation, typing, recording, and organizing in one app.  It works with Box which is extremely helpful in our environment (though Notability's connection to Box is not as perfect as it could be yet).  Notability is now the app our high school, middle school, and primary school teachers show students first.

Socrative - Last year we used an app called eClicker for student response on iPads.  Student response apps allow you to take the "pulse" of a class's learning quickly and in a way that empowers less confident students to tell you whether they've learned something without embarrassment.  Such apps can also be used for quick quizzes.  eClicker worked but was limited to timed questions and was a little pricey for school-wide use.  Now the original eClicker is no longer available (more information on the new version of eClicker is documented here) but we have had success using a newer entry to this field, Socrative.  Socrative is a little more complicated but has additional features for running "quizzes" and instant response for quick student feedback.  I particularly like how it does not require student and faculty iPads to be on the same network and how quiz-takers can access quizzes through the web on any device.

Clibe - Clibe is allowing our high school students to create beautiful (really -- they are stunning!) journals in science classes and in other subjects.  Notebooks are instantly shared with the teacher without hassle so that the teacher is able to review the progress of student work effortlessly and with no printing of paper.  We have had some challenges getting this sync process to work perfectly in every case and are trying to contact support with little success, but hopefully those challenges will be ironed out soon.  We do not use this app with younger students because there is no way to shut off the impressive -- but "open" -- Clibe library of notebooks others in the world have shared.

Pages - QuickOffice Pro HD was our word processor of choice last year.  Our students and teachers are turning more often to Apple's Pages app for word processing.  We will have more discussion of paper-writing in a future blog post.

In the coming weeks, this blog will narrate how these apps have been used in particular classroom experiences.  We will also highlight emerging trends and new uses for iPads in the curriculum.  For example, we are observing how software that had been flash-based on the web for younger grades is -- in some cases -- being supplanted by engaging iPad apps.  How is this changing how we learn and teach?  We will also discuss other challenges and successes as we work with these digital tools in Kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Thanks for being part of our integrated technology experience,

Christopher K. Sokolov
Director of Technology

Life with Apple TV in the Classroom

Middle School math teacher Valerie Davis pioneered the use of the Apple TV with her projector to make her classroom even more interactive:

When Apple upgraded their mobile devices, including the iPad, to iOS 5, one of the more intriguing features was a service called mirroring. The mirroring function allows the user to display the desktop and applications on an iPad when connected to an Apple TV.

As an educator, this allows the opportunity to no longer be confined to a certain spot in the classroom but rather the ability to circulate around the room. For the students, they are also able to connect to the Apple TV quickly and display their work for all the class to see. So what all does this mean for you? Here are a few of the pros and cons as I have seen in my use of the mirroring function.

• I am no longer tethered by my dongle. Who ever thought I would use those words?! But the function allows me to move about the room with ease while still writing notes on my iPad. I can monitor the students participation and see their work. Of course this is great when you have students not doing what they are supposed to. I can stand behind them or next to them and make sure they are not being taught math by Fruit Ninja.


• Any student can show me, as well as the class, what they have done on their iPad with a swish of the finger. Whether it is a project or their work on a math problem, it is quickly displayed on the screen. The students love to show off their work and can’t wait to be the next one called on.


• Displaying iMovies or Powerpoint slides is quick and easy with very little wait time. I don’t have to worry about students taking their iPads out of their cases in order to attach them to my projector.

Now for a few of the cons:

• Since it is so easy for the students to slide their finger and make their iPad display they of course try and do this when they shouldn’t be. I have finally allowed some time for the students to play around with the mirroring function so they could have their fun and get it out of their systems. Occasionally, I still have something show up on my screen when it shouldn’t but the novelty has worn off a bit.


• It did take a bit of work to get the set up correct since my projector was not outfitted with an HDMI port. But thanks to a lot of hard work by others, success was finally achieved.


• Buffering can sometimes be a pain. Because the information is being transmitted over wifi it occasionally gets slowed down and does not flow smoothly. If I am just writing notes on Noteshelf or iAnnotate, this is not a problem. But when showing iMovies it can cause problems with the images as well as the sound.

Overall, I love using the Apple TV mirroring function during class. The days of standing at the front of the class or sending students to the board have been replaced with technology. The 1-to-1 iPad program gets further enhanced by allowing the educator to use the iPad while still being able to focus on the students and their understanding of the subject material.

Language Arts Apps for Early Elementary Classrooms

First grade teacher Meade Guignon continues a series of articles on her experiences with iPads in her first grade classroom:

As the school year winds down and I begin to think about summer projects and (gasp) next year, I’m forced to reflect on my teaching over the last nine months. As with every year, there have been areas where I’ve felt successful, and areas where I’ve…well, not felt so successful. Wins and losses, highs and lows, moments of pride and shame. The ever-confounding and complex topic of technology in education naturally would fall into both categories.

In my first grade classroom, we’ve certainly jumped on board of the iPad train. The devices have been used frequently in many areas of the curriculum. The kids love them, obviously. And frankly, I’ve loved them. It’s been a fabulous way to have the kids practice phonics, spelling, and math facts without using reams of paper, and it has engaged kids in ways that other activities do not. 

My goal for the next year is to use these wonderful resources as tools to create rather than simply to practice. I want to teach with the iPads, alongside the curriculum, instead of teach, practice, teach, practice. Reaching that goal will require quite a bit of thinking, discussing, and planning this summer, but I have some ideas and apps in mind for how this will happen. 

However, in my mind, using the iPads as a tool for skill practice is where teachers begin when faced with this new technology in our primary grade classrooms. I’d like to highlight several apps that I’ve used with success this year. Here are my favorite Language Arts apps. I’ll be creating a similar list of Math apps very soon!

Language Arts Apps for Early Elementary Classrooms

Spellboard: sight word and spelling practice

This app is great and has the potential to be a must-have app for any teacher that wants to customize an app to include a particular word list. Again, each student logs into his or her own account and then chooses a spelling list to work on. They can practice the words through a word search or word scramble, study the quiz, or take the quiz. Their results are shown in the “history” section. 

Spellboard has the Dolch words readily available for download into the app. There is also an option to make your own list, complete with recording the word and sentences for context. These lists can be shared across iPads via Bluetooth, and the same activities are available for these words.

Simplex Spelling: spelling lessons and practice

I’m a fan of this app- it seems clear and easy to use, and my students are able to navigate menus and choose spelling patterns. The choices for spelling patterns are pretty robust, although they are missing a few, such as ui, ew, and a few other less common patterns. It’s not game-y at all, and even has short introductions for each vowel pattern that explain the spelling and the sound that a pattern makes.

Word Bingo: reading and spelling sight words

This app features Dolch sight words leveled for pre-primer through third grade, and each level includes words from the previous level. A student logs into their player account, chooses a level, and then can choose to practice the words or play the bingo game. The student has the ability to choose which level to work on and it isn’t possible to prevent a kindergartener, say, from going into the third grade level. This is a minor con, in my mind, and the ability to turn levels off would be nice. 

A big pro of this app include the ability for each student to have their own account, and I can open the app and see each child’s “report card,” which shows what each student has worked on and how successful they are. The kids like the game-y music and earning bugs. 

However, this game-y nature of the app is also a con. I’m not sure the music, the bugs, and all the bells and whistles actually enhance student learning, or just make the classroom sound like a casino.

Little Speller Series: spelling and phonics practice

The Little Speller Series of apps are good for basic practice of primary grade words. They have Little Speller for Three Letter Words, Four Letter Words, and Sight Words. The Three Letter Words are customizable to focus on just one, some or all short vowel sounds. The Sight Word version allows you to select from “levels” 1-5 (although I’m not sure if this aligns to Dolch or Fry or another sight word list). Four Letter Words allows you to turn on or off words based on their beginning letter. I’m not exactly sure about how helpful this feature is, but perhaps in later versions, one will be able to choose based on vowel patterns or other features. 

Little Speller apps do not allow each student to have their own account.

Word Magic: phonics

Word Magic is a good spelling app for a centers-type activity. It allows you to choose short vowels, long vowels, other types (I think by this it means other types of vowel patterns), and multi-syllabic words (I wish one of these apps would specify spelling patterns and be a little more specific about word features, but this app comes fairly close). This is a good app for general spelling and phonics practice. However, just like Little Speller, it does not let you keep track of each child's progress.

Montessori Crosswords: spelling and problem solving

This app is another good spelling app for centers or independent practice of spelling patterns. A fun feature of this app is its “crossword puzzle” element, which requires that students decide the overlapping letters. A recent update allows the student to to focus on a specific sound or spelling pattern. Again, this is not an app that allows each student to keep track of his or her work or progress, but it is a good app for general spelling practice.

The new iPad - First impression

We received a couple new iPads today to review and prepare for the next academic year. Middle School Technology Facilitator shares her first impression:

iPad 3 or "new" iPad? While I am not sure of the name, I am sure that it has gotten my attention! After spending just a few hours with the new, nifty device I can say that the display really is clearer. Before gazing into its retina display for myself, I thought that it was just hype (I mean, "retina display"? Who talks like that?). It's not hype. Crystal clear, even without my readers! I then tried the the voice to print feature. At first, I thought that it wasn't working and even said so out loud. Was I surprised to see my doubts printed across the page! I look forward to more feature exploration!

Kali Baird

Innovation in Leading Schools

Recently, our Head of School, Dr. David Behrs, and our three division heads attended the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) annual conference in Seattle, WA.  Primary School Division Head Carole Chase shared these reflections with us on some themes coming from the conference:

NAIS celebrated its 50th year of providing services to over 1,400 private schools in the United States. The conference enabled us to exchange ideas with colleagues on a national level. Above all, the conference offered all attendees numerous opportunities for professional learning and growth.

It is impossible to summarize a comprehensive 3-day conference that included 15 featured speakers and a choice of 100 workshops to attend. That said, I wanted to provide you with a brief sample of a few of the general sessions and workshops which I attended, using the theme of this year’s NAIS conference: Innovation - Imagine - Invent - Inspire - Dream

Innovation

Bill Gates provided a wise perspective on 21st century education:  the formal content of what we teach has not changed, but the classroom has changed dramatically with the introduction of 1:1 “tablet” devices.  Bill Gates emphasized that the 1:1 tablet device enables teachers to personalize and customize instruction, thereby drawing students into the formal content of instruction. Kudos to San Domenico for being well ahead of the curve and implementing the 1:1 iPad program in grades 6-12 this year and grades 4-12 next year.

Imagine

The “Design Thinking” workshop in which I participated truly confirmed that in education you “begin with the end in mind.” Given the access to technology, students can actually imagine, design and build a curriculum related project.  No doubt, access to technology increases project based, relevant learning for our students and cross grade level modeling, collaborating, and sharing of ideas.

Invent

John Medina in “Brain rules for Education” focused on current behavioral research which indicated that the less stressed and more harmonious and supportive the adult environment for children, be it at home or at school, the more receptive the child’s developing brain will be to processing, learning, and ultimately producing original, creative thought.

Inspire

John Hunter, a self-effacing, modest teacher, was one of our most inspirational speakers.  Inspired by Gandhi’s teachings and the principles of non-violence, and accepting the fact that violence is a reality in the world, he designed a classroom “World Peace Game” that can be played by students as young as fourth grade.  As a class, students participate in the game on teams learning world geography, the power of finance, military strategies and political negotiations.  Peaceful resolutions must be attained in order to win the game.  Watching students play “World Peace” you understand that their learning extends far beyond game concepts and provides strategic lessons for life.

Dream

NAIS President, Pat Bassett, outlined 10 school initiatives for the future at the President’s Breakfast and Annual Meeting.  These initiatives ranged from individual character development and critical thinking to the globalization of independent schools.  Without exception, I can confidently tell you that San Domenico has already identified each of these 10 initiatives in our current planning before they were addressed by the NAIS president.

The national conference affirmed that San Domenico is truly in a leadership position in its direction and planning for the future. The conference also reminded us that continued hard work and much effort is needed to carry out these essential initiatives for your children.  The opportunity to be able to step away from the daily life of school restored perspective and enabled us to realize how much we are truly accomplishing at San Domenico.

Carole Chase

Integrating Technology in Primary School Classrooms

Primary School Technology Coordinator Carol Mosley reports on integrated technology happening in our classrooms in grades K-5 this week.  iPad and MacBook carts and stations support learning and teaching in all grade levels:

This week it is challenging to focus on just one “Tech Activity” in the Primary School!  Here’s what comes to mind when I’m in and out of the classrooms - Joann Brew has her 5th grade math classes creating iMovies to show a deep understanding of division and ratios - Brian Kaplan is moving his 4th grade science classes ahead by encouraging participation in the 1st Annual World Science Day - Carlos Zerzan is using Voki avatars to let his Spanish students practice their oral fluency - Lauren Murphy is using  Pizza Fractions: Beginning with simple fractions to engage our young 3rd grade mathmeticians!  Our second graders placed in the forefront during World Math Day -- and Meade Guignon has her 1st grade readers using the SpellBoard app with individual log-ins to work on dolch site words - Kelly Steers has her math classes utilizing Khan Academy...and our Senior friends are having a great time exploring interactive Bob Books on their iPad centers!

Has technology changed our classrooms?  Yes! The teaching teams have been able to tap into student interest and introduce or reinforce their lessons through hands-on, relevant apps and websites.  We are adapting our teaching methods including appropriate project-based learning - and modeling “life-long learning” for all our students.  Looking ahead to even deeper technology integration next year, we are working closely with our Middle School teachers to find out more about what is working so well - and what pitfalls have already been encountered during this remarkable year. In the true spirit of community, we will be visiting other classrooms and watching first hand how other teachers and students are using iPads, laptops, digital cameras and interactive projectors to Educate. Engage. Empower. our amazing students.

In closing, I have to celebrate another year of participation in the World Education Games.  Our students in grades 1-5 have been engaged in World Spelling Day, World Math Day and World Science Day.  Congratulations to all the students and teachers who supported this global challenge to unite the world in learning!

Today's Apple Announcements—a first look

Apple today announced a new iPad and a variety of updates and additions to its apps for the iPad. I won't try to cover every detail of the announcements—other venues have done a great job of that including Macworld.Com. Instead, I'd like to mention a few aspects of the announcements that are particularly interesting in the context of a 1-to-1 iPad school.

Price—By keeping the new iPad at the same basic costs as last year's model, Apple gives schools the capability to plan for their 1-to-1 programs. As an example, we typically announce the fees supporting our programs in January—long before the "August" device is announced. I am grateful for small favors—but not having to rework our strategy is a huge plus in March.

Price again—Apple's announcement of reduced pricing on the iPad 2 makes delving into this type of technology more accessible to more people. I believe in purchasing our students the latest device available when possible. Technology becomes out-of-date too fast to buy yesteryear's model if I can help it. Still, by making the iPad 2 available in the education market at $100 cheaper, Apple will probably make 1-to-1 computing more accessible. As Fraser Speirs (@fraserspeirs) pointed out today, the iPad 2 becomes very affordable if you calculate its cost monthly—less than $20/month over two years. While I can see some advantages to Android and other tablet devices, Apple's platform is the most compelling for students and schools today (see Fraser's observations on this at http://speirs.org/blog/2012/3/6/we-need-to-talk-about-android.html).

Content Creation—Apple's significant updates to GarageBand, iMovie, and the iWork suite add value to our investment in iPads and continue to chip away at the myth that the iPad is for consumption, not production. That hasn't been a true explanation of the iPad's strengths and weaknesses for some time. It becomes less true every day. I would love to see even more improvement to Pages but some of today's announcements will be really nice to have as part of our digital toolset. The new updates are available already for these apps and our students can start exploring new capabilities "now." That ease of updating is still one of the most beautiful (and occasionally challenging) aspects of deploying iPads.

iPhoto—The trend is that students—even those that have access to other computers—on a large scale really use only their iPads. I'm not saying that this is true for every student—but a lot of students really do focus their digital work on the iPad. The introduction of iPhoto makes this a little more possible. We see students every day with hundreds of photographs in their old "camera roll" on the iPad. With iPhoto, more flexibility to organized and work with photographs is possible without copying the photographs to another device.  More choice in this area is a great addition to Apple's lineup.

Camera—Students love to learn by publishing their learning in engaging formats such as picture and video. iMovie on the iPad has been a phenomenal addition to school projects this year. The enhanced camera on the new iPad will make student production even more beautiful and powerful—and, incidentally, more usable in yearbooks and other publications that are used to tell the "story" of our school.

Apple TV—The Apple TV has become a staple of classroom installations as it empowers students to present their work to their classmates seamlessly from their own digital tools. The new version of the Apple TV sports higher resolution. Again, Apple has done the right thing by bringing today's software improvements to our installed base of Apple TVs by a software update.

I haven't mentioned some of the more discussed features of today's announcements, such as the new retina display of the iPad.  We'll check that out when we can and until then I look forward to learning more!

Christopher K. Sokolov

Are you faster than a 5th grader?

Fifth Grade Teacher Carly Kline integrated iPads into her students' learning in a dynamic and engaging way:

"Who knew learning the states and capitals could be so engaging? Thanks to the use of iPads and the US States and Capitals Puzzle Match app, 5th grade is able to drag/drop states in the correct location and identify capitals as well as make a friendly competition out of it all! So far the winning time 14.21 seconds for the Northeast Region.  Are you faster than a 5th grader?"

Student Centered Learning with iPads in Global Studies

Dr. Justin Suran, high school teacher and technology facilitator, shared this classroom unit with us:

At the end of October, the students in my ninth-grade Global Studies class chose research topics from a list of possible topics on ancient India (e.g., “Aryan gods and goddesses” or “Chandragupta Maurya”) and ancient China (e.g., “bronze casting” or “Legalism”).  In a series of assignments, each student formulated a research question, found and took notes on several online sources, and wrote a works cited entry for each source.

I published each student’s research question on our Global Studies website, along with a one-paragraph synopsis of each report:

https://sites.google.com/a/sandomenico.org/globalstudies/resources/unit-two/ancient-india

https://sites.google.com/a/sandomenico.org/globalstudies/resources/unit-two/ancient-china

These student-authored synopses became a kind of “textbook” for our unit on India and China.  Each student also presented her findings in an in-class report.  Students created PowerPoint presentations using the Quickoffice app and projected their slides directly from their iPads. Ultimately, I used information from the in-class presentations and written synopses to write a series of multiple-choice questions for our summative assessments.

While some students may have benefited from a more structured, teacher-centered approach, most students rose to the challenge and learned a lot from the assignment.  They framed interesting and meaningful research questions, found reliable sources, and taught the rest of us what they had learned. In the process of writing their presentations and learning from one another, they learned to see themselves as co-creators of historically significant (and test-worthy!) knowledge.

10 Minutes with iPads in the Library

As the learning hub of the school, the library serves hundreds of students daily as they read, research, word-process, email, copy and print. With the adoption of our 1-to-1 iPad program this year we wanted to assess how students use this new educational tool during a recent study hall for the middle school and 'free' period for the high school. From the following "snapshots", all taken within 10 minutes of each other on Thursday, Nov. 10th, it is apparent that the iPad is a valuable (and enjoyable) option for student learning.

Algebra Word Problems                         High School Research Project                   Reading E-Books

Mapping                                                        Typing a Paper                                              Science Notes

Creating a Photo Collage                          Creating a Quiz                                           Watching a Movie

All the students photographed were working or reading independently on projects of their choosing. As can be seen by the wide variety of uses, the 1-to-1 program has been integrated fully with the Middle School and High School curriculum.

—Scott Fletcher, Library Director

Fifth Grade Spanish learning with iPads and MacBooks

As part of San Domenico School's integrated technology program, our 5th grade is using MacBooks and iPads throughout the curriculum. Spanish Teacher Carlos Zerzan recently noted:
"We are doing a cultural exchange with a school in Nicaragua to send drawings and write about our respective schools and communities to learn more about each other. The students used iPads for research on our community, along with Google Maps and Google Earth for learning more about the geography of Nicaragua and Central America.
We used the MacBooks for a great web site that has interactive animation about places in a city and asking/telling directions in Spanish.
..It's been great so far!"
Señor Zerzan recently showed us how to add Spanish support to the iPad:

1. Go to Settings, General, and then go to 'Keyboard.'
2. Then select 'International Keyboards'
3. Then 'Add new Keyboard'

This gives the option of when you are typing to hit the icon that looks like a globe on the keyboard and then the keyboard goes to a Spanish keyboard. Great for all the accent marks etc. and easy to switch back and forth.
San Domenico School has a 1-to-1 student iPad program in Grades 6-12, a cart of iPads in Grade 5, and iPad or MacBook centers in Kindergarten-Grade 4.