Category: Status

Headed to Apple Seminar at 1 to 1 iPad School

Four of us from Spartanburg Day School are headed to Savannah on Thursday/Friday to see how St. Andrew’s School is running their 1 to 1 iPad program…

Apple – Education Seminars & Events – Digital Learning Environments in Action!: “St. Andrew’s School is one of the only K through 12 independent schools that is currently implementing a 1 to 1 iPad program for all students, preK through 12, as part of their new digital learning environment. During your visit, you will see how iDiscover 21c has engaged students and allowed them to take more responsibility for their own learning. You will meet with faculty, students, and administrators who will discuss the planning stages, infrastructure changes, rollout, and the overall impact on student learning.”

I’m sure I’ll be sharing more reflections before and after the event as we process our next steps in (hopeful) iPad implementation (at least for Middle School or 8th graders).

Exciting times.

I’m Sure @Jangro Would Appreciate notes.pinboard.in

On my iPhone home-screen I now have a link to a “2 Do” file that is a Pinboard Note…

Pinboard Notes

Pinboard is the bookmarking service that fills the hole Delicious left in our hearts years ago by selling out and becoming too bloated.

However, Pinboard now has a notes function that allows for quick note jotting and has Markdown support.

Win.

I had kept my years-old “2Do.txt” file in Dropbox up to this point but for some reason this seems easier. We’ll see how it goes!

Initial AppleTV Thoughts

On much less than a whim and much more of a two year deliberation, I decided to take the $99 plunge and buy an AppleTV tonight.

After an initial 10 mins, I can say that it’s a game changer for how I consume and consider media.

Many people like to say that the iPad is a “consumption” device and is meant primarily to entertain rather than create. I think that is completely false and operates on assumptions about the creative process that aren’t valid in 2011.

The AppleTV, however, is a consumption device that does integrate well with the family of Macs, iPhones, iPads and Mac Mini’s that make up the neural network of computing in this house. It is a fantastic aggregation device for consuming the media that exists on those devices.

So yes… great purchase.

More reflections soon.

Folding Cranes

From one of my students, Jesseca about another one of my students who fell ill this week…

Tree Frog Science: “These stories show us that hope can go a long way and can be exhibited in many forms. Meredith deserves our hope and our support every waking moment, so I challenge you. All of you 8th graders, and any other griffins or friends alike, to take a stand and join me in folding a thousand cranes to send to Meredith to remind her that even though we are not physically with her, we are with her in spirit.”

Let’s fold cranes indeed.

Trusting Students and Teachers as Servants

Yep and yep…

In a New Training Program, Students Teach Teachers – NYTimes.com: “As a teacher, it’s really hard to give up control of your classroom,” he said. “I think we have to trust our students more to work together.”

Interesting read of how some schools are putting students in charge of teacher “trainings” but I’d also like to see more students having a sense of control, ownership, value and purpose in their own studies.

That’s when we’ll have true “education reform.”

Teachers as servants… dangerous and revolutionary proposition, eh?

There’s something to the whole servanthood thing, of course.

What to Do on Monday

Tears:

Science teacher: The Bambification of Dr. King: “Read ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail.’
Take a walk outside and watch the grace and agony of life around us.

Yes, it’s complicated. Life is complex,

Bambi’s just the celluloid illusion of a corporation that owns a good chunk of the airwaves today, including ABC. I’m betting you won’t hear much about King’s letter from jail Monday.”

As always, do something that won’t compute and practice resurrection.

Why I’m Sticking with AT&T (and Glad to See BUMPzee Back)

My pal Scott Jangro had an amazing site in late ’06 and early ’07 called BUMPzee that I loved.

Basically, BUMPzee was an early hybrid of Delicious, Digg, and what would become the Facebook newsfeed. Scott and his team were a little ahead of the curve and the platform should have gone mainstream.

So, I’m glad to see BUMPzee back up and running as it allows for great conversations along the lines of this (my response to Scott’s question about staying on AT&T or jumping ship for Verizon for his new iPhone)…

Iphone 4: At&t Or Verizon? – Bumpzee: “I had the exact same thing happen with my 3GS and the mute button. It’s pretty annoying to be a teacher and not be able to mute your phone, btw.

However, beyond the concrete Faraday cage that is my school, I don’t have a problem with ATT. They actually have been improving things quite a bit here in the Western North Carolina region to the point that I get few interruptions in service. We don’t have 3G everywhere, but we chose to live in a pretty remote and non-metropolitan region of southern appalachia, so I can’t complain.

My contract was up on the 12th as well (how’s that for timing!). So, I went to the ATT store thinking I’d be treated like royalty for staying with them. Interestingly enough, the ATT stores here were all out of stock and playing catch up after the holidays. My 4 came in yesterday and it’s everything I imagined it would be.

So yeah… stay with ATT. The ability to browse the web while on a call has been a great feature (one I thought I would never use) and the wifi at airports or places like Starbucks is a great feature-add.

I think this has been a big learning opportunity for ATT as they continue to grow and scale their network, so hopefully the benefits will continue as some customers offload to Verizon. Truthfully, I think Verizon has behaved with too much hubris from their ‘Droid Does’ days to acting as if the iPhone is finally worthy of their great network.

The biggest plus out of all this is that iOS on Verizon will put a big dent in the Android market!”

Reality Shifts Aren’t Novelties

Fantastic post that answers many of the “iPad is a fad and has no place in our schools” critics…

TeachPaperless: Novelty, Huh?: “As for the specific case of the iPad, it’s hardly an ideal device if you are looking for a catch-all. I’m especially concerned about the closed nature of the system and the emphasis on sales at the app store and on iBooks. But it is a device that speaks to several of the important features of our time, most importantly: mobile and accessible instant Internet connectivity. And I would argue that to see the iPad as a fad is to miss the bigger picture: the iPad only exists within the context of a mobile-connected world. That mobile-connected world is not a novelty; that’s a paradigm and a reality.”

Go read the whole thing.

Logic Behind Modern Schooling

This is a long piece that I’ve had in my Instapaper account for a while and have intended to read for years.

After a few jolts of caffeine, I tackled the piece and wasn’t disappointed…

Against School, by John Taylor Gatto: “Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they’ll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology – all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.”

Follow the link and read the whole piece. I don’t agree with many of the logic skips of Gatto when it comes to constructing a Prussian-Marxist structure of compulsory education but the spirit of the article certainly rings true.

Time for me to start being a teacher that encourages leaders and adventurers instead of employees and consumers in our classroom.