Learning and Leading - February 2011

role of technology within our teaching. After taking a look at all the options available to today’s students, we decided any device that we embedded in the district must be personal, mobile, and easily accessible. We chose the iPod touch, which would allow students to surf the Internet and gain access to countless apps.

Fortunately, the partnership with NCVPS came with $85,000 in funding. Further support came in the way of anonymous gift donations from Culbreth parents, and $10,000 came out of the school’s technology budget. A portion of the money was set aside for professional development.

Stage two. In September, our school purchased iPod touches for the certified and classified staff in the school. We feel strongly that all staff are part of the learning community and should have access to the tools. During the initial PLC meetings at the start of school, the team leaders shared with other teachers what they had learned from using the iPod touches. The PLC teams then began to meet in groups every other week to share knowledge, ideas, and best practices about using the iPod touches in school.

Stage five. In January, we sent letters home asking parents if their children owned iPod touches and whether they would be willing to allow their students to bring the devices to school. About 20% of the families agreed to do so, which significantly reduced the cost of the program. The school then bought iPod touches for all the students who did not have one of their own.

Careful Implementation We implemented the program slowly and deliberately.

Stage three. In October, we launched a pilot program with a group of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students who were members of the school’s Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) program. AVID targets middle schoolers deemed unlikely to consider attending a college or university. The goal of the program is to steer these students toward college. We gave each AVID student an iPod touch to carry during the school day for academic and organizational purposes. Feedback from the student group was highly positive. One student, who is now a high school sophomore, said, “Having this is like having a tool in your pocket that does 1,000 different things.”

Stage one. During the summer, we gave iPod touches to teacher leaders from each of the professional learning communities (PLCs), which are two-person grade-level teams from the same discipline who work collaboratively to improve student learning. There are two teams per grade.

In this first stage, the 20 teacher leaders had approximately one month to “play” with their iPod touches to get an idea of what they could do and how students could use them in the classrooms. It was a tremendous success. Teachers were enthusiastic about the devices and collaborated to produce numerous ways to integrate them into their lessons.

Of course, we could just as easily have handed everyone a three-ring binder and led them step by step through a linear workshop. But we felt that allowing teachers to explore ideas themselves was a more authentic and engaging activity than reading worksheets in a binder.

Stage four. In December, we purchased 60 iPod touches and two charging carts for each grade level. We also bought each of the six teacher teams a $100 i Tunes card and set up accounts for them so they could download apps. The grade-level team members shared the iPod touches and signed up to use them for specific class periods.

Problems Encountered

As with any new school initiative, the iPod touch program was not without its challenges. Before handing out iPod touches to the students, the school had to consider what to do in the event of damage or loss. We decided to create a contract stating that if a student lost or broke the device, the family would be expected to pay for a replacement. Fortunately, in the first year we had no cases of lost or damaged units. The contract also forbids students from using the devices for cyberbullying, inappropriate Internet searches, and visiting chat rooms. Both the student and the parent must sign the document. (See Resources on page 19 for a link to the contract.)

We also had to figure out how to charge approximately 700 iPod touches a day. To address this, we purchased charging stations and placed them on a rolling cart that charges up to 40 iPod touches simultaneously. The devices are updated using a single laptop wired to each iPod touch.

Students leave the iPods at school at the end of the day and get them back the next morning. All school iPod touches are engraved with the school name and a number assigned to an individual student. Each student uses the same iPod all year long.