What+are+we+up+to?

Let's do a little journal on this page. Let's try to keep track of our progress on where we are exactly- or what we are up to!

Art Hat/Hutch (Amanda Barber) : The four of us teachers were able to meet and made a final decision on what would be best for student learning. Next, we choose to take the educational route through Apple. It took a little longer as we had to wait for quotes and pass the information along through many channels. About a month ago, the equipment arrived. We were able to take a half of a day together to work on installing equipment. On our side (Hat/Hutch), we were able to install a wireless router which will enable our students to upload their own work and also access a variety of apps that are only available through wifi. This process took most of the afternoon. We set up a new itunes account and tried to access the itunes store through our "educational voucher system" that was set up. This is a little confusing. Please talk with a representative from Apple before attempting this. This process has taken us weeks of setting up new email accounts and the District working with Apple to set up a special account. Thank you to Aimee (Art Clark/Mar) for taking that on and working it out. We are having a bit of problems on our side with getting full access to itunes. I have been taking equipment from school to school and attempting to partially upload something until I get stopped by firewalls or what not, and then moving on to the other building to try there.

Art Clark/Marsh (Aimee): So...... After jumping over some hurdles with the Educational Voucher System, we are finally up and running and have our Ipods in the hands of the children!!! I don't want to say anything negative about the process, because issues came about because of soooo many reasons (our computers, no wifi, email accounts, etc), however I would like to share a laugh in the fact that after hours spent setting everything up, Apple now offers 20+ hours of training in the bundles they are selling to educational Institutions. LOL Thought that was hysterical!!!! Totally worth any time spent setting everything up. The students are having an absolute blast learning about Egypt with the Ipods. I have heard only positive feedback and from all students and staff. One of my fears was fighting over the ipods (we have 11 to share among classes that reach 28) and this hasn't been a problem at all. The students have done an amazing job sharing and taking their turns!! So far, this has been wonderful. I am so excited to see all of the ways I am going to use this technology for the rest of the year!!!!!!!

Art Hat/Hutch (Amanda Barber): Things are coming along, I am planning on putting ipods into student hands next week. I downloaded imovie and would also like to try Dropbox. I read about Dropbox and would like to try and see if students can put their work into Dropbox so that I can access all of their files from one computer. If anyone out there has used it, suggestions are welcome :) Our third grade students are participating in The Mattress Factory project. They are creating books which will be turned into a large installation (kind of like a life-size interactive book). This week in art class, the students worked in their groups to plan their illustrations. After their illustrations are complete, they will use an app called Demibooks Composer. They will take pictures of their illustrations as well as add the text of their stories. They can add buttons that will flip the pages. These books will be projected onto two giant walls (shaped like a book). Excited to get started!