iPad Archives - Carrie Baughcum

December 6, 2013January 28, 2014

Bright Idea #2: Goodnotes App

I first heard of the Goodnotes app at SET Connections SPun Special Education Technology Conference (think unconference meets Special Education). I sat in my first session. A group of us (ok…three of us) were in one of the classrooms sharing. A younger educator needed ideas to bring back to her district to share with her staff, so myself and another special education teacher shared what we were using in our classrooms. We spilled ideas and technology tools we used in our classrooms. The room was filled with,

“Oh yeah I know that!”

“Oh Yeah! I love that tool!”

“Oh no I didn’t know about that one!”

“OOOOOO that’s a great one!”

…then suddenly… Continue reading “Bright Idea #2: Goodnotes App”

April 10, 2013

Our Awesomeness #1

We have tried out a few different tools to project the iPad during lessons. Reflector is a phenomenal desktop app that projects your iPad through the projector. It allows me to not have to be plugged in. I can walk around the classroom continuously displaying what I am doing on the iPad (downfall is my classroom’s wifi is not always able to keep up with it so it has only worked half the time). Another, more reasonable tool to project the iPad is the iPevo camera. It clearly projects the iPad, but does not allow me to move around the classroom. The above picture is the iPad projected using the iPevo Camera with one of my students navigating the iPad while I instruct. My favorite way to use the iPad, iPevo and make students part of my teaching.

All of the worksheets and templates we use are PDFs

uploaded from Dropbox into Goodreader

March 11, 2013

Week 1: Unexpected Crazy Perfection

You know those weeks that you walk into your classroom thinking I have everything planned.

You’ve checked your ToDo list, your calendar, run through the second ToDo list in your head and think done, done and yes!

This week was one of those weeks….or so I thought.

This was it. THE WEEK!!! The iPads were going to be handed out. It was finally here. All my prep, hard work, planning was finally going to be unleashed on my class. Little did I realize that my giddy excitement had left me unprepared for one thing…. The one huge gigantic duhhhh thing you fail to remember. It was ISAT testing (Illinois State Achievement Testing)… Yep!! Happening this week. I had giddily waited for for three weeks. By the time I finally connected the dots all I could say to myself was uuggggggg what the HECK were you thinking Carrie!!! Introduce iPads to your students during ISAT week! (I was even totally prepared for the testing week). What can I say…I blame my giddy excitement.

MONDAY– It was THE day! It was the day I was going to pass out the iPads and start teaching my students to utilize all their technological goodness. Only I did not prepare for the entire tech team to be out at the ICE Conference for two days. That meant that the iPads were not going to be ready. UGGGGGGGG I thought for sure my students would string me up by my toes and give me a major guilt trip for not having them…. no one even asked!

TUESDAY– brought us a snowday… wooohooo

WEDNESDAY– State testing day for our school. An error in ordering had left students on my case load without testing materials, leaving me with a two hour block of time I needed to fill with my students while the rest of the building tested…ugggggg (that word is becoming my mantra) and seriously! I sat at my desk siggghhhing at the situation. Scanning the classroom as if it had answer, my brain tries to process what was happening. Suddenly, my eyes connected with the cart of laptops and iPads. The iPads were ready. They were READY. THEEEEYYYYY WERE REEEADY!!! Before I knew it I was explaining to my students that were we not having testing. After i answered all their questions about why and how and what if I told them that today was the day they were getting their iPads.

“You mean to take home and use all the time?!!!!!!”

“Yes!!! To take home and use all the time!!!!”

…Instantly this unexpected… this uuuugggggg moment became two hours of uninterrupted instruction on how to use, navigate and interact with the iPad.

It was unexpected fabulousness!

Those two hours gave me an opportunity to flow from one iPad lesson to the next. No interruptions. No passing periods, no announcements. I introduced them to Dropbox. Showed them how to load materials from our Dropbox into Goodreader (if you have iPads and do not use this you are seriously missing an incredible tool. It IS my student’s binder). We logged into their Edmodo and Google accounts. We explored and got to know each apps functions and ways. My teaching assistants and I smiled and giggled as we watched our students look at their iPads, realize what they can do, realize the new skills they had and see their eyes widen and their smiles over take their face. It was absolute awesomeness!!!

As we wrapped up the two hours by asking our students to fill out their assignment notebooks I looked at my class, smiled and waited for it. I watched as a couple of students start to stand to get an assignment notebook sheet.

“What ya doing?” I asked waiting for my student to make eye contact with me.

“Getting my assignment notebooks sheet.”

“Reallyyyy?!” I said, totally over exaggerating my smile. I held my smile waiting it to happen

{Wait for it}

“My assignment notebook is on my iPad!!!!!”

“Yep!! No papers!” I smiled!

{roaring infectious giggle}

“THIS IS SOOOOO COOL!!!!”

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY our tests showed up and testing happened. Now not having my usual instructional time began to once again make me think uggggggg what was I thinking. This is an awful week to roll out the iPads. As our testing sessions ended and our modified schedule played out I began to realize that this week could not have been more perfect to do exactly what I had done. The modified schedule coupled with the general expectation of reduced, if not any homework, because of testing gave me freedom. It gave me the freedom to break in all the apps I wanted my students to use without the pressure of a full on class lesson. It gave me the freedom to give a worksheet for my students to try doing at home on the iPad instead of a packet or complex assignment. It gave me and my students time to connect with the iPad, my new expectations, their new mind set and the freedom to work through all the ins and outs and what ifs.

It was quite a week! It was totally unexpectedly amazingly unplanned perfection!

I’m exhausted!!

March 4, 2013

Getting Ready…Pre-Week #2

Last week was my last week prior to {insert nail biting paired and gitty excitement geeeee} the big day… The day the students get their iPads.

I wasn’t the only one excited either! I heard at least once or twice a day, “When are we getting the iPads (insert blank stare at me… Light bulb going off) Oh yeah next week.” Followed by frown and shoulder slump.

We are all incredibly excited and the anticipation was high!!!

My goals for this week were pretty straight forward… prepare and change.

Prepare… I needed to label each iPad with names and numbers, collect the last of the permission slips/ technology agreements and finalize what apps I wanted on all the iPads.

Change…I realized needed to completely change how I took time to evaluate homework and my mindset about managing it. You see until last week the homework I assigned was collected at the beginning of the period it was due. The time left was dedicated to instructional time. If I was going to go all in and fully embrace being an iPad classroom, which to me also meant almost completely paperless, I needed to seriously change how I was doing things.

The Change…First, I developed a template. I needed to make a paper template I could use to record assignments on and that could easily be transferred into the grade book. It needed to be easy enough for the teaching assistants I work with to use and record assignments on for their groups. Second, I needed to change how and when we graded papers. I can’t exactly collect 11 iPads and grade the papers, nor did I want 10 PDFs times 6 periods plus a day being dropped in my Dropbox. So I had to compromise with myself and give up a bit of class time to grade papers. I didn’t, however, want grading to take more then 5ish minutes of any class period.

So with these very strong plan in mind, I ran my class as if it was a paperless classroom and prepped my teaching assistants for the changes to come and this mindset.

Here is how things went…
Monday– I payed attention to my habits, reminding myself of what would be paperless and what would not. I took note of places in our classroom routines I would need to leave time for corrections.

Tuesday– I was well aware of the changes I needed to make to my habits. I worked hard to grade papers on the spot. Grading them, collecting them and then…gasp! throwing them away… Paperless yo! I took mental notes of the routines in our day and the improvements I still needed to make.

Wednesday– By this time my students had become accustomed to having papers graded on the spot. I began to share with them their scores immediately and have them fix errors on the spot (if their was time). I began to realize that by collecting and grading homework separately, wanting to save precious instructional time I may have been missing priceless re-teaching and reinforcement opportunities. I was also missing chances to share with my students my recognition for their hard work and what they did well on in their work. I also realized that if I was allowing my students to make corrections for better grades (something I have always done, but usually as homework and after the score had been recorded in the grade book) I also needed to record the initial score of the worksheet and the score of the worksheet after correction. This would ensure I documented my students initial performance on work.

Thursday– Our usual stack of collected papers was next to nothing. My teaching assistants reported that the template made transferring scores into the grade book simpler then ever. I determined that all of our data collection in relations to my student IEP goals would be done on paper. We would continue to collect it, to ensure we had documentation and record of their performance as it relates to their goals.

Friday– We were excitedly on our way to a almost paperless classroom. I was happy and proud of the hard changes we made. I was embracing our new mindset and modeling that change can be exciting and well worth it! I was absolutely giddy with anticipation for the big week ahead!!!

February 22, 2013

Getting Ready….Pre-Week #1

Today it began.

I did it.

I shared the letter with my students introducing the 1:1 iPad classroom we were becoming. Excitement filled the classroom. Question after question came from their mouths and it all became real to me.

Parent Letter

This was really happening.

So as eager students go home to share with their parents the news of this fantastic opportunity I plan and prepare the technology.

My Fancy TO DO List

With a week left to prepare for the big hand out I am…

Assigning students to iPads
Labeling iPads with students names
Making sure all the iPads have the apps I want on them…I am starting with Dropbox, Goodreader, Edmodo, a whiteboard app, Google app and Paperport Notes
Making sure each student has the necessary accounts
Preparing a file with most used PDFs ready to be shared with each student’s Dropbox

In between preparing the iPads and having excited students eagerly return their technology agreements I am also running though my daily schedule trying to predict and anticipate any glitches I need to prepare for.