My iPad Grant Application

Why I need an iPad for student use-

Increasing Student Performance and Engagement: It Starts with Just One iPad

With the implementation of Common Core/College and Career Ready standards as well as the needed renewed emphasis in skills rather than regurgitated facts, it has become urgent to put tools in the hands of students that will not only support their learning but allow exploration of content that is immediately accessible. Students are living in a language rich world moving at light speed but bound by the limits of textbooks and outdated technology. An iPad devoted to student use would be the first step in filling the gap.

Objectives:
• Students will have access to tools to best ensure that they succeed.
• Students will create podcasts, videos, blog posts, animations, essays, and other documentation of their learning.
• Students will read relevant and complex texts from a variety of sources and from a variety of time periods including the most contemporary work from magazines, journals, newspapers and other well respected sources as well as classic literature available for free on the device.
• Students will learn to collaborate with others while using current technology: a skill needed for success in college, work, and life.
• Students will have equitable access to technology that enhances and supports their learning.
• Students will make strategic use of digital media by choosing platforms (apps) that best meet the needs of their presentations or learning needs and products. (CCRS)

iPads facilitate immediacy in learning never before experienced. Students can read content and respond not only with classmates but with the world of students. Those with limited English proficiency or disabilities can overcome challenges that they shouldn't have to struggle with in 2012. Dictation Apps and translation capabilities alone fill the vacuum of too many individual needs and not enough support staff. In an ELA classroom that emphasizes not only the Reading/Writing Standards but also Viewing, Speaking, Listening; an iPad would be the conduit to the living world of words, not just the stagnate information within the four walls of our classroom. More specific uses also include increased student ownership with student scribes that would take responsibility for questions and notes during discussions, differentiated activities with small group video and app centers, increased engagement and real-time practice with interactive whiteboard apps, and countless other uses with this technology in the hands of students. Being very experienced with an iPad, I know that an iPad, just one student devoted iPad, would be effective in my classroom to increase the success of my students in tangible ways.
An iPad will increase my effectiveness as a teacher by giving me the tools to allow students to perform to their greatest potential. One of the most frustrating things about teaching today is the lack of necessary resources that you know can make the difference for a student. This tool can allow me to track student learning through formative assessment measures, provide activities on an individualized basis, organize and plan more engaging activity centers with the iPad as the primary center tool, and provide successful interventions (dictation apps, storyboards, read aloud apps, ect). This grant will provide the first student iPad in my classroom if awarded, but I am planning to develop a classroom technology center to include up to five iPads, one tablet, and two or three iPods/Mp3 players over the next year and a half through grants and business partner. With the first iPad, I can begin to utilize Apps and other resources to develop ideas that will help me continue the grant process for the rest of the technology. Unlike laptops, iPads have a consistent performance and don’t get viruses. It would be a much more stable technology tool for my students than we currently have access to. Students LOVE using iPads as I have found out when I let them use my personal iPad. Unfortunately, there are things that I use it for during the class block so keeping my iPad in the hands of the students is not very practical or effective. When students get frustrated with technology they tend to shut down but the iPad will limit this because the user interface and App design is so user friendly. I want to be the best teacher that I can be but more importantly, this iPad would allow my students to be the best learners that they can be.
In order to measure the effectiveness of learning with an iPad, I can use before and after assessments to collect real data about how an iPad increases learning gains. Also, student motivation and interest surveys can be compared to last years student surveys (that I use for my own assessment) to show if motivation and interest is peaked by use of various Apps and activities. RTI Tier two data will also be used to see if and how an iPad and or assistive technology on the iPad can help re-teach and improve student skills.
An iPad in my classroom will help my colleagues by allowing me to give real examples of how technology can benefit all students, not just the “advanced” or “AP” students usually given first priority of equipment. Because I teach all levels of students from Pre-AP to general to limited language proficiency to Ex. Ed; the strategies that I use can be a model of how allowing students to be successful with the right tools in hand can work for ALL students. It is easy to say “if I had this I would . . . “ but with a iPad devoted for student use, I can put my ideas into practice and share real challenges, successes, and ideas that work with my colleagues at both the school and district level. Currently, with or without the award of this grant, I am writing my application to present at AETC this summer. It would be great to be able to share how my district provided me with one iPad and I was able to implement the ideas discussed in this grant.



Wish me luck!

UPDATE: Got it! Can't wait to tell the students. Merry Christmas.

Common Core, College and Career Readiness, Quality Core - Oh My!

So here I am trying to be a teacher leader, implementing common core, and all that but I have come to a very precarious situation that makes me want to close my computer, open my file cabinet, and get out the 30 copies of last year's exam that I know I have stashed away. I am trying to create an end of semester exam that will help my students prepare for their end of course Quality Core Exam while assessing the standards we have emphasized this semester BUT . . . I cannot find any great educator, or even ACT the publisher, that has already aligned Common Core (or our very own Alabama College and Career Readiness Standards)to the ACT Quality Core standards. So here is my dilemma - I either A) Go on creating my Exam and cross my fingers that none of the correct answers are things I haven't taught yet or B) Align the standards myself and then work from there. This is exactly what I get for exploring too much. Sometimes I really envy those who can sit back, teach what they think the students need to know, and just wait for some test to be mandated down to them. Oh education gods. . . why do you give us standards, tests with different standards, and not even a cheat sheet to give the kids a fighting chance. I'm leaning toward A with a go at B over the Christmas Break!

Google docs has been one of the best tools I've integrated into my day to day teaching life. Not only is it a great way collaborate with students and for students to collaborate with each other, I have recently been using it to create my substitute documents, edit curriculum, link to edmodo, as a data collection tool for my grade level RTI meetings, and to save all PD documents so they are easy to access at a moments need. If you haven't used google docs, I strongly encourage you to try it. Over the last three years I have gone back and forth from other services, but I always come back to google docs. How do you use it personally and in your classroom?