Getting Going with Mobile Devices: Workflow, Organization, and Fundamentals

August 14, 2013
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm PST
By Educator Innovator

How do/should you develop the long-term capacity to manage student work and a daily workflow process in a mobile classroom?

Key Questions and Comments:

  • (03:11) What kind of advice would you give to teachers who receive iPads in the beginning of the year (in advance of their students) and are told to “get comfortable”?
  • (06:17) Schools are based upon these mission statements and values; and that’s really not going to change. An iPad isn’t going to alter what you’re trying to do for your students…
  • (08:18) …The next step is a classroom of iPads: as a teacher, you’re looking at 20-30 students with iPads, looking at you expectantly…so what do you do? What are some ways to start thinking about that?
  • (09:32) Whenever I let students use this tech to create “individual expressions of their learning,” they were always on-task and excited.
  • (12:24) You have to empower your teachers to fail and give them time to actually share those failures…When we share those, we can avoid a lot of those mistakes being repeated…the failures are gifts to each other as well.
  • (15:50) If you have a learning objective locked in and you know what you need to do, it’s a little bit easier to make that choice to abandon the technology or keep with it & pursue it.
  • (20:56) [This technology] is allowing us to capture moments in time in ways we haven’t been able to before, in a range of ways.
  • (21:21) What about administrators and leadership within the school?…What can they do to support a lot of “newness”? What can they do support teachers?
  • (25:45) When I work with other schools, I always ask the leadership: “What are your expectations of teachers and are you being really clear about it?” Because, often, there isn’t a whole lot of clarity…that clarity from leadership is vital.
  • (29:05) How about supporting teachers who are reluctant about using technology? If it’s a tool, should the teachers be able to choose whether or not they want to use it?
  • (34:03) I tell teachers…”Pick a unit that’s the strongest unit you have and try to implement technology.” Because the unit that they’re strongest with is probably something that they’re passionate about, something they’ve thought through 100 times, and something that they have time for in the schedule of the year…I’ve had a lot more success making people feel comfortable.
  • (36:40) “On-task” looks very different in a technology-rich classroom than it does in a class where they’re working on paper…there’s many ways a student cannot be paying attention to you, but still be on-task with that learning objective.
  • (38:16) What is “effective” teaching and learning with tech? What does it look like? I think, as a teacher, you have to say “What does it look like for me? What do I want success to look like in my classroom?”
  • (42:06) My goal is always to have my lesson be a part of the [students’] dinner conversation. But if I can make it part of their video game conversation and it’s meaningfully connected? Heck yeah, I’ll take that.
  • (43:39) Research shows that skill development and growth comes from engagement; it doesn’t come from busy work. So, if we can foster that engagement, that’s effective learning.
  • (47:43) A lot of times, there’s this, “Oh, we have to have this one ‘magic bullet’ app across the whole curriculum,” but each student isn’t going to have a magic bullet solution for how they want to be processing their own learning…there’s nothing wrong if that student really wants pen and paper.
  • (50:05) When you have iPads in the classroom, or devices, then you need to talk about space. Because you don’t need those rows [of desks] any more. And I think that’s an essential part of any kind of device pilot: talking about the space.
  • (54:15) Now, students are creating on the iPad. How do I see it? How do parents see evidence of their work?…What does that look like now? What has the evidence of work become, and how do we share that?

From this Series:

View the Conversation
During the broadcast, the conversation also took place on Twitter using the hashtag #connectedlearning.

Guests for this webinar included:

  • Don Orth is the Director of Technology at Hillbrook School in Los Gatos, California and an instructor/presenter at EdTechTeacher. Don has been working in public and private schools, both in the US and Europe, for over a decade as a teacher and administrator.
  • Holly Clark is an instructor/presenter at EdTechTeacher and a technology & innovation specialist from San Diego, California who has taught for over 16 years in San Francisco, Chicago, and San Diego. Holly is both a Google Certified Teacher as well as a National Board Certified Teacher, and has been working with technology integration and 1:1 environments since 2003.
  • Beth Holland is the Communications Coordinator and Instructor at EdTechTeacher. She also instructs at EdTechTeacher workshops, bringing expertise in elementary education as well as working with assistive technologies to the team.
  • Shawn McCusker is a Social Studies Teacher at William Fremd High School, an EdTechTeacher Instructor, creator of #1to1techat and #sschat on Twitter, and an EdCampChicago organizer.

Resources for this webinar:

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