One-Year Evaluation and Review April 7, 2011

Brief History  The iPod program was not “initiated” by teachers or the technology staff but by our Board and administration.  If we do our jobs and if we value our jobs, we need to do our best to find ways to make it work at some level.  We are at the end of 1 year of use—it is time to evaluate and make adjustments.

Things We Can/Can’t Do  We need to concentrate on the things we CAN do something about.  We can't magically increase the size of the iPod screens. We can't magically make all students little angels. We can’t turn iPods into laptops.  What we CAN do is incorporate SOME use of mobile devices into classes as it works for the student activities. For some teachers this might be daily; for some it might be monthly BUT we are not going to be able to stop these losses and these non-users until students are expected to bring them every day.  There are all kinds of ways to do this which can be worked out.

More Things Teachers CAN Do  Take control of your classrooms and enforce school policy as well as your own rules.  If you don't want students taking notes on their phones or pods then make them lay them face down on the desk while you teach. Make sure they've all done it at a glance and get on with teaching. This isn’t a technology issue—it’s a classroom control issue.  Teach responsibility by making sure that your classroom rules don’t conflict with school policy.

Pros / Cons of Allowing Student-Owned Devices PROSCONS  Saves school money  Makes use of all purchased devices—used not stored  Students will take better care of their own stuff  Mobicip reports will be more useful for discipline  Teach responsibility by enforcing the policy  More distractions than we already have—ear phones, texting, surfing  We need a closed system  Music and videos they access may be inappropriate  Requires more teacher responsibility / liability  Parents are already texting during class  Not enough electrical outlets to keep everything charged

Other Concerns Mentioned  Academics have taken a tumble due to distraction of phones / iPods (based on what?—grades, discipline, ?)  Screen is too small to read (out of our control; find appropriate uses that work)  Cannot take the place of reasoning and decision making skills (hopefully, research ability would help—not hinder—these skills)

Things That May Help  Network upgrade this summer from Reg. 14 will give us 1 ½ to 2 times more Internet bandwidth (will help with multiple access issues)  ACU is offering one week of free training (yesterday’s ) in addition to any local days for this summer  Teacher suggestions and input is very valuable. Keep on sharing ideas with each other and with tech staff and administration.

Other suggestions?