iPad Thoughts

There was a lot of speculation leading up to the Easter weekend release of the iPad, and I think the response from folks with new iPads has been positive. When the opportunity for orders came in early March I ordered one for my wife, as she is the only person in the house without a personal computing device. My two son's and I all have an iPod touch, but Angie held off stating, "With my eyes, I can't see anything on that screen!" So, I decided to see if an iPad would fit her needs better.

I originally thought that the iPad would arrive on Monday, rather than Saturday, because Apple sent a message to me regarding my order, and that there wasn't Saturday delivery in our area. Qudos to the folks at UPS for making the on time delivery happen! Rather than standing in line on Saturday morning at a mall Apple store, I signed for it at my front door! Unboxing was pretty simple, as there really isn't anything in the box besides the iPad itself, a charging cord, and some Apple decals. My wife kept asking for a how to use it manual, but got her past that by encouraging her to "Play" with it before getting too caught up in the details. After plugging in to our iMac, an iTunes update, a registration, we were off and running.

Angie had used our iPods a little bit, but for the most part she was completely new to using this type of a device. We tackled how to get apps first. Walked her through the Apps store on her iPad and showed her how to get apps in iTunes as well. From there we started using the different preloaded apps that are on the iPad - Maps, Mail, Safari, etc. Each time she ran in to a spot where she wasn't sure what to do and ended up asking me, "what should I do?", I would answer with, "what do you think?" More times than not she would poke around and find what she needed next. The only thing that really stumped us was locking the screen orientation, but found that on a handy Apple training video.

Some observations both good and bad. As many of you have experienced an iPod Touch, this is very much the same, just bigger. Touching and moving things around on the screen is very intuitive and easy. The on screen keyboard will take some getting used to as there isn't any feedback if you have gotten the key "depressed" other than the letter showing up. Spacing of the keyboard in landscape mode was pretty good, but it lacks a tab key. My hands are pretty good sized and I was able to use it with relative ease. In portrait mode you can still do the two thumb method as the screen isn't too big.

Graphics are dynamite! Videos, pictures, and books show up in great quality and clarity. The screen is a greasy fingerprint grabber, even with a protective film over it, but I think there are screen protectors on the market that will take care of this. My oldest son has one on his touch that is textured, and it doesn't pick up near the fingerprints as mine does. A polishing cloth will take the fingerprints away, as they are very obvious when the display is powered down. The calendar is a feature that Angie picked up right away. You can sync it with your computer, like with your iPod, so our next two busy months are in and we know where we are headed!

iBook and Kindle both are nice versions of readers for the iPad. iBook is connected to the iTunes site, so you don't have to set up another internet account. The nice thing about Kindle for the iPad is, you can share your books within the devices you want to have registered on your account. So a book I buy to read on my iPod Touch, Angie can read on her iPad and Cole can read on his iPod Touch.

We have found that the Wi-Fi tends to "lose" it's connection and has to be manually rejoined - I'll keep an eye on this as it may be a glitch to our iPad, or Apple may have an update to fix this soon - but after showing Angie a time or two she picked up and was able to make the necessary adjustments.

To summarize - I was lucky to have a few $$ salted away for this as I knew it was on the way, and I bought the 16G version $499 plus Apple Care for 1 year at $104 brought my total to just over $600. I usually don't buy warranties for items like this, but with the new technology decided it would be worth it. I won't say you HAVE to have this, but I will say if you can afford it, or might be able to pick it up after a month or so, do it!

Tech Team Meets Again

The Earlham Technology team will meet Monday, March 22 in the High School Library. Our primary purpose will be to discuss the use of the money that will be allocated to us from the new revenue purpose statement. With this positive vote from our community, we have a new steam of money that has opened up to keep our technology up to date. Our time will be spent deciding how to allocate the money to best support/continue our efforts to make Earlham a school where technology is infused as a part of day to day learning, not just used as a tool. To do this we will need to spend money on capital items (like computers or smartboards), but we will also need to spend money on professional development. We have a great opportunity here to do this!

Email Issues

Cinderella sang "You don't know what you've got till it's gone" - you don't really realize how much you use something until you can't use it! Last week our Exchange server started to do some funny stuff - so I had to call in the "Experts". After several days of work we have finally gotten to a spot where the computer is stable and email is for the most part functional. The plan was to switch to a new email system over the summer, but we may be pressed to do that on a different timeline with this development.

Currently we can access our email through Microsoft Outlook. This allows us to send and receive email messages - while here at school. When at home we were able to access our server through Outlook Web Access, but that is no longer working. I'm not sure what is wrong, but it sounds like it is a combination of hardware and software failure. So for remote access we may be transitioning to Google Apps mail a little sooner than later. Stay tuned for more info!

What were they thinking!?!

As I read about technology and how schools are using/misusing it some things stand out more than others. Take for example the Lower Merion School District. This past week they made headlines, but suspending a student for inappropriate behavior away from school grounds. How were they able to do this you say? By activating the internal web cam on his school provided 24/7 laptop! I had heard that there were security features like this available, thought they were a bit sci-fi, seems though that the technology is out there that makes this possible. Read more about this case at http://tiny.cc/grCa3

Anyone watched "Eagle Eye"? We watched it on Sunday night - it is an entertaining show about the "big brother" idea. In the the Merion case we can see the idea of "big brother" being around the corner isn't too far fetched. We use security measures here at school that allow us to remote in and see a student's desktop when they are in the computer lab, but we cannot see the actual student, just what they are doing on their desktop.

Well, suffice it to say I've filed this away (thanks Ron T. for the heads up) for future reference and clear expectations about when, if, and how this might affect us here in Earlham.

Thoughts on Technology

Apples on Site!

Through special education funding we have purchased 12 MacBook computers for student use in Elementary, Middle and High School classrooms. Some of the students are carrying them with them to class, others use them in the special ed classrooms to assist them in completing projects and allowing them access that might not be there otherwise without leaving the classroom.

From a technology standpoint it is interesting to work with a different "platform", and I must say setting the Macs up to work on our system was pretty simple, and there are some subtle differences between the way they work on our system, but from what I can see so far it is a pretty seamless integration. Hope to have more info about this to come...

12-16 Technology

Tech Committee

A recent decision by the school board provides us with some hope for assistance towards the technology budget. The board decided to put to a vote the Revenue Purpose Statement of our Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds. The current statement was established before the laws governing the uses of these funds were changed to be less stringent. A successful change to the revenue purpose statement could free up some dollars for a technology budget that desperately needs assistance.

The Earlham Schools will be using Google Apps as a way to cut some software costs. Most folks have heard about Google Docs in some form or another. Google also has a suite of applications that are available to Educational institutions free of charge. While the applications are a bit more limited than the Microsoft Office Suite, students will have access to them any time they can access the internet. A few of the teachers have been using these applications over the past few months, and having all students set up with accounts will allow teachers to set workgroups for sharing documents and share working calendars, schedules and other items.

Special Ed Students working with MacBooks

With an eye toward increasing student work production and accessibility for some students, Special Education funds have been used to purchase 12 MacBook laptops for use by Special Education students in grades 3 - 12. The computers have arrived and I am currently configuring them to communicate with our Windows network. Surprisingly enough, this has been very easy on the Mac side, and our windows servers seem to be communicating relatively well. Heavy usage will occur after the first of the year and that will be our first real test.

11/13 - Tech Happenings

Did you know?

• Becky Goerend hosts a Tech Tuesday for any teachers in the district that would like to learn more about Blogging and other subjects?
• Cass Zorn and Angela Ridgely have been changing their instruction to work with new Promethean Whiteboards (interactive technology) in their classrooms.
• The High School Staff has been focusing on technology implementation in their classrooms this fall? Staff from the AEA has worked with them during professional development days with instruction about Blogs, Wikis, using Google Docs, and Web 2.0 tools.
• LCD projectors have been installed in 1/3rd of the classrooms at the Middle School and High School (with 4 more available via cart) , and that 1/10th of the classrooms in the Elementary (one more available via cart) have them.
• Earlham has 50 laptops used in classrooms at the Middle School and High School levels - none for Elementary use.
• The Earlham Technology department is working on implementing Google Apps across the district for teachers, and for students grades 6 - 12.
• Students are enrolled in online courses at the high school level, receiving dual enrollment credit (High School and College Credit).

Did you know that this is all being done on a shoe string budget? Much of our technology budget has disappeared due to district enrollment growth from 04 - 07 and the loss of Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) dollars.