I think our Superintendent has taken a bold and necessary step toward having a conversation with the community about when we'll take the next big step in education.
You'll notice I said when. It's going to happen, and whenever it does happen, there will be a lot of uncertainty. But the fact is most education systems do not launch this type of initiative correctly.
I am not a technology literate person. The fact some in our district think otherwise, just shows that our district is not very technology literate. The good news is if I can do a lot of things, everyone in the district should be able to do so as well.
I have an IPAD and have been using it for about 6 months. Even though I'm not an expert with it, I probably would represent an expertise level comparable to most folks in the district. I have a lot of concerns about the device being the proper tool for everyone in a 21st century learning environment. I do not believe the future learning environment should be device dependent. Purchasing devices before we complete the discussion is the tail wagging the dog. After the discussion, we may very well end up with one device - but let's discuss it first. And in the mean time, those pushing the IPAD should be demonstrating how they can do everything with it - sell their computer and walk the talk. That would make a lot of my concerns go away.
Secondary teachers can click here for a site that collects articles about IPAD use in the high school setting. Click here to see what one school district experienced with their implementation and below are a lot of links to IPAD resources used for education.
From A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet: THE iPAD.
10 iPad Apps Everyone Should Have- from PC Magazine
10 Must Have iPad Apps for Students and Teachers
10 Ways to Use iPads in Your Classroom
40 iPad Apps Librarians Love
40 Most Awesome iPad Apps for Science Students
50+ iPad Apps By a Geography Teacher
62 Interesting Ways to Use an iPad in the Classroom
100 Incredibly Useful and Free iPad Apps
Best Academic Reference Apps for the iPad- some $$, some free
A Day in the Life of the iPad Classroom
The Debate Over iPads in Education
Digital Storytelling with the iPad
Five Ways Readers Are Using iPads in the Classroom
Getting Started With iPads- site is constantly being updated
How to Access Over 30,000 Free Books For the iPad
How to Set Up Class iPads and iPods
iPad Apps- from Teach With Your iPad Wiki
iPad Apps for Kids in the Classroom
iPad Apps for Physical Education
iPad Apps for Social Studies- LiveBinder covers civics and government, geography and culture, U.S. history, world history.
iPad Resources I Can Use- comprehensive LiveBinder
iPads For Education
iPads in the Classroom- Kathy Schrock's web site
iPads in School- this blog is all about just that
iPads in Schools LiveBinder- comprehensive site
iPads in Science
Math That Moves: Embracing the iPad in the Classroom- New York Times
Mobile Learning 4 Special Needs
Pros and Cons of iPads in the Classroom- from Forbes Magazine
Quick List of iPad Resources For the Classroom- from Steven Anderson's blog
Road Show- Browse your favorite websites — Vimeo, Funny or Die, MSNBC, TED Talks, and thousands more — to find great videos.
ScreenChomp- app for the iPad; share lessons on your iPad
Snag Films iPad App- free full length documentaries
Top 20 iPad Apps for Teachers
The Ultimate Guide to Using iPads in the Classroom- from Cool Stuff For Nerdy Teachers
The Ultimate Guide to Using iPads in the Classroom- from Edudemic
Using My iPad in the Classroom This Year- the Nerdy Teacher
You might also like:
From EmergingEdTech blog site:
Some of the Internet’s best resourcesdedicated exclusively
to educational uses of the iPad.
The popularity of the iPad in our schools continues to grow, and with it, the proliferation of related web articles, tips, how-to’s, and so on. This week we searched out some excellent free Internet based web sites and resources dedicated to the use of the iPad in the instructional setting.
1. Apple’s Education Resources for the iPad
It should come as no surprise that the iPad’s maker has done a good job of putting together pages dedicated to education related applications and uses for it’s popular tablet.
http://www.apple.com/education/apps/: Here Apple has put together links to apps grouped by Academic Subject. For each subject section, they provide a few specific app examples, plus one or more links to applicable subsets of apps in the iTunes store (e.g. “See the Apps for Learning Astronomy and Earth Science Collection” or “See the Apps for Learning to Write Collection”).
http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/: A number of additional resources and more information about using the iPad in education.
2. The “Apps in Education” Blog (http://appsineducation.blogspot.com/)
Reg Swanson runs this popular blog (with 750 members/subscribers and over 1.5 million page views) where he has published hundreds of helpful and insightful articles about iPad apps for teaching and learning. Articles are organized by academic subject for easy access, with links to these groupings right up at the top of the home page. I highly recommend this blog.
3. iPadCurriculum.com (http://www.ipadcurriculum.com/)
This is a unique site, in that it has a great side bar for searching for content. This search tool provides drop-down selectors for “Bloom’s Taxonomy”, “Device”, “Grade level”, “News”, “Price”,“Student reviewed apps”, and “Subject”, and these categories can be mixed to narrow right down to a targeted topic. For example, combine Price = ‘Free’, Grade level = ‘Elementary’, and Subject = ‘Grammar’ to find articles covering free grammar apps for elementary grades. Well done!
4. iPadinSchools.com (http://www.ipadsinschools.com/)
This site is a blog and resource listing, and a set of resources worth being aware of are their collections of apps organized by grade level. Specifically, there are pages that list a good number of “Apps for Elementary School”, “Apps for Middle School”, and “Apps for High School”. These links are found towards the top of the site’s home page.
5. The “iPads in Education” Social Network(ipadeducators.ning.com)
This Ning-based social network, created by Sam Glicksman, is dedicated exclusively to this topic. There are a variety of resources here, organized into Blogs, Discussion Groups, Videos, and News & Views. One resource I found particularly interesting here is this Tips & Tricks discussion section.
6. The “iPads in Education” Scoop It Page (and a few similar pages) (http://www.scoop.it/t/ipads-in-education)
This is one of a few such a pages on Scoop It. These types of pages provide listings of articles about the subject. This particular page, curated by John Evans, has hundreds of articles and is added to on a daily basis. Checkhttp://www.scoop.it/t/ipads-in-schools by Bob Zwick orhttp://www.scoop.it/t/ipads-and-tablets-in-education (from Sam Glicksman, referenced in No. 5 above) for more articles.
7. iPadagogy YouTube Channel(http://www.youtube.com/user/iPadagogy/)
This is the only YouTube video channel we found that is dedicated specifically to “videos of useful apps for education”. Of course, a quick YouTube search for “ipads in the classroom” or a similar phrase will return hundreds of videos, so it’s pretty easy to find more video content focused on this topic.
8. “iPad for Education and Training” LinkedIn Group(www.linkedin.com/groups/IPAD-Education-Training-2713512)
When considering resources focused on a specific topic, a large group on a popular social network is a great way to locate one of the most valuable resource of all, a community of professionals interested in the topic. This group is just such a community when it comes to using the iPad in education, and at has over 700 members. Recent discussion topics include, “How do you use your iPad to teach music at the elementary age level classroom?” and, “iPads in the high school math class?”.
Bonus! EmergingEdTech’s iPad Category(http://www.emergingedtech.com/category/ipads-and-other-tablet-devices/)
(We couldn’t very well leave off our own page now could we?). While this category is labelled to include “other tablet devices”, the reality is that the vast majority of articles in it are specific to Apple’s niche-defining tablet.
The popularity of the iPad in our schools continues to grow, and with it, the proliferation of related web articles, tips, how-to’s, and so on. This week we searched out some excellent free Internet based web sites and resources dedicated to the use of the iPad in the instructional setting.
1. Apple’s Education Resources for the iPad
It should come as no surprise that the iPad’s maker has done a good job of putting together pages dedicated to education related applications and uses for it’s popular tablet.
http://www.apple.com/education/apps/: Here Apple has put together links to apps grouped by Academic Subject. For each subject section, they provide a few specific app examples, plus one or more links to applicable subsets of apps in the iTunes store (e.g. “See the Apps for Learning Astronomy and Earth Science Collection” or “See the Apps for Learning to Write Collection”).
http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/: A number of additional resources and more information about using the iPad in education.
2. The “Apps in Education” Blog (http://appsineducation.blogspot.com/)
Reg Swanson runs this popular blog (with 750 members/subscribers and over 1.5 million page views) where he has published hundreds of helpful and insightful articles about iPad apps for teaching and learning. Articles are organized by academic subject for easy access, with links to these groupings right up at the top of the home page. I highly recommend this blog.
3. iPadCurriculum.com (http://www.ipadcurriculum.com/)
This is a unique site, in that it has a great side bar for searching for content. This search tool provides drop-down selectors for “Bloom’s Taxonomy”, “Device”, “Grade level”, “News”, “Price”,“Student reviewed apps”, and “Subject”, and these categories can be mixed to narrow right down to a targeted topic. For example, combine Price = ‘Free’, Grade level = ‘Elementary’, and Subject = ‘Grammar’ to find articles covering free grammar apps for elementary grades. Well done!
4. iPadinSchools.com (http://www.ipadsinschools.com/)
This site is a blog and resource listing, and a set of resources worth being aware of are their collections of apps organized by grade level. Specifically, there are pages that list a good number of “Apps for Elementary School”, “Apps for Middle School”, and “Apps for High School”. These links are found towards the top of the site’s home page.
5. The “iPads in Education” Social Network(ipadeducators.ning.com)
This Ning-based social network, created by Sam Glicksman, is dedicated exclusively to this topic. There are a variety of resources here, organized into Blogs, Discussion Groups, Videos, and News & Views. One resource I found particularly interesting here is this Tips & Tricks discussion section.
6. The “iPads in Education” Scoop It Page (and a few similar pages) (http://www.scoop.it/t/ipads-in-education)
This is one of a few such a pages on Scoop It. These types of pages provide listings of articles about the subject. This particular page, curated by John Evans, has hundreds of articles and is added to on a daily basis. Checkhttp://www.scoop.it/t/ipads-in-schools by Bob Zwick orhttp://www.scoop.it/t/ipads-and-tablets-in-education (from Sam Glicksman, referenced in No. 5 above) for more articles.
7. iPadagogy YouTube Channel(http://www.youtube.com/user/iPadagogy/)
This is the only YouTube video channel we found that is dedicated specifically to “videos of useful apps for education”. Of course, a quick YouTube search for “ipads in the classroom” or a similar phrase will return hundreds of videos, so it’s pretty easy to find more video content focused on this topic.
8. “iPad for Education and Training” LinkedIn Group(www.linkedin.com/groups/IPAD-Education-Training-2713512)
When considering resources focused on a specific topic, a large group on a popular social network is a great way to locate one of the most valuable resource of all, a community of professionals interested in the topic. This group is just such a community when it comes to using the iPad in education, and at has over 700 members. Recent discussion topics include, “How do you use your iPad to teach music at the elementary age level classroom?” and, “iPads in the high school math class?”.
Bonus! EmergingEdTech’s iPad Category(http://www.emergingedtech.com/category/ipads-and-other-tablet-devices/)
(We couldn’t very well leave off our own page now could we?). While this category is labelled to include “other tablet devices”, the reality is that the vast majority of articles in it are specific to Apple’s niche-defining tablet.
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