First Day with Kids

It was the students' first day back today. Heather and I decided not to tell the kids about the iPods but we did give a speech about how important they were as a class. The kids didn't believe us. They actually told us that they thought I was giving the speech to the rest of the classes.

We also informed the kids that all of their classroom material will be housed online on Google's suite of educational applications and that they will be one of two classes in our district to be trying this. They seemed interested but I imagine not half as interested as when we roll out 25 iPod Touch devices.

I'm STILL touching up the government unit. Found some great free apps for the Touch. Free Constitution App. makes one of our lessons much easier. We like to hand out things like stamps and tell kids to find that in the Constitution. (Thanks Rick)

-Jason

One week away

So here's the layout of the class. One of our classes will be a pilot, "mobile learning" class. The entire class will be online. All digital all the time. Kids in this class will be given two things:

1) A google account. One of the many tools google offers to schools. The account will give kids access to email, docs, sites, and calendars. Kids will have all of these tools to house everything we do in class.

2) An iPod Touch. Kids will have 24/7 access to their iPod touch and all of their online material.

Spent part of today planning with Heather. Came up with great overarching and guiding questions for the first government unit. Feel much more comfortable going into the year.

Also made some "how to" videos for creating a google docs page and how to create a website. Posted the videos on my website.

I'm spending a lot of time thinking of how the iPod fits into class without forcing it into the class. It can be an overwhelming process. Every day a new app for teachers. Everyday a new feature that works with google apps. Sometimes I can get caught up in too many ideas and not enough focus. A work in progress.

-Jason