Beginning in September 2010 at Public School 10 we implemented a 1:1 iPad program. This 1:1 program is teacher based. Most 1:1 programs are student centric and involve large investments & rollouts of devices. Our 1:1 teacher program allows us to test the feasibility of a 1:1 program from a budget, practice, and practical stand point before making the full scale investment in a student 1:1 program. Teacher buy-in a a must for any program, and what better way to get teacher buy-in on iPads than to issue iPads to them first...
As a public school we deal with limited budgets and mid-year budget cuts, always threatened & recently realized. We wanted to introduce iPads into the school but weren't sure how best to do it from a budget perspective. Starting with teachers seemed like a simple, cost effective, way to get iPads in the school and get a sense of how they would be used within the classroom. Having them issued to teaches, one grade at a time, also allowed to to get teacher acceptance of the platform with limited expense while also generating buzz among the other grades and staff members.
A quick snapshot of PS 10:
- 850+ students in K-5
- classroom staff of 37 (includes 1 CTT class per grade + 2 12:1 classes)
- 7 clusters (Computer, Art, Music, 2 Gym, 2 Science)
- 5 instructional support personell (Math & literacy Coaches, ESL, AIS/SETTS, etc)
in addition, there are 20 related service provides such as Speech and OT/PT as well as 30 paras, secretaries, school aides, etc
We wanted to bring iPads in but didn't want to bring them in just for the sake of bringing them in. We decided to implement on a timeline:
- September 2010 - purchase 3 iPads - 1 for tech coordinator, 2 for administration
- September - December 2010 - test apps, sharing capabilities, network issues, etc
- January 2011 - order 20 iPads and develop 4 hour professional development program for roll-out
- February 2011 - issues iPads to teachers in grades 3-5 + Literacy Coach, Math Coach & ESL provider
- April 2011 - funding available for 30 iPads to include 2nd grade teachers and a shared cart of 20 for the 2 Science teachers
- May 2011 - funding available for 15 iPads to include Kindergarten and grade 1 teachers
- September 2011 - order 10 iPads to include new teachers, Art & Music teachers
Over the course of this timeline we were able to get feedback from teachers on experiences, troubleshoot network issues (the NYCDOE has a very fickle network configuration and firewall) and develop consistent systems of collaboration, sharing, assessment, and conferencing.
To support this ongoing roll-out and to offer continuous, self-directed professional development for the staff we developed a website, PS 10 iPads, to offer tutorials, tips, tricks, and resources. In addition, we have created a shared PS 10 iPads Diigo group to share links we discover to help us further our work with iPads int he classrooms.
We have been seeing great success in our iPad initiative. Teachers are more efficient in conferring and assessing. Units, lessons & rubrics are being more readily, and easily, shared among grades as well as across grade levels. Administration and teachers are communicating and collaborating more efficiently and with less paper. Students in Science are using the iPads for research and the design of Rube Goldberg designs. We are moving toward issuing an iPad to every member of our staff, roughly 100 people. In addition, we hope to have 40 iPads available for student use in multiple mobile carts.
In upcoming posts I will outline in more details our most used apps, specific instances of success, and our expanded goals moving forward...
No comments:
Post a Comment