Good afternoon SCH,
Monday morning….blah…..uninspired…..
Monday afternoon, a few cups of coffee later, eh…getting there, so why not begin writing this week’s post.  First I’d like to thank you all for helping rescue #Daytime.  Following last week’s cry for help, I’ve been re-invigorated with ideas to progress into stage two of #Daytime.  If you haven’t seen them, please take a look at a few of these condensed versions that really got me thinking:
Rene Deberardinis - Suggestion to increase engagement: if some how you could try and relate the tools/concepts in your posts to specific curriculum/projects or work that teachers are doing in the classroom…this MAY make your posts more applicable, transferable, relatable? Not sure but… I wonder if it’s possible for you to visit some classrooms, find out what themes or units the teachers are presenting, share your ideas with them on tech tools they could use to enhance their unit, maybe lend support in the classroom while they’re trying it out (you’re probably doing a lot of this already!) and then report out these experiences on your blog posts — your successes/experiments around this.
Margaret Smith - I humbly suggest you consider shadowing one or two teachers – for 3 weeks or even a month. It may seem a very micro approach to take when you are looking to service a five-division crowd – but it could give you a much deeper vision into the day-to-day world of the classroom, what teachers need, and the logistics of taking a great idea in theory into a concrete three day project at the end of a concrete two week unit. You may also end up seeing things in the classroom with your tech eyes that a teacher might not see through their pedagogy eyes, and in doing so you may be able to make suggestions a teacher wouldn’t think to ask for. Likewise you might come away with some more knowledge about how students are interacting with the technology day to day in their classes – and this might significantly differ from how we as teachers think (and then report back to you and Jenn) students are interacting with it.
Stephanie Moore - Margaret, you are always full of ideas. I think it would certainly be powerful for Vince, not to mention, department chairs, Pete and other people who are making decisions that effect all divisions to know what is happening in all divisions and that would be able to happen with more cross-divisional observation. I believe you and I have eve spoke about it in the past. There are some very cool things happening in LS Cherokee that could inform practice at all levels and I am sure the same is true across divisions.  Perhaps some of the responsibility rests on us to inform Vince of what we have applied to our teaching from his sharing so he can circle back around and highlight for other teachers ways to make connections to their own practice. Time in faculty meeting to perhaps share these ideas would be great as well until more people get connected to the social media strategy of learning and sharing. Just a quick and dirty…I tried this, maybe you would like it, feel free to ask me about it.
Prior to making any final decisions regarding the development #Daytime, I’m going to need more help from you all. Â #Daytime began as way for me to provide tech support to the school on a more personal level, and ultimately it has been a success. Â However, as my role has evolved this year I’m finding that much of the Daytime sessions are spent on tech support issues rather than ed-tech projects, ideas, questions, concerns, etc. Â As a result, I have been considering a new approach that will allow #Daytime to mature. Â Last week’s responses have me considering completely transitioning #Daytime as we know it, from 1 hour tech sessions (we have a crack staff that handles that 24/7 in Ziva, Lionel, and Dev), to time slots that can be reserved where I visit classrooms to do exactly what Rene, Margaret, and Stephanie have suggested, figure out techniques to create a connection between the pedagogy in the classroom and what I’m doing behind the scenes. Â Feel free to add your thoughts to the comments section below. Â I am absolutely going to continue the blog including funny videos, sports commentary, personal anecdotes and more, along with a few snippets of educational material 🙂
Moving along to the portion of #Daytime that contains some educational substance.  This week’s topic, the emergence of ebooks and Apple’s role in the market moving forward.  I’m fairly certain that many of you have heard of Apple’s most recent announcement that they have partnered with the 3 largest education textbook publishers to bring us an entirely new platform that will include an array of multimedia options promoting extreme interactivity and collaboration, at a greatly reduced rate!  I read a great article last week by Kimberly Hefling of the Huffington Post that discusses Obama  Administration’s Challenge To Schools:  Embrace Digital Textbooks Within 5 years.  I say we meet that challenge in much less than 5 years!
If you have not heard the Apple announcement or would like more info, take a look at the following resources:Â iBooks textbooks for iPad. Â There’s nothing textbook about them.
The iBooks textbook video including a cameo from Chris Lehman.  Love this quote from the video – “The ability to engage a student is the key to being a good teacher”Â
If you can find the time, I highly recommend watching the full keynote from January 19, 2012:Â
Check out this cool graphic from The NY Times:Â A graphic history of classroom technology, from the writing slate to the iPad.
Finally, I hope you all enjoy the new #Daytime graphic designed by our very own Ziva Borjla.  Feel free to tap into Z’s graphic design skills, I certainly cashed in!  Again, please add comments below to keep this discussion ongoing.  If you’re not sure how to leave a comment, take a look at this video.
Not sure why I have a “#” in front of the word Daytime throughout the post? Â Ask below with a comment 🙂
Any thoughts on the best Superbowl commercials?
Follow me on Twitter @VincentDay
Daytime 
Like the new graphic. Feel free to come to a physical education class when ever you want.
I echo the comments by Rene and Stephanie about choosing a few teachers to “follow” and set up times to observe their classroom and talk with them about upcoming units and curriculum. I know there is so much more that I can be doing with technology – I just don’t know what IT is. Maybe your could help me develop a tech project around my spring unit on Justice and Fairness during the Gilded Age (1880 – 1920 with women trying to get the vote, create safer working condition in factories, child labor laws and the establishment of unions, etc.) Would love to hear your thoughts.
Yes, I agree with my above statement and the KM girls are waiting to blog with you. 🙂 Cool graphic from NY Times. One of my girls is reading a book about school “then and now.” I think I will have her read it to the class and then show them that page on the Smartboard.
Best commercials… M&M shell commercial, Doritos missing cat and (well, you will probably not agree with this one) David Beckham. hahaha…
Looking forward to hearing how Daytime will continue to evolve. None of us can be static now. We are in a dynamic world at a dynamic school.
Bummer about site being down today…looking forward to disqus and SCHift 2.0
That iPad textbook video is so super cool. I am totally into the idea of starting to give our students iPads instead of MacBooks as soon as Vernier comes out with a version of LoggerPro for iPad!!
Vince – this is another wonderful post. Thank you so much for including the shortened version of the ibooks textbooks through youtube. This is FASCINATING! When considering multiple intelligences and the different ways in which our students learn, this could be part of the solution. I, myself, am a visual learner. I loved seeing the girl work with biology on her ipad – tapping on a photo and watching a video to better understand the material at-hand. I did think about some things/drawbacks, perhaps, when working with an ipad. First, it is nice to FEEL the pages of a book and flip through them. Although I understand that textbooks are outdated and really expensive, I still think it’s nice to actually feel and turn pages. Also, as someone who always relied on her notes for presentations, understanding, tests, etc., I think it’s a bit difficult to type on the iPad and take notes. As I watched, I did see their solution to that – with highlighting important passages and then storing them on notecards…very interesting but I would have to get used to that. Overall, looks like amazing stuff! On another note, in order to integrate yourself more with educational technology and being more of a presence in the classroom, may I suggest that you pop in to some of the departmental meetings and share your thoughts/goals/ideas with all of us? I think it’s easier to digest things and actually understand things, conceptually, when it’s a face-to-face discussion. It would be wonderful to get you into the classrooms and I know that both teachers and students would really benefit from that. Once you have that initial conversation with faculty members, perhaps they can go back, look into their own schedules and then follow up with you on a more personal level. Just my two cents…keep rocking those pumas!:)
Those iPad textbooks seem pretty super awesome!!! I looked at the selection on iBooks and they do have one example of a physics book for $14.99, maybe I’ll check it out. I wonder when all textbook publishers will get on the bandwagon and make their books available for iPads. I am pretty obsessed with my 9th grade physics textbook so if this is a direction we are going in (which I would totally support!!), I hope my textbook’s publisher gets on board quick!
In general I really like the idea of giving students iPads instead of MBPs. I like the way that iPads encourage more screen sharing and less screen separation (screens creating a barrier between two students, between me and a student I’m talking to, etc.) The one application we use a ton in science that’s not available yet for iOS devices is LoggerPro, but honestly if I had like 6-8 laptops that lived in my classroom and each student had an iPad, I think that would solve that issue.
I agree with my above statement and the KM girls are eagerly waiting to blog with you. 🙂 Cool graphic from NY Times. One of the KM girls is reading a book about school, “then and now.” I think I will have her read it to the class and then show them that page on the Smartboard.
As for the best commercials… M&M shell commercial, Doritos missing cat and (well, you will probably not agree with this one) David Beckham. hahaha…
Looking forward to hearing how Daytime will continue to evolve. None of us can be static now. We are in a dynamic world at a dynamic school.
I am trying my comment again… let’s see!
Those iPad textbooks seem pretty super awesome!!! I looked at the selection on iBooks and they do have one example of a physics book for $14.99, maybe I’ll check it out. I wonder when all textbook publishers will get on the bandwagon and make their books available for iPads. I am pretty obsessed with my 9th grade physics textbook so if this is a direction we are going in (which I would totally support!!), I hope my textbook’s publisher gets on board quick!
In general I really like the idea of giving students iPads instead of MBPs. I like the way that iPads encourage more screen sharing and less screen separation (screens creating a barrier between two students, between me and a student I’m talking to, etc.) The one application we use a ton in science that’s not available yet for iOS devices is LoggerPro, but honestly if I had like 6-8 laptops that lived in my classroom and each student had an iPad, I think that would solve that issue.
Well the Apple Video was, as is typical for Apple Marketing, absolutely marvelous. It certainly seems to make a strong case for a school to go out and get everyone iPads so that they can use Pearson Publishing iBooks on them. Unfortunately these ibooks that are shown in the video only work on iPads. The Pearson ubooks themselves are much cheaper than classic paper texts by quite a bit which is good and Pearson is a major publisher that we already use for quite a lot of our science texts – but to go the Pearson/Apple Link you would need to have an iPad device and nothing else. They are not stupid that’s for sure – so you’d save 40 bucks per book but need to buy a fleet of iPads to replace or supplement laptops. As for the notion of a cheaper, interactive eBook, – yes they seem to be the way to go for all the reasons mentioned in the video. Although it is also worth mentioning that apparently you only rent the ebook and access to it expires after a certain period of time as far as I am aware.
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ok, makin’ a comment from my facebook account now…
Hey all, i’m a bit behind with my responses as we just figured out with Whipple Hill why comments were not posting, so please bare with my delayed responses 🙂
Kim, looking forward to the day when the iPad replaces the laptop (not there yet). But until then, there is def. an argument for supplementing the LTs with iPads to replace textbooks. Think about how quickly the app store filled up once the iPad was released. I envision the textbook market following suit.
Ellen, my comment to Kim is a great segue for my response to you (BTW thanks for being a trooper and helping out with the commenting). First off, you’re a visionary! As I mentioned to Kim, we’re not there yet with the iPads, but in time we may be. How cool would it be to not be tied to your Smart Board and be able to walk around a class mirroring and manipulating your screen via an Apple TV and projector? Check out this article, I think you’ll enjoy it – http://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/02/apple-tv-in-the-classroom-the-new-smart-board/
BA and Debbie, my first thought is how we could use Design Thinking for Debbie’s Gilded age project. We would either have to tap into BA or Jenn’s knowledge to figure out a DT project or wait for the summer training to move ahead with that. Thoughts, Jenn/BA?
Hey Saburah,
I too have struggled with the iPad typing and ebook notetaking/highlighting issues. But it appears as though they really have addressed the notation piece which will is huge! As for the typing concern, take a look at this blog post that I read this past week that talks about just that – http://www.schooltechnology.org/2012/02/03/ipad-vs-laptops-part-2-external-keyboards-or-not/
I use an external keyboard for much of my typing, but to be honest I think that this applies for those that were taught using keyboards. I’m not suggesting that typing isn’t an important skill, but I wonder how important having an external keyboard is to younger kids? We’re piloting external keyboards with 4th grade girls, but I’m curious as to much more productive they will be with an external keyboard as opposed to the virtual keyboard.
Regarding your suggestion for attending some departmental meetings, I think it’s a great idea. You’re right, F2F might be the way to go, as I’m sure not everybody is reading this blog. I’m still considering a various ways to approach this as time is hard to come by right now. I’m definitely thinking of starting off small and using the few hours that I would normally dedicate to Daytime sessions to sitting in on some classes to come up with ideas. Thanks for the feedback, as always it’s much appreciated.
New trend, classic sneakers with traditional work attire 🙂
Just replying to Vince’s comment about the Gilded Age project. Happy to help with this in any way. I think the best place to begin is with a group conversation…what are the objectives for the unit? What things have worked really well in the past and which aspects of the unit could use a refresh? Are students connecting with resources beyond the classroom, are the students collaborating on projects, are the students showing what they’ve learned through blogs, podcasts, etc. There could be some social media role-playing as people who lived during the G.A – both the extremely poor and the Rockefellers, the students could create an original game about life during the Gilded Age or create interactive timelines. They could produce a podcast comparing technological inventions of the age compared with today’s inventions, the list goes on and on. What a great unit!
Vince, you are more than welcome to drop into my classroom at any time if you find yourself with a few minutes. Since I’m just down the hall, it might be really convenient for you, and I know I always appreciate feedback and suggestions on how to better my lessons! So I’m just throwing that out there… trying to take advantage of a little proximity. 😀
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Thinking about Debbie’s project, given the tremendous number of visual sources available for the time period and the large number of primary source materials, I think a virtual museum exhibit might be one way to go. It allows for the collaborative aspects in terms of design and content and each person would still get the chance to create an exhibit. Girls could even record testimony that could be be embedded and played by virtual visitiors (think of voice overs in any Ken Burns documentary). Most of the Gilded Age units Debbie has mentioned have terrific digital resources available either via Library of Congress or state historical societies. Plus Harpers has a terrific website with political cartoons from the period (some of which are very racist so use with caution). I’m familiar with most of these sources if you need help Debbie.
Loving the in school PLN we’re creating here! David, I’ll email Debbie to have her check out the comments you and others have made. Can’t wait to get pushed notifications in our next SCHift release.