One of the first accessories I purchased with the original iPad was the
Apple Bluetooth Keyboard. I had grand plans of replacing my laptop with
the iPad. That didn’t happen, Apple introduced the MacBook Air and I was
hooked, but I still held onto the BT keyboard.

Lately, I’ve been using it with my iPhone when I’m out and don’t have
access to wifi. It works ok, but I was getting tired of constantly
moving the iPhone, trying to get it in a good place to use it with the
keyboard. I started looking online for solutions, since there were a ton
of iPad cases with BT keyboards, I was hoping there would be something
for the iPhone. It was then I stumbled across the Wingstand.
Consisting of two pieces of plastic, it can be used with or without the
BT keyboard to prop up your phone or tablet. It’s not Apple specific. At
\$14.95 shipped it seems a little pricey for a couple pieces of plastic,
but it is made here in the USA and it does work really well. I’m typing
this post with my BT keyboard and using the iPhone (unfortunately I have
to use the iPhone in the portrait orientation since the WordPress app
doesn’t appear to switch to landscape). My original iPad fits with the
Apple case on, and so does my HP Touchpad.

If you are going to use an external keyboard with your iPhone or iPad,
this might be an inexpensive way to work. Let me know if there are any
other solutions I’ve missed in the comments!

Madison Local School District
Ohio School Public Relations Association

AJ Huff – Coordinator of school community public relations

The Senior Experience
– class

What
– 21st century teaching and learning
– language arts credit
– students apply, 6 students in class
– blog about their senior year.
– Also go to the other buildings
– They get a MacBook
– Digital camera this year
– Taught to be responsible with social media
– Real life experience. Work in the administration offices during class
period

Student videos

The project is the 4 Cs.

Why did we need the senior experience?
– additional help
– Social media experience
– Main Street Madison – parent lead public forum. People were visiting
it for information instead of going to the school’s website.

The plan:
– First year the students were hand picked for the pilot.
– Wanted it to be part of the main website
– want video and pictures in the blog
– promoting the seniors
– highlight videos

How is it evaluated
– Students are earning language arts credit
– students still have to take senior English
– problem based learning
– website hits
– a lot less misconceptions posted on main street Madison
– track top pages on site, blogs are consistently in the top 10

People do want to hear about the academics

Risks
– safety: signed aup, contract, loan agreement for equipment,
– Money: permanent improvement funds,
– Responsibility: AJ Huff

“Don’t be afraid to take risks, especially smart ones. ” – Steve Jobs

Q: did you have to turn people away the 2nd year?
A: received a list of 40 recommendations from the English dept.
Widdowed it down to 20, then discussed with the principal. 12 were asked
to apply, of which 10 did.

Q: comments are blocked on the blogs, what about the FB page?
A: FB page is new, but hopefully can turn negative comments to
positive.

Q: Any plans to open it to others?
A: not at this time

Q: How did you come up with 6?
A: Original plan was they would be paired, because they work
unsupervised in the office.

Q: How will you use Facebook?
A: Ultimate goal is to still drive traffic back to the website.

Q: How often do the students post?
A: In the beginning they tried 1 to 2 times a week, but that became an
issue with all the other projects. Now it’s around once every 7-10 days.

Q: How do you handle their personal FB pages?
A: That’s really outside of the jurisdiction of the school.

Q: How much do you change their articles?
A: Quick edits, try not to change the message. Did have a problem with
one post, student talked about the whole family going to Florida for
spring break.

Q: Controversal issues in the school?
A: Situation hasn’t come up

Pandora Gilboa Local Schools
R. Todd Schmutz – Superintendent
Dr. Gene Lloyrd – Director of Technology

As part of the project the student get to keep the machine when they
graduate from school.

The netbooks weren’t powerful enough, so now they’ve moved to more
robust laptops.

How the idea was born
– Textbook costs and weight in book bags
– Utilize 21st century learning skills and tools

Need for change
– Only 28% of Ohio students (2011) who took the ACT met all four
college readiness benchmarks
– 1968 Divergent Thinking Study by George Land – Created tests to
identify geniuses.
? example question: How many uses of a a paperclip? 10 is normal, 200
is genius
?? 3-5 year olds, 98% genius
?? 8-10 year olds 30%
?? 13-15 year olds 12%
?? Adults (31 year average) 2%
?? (The same group of students)

Finite curriculum that we assess with a series of multiple choice
questions.

Need to focus on how we are teaching students, we currently focus too
much on the what.

Educators spend too much of their class time transferring knowledge.
Then assign homework to be completed when the teacher isn’t around.

If you’re using the iPad in the same way you used the textbook, you
haven’t fundamentally changed the delivery of content.

Flip the classroom
– Transfer knowledge is the homework
– Class time is spent answering/clarifying the knowledge that was
learned for homework.

Example old lesson:
Round robin reading of the material, teacher adds their commentary
through a powerpoint, then homework is assigned.

Flipping the classroom
Transfer happens on student’s time, classwork consists of working
through questions about the material.

Barriers to flipping the classroom
– Availability and reliability of technology
– Teacher resistance to change
– The learning to read, reading to learn curve. Starting in grades >4
it’s easier to work, students can read for instruction.
– Educating parents about this chift in teaching

Advantages of flipping
– More time is spent on applied learning
– 3Cs communication, collaboration, creative thinking
– Student centered classroom

If the presentation was flipped
– Participants would have been required to watch the presentation
before hand
– Broken up into groups, watch videos of teachers in the classroom,
discuss
– Present findings to the group

Implementation
– What’s the home situation like? How many siblings share a computer?
– Ownership of the laptops, students take care of the equipment.
– Started with 8th graders
–

Q: Internet access for free/reduced?
A: Not provided.

Q: Buying textbooks?
A: Up to the textbook companies. Should they even buy textbooks?

Q: How do teachers with multiple preps do it?
A: Building it out slowly. Once it’s done, it’s done.

Where do good ideas come from?
– Does chance favor the connected mind?
– Steven Johnson video
? Recurring patterns to innovations
?? Slow hunch
??? Good ideas come from the collisions of other ideas that are
stewing
??? Tim Berners-Lee, WWW. Took ten years
??? Sometimes it takes a hunch from someone else to combine with
another hunch for the eureka moment.
? Great driver in innovations is connectivity

Important to provide
– Quality tech
– Adequate bandwidth
– Adequate tech support
? 7:15am on Tuesday, 3:15pm on Thursdays

William Daggett Rigor/Relevance Framework

Filtering
– We filter, exercise in futility
– By law, not necessary at home
– Ultrasurf: Created by the government for Egyptians to surf

Move to year round usage?

8th grade student
– Watching the lecture gives him the freedom to pause/rewatch and
repeat.
– Can just ask a question if totally lost

Science teacher
– Gives students the ability to take responsibility of their own
learning.

Some students don’t like the flipped classroom, they’re used to the
currecnt way instruction is given.

Q: How do you do teacher training
A: Training during the week. Additional training for the teachers with
classrooms that have netbooks.

Q: What do you say to someone who’s afraid of failure on the state test
due to the change in structure?
A: They’ve never had a student come back and say they didn’t do as well
on a state test, they come back and tell how much better they are at
communicating. Supt: I want to know how the students are learning, and
believes that they do well on the tests.

Q: How much time is spent on homework?
A: More time right now, as they learn, and not all teachers are doing
it yet.

Q: How are you planning on staying up with technology? Software
upgrades?
A: Cloud computing has helped.

Teachers aren’t excited about how easy it is to be fact checked. 🙂

Q: How long is a video?
A: Ten minutes average.

Q: How is video delivered?
A: Google Apps with Google Sites

Q: When they leave what happens to licenced materials?
A: District takes it off when the student leaves

MY COMMENTARY IS IN ALL CAPS

Author of “Schools can not do it alone”

Talk about our power. A little bit about the need for change.

Quote by Lincoln

Mold public sentiment

Others have done an excellent job of molding public sentiment against
public schools.

Governors think that private sectors know how to fix everything.

Capitalism isn’t unlimited in its ability to create (?)

THE TERM IS CALLED FUD IN TECHNOLOGY CIRCLES.

If school leadership is the problem, then everyone else doesn’t have to
change.

NO BLUEBERRY STORY TODAY. 🙂

Wall street journal: abolish local school boards.
The farther the decision maker is from the child, the dumber the
decision gets. Core principle one.

People used to rally against the soviet central planning. Concentrate
all power in the hands of a small group of people.

Terrible trends:
Demographics-percentage of taxpayers with children in school in Ohio is
less than 20%. A lot of people have the been there,done that attitude.
They have forgotten something. Public education has two reasons for ring
developed. Individual benefit for students, the public good. Everybody
benefits when they support the public schools. Every aspect of their
quality of life is tied toward their local schools. Higher student
achievement, lower crime rates. After 7-10 years, tax base rises. Teen
pregnancy falls. ER use as primary care facility falls. Vote no leads to
the degradation of their community
Media is a “tad” negative. 🙂 negativity sells because we like it.
Schadenfreude.
At the community’s turf, at the communities convenience.
The great clanning of America. School is there to melt us. What if no
one ones to be melted anymore? “I don’t want my kids with ‘them’”.
Races, socioeconomic, political.
Tinker vs. school board, Vietnam armband protest. Past rights: “I had
the right to sit down and shut up.”

Parents are used to getting an advanced customizations. Every student
getting an IEP?

Engage your community, positive for schools

It is the best of times. For the first time we have to teach all
children to high levels.

Education greats weren’t the a ha moment, writings by the father of
public education, Thomas Jefferson. “Rake the genius from the rubbish.”
we didn’t need a lot of people to think for a living.

1965-77% of the workforce was low level skills. Making enough money for
the American dream. Currently 13%. In 5 years, 5%

We need thinkers, we can’t afford not too.

Schools and their staff have the power to change moral sentiment

Formal track of the great conversation, from the BOE. Go to where the
community is for meetings. There are millions that hated schools. They
hate going there. Go to them. In teams. Staff should front load the
conversation. Americans trust teachers more than BOE of administrators.
America trusts the classifies employees even more.

Community understanding. The community doesn’t understand what you do.
Jamie’s magic list. Things added in the last century.
Not added a single minute to the school calendar in 7 decades. Download
at Jamie Vollmer.com.

The golden age of education never existed. Must break the mental model
of what school is.

Community must trust the schools. As understanding grows, so does trust.

Community permission to do it differently. Need to stop grouping
students. Y date of manufacture

Community support. Can’t go from A to B without going through C, the
community.

5 Ss

• Stop bad mouthing others in publics. Gripe to your spouse, that’s
  why we have them. 🙂
• Shift your negatives to the positives. The more negative you become
  the more you compromise your immune system.
• Share. Share something positive about what’s going on in your
  school. Something positive happens every day.
• Sustain the effort, keep this up.
• Start. Start this now. Whoever molds the public sentiment wins the
  day.

Joined: moral and practical thing to do. We need thinkers. Poorly
educated people are desperate, and desperate people are dangerous.

MY NOTES FROM EDAYS, NOT CALAMITY DAYS PRESENTATION AT THE OSBA 2011
CAPITAL CONFERENCE. MY EDITORIALS ARE IN ALL CAPS. 🙂

Mississinawa Valley Local school district
– Pilot school for eDays

Replace snow days with eDays?
– ancedotes: take away sled time? 🙂 Big learning experience

Background/History
– Supt. brought in through a video
– Learning can continue when the instructor can’t be in front of the
students
– District covers 80 square miles, miss days after snowfall due to
wind
– Superintendent Wendel formalizes plan that is used as a basis for the
house bill
– House bill dies, could be due to lobbying from the AFT
– Applied for waiver days from the ODE to try it out.
– Big response from across the nation, spent a lot of time in
interviews
– Governor Kasich re-institutes the 5 calamity days and adds 3 online
days to the budget bill

School plan
– Teachers are already required to come in two days in the summer. One
was used for eDay PD
– The other day was used to complete lessons
– Teachers were paid for two days, but more was put in on their own
time.
– Prepare students and parents. Teachers took class time to show the
students, parent meetings in the evening in an open computer lab
– Variety of lessons, and a student product (an assignment and
assessment)

eLesson Components
– Target
Pick some standards that are hard to hit in the classroom due to other
standards
– Instruction
Reading
Podcasts
Vodcasts
– Teacher contact information
–Duplicate the learning that occurs in a normal day

Lesson types
– Rubric was used to grade the lesson: Basic, Intermediate, and
Advanced
– Everyone was required to have a Basic lesson, but the goal was for
the teachers to move to intermediate and/or advanced lesson plans
– Component of an eDay Lesson: Student Tasks, Student Product
– See Darke County ESC for rubric

What happens on an eDay
– Teachers/students notified
– Teaches enable lessons, using First Class
– Teachers will be available for consilt during day either by phone or
email
– Students have 2 weeks to complete assignments if needed

What if students don’t have internet?
– Initial survey showed that only 11% did not have Internet, 50%
free/reduced lunches
– Discuss with students ahead of time
– Weather permitting:
? Community building open with laptops and tech coordinator
? School building will be open
– 2 week window to complete assignments
? Work on them during non-instructional times of school day
? After school hours

Sample Pages
– First class

WHERE IS MOODLE? GOOGLE DOCS?

• Teacher is usually online to assist during the day
• Only open up the current eDay’s lesson, didn’t want students to
  complete all the eday work on the first day

WHY NOT? IF THEY CAN COMPLETE IT SUCCESSFULLY, WHY NOT LET THEM COMPLETE
IT ALL?

• issues that cropped up: lessons took too much time, computer sharing
  in households with multiple students
• Teachers learned a lot of what works and what doesn’t work the first
  year
• Found out some students only had dial-up, video was difficult

NICE USE OF A DIGITAL CAMERA TO “SCAN” IN PAGES TO PUT ON A WEBPAGE

• Lessons are stand alone

I HOPE THEY AREN’T TEACHING SKILLS IN ISOLATION, THEY SHOULD BUILD
SOMEWHAT ON THE FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR (MAKE UP DAYS WOULDN’T BE UNTIL
ALL CALAMATY DAYS ARE EXHAUSTED, WHICH WOULDN’T BE UNTIL JAN OR FEB).

• Surfing the Internet took a lot a time because there is so much
  stuff out there. Actually inspired the teacher to integrate other
  resources that were found.
• Elementary PE: Timed sit-ups, push-ups, and measure reach.

NO SHOVELING SNOW? 🙂

• Teacher’s daughter wanted to do some of the activities after the
  eDay ended

Statistic Comparisons
– 100% of the teachers believed their eLessons were of high
instructional value
– 72% of the students said they were able to learn by completing the
eLessons
– 80% of the parents thought the lessons were of high instructional
value
– 52% of the students said the learning equaled what they learn on a
“regular” day, 60% of parents
– 100% of teachers, 57% of students, 67% of parents believed the school
should continue the eDay program
– Older siblings liked helping the younger students complete some of
their tasks

Lessons Learned
– Too much time between the actual eDay and when they are due. More
information and tasks were given than what would have been given in a
normal class period
– Students were frustrated in the completion of the lesson and the time
it took
– Students are passive learners
– There should be no athletic practices during school time on eDays
– Parents view parental involvment as something that occurs inside the
school
– Incorporate this type of technology throughout the year
– Online time cannot equal chair time
– Automated system for product return is necassary
– Need a consistent, agreed upon method for student/teacher
communication
– Lack of completion consequences needs to be more fully developed
– More parent/student prep needed
– Need to have a contingency plan before you need the contengency plan

COULD AN EDAY BE USED TO ALLOW TEACHERS PD DAYS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR?

CONTIGENCY PLAN FOR SERVER ISSUES?

Q/A
Q:How do you deal with students special needs?
A: Modified classroom teacher lessons

Q: How did you structure your pilot?
A: 100% of the teachers involved, followed the steps listed above

Q: If two weeks are too long, are you going to change? Do teachers
prepare lessons for each subject in self-contained classrooms?
A: Havent approached the two week window. Teachers create lessons for
each subject.

Q: Moodle?
A: Looking at it.

Q: Costs?
A: Practically nothing, since First Class was already in place. Already
had days in place for PD. Probably 4 or 5 hours for each lesson.
Research takes time

Q: Union buy in?
A: Union and administration identified the need and mutually agreed to
it. No one wanted to be there mid-June. Waiver days gave them two
additional days at Christmas.

Q: No computer?
A: Places open for computer use, and two weeks to have things done.

Q: Outside of snow days, such as no electricity due to winds/ice.
A: Discuss as a district.

Q: Is there a real problem with students working ahead?
A: It depends on the teachers and how the lesson was designed. What’s
in their lessons, how it’s set up.

Q: How did you report this to the state department?
A: The survey data was reported to the state, along with the waivers
for the eDays.

Comment: Mt. Vernon had a day without electricity, so they just used the
two weeks to get the work completed.

Teachers in elementary use Moodle and theme lessons.