Kelly+Metzler

=Kelly Metzler - IHS English=

1/31/12: Launched the ipads today with the introduction and rules. Kids had lots of questions about what we will use them for and how they will be shared. Good class discussion.

2/1/12: Humanities use the ipads today. Learning experience. Period 1 was crazy with both distribution and collection. 30 kids is a lot. One boy picked his up by cover--didn't know it was only magnetic. Another boy immediately downloaded images. Overall, though, period 4 went very well. Started with lessons learned from 1st period. Also a smaller class.

2/2/12: Introduced ipad rules to regents classes today. Kids are excited. Will do the sample student ipad demo before beginning ipad activity tomorrow. Worked the best way with honors that way.

2/3/12: Kids did a great job with the WordFoto app activity today. Taught them how to capture an image from google images, save to photos, do WordFoto app, export to Pages, save a document and email a pdf. Worked like a breeze, though with 24 in 2nd period the distribution and collection took awhile. Will try lesson on Monday/Tuesday with honors.

2/6/12: Yesterday I went into school to update apps. Today we did the Ramayana poster with 4th period. Because of scheduling it will be tomorrow with 1st period. The posters came out pretty cool. I have learned a few things about Pages, like background color changes. Also, Kim and I played around with Idea Sketch and figured out that we can import the outline/idea into Pages and then kids won't have to switch between apps while writing their personal narratives. Armin also helped me set up my dropbox link from the ipads so I don't have to download each item one at a time.

2/7/12: First period did the Ramayana project today. It went pretty well, but takes longer to distribute and collect. Also, the dropbbox option didn't work for more than three kids. I will have to investigate tomorrow with Armin.

2/8/12: I had the students enroll in Edmodo today first period. It went smoothly, about 10 minutes, but a few started posting comments so I had to make a general statement about holding off until given a prompt. Launched personal narrative in Regents classes today. We used idea sketch app. It took some getting used to, but then kids started getting in to it at the end of the period. I will give more time for idea sketch work on Thursday.

2/9/12: I used the Tagore iBooks today. It was okay. I think kids have a more difficult time focusing on the text when they can play around with the size and font and such. However, when they were searching for a poem it was cool to see them look through so many and then have everyone have a copy without making paper ones. The second day of the idea sketch/pages narrative project went well. The kids are much faster at typing on these devices than I gave them credit for. We did discover a few weird details, like the lack of a tab button, and the smaller screen size when the keyboard in up, but on the whole they worked really well. Now I will work on finding out what to do for the kids who don't finish by the end of the day tomorrow.

2/13/12: Friday's lesson went really well. The kids finished, for the most part, on their personal narratives. They are so much better than last year's. The process of writing was followed more closely and they had time to figure out the details of the piece, then see it transformed into an outline/pre-writing. German's typing was incredible with the iPad keyboard. He said the contrast and size of the keyboard was much better than sliding his eyes around a regular keyboard. Today was more of a bust. I tried to have my 2nd period guys log on to edmodo so that we can do some discussions and quizzes on the iPads, but something was working right and only one student could log on. We will try another time.

2/15/12: Yesterday went pretty well with the edmodo quiz. It certainly was easy to grade and it was fantastic to do it paperlessly. We had some log on issues until I realized we could go through Safari without issues. Then everything was fine. Today we begin the Gandhi iPad project with both Humanities classes.

3/2/12: Wow! It has been a while since the last update. The Gandhi projects went really well. I posted them on Edmonds so that kids could look at the others as needed and perhaps to review for the upcoming test. We also changed the plan for the Divakaruni, Faiz and Mahapatra poem analysis to include the possible use of the iPads. I gave all the kids the option of doing a paper version or using the iPads; most students have chosen to use the iPads to create a presentation they like. The kids have used BookCreator, Pages, WordFoto and Keynote quite successfully. Students are also doing a prezi and a powerpoint. Although it felt a little uncomfortable to let them have so much flexibility, they really took it and ran with it. Liz had a few of my guys recording their narrations in her room and she said they were working really hard to get it right. Too cute. Also, on another note, I did a survey to get a feel for how many students would like to take their unit tests on paper and how many through Edmonds. Most would like to use Edmonds, but some expressed interest for paper copies. I will see if I can assign the test to particular students or if I have to assign it to all of them.

3/5/12: We had the final work day for the projects today. There were some groups who really needed it and others who didn't, but the projects started coming in and I am really excited to see what they came up with. They used Keynote, Pages, WordFoto, Prezi through the safari interface, google docs presentation through safari, and PowerPoint from home. Overall the project are way better than I got from last year's poster paper and marker project, and I think the kids had better discussions about analysis and presentation doing the project this way. However, it did extend two days beyond what I had intended. Still, high engagement and solid products. I really like having these machines in the classroom.

3/7/12: I have been grading the poetry projects and they are phenomenal. I had two groups do book creator; one embedded audio which was fantastic! The Keynote and WordFoto pieces are also excellent. In addition, kids worked with the iPads and accessed google docs just fine to create google presentations. Also, one group did a prezi and I am incredibly impressed! Very cool.

3/11/12: Last week we used the iPads in several ways. On Friday we had a unit test in Humanities. Most students chose to take the test through edmodo and so got their iPad, took the test and then submitted it electronically. Then, they signed up for a grammar app account and took the diagnostic test. Although some of the kids had trouble saving the results, everyone was able to complete the test and receive a score as a baseline. Also, my regents guys did the test, too so now I have a baseline for all to track. Finally, we got to play chicktionary for the last five minutes of class and the kids really enjoyed being able to play a game in school.

3/12/12: Today is a bit of frustration. It am now loading/updating the last of the classroom iPads. However, I think it has taken about 4 or 5 hours to do all 30 of them. It is certainly not a fast process even though it is not particularly tricky. Since we are starting work with the iPads on Wednesday, I really wanted all of the updates done so kids had the update buttons gone from the screen. Also, it may be different the updates to Pages that they will use. Cool technology, but quite a big time commitment...

4/7/12: This week we used the iPads for a China propaganda analysis project. Students used Pages, Keynote and Explain Everything, plus acquired the poster images from Chinese Propaganda Posters. The exercise completed three objectives: I wanted students to practice the "close reading" we have been doing in text form on a visual text, I wanted students to have more iPad-to-class presentation experience to see what hitches would appear, and I wanted them to play around with Explain Everything to see what the app was capable of doing (for future use with our big China Project).

We also used the iPads for this Regents classes with the Gandhi projects. They completed the posters pretty well last week (the citations were the tricky part) and then presented the postersMonday and Tuesday, taking notes as they watched the presentations. I also feel the exercise was very helpful for focusing their attention. The presentations went pretty well. I was happy to see the quieter ones present effectively (or mostly so). I converted the Pages documents to a PDF and posted them up on edmodo for future references as we get closer to the end of the year.

4/26/12: To update the journal from the last entry, we did iPad projects in both of my courses this past week. Regents classes did the sports project, using the Designs for Pages app to choose a brochure, Pages to reading logs, and Soundcloud to record their podcasts. We ran out of time to have them review the sounds, but overall it was a successful sequence. The products were more developed and thorough than last year's projects, and the recording was MUCH smoother (except for the few times the kids couldn't get on the app). I also had students do the recording from home, which was delightful for both of us. I will try to post some projects on edmodo for kids and parents to see. media type="custom" key="16527952" soundcloud audio recording of a book talk In the Humanities classes, we began the China Class Exhibition. Many students used the apps to create products, but then printed them for the viewing. We had stamps, magazine covers, da-zi-bao, songs, flyers, graffiti, and documents done with the iPads. They used a variety of apps, including Designs for Pages, Pages, Keynote, iMovie, Spray Can, Explain Everything, Chinese Propaganda Posters, Animoto, Songwriter's Pad, and much web research through Safari. Today we began presentations. It was a little hectic because of the snow day, but kids got together well enough and did a pretty good job presenting. Geoff, Jarett, and Phil, plus Roger, came to observe. We discovered ways for next year to make it even more digital and less paper-intensive. We would like to have an online form for the evaluators to use; I was thinking their self-evaluation could also be there. We could have each kid post to a classroom blog and then comment directly on the item. Also, there could/should be even more interaction with the presentations. On the oops front, somehow the passwords got messed up on the iPads and when Armin tried to re-do the password, he typed a slightly different one. I had to go back and re-install the passwords on all 30 machines. Ugh! We will be taking a bit of a break from the iPads, except maybe for grammar links, until the middle of May when the portfolios begin. Starting out next year with these devices will be better, especially after I have played around with them over the summer.

Red Guard Promotional Video (project)