STEP 1: Inventory your equipment

Before you make any plans, you’ve got to know what technology your students can access. A lot of teachers think they know this (myself included), but you’d be surprised. You probably know what’s accessible at your school — perhaps a computer lab, a mobile lab, a few desktops in the back of your classroom. You might want to double-check with your district technology department, just to be certain you’re not missing anything (and to be sure nothing is sitting in unopened boxes somewhere), but you probably have a pretty good idea about what’s there.

What might surprise you, though, is what your students have. Survey them at the beginning of the school year — ask what they have at home and what they have access to outside of the home. Maybe none of your students have computers, but they all have Facebook accounts, so they must be accessing the internet somewhere. Ask them this. Also, find out what mobile technology they have access to — do they have a cell phone? An iPod touch? A tablet? A Nintendo DSi (that “i” stands for “internet” because these hand-held gaming devices can surf the web)? Do they use their parents’ smart phones?

A student survey might look something like this:

1. Which of the following technology devices do you use at home?
   • your own smart phone (like an iPhone or Android phone)
   • your parent’s or family member’s smart phone (like an iPhone or Android phone)
   • an iPod touch
   • a Nintendo DSi
   • a desktop computer
   • a laptop or netbook computer
   • a tablet or iPad
   • other ______________________________
      
2. What’s your favorite thing to do on the above devices?
    
3. How do you access the internet when you’re not in school?
    
4. When you’re not in school, what do you use the internet for?

You’ll notice that the above survey asks students what they’re already doing with technology. There are three reasons for these questions:

• First, remember that you already have experts in your class. You might have an 8-year-old student who spends his weekends making movie trailers with his iMovie app. That’s good to know because you can tap him as a teacher’s assistant when you assign your class to make movie trailers about a book they read.
• Second, there are a ton of things kids do on devices that you might not even realize are possible. For example, I had no idea a Nintendo DSi could be used to surf the web until my nephews showed me. Almost all of my students had these devices, and I had no idea that they could be used for many of the school projects I was putting on the back burner due to what I believed was their lack of access.
• Third, your students might NOT know everything their devices can do. A lot of kids have iPod Touches and use them just for music, not realizing these devices are basically iPhones without the ability to make calls. You can even send text messages to other iPods and iPhones with them. Maybe your students say they can’t complete online research because they honestly don’t realize they have a device that allows them to do this.

Once you know what students have access to at home, you can make better decisions about what you can do in school and what you can assign for homework. If you find that most of your students have mobile devices, yet your school has limited hardware, talk to your administrators about your school’s Bring-Your-Own-Device policy. Many schools are adopting a BYOD program to allow students to use their own technology at school for educational purposes (even in elementary schools).

When you’ve figured out what your students can use at school and what they can use at home, you can make better decisions about how to utilize technology in your teaching. If you only have three desktop computers at school, you can use them as centers, with students rotating through them throughout the school day/week/month. Make a schedule to ensure students get equal access. I was able to utilize a computer center fairly effectively, especially when assigning students to do group projects.

If you have access to a computer or mobile lab, how often can your students use it? If it’s limited to when you reserve the space, you can plan ahead to give students time to work on projects. If  kids can access it before and after school and at lunch OR if your students have a lot of access outside of school, maybe it’s best to have them work on technology projects as homework.

STEP 2: Inventory your infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Education has made upgrading internet infrastructure in public schools a priority, and there has been additional funding for this goal available in the past couple of years. Many schools have been able to upgrade their wifi systems, but there are definitely still some holes.

Do you have wifi at your school, or do you rely on wired computers? Talk to your technology specialist about the system’s bandwidth — how many devices can it withstand? What can they be doing? For example, if you have all your students working on creating animations with the free website Go!Animate, will your wifi be able to handle it or will it slow down to the point of frustration for students?

You might need to adjust your goals based on this infrastructure. You might also want to make a plan for how you can ensure your school upgrades it — the squeaky wheel gets the oil, after all.

Even if your school has top-notch internet infrastructure, if you work in a low-income area, many of your students might not be able to access the internet at home. This number is shrinking, as internet service has become available via mobile devices and as cable companies have started to bundle internet service with phone and television service. But it’s still an issue, and there are a few things you can do to help close the digital divide:

First, look into programs for low-income families in your area. For example, Comcast has a program called Internet Essentials, which offers low-cost internet service, computers and bi-lingual technology training to families. To qualify for the $10-per-month service (and a guarantee that the fee won’t go up), families have to show that they have at least one student who qualifies for the free or reduced school lunch program.

Second, create a list of places in your area where students can access wifi for free and give this to students. Public libraries are great for free wifi, but many of them are cutting hours due to a loss of funding. Every McDonald’s offers free wifi, without requiring any purchase. Most Starbucks do the same, as do many coffee shops.

I created a list like this — with addresses, phone numbers and hours — for high school students I work with. I was able to find many places using the website Open Wifi Spots and the iOS app Free Wifi Finder. I also called local coffee shops to check, and I was sure to ask if any purchase was necessary to access the wifi. I noted all of this information in a Google doc, which I shared with students, so they could add any places they found to the list.

STEP 3: Do One Thing (every quarter)

There’s an organization called the Alliance for Climate Education that encourages students to Do One Thing (D.O.T.) to help the environment. The idea is that one D.O.T. doesn’t seem like much, but when you connect all those D.O.T.s, you see major change. The same can be said for technology in the classroom. You can’t do it all, so start by just Doing One Thing. When you’re comfortable with it and it’s become part of your class’s daily routine, add another D.O.T. — aim for one new thing every quarter (or, if you’re nervous, every semester). Before you know it, your D.O.T.s will start connecting and making much larger pictures.

In my fourth-grade classroom, I started with podcasts. Once my students and I felt comfortable with those, we moved on to iMovies. Then, we added blogging. By the end of the year, my low-income ELL kids could create a podcast and an iMovie and post them to their blogs, all within one week. (And that was in a K-5 school that had a single shared mobile cart where only about 10 of the laptops worked on any given day.)

Start with something that you can and will do often. Don’t choose an app that only teaches a single astronomy objective. Instead, pick something transformative and content-neutral that you can use for anything. Look at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and find tools that will help your students achieve those — evaluate and create. Choose to give your students a metaphoric blank sheet of paper, rather than a completed book.

What does that mean? Here are some suggestions:

• I would start with a closed social network (also known as a “Learning Management System”). These are especially helpful if your students can access them from home. Edmodo and Schoology are popular. I’ve recently adopted My Big Campus, in large part because it also allows students to blog. (All of these options are free.) A closed social network is great as a starting place because it allows you to start small and then add on as you go. Once you set up a class (or “group”) and have your students create accounts, you can just post class discussions on the site. When you’re comfortable, you can start using some of the other features — adding school assignments and even quizzes. Eventually, when you start having students create digital projects, they can publish these products on their My Big Campus account, to share with other students and parents.
  For more details on using social networking in the classroom, check out this post.
• After you feel good about your class social network, you might want to have your students create their own blogs. This post discusses the benefits of blogging with students. (After examining the Common Core ELA standards, I’m even more sold on the benefits of blogging.) As I mentioned above, if you use My Big Campus as a social network, your students can blog right from that platform.
• Another good transformative technology integration plan is to look into content creation tools. These depend on the hardware you have available. For video creation, you can have students use iMovie or Movie Maker. Or you can check out free digital storytelling websites like Little Bird Tales (which also has an iPad app), Go!Animate and UJAM (more info on this post). For iOS devices, I really like the iMovie app ($4.99) and the free Toontastic app.
• I would definitely consider screencasting tools, both for you to use a teacher (have you thought about flip teaching?) and for students to use to explain their thinking. Educreations is a great free screencasting website, and it has a free iPad app.
• You might also look into collaboration tools like Google docs, which allows students to jointly create and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations. All the while, you can access these documents and offer comments and suggestions while students work together on their projects.

STEP 4: Let go

When I work with teachers, one of the responses I hear most often is, “I’m so glad you told me I didn’t have to know what I was doing. That was so right — I just let the kids try it, and they figured it all out. It was so empowering for them!”

Trust your students. They are digital natives, and you are a digital immigrant. They will figure out the technology far quicker and better than you will, so let them do that.

As teachers, we’re used to having all the answers. But we simply can’t do that with technology — in large part because it changes so quickly. But we don’t have to. We are the CONTENT experts. After the primary grades, we don’t teach our students how to hold a pencil. We teach them what they need to know in order to write with it. It’s the same with technology.

When I first had my students podcast, I played them a sample podcast. I then gave them a rubric for their own podcast (this rubric was totally content-based — the same rubric could have been used for a hand-written paper). Finally, I told them they would use a program called “Garageband” to create their podcast. That was it. I told them I couldn’t answer their questions because I hadn’t used Garageband before, but I welcomed them to ask each other for help. Within an hour, every student group had a finished podcast.

In addition to demonstrating that they knew the content discussed in their podcast, this activity had my students practicing some serious critical thinking skills — they learned to click around on a program to find out what different buttons did (that’s inquiry). They learned to work with one another to find a solution (that’s collaboration and problem-solving). And they learned how to open up a brand-new piece of software and figure out what it did — that’s much more important than me going step-by-step through the software to show them what every button does. Especially since any software that they use today might be outdated in a year.

They learned that technology is simply a tool — they figured out how to use the tool to get the result they needed. And that’s a lesson that will go far beyond simply creating podcasts.

STEP 5: Build an argument for more

If you use it, more will come.

Teachers often complain — with good reason — that they don’t have the technology they need in the classroom. This is especially true considering all the technology expectations embedded in Common Core State Standards. But sitting on your hands won’t get your administrators to buy more technology. Showing them what you can do with the little technology you do have will.

Just this week, I spoke at a School Board meeting and a Parent Teacher Association meeting at two different districts to support teachers who want to get more technology in their elementary classrooms. These teachers had their students present to the people who have the power to make change. Their students showed how the technology had helped them learn, and they presented specific projects to demonstrate this learning. Then the teachers explained how much MORE devices would impact what they’re able to do in the classroom. I suggest recording videos of your students using the tools and interviewing them about the process, creating a newsreel-type report on technology in the classroom.

I work with a couple of teachers who have a limited number of iPads in their classroom. They keep asking for more — saying they could do more with more iPads, and I’m in a position to help them buy more. It may sound harsh, but what I’ve said to them is, “you’re not using the iPads you have. Why would I help you buy more if they might just sit in the corner?”

Most administrators are happy to funnel money to programs that they know work. If teachers can prove that technology is having a positive impact in their classrooms, administrators are often willing to find the money to get more. But they’re not going to do this if they think the devices will sit on shelves.

If you’re in a school or district that really doesn’t have the means or will to get anymore technology, look into grant sources. (Jennie Magiera has some great suggestions on how to win grants.) Remember, grant money tends to go to teachers with a proven track record, who have specific plans for how to use the technology.

STEP 6: Lastly, don’t fall in love with the tool; fall in love with the process

No matter what tools you choose to use — My Big Campus, Educreations, iMovie — they won’t be around forever. They might not even survive the year. That’s technology. But don’t worry — there are a dozen other tools that can accomplish the same goal.

What’s important is that you figure out how the process works. Your ecosystems unit ends perfectly with students making their own Public Service Announcements — maybe they’ll use iMovie this year and Educreations next year, or maybe some will use one tool and others will use a different tool. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve figured out that PSAs are a great way to assess their learning.

Don’t focus on websites or apps. Focus on your objectives. Then, find the best app for the job. Or, better yet, let your students find it.

Coming up:

• Series on Google Apps for Education
• Using Word Clouds in Education
• Collaborative Mapping
• iPads in the Field
• Tech in Common Core (Or “Why you should get your students blogging immediately”)

First, be absolutely certain you can’t afford to go 1:1. It might not be as expensive as you think — check out the real cost analysis in the table at the bottom of my From the Dark Side post. Take a look at grant options, as well. Jenny Magiera, a teacher in Chicago Public Schools, bought her class set of iPads using grant money and offers suggestions for teachers looking to do the same.

If you’re sure you can’t go 1:1, you’re probably asking if shared class sets of iPads will work. The short answer is they can, indeed, work. The longer answer is, they can also fail if they’re not rolled out properly.

So what’s the key? The expectation needs to be that teachers will regularly utilize the iPads. But let’s be honest — teachers are busy people. We have enough on our plates and, often, even with the best intentions, we fall into old routines. So there are some procedures that schools can put in place to help teachers utilize the iPads as effectively as possible.

iPads Live on Desks, Not in Carts

Do NOT allow the iPads to live in mobile carts — when I see an iPad in a cart, I see money being burned. The carts should be where the iPads sleep when school is closed. This is where they re-charge. But there should be a school-wide routine that as soon as kids enter a room with an iPad cart, they each walk up to the cart and get their assigned iPad. They should keep that iPad on their desk until the end of the day and return it to the cart as they walk out of the classroom. iPads should be as essential to a student desk as pencils were 20 years ago.

Teachers (and kids) will be much more likely to pick up and use the devices if they’re right there, as opposed to having to plan to take them out and use them for “tech time” and then put them away. Think about how you use mobile tech in your everyday life — you pull your phone out of your pocket to look up information when it’s relevant, rather than waiting until your “computer time” later in the week. Students should be able to do the same.

The Cloud is Key

At the Aquarium where I now work, we had 100 high school students share 25 iPads throughout the summer. How did we do this? The Cloud.

Most of our students came in one day per week. When they arrived, they’d get an iPad and could login to their personal Dropbox, Google docs, iCloud, Notability and email accounts. Most students used the app Notability to take notes throughout the summer — this app can be set up to automatically sync with a Dropbox account. So when the teens logged into their Dropbox accounts, they could access their virtual Notability notebook. They could also add new notes using the Notability app. By logging into the Apple Store, they could automatically add photos and videos to their iCloud Photostream.

At the end of the day, they’d log out of all the apps they used that day. And the next day, a new student could come in and use the iPad — because everything was saved in the cloud, it didn’t matter what iPad students used, as long as they had a device that was connected to the internet. Additionally, all our students could access their notes, photos and videos from any internet-connected device when they went home.

The obvious problem with this set-up is: what if students need to access their notes or photos on a day when they don’t have access to internet-connected devices? So teachers need to plan ahead — what notes are appropriate for the iPad and what notes need to be taken 20th-century-style, with pencil and paper?

Rotation Schedule

If you can’t afford to purchase one iPad for every student, what should you aim for? I’d recommend one iPad for every 5-10 students, which you share via class sets. (You can have students work in pairs or groups of four, as well.)

Much like computer labs are assigned to specific teachers on specific days, you can assign iPads to specific teachers on specific days. I would encourage schools NOT to have the iPads available solely based on reservation. As most of us know, this means that a handful of tech-savvy teachers use the devices all year. While this is great for these teachers and their students, many other students don’t get the opportunity to use the devices, and the other teachers are conveniently off-the-hook for getting comfortable integrating them. Would you allow a class of students to operate like this? With three or four meeting all expectations, while the majority of students didn’t complete the work?

When purchasing iPads, the expectation must be that all teachers will utilize the devices to help them meet their objectives. Not all teachers are comfortable using technology, though, so it’s important for administrators to offer all necessary support to set up teachers for success. (For more on this, check out Four Simple Steps to Schoolwide One-to-One iPad Success.)

When determining a rotation schedule for class sets of iPads, there are several viable options — each with pros and cons.

1.) iPads one day per week

If you have one iPad for every 5 students, you can assign them to classes for one day a week. If you have fewer, you can assign them to classes one day every other week (i.e., first and third Monday or second and fourth Friday).

Of course, you’ll probably have complaints, as most school holidays fall on a Monday, and many projects take more than one day per week. So you could assign the iPads for a full week at a time. This allows you to block out weeks for school vacation or testing, so no teachers or students get the shaft. And it helps teachers plan for unit-end projects.

2.) iPads one week per quarter.

3.) One iPad per table group

A third option is to simply assign a small number of iPads (say, 5 or 8) to each classroom to remain there for the entire year. While this can work in many classrooms that utilize learning centers or lots of collaborative learning, it can also be really difficult for many teachers to implement effectively. Good or bad, most lessons involve students working whole-group. Additionally, it’s more likely that these iPads will be put “away” most of the day and only taken out for special projects. If your school does decide to go down this route, I’d encourage you to keep the iPads out, one on each group table, so students can easily access them throughout the day.

Every school and school culture is different. The best bet is to come up with several possible plans with the devices you have (like the three plans laid out above) and present them to your staff. Have teachers discuss their plans for the iPads — which plan makes the most sense for them in the current situation?

Coming up:

• Series on Google Apps for Education
• Using Word Clouds in Education
• Collaborative Mapping
• iPads in the Field
• Step-by-Step Guide to Bringing Your Classroom into the 21st Century: Achievable baby steps for anyone with the will

Obviously, one-to-one devices are always ideal. But I would argue this is especially true in the case of tablet computers. The real power of tablets is in their mobility — they can replace notebooks, textbooks, cameras, microphones, calendars, encyclopedias, dictionaries, calculators, science probes, trade books, computers, compasses, maps and much more, if students are allowed access to them at all the times and in all the places where they’d need access to these other resources. In my experience, the more one-on-one time students spend with the devices, the more effectively these kids will use them.

So if you are convinced, and if you think it’s fiscally possible for your school to purchase 1:1 devices*, how do you start?
*If this last issue is a sticking point, check out my Make It Work post, where I lay out some lower-cost solutions. This is, after all, Stretch Your Digital Dollar.

These may seem like common-sense steps but, too often (especially with technology), administrators get excited and roll out new hardware quickly with very little support. This virtually guarantees that the devices will be extremely expensive failures. So if you’re going make the financial investment in iPads — or any one-to-one device — it’s of paramount importance to roll them out right.

This will be difficult. But if you start by respecting your staff as professionals and moving forward as a team, it can make a world of difference. No matter what, always focus on the kids — is this what’s best for the kids? If so, let’s do it. If not, it can wait.

1. Invest in buy-in.

There’s a reason this is number 1. If you don’t have buy-in, just quit now. Seriously.

Rarely will every teacher on a staff be fully on-board with anything, but you need a critical mass to not only be on-board, but to be excited. And the others have to recognize the value of this new change and be willing to give it a try.

So how do you get buy-in? One of the benefits of Apple iPads, as opposed to other similar devices, is that they’ve got street cred — every teacher I’ve given an iPad to is immediately excited by it, even if they’re not sold on tech integration. But this excitement will wear off and can turn to frustration. So start with some targeted professional development where teachers are encouraged to have honest conversations about 21st century skills, their goals for students, and technology’s place in it all. I’d suggest using some of the PD resources on this blog, specifically the “Did you know?” video and/or the Sabertooth Curriculum to get a staff-wide discussion started.

Depending on your staff, you might want to set aside one or two staff meetings for teachers to have these discussions. It can seem slow and unnecessary, but I guarantee, if you put in the necessary time here, giving teachers permission to voice their concerns and really winning buy-in, it will be well worth it in the long-run. When I began working in my current position, I inherited thousands of dollars worth of technology devices, which sat in corners, unused, the majority of the time. I learned that was because staffers were given the devices and mandated to use them with students, with no discussion as to why or how it could help them become better at their craft. Before the next round of equipment was purchased, I invested in buy-in, with long discussions and meetings focused on the why. I spent a lot of time really listening to staff members’ concerns, which helped me develop appropriate development to meet their needs. And three years later, my co-workers preach the benefits of tech integration to nearly everyone they know.

So often, we want to jump straight to the “how.” But I learned that if you invest time in fully answering the “why” first, everything else will be a much smoother ride.

Before you move to the “how,” it’s important to communicate clear expectations for staff. This can take the form of a collaboratively created ed tech mission statement or a contract that lists administration’s expectations of teachers AND teacher’s expectations of administration. It’s of paramount importance that this feels like a collaborative endeavor — something everyone is trying together and, thus, something that everyone has a voice in. At the same time, it can be made clear that, as a staff, this is where we’re going. You can get on board or you can leave. And if you get on board, we will support you as much as you need.

2. Invest in people.

Hire a full-time ed tech specialist — your iPad plan will succeed or fail based on the competency of this person, so choose VERY carefully. Don’t just offer the position as a reward for a teacher near retirement — this person should expect to work harder than anyone else at your school. You want an organized perfectionist (to track hardware) who is a good teacher (to train students and staff) and has an educational technology philosophy that fits with where the school wants to go.

Going one-to-one with any devices (and ESPECIALLY with tablets) requires teachers to re-invent how they teach in many ways. It’s not about asking “how can I use this iPad in the lessons I already do?” It’s about asking “how can this iPad best help my students reach their objectives?” You’ll need a full-time ed tech specialist to help your teachers start re-imagining their classrooms.

Ideally, this is a trusted teacher on your staff — someone who knows where your teachers are coming from. But this person needs to be taken out of the classroom. I will say that again — this person needs to be dedicated to educational technology FULL-TIME. At maximum, expect your ed-tech specialist to teach a single enrichment or after-school class. (It would be great if this were a math- or literacy-focused class, where technology was integrated seamlessly. For example, I’ve taught film-making classes in elementary and middle schools that focused on literacy skills.)

Why can’t you expect your ed tech specialist to continue a full teaching load? This person will basically be taking on the duties of two other full-time positions: IT specialist and content coach. Plan for your ed tech specialist to be responsible for:

• creating and teaching model lessons in other teachers’ classrooms
• setting up and maintaining all iPads
• setting up and training a student help desk (staffed by students)
• creating school-wide procedures (what to do if a student forgets an iPad, if an iPad breaks, etc.)
• repairing common iPad breaks (i.e., a broken glass screen, or digitizer, will cost you $300 to replace through the Apple store, but it can be done with $50 and some patience if you do it yourself)
• most importantly, organizing regular staff trainings focused on full iPad integration
  • The worst thing that can happen is for teachers to use iPads solely to access the internet. So much more can be done. But teachers need help to see that and to understand HOW they can do it in their own classrooms.
•  leading a tech workgroup of teachers (this will be an added duty for teachers; I’d suggest offering a small stipend or continuing education credits to teachers who volunteer, if possible)
  • this workgroup can create tech integration expectations for every classroom (so new teachers understand what they need to do)
  • tech workgroup members can offer staff trainings, so it’s not all on the ed tech specialist

3. Invest in infrastructure.

If you have a successful iPad roll-out, that means that, often, every single student in your school will be using their iPad at the same time, and many of them will be utilizing the wifi simultaneously. Can your current wifi set-up support that many simultaneous users? If not, stop now. There are plenty of ways to upgrade. I’ve heard great things about a company called Xirrus that offers re-vamped robust access points specifically designed for schools. But at the very least, call your current provider and ask what you’ll need to support your iPad integration plans.

4. Invest in time.

Give your staff time to feel comfortable using the devices. Ideally, staff would get iPads 6 months to a year before unrolling them to students. To start, assign an iPad to every member of your staff to use 24/7. I would even assign the devices to office assistants and custodians — it will help create a tech culture at your school, and you’d be surprised at the great ideas that come from the most unexpected places. In addition, have one or two class sets that staff can optionally check out to try new things with their students. But the only expectation at this time is to have staff start re-thinking how they might teach.

Offer regular trainings, with deliverables. Have a tech workgroup of teachers organize small, weekly optional trainings on specific apps and integration techniques. But also offer required monthly professional development sessions focused on the iPads. These sessions often are most successful when designed as “make and takes,” where staff members actually create a product they can use with students, or they can use as a model for student projects.

Start examining how giving every staff member an iPad can change how your school does things, like collaboration or Professional Learning Communities. For example, would it be helpful for the staff to start utilizing Google docs and Edmodo?

Encourage staff members to attend free classes at a local Apple store. If you have an Apple store close to your community, the free classes are well worth the time. If you don’t have access to an Apple store, investigate web-based training options. There are tons of free webinars offered every day for teachers interested in tech integration. (It’d be great if these were met with added stipends or CEUs, but that’s not always possible.)

Using your tech workgroup, assign each member a cadre of teachers to meet with regularly to offer guidance or one-on-one support. Chances are your tech workgroup will begin to specialize — Ms. Smith is great at Google Earth, while Mr. Hernandez is good at iMovie. Be sure all the workgroup members recognize these specialties so, for example, if a teacher has a question about iMovie, everyone knows that it might be good to point him/her to Mr. Hernandez.

Once you’ve made these investments, there are a lot of great resources out there for practical day-to-day tips on utilizing the iPads well. My favorite is Jenny Magiera’s blog, Teaching Like It’s 2999. Jenny is a 4th/5th-grade math teacher in Chicago Public Schools who uses iPads daily with her students.

Next time: We’ll never have the $$$ for 1:1 computing. What can we do?

What else do you think administrators and teachers need to keep in mind when rolling out 1:1 iPads? Leave a comment.

I am nowhere near the first person to say this, but I was definitely a hold-out to this concept. And the fact that I now believe it is more than a bit surprising, even to myself. So what convinced me that iPads, despite their steep price and walled garden, were the way to go? A few things:

• They’re intuitive.
  Even before the redesigned Nook was released, I hacked mine to make it an Android tablet. While I was very impressed with the way it worked, when I showed it to friends, family and colleagues, they all struggled at first. They couldn’t get it to behave like they wanted it to without lots of help from me. In the past, we’ve used sets of Ubuntu netbooks in our programs. I love these little powerhouses, and we will continue to use them. But in my extensive experience, students — and especially teachers — never just turn the things on and get started. There are loads of questions, lots of trying to figure out how certain programs work and how they interact with files created on different devices. While, for me, the netbooks were a plug-and-play solution, they weren’t for most of the users.So when we unrolled the iPads, I expected similar struggles. Though adults often needed some guidance, students almost never did. And many adults — those with experience using iPhones or iPads — needed no help at all. I couldn’t believe how intuitive the devices were for everyone, from PreK students to migrant parents to retired teachers. That’s not to say everyone could use the devices without problems from the start, but most people (and definitely students) could. The only people who needed hand-holding were older techno-phobe adults, and even they had an easier time on the iPads than on the netbooks.
• They’re ubiquitous.
  This has two desired consequences: first, there’s loads of high-quality apps and websites that are built specifically for the iPad. Second, teachers and students using these iPads will have a lot of places to turn for troubleshooting and for integration ideas, outside of me.
• There are other sources for help.
  I am not ashamed to say that I love the Apple Store Genius Bar. I’m lucky enough to live in central California, basically in Apple’s backyard. Even though I’m in a smaller town, you can’t swing a cat around here without hitting an Apple Store. Which turned out to be a life-saver because it empowered my co-workers. Rather than depending on me to help them figure out the details of the device or to walk them through creating an activity on the iPad, they could attend free classes at the Apple Store or meet with Apple Geniuses to get their questions answered.
• They’re mobile.
  I work at a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire conservation of the oceans. As such, we spend a great deal of time getting students outside and helping teachers find ways to get their students outside. When we started using netbooks, we thought these would be easy enough to use for data collection in the field but, when push came to shove, that’s simply not how they’re used. In my opinion, the greatest power of the iPad lies in its mobility. We have waterproof/sandproof cases for the devices, so students can use them to identify animals while tide pooling, to create videos during a beach clean-up, and to collect data during a wetlands investigation.
• They’re well-sized.
  iPads are powerful devices with a lot of features — you can access information, record data, create videos, take photos, make cartoons, record music, and much more. But, in reality, they’re pretty much just giant iPod Touches (or, if you have 3G iPads, giant iPhones). In my talks with teachers, I still recommend that, on a limited budget, a set of iPod Touches is a great option for technology purchases. However, size really does matter. The larger iPad makes a lot of things easier — from editing iMovies to taking notes — and it also makes it easier for students to work in groups, sharing one device.

It’s All About the Benjamins

There’s one feature of iPads that makes them a difficult solution, in my mind, though. They really are best for one-to-one use. Using cloud-based computing, it’s definitely possible to share class sets of iPads among various students. (We did this with our high school kids this summer — they were able to login to apps like Dropbox and Notability to access and add to their work. The following day, another student could login to the same device and access their notes.) However, iPads are at their most powerful when students can use them all day, every day, in every class, in and out of school. This is when students truly learn how to use the device for everything — from note-taking to information access to time management to presentation creation. And, having worked exclusively in low-income Title 1 public schools, I know that getting an iPad for every student (known as 1:1 iPads) just isn’t a realistic possibility for most schools.

A few months ago, I spoke to the tech specialist at a private school that has 1:1 iPads for all middle and high school students. I told him that, of course, his school could afford these devices, but what about the poorer public schools down the road? He pointed out that, when you think about all the things the iPads replace — calculators, computers, video cameras, science probes, etc. — their cost isn’t as great as one might expect. I wondered if he was actually right. So I did some calculating, and here’s what I found:

Looking at that, it seems that iPads would have a real cost of only $27.46. That’s not factoring the added costs of things like calculator and camera batteries. However, some state tests don’t allow iPads, so schools still might need sets of calculators. Also, to get full utilization of 1:1 iPads (or any set of computing devices), you REALLY need a full-time education technology specialist dedicated to the iPad roll-out (device set-up and maintenance, teacher training, etc.) plus working wifi school-wide. In terms of staffing, if you have working calculators and mobile labs and scientific probes, you probably already have a staff member (or a teacher who stays late regularly) to take care of maintenance — changing out batteries, storing securely, etc. — but chances are this person isn’t dedicated to technology full-time.

Still, looking at this break-down makes iPads a much more possible solution than they may at first seem. Done right (that is to say, with a full-time ed tech specialist providing regular staff training), 1:1 iPads really can transform teaching positively. They can help teachers differentiate and personalize their lessons, and they can help engage and motivate students. But that’s always the tricky part in education, isn’t it? We throw money at problems all the time, but rarely do we roll things out the right way.

Next time: What’s the right way to roll out 1:1 iPads?

Students can timeline the steps in a math problem, the process of a science project, and the events in a novel. I taught the concept of timelines by having students create one of their lives. Then, we’d work as a class to create a timeline of the school year, adding to it each month.

We also tried to build a single timeline that included every historical fact we learned in any subject throughout the year. The idea was that we’d add to it as we learned more. I draped strips of brown paper in a halo around the walls of my classroom. We did a pretty good job of adding to it for a few months, but inevitably we ran out of room or realized we hadn’t left enough space for the 18th century.

Which is one reason web 2.0 timeline tools are so great – technology does away with those logistical space issues. You can include entire articles, websites, videos, and photos on each point, but the timeline can still fit on your computer screen.

Lately, I’ve heard of half a dozen FREE internet-based timelining tools. So I decided to try them all out. They’re all useful, but they’re not all useful for everyone. Some are great for older students, who need to create more in-depth timelines. Others are easy-to-use even for younger kids. Some allow students to fill out a form and have the site create the actual timeline, while others require students to use their own graphic design skills.

Below, I describe what I found and include samples of each tool. If you’ve got any others to add, please leave a comment!

Capzles

Ease of Use: Advanced
Good for: class-wide projects; students creating their own content
Features: lots of customization; can upload various filetypes
Glitches: doesn’t look like traditional timeline; users must be 13 or older
Link: http://www.capzles.com
Sample: Click the sound icon, to the right of the controls, to hear the soundtrack. Click the ‘capzles’ logo in the bottom left corner to open the timeline on the Capzles site. There, you can click on an image and then click “show details” for more information (the “show details” link doesn’t work on the embedded sample).

My friend and former partner teacher Sarah Waling recently sent me a link to Capzles, which was actually the impetus for this blog post. It definitely takes timelines to whole new level. Of all the tools I looked at, Capzles looks the least like a timeline. And that’s by design — it’s marketed more as a collaborative, social, digital storytelling tool. That’s what makes it so robust, but also what makes it imperfect for many classroom settings.

First, the good. Capzles is definitely in-depth. Users can upload various files (PowerPoint, images, Word files, videos, etc.) directly from their computer to accompany each bullet on their timeline. In fact, you can group multiple files together, so they’ll be displayed as “stacks.” You can also type directly into the timeline using the “blog entry” feature. Users also have multiple customization options, like changing the font, adding a location tag, and even adding a soundtrack to your timeline.

As with all robust tech tools, though, added customization sacrifices ease-of-use. Of all the timelining tools, Capzles took me the longest to use, but partly that was because it’s not really ideal for a traditional timeline. To create the above timeline, I tested the various types of input Capzles allows. I liked the blog entry for input, but then the thumbnail displayed on the timeline was just a default ugly image icon that had nothing to do with the event. I thought about the stack, but then users see two thumbnails and have to click on the one they want. I liked the main file upload for showing a photo and description, but I needed to use stack to add videos. In the end, I decided to use both the upload and stack options because of the ugly thumbnail for the blog input, but that meant I had to download and upload all the images and videos from my computer – I couldn’t just embed them. That also meant I had to find a place to paste the original link, for due credit.

There were a few other glitches in terms of using Capzles to create traditional timelines: things aren’t scaled to show how close or far apart they happened. And by default, the site tags events with the date you created them, so you have to change them to the date they happened, but you need the FULL date, not just the year or this won’t work (in the above sample, I used January 1 if I didn’t know exact date). I also decided to include the date in the title to make it resemble a true timeline.

And because it’s a social networking tool, things are set to ‘private’ by default, so you have to set them to public for others to view. (To do this, you have to click ‘edit’ after loading each file.)

Still, I definitely see potential for using Capzles in the classroom for some projects. It could be really good for a class-wide or long-term project, where every student is adding a lot of files/details to a single event. For example, a friend suggested using it in an AP history class, where each student is responsible for a single event on a class-wide timeline. The work they put into that single event is equivalent to a research paper. It’s perfectly designed for students creating their own content (photos, Word documents, videos, etc.), so it would work great as a tool for students to track their progress on a project.

And I really like the soundtrack option (which offers an opportunity to discuss fair-use copyright laws). The following Capzle, on the financial meltdown, is a great example of using a soundtrack to help tell a historical story. Don’t forget to click the sound icon, to the right of the controls, to hear the music:

Dipity

Ease of Use: Intermediate
Good for: current events; collaborative projects
Features: robust; can collaborate; can add images, links and videos
Glitches: “featured” timelines aren’t always G-rated
Link: http://www.dipity.com
Sample:

For a long time, it seemed Dipity was the only name in the web 2.0 timeline world. I can see why — it’s got just about everything. Users have a virtually limitless amount of space to create multi-media timelines, where they can add images, links and videos. And because everything is embedded, you can click on a video or image to see the source directly. Users can also allow other users to edit a timeline, which is great for collaborative projects.

Dipity has been around for a while, so it’s perfected a lot of its timelining features. For example, if things overlap on a timeline, you can use user-friendly thumbs-up or thumbs-down buttons to sort them by importance. This is very useful, although the site still will only display a maximum of four events on the same date (any more than that isn’t visible, unless you specify different times of day).

Like with Capzles, you can add “locations” – either place name or latitude/longitude — to events to see them on a map (only one location per event). Users can then interact with your presentation as a map, a list, a timeline, or a flipbook (though the map never fully worked for me). Anything created on Dipity can be marked as public or private, which is ideal for school kids who might be creating something like a timeline of their lives.

Like every website these days, Dipity has added some social networking features. Some of these can be useful in the classroom — you can “follow” timelines of interest so, for example, you’ll get notified if a timeline creator adds an event to their “Arab Spring” timeline. You can also “like” and “+1″ timelines.

The form to create Dipity timelines is fairly detailed, especially in comparison with some of the tools discussed below. But that allows users to do a bit more. For example, you can pull information directly from Twitter, Digg, and other sites by giving Dipity a hashtag to track. This can be great for current events — you could pull anything tagged as #2012election and create an instant timeline — but it’s also risky, as this will include ANYTHING with that hashtag, regardless of relevance or appropriateness.

In that same vein, Dipity is more of a public (than educational) site, so some of the featured timelines on the homepage might not always be G-rated.

In the end, I think Dipity is a great timelining tool for high school and some middle school students. It’s robust but not too difficult to use, so it’s a good tool for more in-depth projects. And with its ability to pull directly from Twitter, savvy teachers could use it to create current events timelines in a jiffy.

Prezi

Ease of Use: All levels (can be more or less complex, based on user)
Good for: teaching students how to lay out timelines
Features: my favorite tool; collaborate with other users; more layout control
Glitches: no location/map interface; can only embed YouTube videos; requires creating layout
Link: http://prezi.com
Sample:

You might be asking, “Isn’t Prezi a presentation tool?” You’d be right. But it just so happens to also offer a perfect interface for creating timelines. In fact, it’s generally my favorite timeline creation tool.

Just like Dipity and Capzles, Prezi allows for collaboration, so it’s a good group project tool. But unlike those other sites, Prezi requires users to create their timeline from scratch. While this can be time-consuming (it requires more than just filling out a form), it definitely helps students understand the overall concept of timelines. They’re forced to think about scale and layout. And unlike on paper, they have virtually infinite space to build their timeline.

And, by uploading images and embedding videos and links, they can make their timeline a multi-media one. Prezi automatically embeds YouTube videos, which is great if your school allows YouTube. If not, students can still embed videos, but they have to upload the films from their computer.

The main reason I name Prezi as my favorite is its versatility. No matter what topic you’re covering, whether kids are working alone or in groups, and no matter how proficient students are, Prezi will work. Students can make a Prezi timeline as in-depth or as simple as necessary — creating one in a few minutes or over several weeks. And the tool isn’t doing any thinking for them. Students have to decide the best way to communicate their timeline, which is a great opportunity to build higher level thinking skills.

TimeToast

Ease of Use: Beginner
Good for: quick, simple projects; younger students
Features: most basic of listed tools
Glitches: must upload images; can’t embed videos or locations; ads
Link: http://www.timetoast.com
Sample:

TimeToast is, by far, the most basic of all the timelining tools listed here. For each event, users simply write a title, write a caption, select a drop-down date, and optionally upload an image or add a link(s).

The beauty of TimeToast is definitely in its simplicity. And the site works well within that simplicity, even offering users two ways to view timelines: text view (table) and timeline view.

As with simple tools, most of the negatives related to TimeToast have to do with what it doesn’t do — users can’t embed videos; users can’t embed online images (you have to upload the images from your computer); users can’t just put the year — they have to put the exact full date; users can’t write descriptions longer than 500 characters; users can’t share their timelines unless they make them public to everyone.

For most short, simple timeline projects, none of that really matters. But teachers should be aware that TimeToast also displays advertisements. The site is educational-focused, so I’ve never seen any inappropriate ads, but it’s important to be aware that they’re there.

I could definitely see teachers using TimeToast with younger students, especially shortly after students first start building and reading timelines. It’s an easy-to-use tool for simple timelines.

xTimeline

Ease of Use: Beginner
Good for: simple projects; younger students; basic collaborative projects
Features: collaboration; create own url
Glitches: freezed up a few times; viewers’ interface not user-friendly
Link: http://www.xtimeline.com
Sample:

I found xTimeline on one of my favorite websites, Go To Web 2.0. (This site is an overwhelming list of virtually all web 2.0 sites on the internet, but it’s searchable, which makes it a bit more manageable.) Of all the timelining tools I tried out, this one gave me the most problems. A lot of that is because I couldn’t get it to display my timeline the way I thought it should.

That said, I did like the tool, especially in comparison with TimeToast, which is very similar. Like TimeToast, xTimeline is pretty easy-to-use and it targets the educational community. But its user interface is a bit cooler, and it offers a few more features. For example, users can embed or upload media (just one per event); users can add just the year OR the date and year OR a time span; users can create a customized url for their timeline; and users can upload or download events.

Like TimeToast, there are two viewing options for xTimelines — an event list or a timeline. And like some of the more robust tools, the site allows users to collaborate on a timeline and also offers some social networking features (comments, fans, etc.).

However, although I really liked the samples on xTimeline, I couldn’t figure out how to get my timeline to work like those. Specifically, I couldn’t get my descriptions to display on the main timeline — only on the event view. Overall this is a minor issue, but it definitely soured the tool for me, and I could see students getting frustrated.

Plus, some of the features were a bit glitchy. For example, it took a really long time to upload some of the media. Often, the entire timeline took quite a while to load. And, as some of you may notice above, the embed feature doesn’t always work properly.

If you can get xTimeline to work as it’s meant to, it could be a good solution for simple projects or even for group projects, especially in some of the lower grades. But with the glitches I experienced, I’d probably stick with TimeToast — at least for now.

Lesson Integration Ideas

Elementary Classrooms

Grade: 1-6
Subject: Science and English Language Arts
Objective: The student will be able to communicate the procedure of a science experiment.

When I taught 4th grade to mostly English language-learners, it was always difficult to get my students to write out the procedure of a science experiment, even right after they had completed it. We spent a lot of time learning to read and write directions in class, and a timelining tool could have helped with that process.

To start, a teacher can tell students they’re going to do an experiment as a class and record the steps. The teacher can take photos of the students completing each part of the experiment and then display them, out of order, on a projector. The teacher can then ask students to work as a class to organize the images and write step-by-step directions for what the class did in each step.

The teacher can use a simple timelining tool, like TimeToast, to record the students’ directions and can post each step with the corresponding image. Afterwards, students could work alone to complete a similar assignment (older students could create TimeToast timelines, while younger kids could emulate this in their notebooks).

Middle School Classrooms

Grade: 4-8
Subject: All subjects using project-based learning
Objective: The student will be able to organize  and track all the pieces of a long-term project.

I work with a lot of middle and high school teachers who utilize Project-Based Learning in their classrooms. There’s a great benefit to PBL — students are engaged, motivated and learn a ton of content. On top of that, though, students also learn important soft skills, like working in a group and time management.

Timelines can be a great help when it comes to those soft skills. Students can use programs like Capzles to plan out their projects — what date they’ll finish their abstract, when they’ll complete their research, etc. As students complete various tasks, they can upload the finished product directly to the timeline (or add a link to their work). Then, everything is in one place and, if it’s a group project, group members can divide the work and then access one another’s completed products.

High School Classrooms

Grade: 9-12
Subject: History
Objective: The student will be able to research and communicate important events in history.

No matter what your class is studying — European history, American history, world history — you can use a digital timeline to help your students jigsaw information. Take a look at a chapter, unit or even entire year of study, and separate the content by major events or time periods. Have students sign up for one of the events. Then, have your class create a collaborative Capzle. Each student is responsible for adding his/her event, with relevant links and information, to the timeline.

If students make mistakes or omissions, you can have them correct the errors themselves. When it’s finished, the entire class can use the timeline as a study guide for a summative exam.

Comcast also promises NOT to increase the monthly fee and NOT to charge for any equipment rental — just the monthly rate of $9.95 +tax. The program, called “Internet Essentials,” also offers participants a low-cost $150 computer and FREE internet training. For more information, check out http://internetessentials.com. You can also get brochures and posters advertising the program, as well as teacher-specific information, by registering at http://www.internetessentialspartner.com/Login.aspx.

One of the largest economic divides in the 21st century is access to the internet, and this program could really put a dent in that problem.

Of course, most people immediately ask, “Why is Comcast doing this?” There are a lot of reasons this program will benefit Comcast as a business — first off, it’s great marketing that paints Comcast in a very positive light. And a marketing strategy like this could help get Comcast into new areas. Also, much like Apple’s push into schools, Comcast could be creating lifelong brand loyalists.

No matter the reasons, I’m extremely excited that many of our students will now finally be able to get access at home. I’m rarely one to advertise corporations, but we’re sending brochures about the program home with all of our high school students today.

I’ve highlighted some of my favorite storytelling tools in the past — websites like Go!Animate and xtranormal. But recently, I’ve been working with PreK-2 teachers, many of whom are newcomers to the ed tech world. So I’ve been searching for digital storytelling tools that are easier to use, both for teachers and for pre-literate students. And I’ve found some great ones.

Depending on the age and tech experience of your students, some of them might be able to use these tools with little or no adult help. But with younger kids (PreK-1), you might need to offer support. You can make the following tools centers in your classroom, where a teacher, aide, or parent volunteer works one-on-one to help students create digital stories. Better yet, you can partner with a class of older students, pairing each of your students with an older child to help them. The older students can work with your kids all at once so, by the end of a 45-minute lesson, every child has a completed digital story.

Little Bird Tales

Tool: Little Bird Tales
Ease of Use: Beginner
Grade levels: PreK and up

Little Bird Tales has quickly become my new favorite web 2.0 tool, mostly because it’s easy to create a high-quality product. The web site allows users to create podcasts with images — basically, narrated slideshows — in just three steps:

1. Users can upload photos to their Bird Tale or they can use an embedded drawing tool to draw images. Older students can add text to their images.
2. Users then record narration to go with each image.
3. Finally, users share their Bird Tales, by sending a URL via e-mail.

The finished product looks something like this:

Little Bird Tales’ simple interface makes it perfect for younger students or tech beginners. But older students can create Bird Tales, too (once they get over the website’s somewhat babyish name). Teachers can easily create a FREE account and begin creating tales. They can have all their students create tales under a single account, but the site also allows teachers to create separate FREE accounts for each student. These accounts are always connected to the teachers’ account, and the website is built to ensure student privacy since so many younger kids use it.

The website asks users to create and use a “school code” so teachers and students from the same school can be grouped together. Teachers can’t access Bird Tales from another class unless it’s been shared with them, but it allows teachers to see who else in their school is using the tool and how often. This is helpful in terms of finding on-site teachers who can offer support.

UPDATE: For step-by-step directions on getting started with Little Bird Tales, check out my guest post on the Teacher Challenge blog.

UJAM

Tool: UJAM
Ease of Use: Beginner – Intermediate
Grade levels: 1st and up

Technically, UJAM is a music creation tool. And it’s actually a pretty good one. After starting an account, a user can record themselves singing or playing an instrument. Then, with the click of a button, the website creates a full soundtrack to accompany what the user recorded. The user can choose a music “style” (i.e., 80s rock, reggae, game music) to specify what type of soundtrack will accompany their recording.

When I show this tool to teachers, though, I demo it not as a music creation tool but as a podcast creation tool. At its most basic level, students can create podcasts in just 3 steps:

1. Students record their voice reading a poem, personal narrative, or other piece they wrote.
2. Then, they choose a “style” that fits the mood of that piece (students won’t know what a lot of the styles are, so they’ll often try out several of them before they find one that works).
3. Finally, they download an mp3 of their completed recording.

In the end, this creates a musically accompanied podcast, similar to this poetry podcast by 4th-grader Sylvia. This helps students learn to identify and communicate the mood of their writing. UJAM allows users to save their work and come back to it and, when they’re done, to download an mp3 of the track they create. One caveat: with UJAM, sometimes students’ recorded voices are overpowered by the music tracks, so it’s important to have students speak loudly when they record (using an external computer microphone helps with this).

That’s the ‘beginner’ use of UJAM. The reason I rated the site as “Beginner – Intermediate” is that UJAM has a ton of options. More advanced users can use drop-down menus to customize the accompanying music, even changing specific chords. This is great for music teachers because it’s a simple, leveled interface for music composition. Advanced students can adjust more options, while beginning students can focus on just a few.

This tutorial shows all of UJAM’s capabilities. (Beginning users should stop after 0:43 — more advanced options are described after this.)

Teachers can have all students use their account, can create separate accounts for each student, or can have students create their own accounts. UJAM requires a unique e-mail address to start an account and doesn’t have accounts specifically for students, but all accounts are FREE.

Blabberize

Tool: Blabberize
Ease of Use: Beginner
Grade levels: PreK and up

I’ve highlighted Blabberize a few times in the past, but I also wanted to include it here because it definitely is a tool fit for beginners. It’s especially good for students researching a specific animal or historic figure. Here’s how it works:

1. Students upload a picture of their topic (or copy and paste the URL of an image).
2. They use their mouse to outline the mouth in the image.
3. They record a first-person account of that animal or person.
4. They get a URL of their blabber, which they can share with others.

Here’s a sample student blabber, created to explain the water cycle from the viewpoint of a raindrop:

Teachers can create a single FREE Blabberize account and have all their students use it, can create individual accounts for students, or can have their students create their own accounts. (Blabberize doesn’t specifically designate student accounts.)

Voicethread

Tool: Voicethread
Ease of Use: Beginner
Grade levels: Kinder and up

I know a ton of teachers who rave about Voicethread, specifically for its ease of use. I’ve never used Voicethread in the classroom but, with such incredible reviews, I couldn’t leave it out of this post. Voicethread is one of the most dynamic easy-to-use tools I’ve seen — it’s used in Kinder classes, in college courses, and in everything in between. Here’s how it works:

1. A user uploads an image, file, or video.
2. Other users can add comments to this file, by either recording from a webcam, recording from a mic, typing in some text, OR uploading a file. As users comment, they can annotate over the common file. Numerous users can add comments to the same file.

If your students have Internet access at home, Voicethread is a great tool to use for homework assignments. (This is especially true for younger students, who can work with their parents to create Voicethreads.) For example, if you’re learning about measurement in a PreK class, you can upload a photo of a table. Have every student measure their own table at home (using their hands and their parents’ hands). Then, each student can record a comment on the image of the table you uploaded. Their comment can be a recording of their voice explaining what they did at home and what they learned.

Anyone can get a single FREE voicethread account. So you can create one as a teacher and create similar FREE accounts for your students. Teachers can get more features for a one-time $10 fee or a classroom account (where you can monitor all your students) for $60 per year.

Lesson Integration Ideas

Elementary Classrooms

Grade: PreK-3
Subject: Science
Objective: The student will be able to design an experiment to test an original question AND will be able to communicate the results.

Starting in pre-school, students can begin to design and test their own simple science experiments. In your schoolyard, have your students sit around a tree, a garden, or a patch of grass. Give them hand lenses. Have them record what they see and what they wonder in their science notebooks (for pre-literate students, these notes will be illustrations).

After the students have made several observations, go back into class and discuss what they saw and what they wondered about. Write down their “I wonder” questions on sentence strips. In the next lesson, sort the questions into testable and untestable questions (with younger students, you may have to lead the sorting but older kids can begin to sort questions alone). After the sorting, have students choose a testable question to test. For example, “how long will it take a snail to walk across my desk?” or “do all flowers have the same number of petals?”

Allow students to test their questions. During the testing, have students use old, donated cell phones (without SIM cards or service plans) to take photos. When they’re done, have students report what they did and what they learned by creating a Little Bird Tale. They can upload the photos they took, take photos of their illustrations to upload, or create new illustrations using the website. Then, they can record their voice narrating each photo. Older students can add text to accompany their photos.

Middle School Classrooms

Grade: 4-8
Subject: English Language Arts
Objective: The student will be able to identify and communicate the mood of an original writing piece.

After a poetry or personal narrative unit, have students record their original poems or portions of their narratives on UJAM. Allow them to select a ‘style’ that appropriately conveys the mood of their piece. After they perfect their piece, have them download the mp3.

Assign one student as the MC. Have him/her record introductions for each piece. Then, burn all the completed mp3s, in order with the proper introductions, onto a CD. You can give the CD to students at the end of the school year or sell it for a fund-raiser.

High School Classrooms

Grade: 9-12
Subject: Music
Objective: The student will be able to compose an original piece of music.

Depending on students’ levels and your objectives, have students use UJAM to record themselves singing an original song or playing an original piece on an instrument. Have them use the site’s options to turn their single track into a full-blown arrangement. Depending on your expectations, give students specific tasks, i.e., they must create a customized ‘style’ for their piece OR they must edit the chords of at least one track.

When all students have completed a piece, collect their mp3s and create an original CD to sell as a fund-raiser.

Now, Skype has made teachers’ jobs much easier. After several months of beta testing, the company just released Skype in the Classroom, an education version of its site specifically targeting teachers.

If you’re unfamilar with Skype, read on. If you’ve got some experience, skip to the next section, titled, “Effective Classroom Skyping.”

What’s a Skype and How Do I Get One?

Skype is FREE software that allows you to make audio or video calls to any other person in the world (who also has Skype). My mom now has dinner with grandchildren who live 500 miles away, thanks to Skype.

To use Skype, all you need to do is start an account and download the software to your computer (or get the Skype app on your smart phone).

After that, you can make a basic audio call:

Making a video call follows a similar process:

Skype audio and video calls are completely FREE, but you can get added features (like group conference calls) for a fee. I’ve never known anyone who used the fee-based Skype features — for most teachers, the FREE features are all you really need.

Effective Classroom Skyping

Teachers have been using Skype in the classroom for years. But that doesn’t mean they always use it effectively. Often teachers will Skype with a single author or expert — the guest’s video projected onto a screen in front of the entire class, with students raising their hands to ask questions. In some circumstances, this format can be really powerful. For example, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles has a program that brings Holocaust survivors to classrooms around the world via Skype. However, this is still basically a lecture and, for most lessons, it’s not the best way to teach. One teacher at my school volunteered with EarthWatch for several weeks during the school year. She was sent to Canada, where she worked with scientists to complete climate change research. During that time, she blogged about what she was doing and regularly Skyped with her 4th-grade classes back in Phoenix. While the students really enjoyed the Skype calls for the first couple of minutes, it was difficult to keep their attention for extended periods of time. And, of course, since the teacher wasn’t in the same room, it was difficult for her to fully interact with the entire class.

So what are better ways to use Skype? One of the best things about 21st century technology is that, in many cases, teachers have access to one computer for every student (or every pair of students). This allows for much more individualized learning. Even if you only have access to one or two computers, you can have students rotate through them throughout class to chat with Skype buddies — it just takes a little more planning.

Once you figure out the logistics, you can head to Skype in the Classroom to get started. You can look at the listed ‘projects’ to answer a teacher’s request for a partner class. Or you can post your own request to do something like the following:

• Partner with a class(es) in another timezone (preferably another country). Partner each of your students with a student from this distant class. Have the pairs collaborate via Skype and Google docs to complete a project (i.e., a science experiment, with each adding data from own environment).
• In foreign language classes, use Skype to find language partners who are native speakers.
• Use Skype to include a sick or chronically ill student who is at home. Have the student use one computer, with webcam, at home. Set up another computer, with a webcam, at the student’s desk so (s)he can participate and see the class as if (s)he were there.
• On Skype’s education site, the company suggests using the software for a cultural exchange. Partner with a class from another region of the world and have students report on one another’s culture, using their Skype partners as one of their sources. (You can do this with a class from an area you’re reading about in a novel or studying in social studies.)
• Try a Skype scavenger hunt. Have students connect to a user in another geographic area, who gives kids a task (draw picture, build model, answer a question). Once the student completes it properly, they’re given the name of another Skype user, who they must call to get the next task. This would be great for a geography class, where each call is to another part of the country or the world.
• Skype suggests something similar, called mystery Skype calls, “where classes connect online and give clues to help each guess the other’s location.”
• Use Skype for long-distance parent-teacher conferences. Often, one parent may be separated from their children because they live in another city or are temporarily away for work.
• Students can offer peer-to-peer tutoring via Skype, so your students can partner with younger kids and act as tutors and/or older students to act as tutees. The software has even been used to connect teachers and tutors to students in third-world countries. Wouldn’t it be great to have your high school students tutor elementary kids in India one-on-one for an entire school year? Aside from cementing their own content knowledge, think of the global and social lessons your students would learn in the process.
• Some people even offer music lessons via Skype. I wonder if a creative music teacher could orchestrate something like the virtual choir, using a computer lab connected to another music class.

For more ideas and for resources on using Skype in education, check out this article. Also, be sure to share your own Skype successes and challenges as a comment!

Lesson Ideas

Elementary Classrooms

Grade: K-5
Subject: Social Studies
Objective: The student will be able to compare and contrast his/her culture and community with that of another geographic area.

You can use Skype a lot like teachers in my day used classroom pen pals. On Skype in the Classroom, post a request for a partner class from a geographic area you’ve been studying. Depending on your students’ age, you might try to partner with older students (it would be difficult, for example, to have two Kindergarteners answer each other’s questions, but a 5th-grader can work pretty well with a Kinder kid). Once you find a suitable partner class, work with the teacher to schedule Skyping times and to partner up students (or pairs of students).

Tell students they’re going to interview kids from another part of the world and then they’ll create a presentation for the class about what they learned. With younger students, give them specific questions to ask their Skype buddies. For older kids, a general rubric scaffolded with pre-Skyping class discussions should be enough. Encourage students to have a conversation with their Skype buddies, rather than just interrogating them with a list of questions — you might be able to do this with a low-stakes first meeting, where partners complete simple team-building activities with their Skype buddies.

In upper elementary classes, your students might be asked geographic questions about their community as well. This is a great way to motivate your students to understand local geography since they’ll be responsible for teaching others about it.

Middle and High School Classrooms

Grade: 5-12
Subject: Science
Objective: The student will be able to recognize the cumulative nature of scientific evidence AND perform tests, collect data, analyze data and display results.

On Skype in the Classroom, post a request for a partner science class with students of the same age as yours. Depending on your scientific focus, it might be interesting to find a class in a different climate or geographic area (coastal vs. plains). Once you find a class and a teacher that meets your needs, set up a schedule of Skype calls — several in the following weeks or months. Using class lists from both classes, work with your partner teacher to create Skype buddies or groups.

Have students meet their buddies on Skype — these will be their lab partners. Either have the students work together decide on their own science experiment or offer them a guided experiment. Have students communicate with their partners via Skype and each collect their own data for the experiment. Have students use Google docs (or another wiki-like tool) to collaboratively record and analyze data and create a final report or presentation.

Grade: 5-12
Subject: Foreign Language
Objective: The student will be able to use speaking and listening skills to communicate fluently in the target language.

On Skype in the Classroom, post a request for a partner class that natively speaks your target language. Most likely, there will be a class out there looking for English language partners, as well. Chat with the teacher to set up regular Skyping times and to assign students Skyping partners. Ideally, these sessions would be about an hour in length, with the first 30 minutes spoken in one language and the last 30 minutes in the other.

For each chat, give your students specific assignments — questions about their partner’s culture, life, etc. — to guide the conversations. You might also offer students some prompts, if they have trouble keeping the conversation going for the full hour.

• No training.
• No equipment.

It’s clear that if we want to bring schools into the 21st century, we need to eliminate those two obstacles.

Adding training and hardware to a school has the power to transform it within a single school year, but many school administrators say they don’t have the money to make these changes. In fact, admins do have the budget; they just don’t realize it.

Most of my blog entries are focused on web 2.0 applications and other software, with suggestions for getting affordable hardware sprinkled throughout. But, below, I’ve focused entirely on ways to get your school past the hardware and training obstacles. I outline all the hardware and personnel needed to transition into a 21st century school. And, being that this is “Stretch Your Digital Dollar,” I describe low-cost and FREE options to get there. In fact, using the suggestions below, it’s possible to bring your school into the 21st century for a grand total of $55 per classroom.

Even if your school has a robust technology budget, bargain shopping can help you get a lot more for that money. And if you’re in a budget-strapped area, the suggestions below might be the only way you can get any technology into the hands of your students. As much as possible, I try to offer NO-cost solutions. And if you find that the low-cost options are out of your budget, I’ve included links to grant opportunities at the bottom of this post.

Before I start, though, I have to mention that there’s one non-negotiable technology every 21st century school needs to shell out the big bucks for — school-wide wireless access. This is absolutely essential in any 21st century school — the items discussed below will have limited use without it. Most schools already have wifi but if you don’t, you need to find the money to get it. (E-Rate dollars are specifically set aside to get all U.S. public and non-profit private schools online.) However, if you’re a teacher without the power to make wifi decisions, there’s one other possibility — if you have a wired internet connection in your classroom, you could purchase a wireless router for about $100, connect it to your wired connection, and allow your students to access wifi through it.

Now, let’s start modernizing your school.

Training

The biggest mistake schools make when it comes to technology integration is putting all their money into equipment and leaving nothing for training. I’ve seen teachers use interactive whiteboards as bulletin boards and computers as AR-testing machines. For technology to be successful, schools need two things:

1. teacher buy-in
2. on-going coaching and support

Let’s be serious here. Most teachers are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated as it is. In order for them to add 21st century skills to their already packed objectives lists, they need to believe it’s going to be worth it — for the students and for themselves. I tell teachers that technology should make them more efficient and more effective educators. In the long run, technology should make their jobs easier and make their students learn better. If the technology isn’t doing this, then it’s not the right technology.

So how do teachers find (and understand) the right technology? If you’re an administrator planning to pull your school into the 21st century, you’ll have to prioritize technology, dedicating time during regular staff meetings to tech training (at least an hour a month). This training should begin before the school year. In the summer, host a professional development session centered entirely around the pedagogy of educational technology. Help teachers answer the question, “Why should I do this?” You might want to hire an outside speaker to run this workshop or you might find someone in-house. Either way, your goal should be to at least get teachers thinking and talking about technology integration. (For resources — including videos, articles, hand-outs, and Prezis — that might help, check out the PD section of this blog.)

This also means that you need to have an educational technology specialist on site, available to coach teachers one-on-one throughout the school year. I know what you’re thinking — an ed tech specialist sounds expensive. Sure, ideally, you’d finance a brand-new position with duties encompassing regular staff-wide trainings, one-to-one coaching, lesson modeling, and equipment maintenance. But I know very few schools or districts that can afford this. Not to worry, though. There are other options.

Trainer: Low-Cost Option

What: Added duties for one teacher
Cost: about $1,000 per year per school

I entered the ed tech world as a 4th-grade teacher at a Title 1 elementary school. I was tapped as the school’s education technology specialist, a position I served while I continued my full-time teaching position. Basically, this was an added duty. For an extra $1,000 per year, I was in charge of offering regular tech integration trainings for our staff and maintaining all of our hardware (mobile labs, cameras, etc.). Because I was in the classroom, facing the same pressures as my colleagues, I had street cred. If I could successfully integrate technology into my classroom — with my workload, my student population, and all the pressures of being at a Title 1 public school — then every other teacher at my site could, too.

Importantly, my district sent me regularly to conferences and workshops so I could bring that knowledge back to my school. If you have the money, I highly recommend sending your school’s ed tech specialist to two to three conferences a year — conferences like ISTE or local/state workshops (i.e., Arizona K-12 Center workshops). But if this added cost simply won’t work, technology provides a solution. Dozens of ed tech workshops are offered for FREE online, through webinars or distance-learning software. This past year, I attended Educon for FREE remotely, and it sparked quite a few ideas.

Because this duty comes with a stipend, you can add a list of requirements to it. My position had fairly loose requirements and, while I tended to do a lot because I really enjoyed it, teachers in the same position at other schools did very little. I would recommend having your ed tech specialist offer a school-wide training session at least every month. This can be part of a regular staff meeting (with required attendance) or an optional course offered after school. I used to hold weekly optional after-school training sessions. As a carrot, teachers who attended received continuing education credits that they could use to meet a district requirement.

Trainer: No-Cost Option

What: Minor added duties for entire staff
Cost: FREE

If your school is totally strapped for cash (or if no one is able to take on the demands of an ed tech role), you can have your entire staff share the task of tech training. In some ways, this can be even better than having a designated specialist at your site. By encouraging all teachers to take up the post to a modest degree, you can build a school culture of tech integration and collaboration.

To get started, after an introductory PD on 21st century teaching, plan for monthly staff-wide tech share-a-thons. These can be set up in a couple of ways. You can just have any staff that’s interested share student projects during this time, as either a gallery walk or a staff-wide discussion. With this set-up, two or three teachers might emerge as tech leaders who share projects more regularly. For a more organized approach, you could have teachers sign up to lead a training session each month. You could have multiple staff members sign up for the same month, so each only has to prepare a 15-minute presentation. These trainings can be as simple as a “here’s what I did in my class, why I did it, how I did it, and what did/didn’t work.”

With various staff members presenting on technology, your staff will come to recognize the body of expertise they possess as a group. After a few months, one teacher may be seen as the cell phone expert, while another might become the Google guru. Teachers will begin going to one another for one-on-one help and coaching, which is an ideal environment for tech integration to blossom.

One Computer for Every Student

The hallmark of a 21st century school is 1:1 computing. When you put a computer into the hands of every child and make it available to them 24 hours a day, in every class and at home, it’s virtually impossible not to utilize the devices constantly. If you’re in a low-income area, 1:1 computing has an even deeper impact. When you send a computer home with a child (especially a child who has learned how to use it), you’re impacting more than that child. You’re impacting his parents, his siblings, his community. It truly is one of the most powerful moves any school can make.

Some schools and districts can purchase a laptop or iPad for every student. Others require students to pay for them, either by buying their own or through a yearly “technology fee.” But that’s not a viable option for a lot of schools. If your school is one of those, read on for some more affordable options.

One-to-One: Low-Cost Option

What: netbook for each student
Cost: about $300 per student
Hardware Life Span: 3-4 years

I was slow to jump on the netbook wagon, in large part because I believed that netbooks don’t have the power to run integral software, like video and audio editing tools. But then I heard about netbook integration at Saugus USD in California. The reason most netbooks are relatively limited is because they come with complex operating systems, like Windows. Basically, netbooks don’t have a ton of memory, and Windows takes a huge amount to run properly. But a Linux operating system, like Ubuntu, is streamlined. Ubuntu netbooks can do nearly everything a laptop can do, but at a fraction of the price. Better still, Ubuntu is a totally FREE operating system, as is all the software. So you can install things like PowerPoint, Excel, video editing, and podcasting software completely for FREE.

A year ago at the aquarium where I now work, I spearheaded the purchase of 80 Ubuntu netbooks, to be used in K-12 classrooms. With absolutely no knowledge of Ubuntu, I installed the operating system (as well as a few dozen standard programs) on all the netbooks, in about 5 minutes per computer. Teachers, aquarium staff, and K-12 students have been using the computers with very few problems. Ubuntu looks and acts a lot like a Windows or Mac machine would, so there’s virtually no learning curve. Students have used the netbooks to record and edit films (each computer has an embedded webcam in it); to access web 2.0 tools like blogs and wikis; and to create complex graphs, among other things. The netbooks are extremely popular and get a lot of use. After one school year, they’re all still going strong.

For more information on setting up and going 1:1 with Ubuntu netbooks, take a look at this blog post.

One-to-One: Lower-Cost Option

What: rooted Nook Android tablet for each student
Cost: $250 per student
Hardware Life Span: about 3 years

More and more, I’m hearing about schools giving iPads to all of their students. I can see why — tablets can run some great education applications and can utilize web 2.0 tools, like Google docs, for word processing, presentations, and data analysis. They’re lightweight and relatively powerful, not to mention that, with e-reader capabilities, they can potentially replace textbooks. Personally, though, I’m not willing to plop down $500-$830 for a tool that will be dramatically improved in the coming years.

I am, however, willing to consider it for $250. That’s the current price of a Nook Color. The Nook is the Barnes & Noble e-reader and was designed as a direct competitor of the Kindle. Out of the box, it’s just that. It can hold thousands of books, which it downloads through a wifi internet connection. But with just a few minor tweaks, you can basically turn a Nook Color into an iPad.

The Nook, which has a touch screen, was built on an operating system very similar to Android. However, most of the operating system’s features were locked for users. In a few easy steps, though, you can install FREE software onto the Nook and unlock it, essentially turning it into the Android version of an iPad.

At least one school district is already unrolling these rooted Nooks into its special education classrooms. From what I’ve heard, it’s simple to pay for educational Android apps just once and then install them on an entire fleet of Nooks.

Click here for directions on rooting a Nook and ideas for using it in the classroom.

One-to-One: No-Cost Option

What: one cell phone (with NO phone service) for each student
Cost: FREE
Hardware Life Span: 3-6 years, depending on device model and age

The cell phone in your pocket right now is probably more powerful than the desktop computer you had 10 years ago. It’s a computer with internet capabilities, a GPS device, a clock, a camera, all rolled into a tiny mobile package.

Most teachers have no idea how powerful cell phones can be. Students can record and edit short films as well as podcasts on them. They can blog and wiki. They can write reports and create graphs, using web 2.0 tools like Google docs. They can respond instantly to poll questions, collaborate with others, and geo-tag photos and notes.

A lot of teachers are shocked when I suggest having students use tiny cell phones to write papers, blogs and wikis. But think about it — most kids are writing with cell phones more often than they write with anything else. One Japanese high schooler even penned an entire novel on her cell phone while riding the bus to and from school. A colleague who runs educational technology sessions for students across the country told me that she allows students to write using a netbook, a cell phone, or a paper notebook. She said about 90 percent choose to use the cell phone. Why? They’re most comfortable with it.

Despite the benefits, many schools and districts are wary of allowing students to use their personal cell phones in class. Administrators argue that text messaging is a distraction and a cheating landmine, not to mention that parents might get up in arms if students’ cell phone bills skyrocket due to an in-class project. So some schools have purchased cell phones to use in the classroom. This comes with quite a price. But it doesn’t have to.

At the aquarium, we use Nokia cell phones in most of our education programs. Teachers in various districts check out the phones to use in their classrooms. Several of these districts have policies banning cell phones from the classroom, and the aquarium wasn’t willing to take on cell phone bills for all of these devices. So we turned off the phone capabilities of our phones. By removing the SIM cards from the phones, they aren’t able to make calls or send text messages. There are also no bills. But the phones can still be used to record and edit video and audio. And, with wifi, the phones can still access the internet. A SIM-less phone is basically a mobile computer and nothing more.

Ok, so there are no monthly fees, but how are you going to get these mobile computers for FREE? Have you ever had a smart phone, like an iPhone or a Droid? How long did you have it before you got a new one? Most people get a new phone as soon as their provider allows them to, which is generally every 2 years. But a smart phone can work well past two years. So why not host a few cell phone drives at your school? Just like the can drives or newspaper drives schools have hosted for decades, a cell phone drive encourages community members to donate their old phones to your school to be recycled. Or, in this case, re-used. You can group the phones into class sets and assign them to students, all the time thinking of them not as phones but as mobile computers.

Check out this post for ideas on integrating these cell phones into classrooms.

Interactive Whiteboards

One of the biggest single educational technology purchases is the interactive whiteboard. Teachers who are trained to use them often rave that these boards completely change their classrooms. But at $5,000 – $10,000, most schools can’t afford to install one in every classroom. I’m pretty sure most schools can afford $55 per classroom, though.

Whiteboards: Low-Cost Option

What: Wiimote Whiteboard
Cost: $55 per classroom
Hardware Life Span: about 10 years

By far, the most popular post on my blog is one detailing how to build an interactive whiteboard for only $55. I’ve led a few 3-hour workshops on the topic, where the participants leave with a ready-made interactive whiteboard and some minimal training in how to best utilize it. How is this possible? It’s called a Wiimote.

You’ve probably heard of the Wii gaming system. Well, the Wii comes with a controller — called a “Wiimote.” It turns out that this Wiimote actually contains some pretty sophisticated infrared cameras. So, coupled with an infrared pen and the right software, teachers can create a system with the functionality of a Smartboard or Promethean ActivBoard. The Wiimote costs $40 (though you can often find it as low as $20 online), the infrared pen goes for $15, and all the software is FREE.

Check out my Wiimote whitboard post for all the directions and details on building one.

One caveat: in order for the Wiimote whiteboard to work, each classroom needs an LCD projector to project a computer screen onto the board. Most of the teachers I’ve worked with have access to a projector, but not everyone can be so lucky, especially since these generally retail for several hundred dollars. Not to worry — there’s a no-cost projector option available. You can actually build an LCD projector out of an old overhead (you know, the kind teachers use transparencies on) and a used LCD computer monitor — here are the directions. (It would be great to have students construct and maintain these. Perfect for a tinkering class, like the one described below.)

School-Wide Online Community

Once you have enough devices for every student to access the internet, you can truly start integrating technology school-wide. The first step? A virtual community.

No-Cost Option

What: Edmodo
Cost: FREE

Honestly, I’m afraid people are going to start thinking I work for Edmodo. I don’t, but the more I use this social networking website, the more I love it. And, as is always true with love, I can’t shut up about it.

Social networking is one of the most powerful tools of the 21st century. Generally, though, it’s been overlooked by educators, who think of social networks only in terms of sites like Facebook and MySpace. Social networks can be so much more, though. Done class-wide, school-wide, or district-wide, they can help students build a community, give kids a voice, prompt academic discussion, help students develop and share ideas, make teachers’ jobs tons easier, and extend the school day. I’ve watched a half dozen middle and high school teachers launch Edmodo in their classrooms this school year, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive, both from teachers and from students.

Hands down, if I could integrate only one technology into a school, I would choose Edmodo. It’s powerful, easy to use, and — best of all — FREE.

For details on social networking in education and, specifically,  on launching Edmodo in your classroom, click here.

Class Websites and Student E-mail

Most tech-focused schools have two things in common: student e-mail accounts and classroom (or even student) websites.

For a long time, setting up and managing safe, monitored student e-mail accounts was hugely expensive. And classroom websites — places where teachers can communicate with parents and students can show off their learning — required coding knowledge and web expertise. Not any more.

No-Cost Option

What: Google Education Apps
Cost: FREE plus added duties for one staff member

I firmly believe that Google will rule the world one day. And I’m fine with that — they’ll probably do a really great job.

Google offers dozens of excellent educational tools, totally for FREE. You might already be using a lot of them, like Google Earth or Sketch-Up, in your school. But what most educators don’t realize is that Google offers a FREE school-wide solution to e-mail and website hosting.

One of the nicest features of Google Apps is that you can actually use your school’s domain name, like jeffersonhigh.edu. That means your students’ e-mail addresses will be johndoe@jeffersonhigh.edu, and any school or classroom websites will contain the same url. With Google Apps, schools can decide which features students can use. As soon as kids are literate, you can give them access to e-mail, calendars, chat, documents, and more. Or you can give them access to only a few. Google has gone to great lengths to ensure Apps for Education is safe and complies with all federal laws. There is message security (through Postini) that blocks spam and give school administrators oversight of students’ messages.

In addition, Google allows users to create their own websites for FREE. The website creation tool is extremely user friendly, so every teacher at your school could maintain their own website fairly easily. (When I was teaching, I actually had 4th-grade students create and maintain classroom websites for teachers.)

Google Apps has a ton of features so, if you implement it in your school, you’re probably going to want a go-to staff member to take charge of it. Luckily, Google offers online courses where users can become Google Apps Certified Trainers — this basically means they have the knowledge to train teachers on Google apps. The courses are FREE, but to get the title, you have to take six tests that cost $15 each, for a total of $90.

You can find more information on the Google Apps for Education page.

Tech Help

Obviously, if you’re going to integrate all this new technology into your school, you’re bound to have some technical difficulties. Occasionally, a piece of hardware won’t work properly, and not every teacher will have the expertise to fix it. But a tech help desk isn’t likely to get any funding at most schools. Luckily, you don’t need any money to get one.

No-Cost Option

What: student-staffed help desk
Cost: added duty for one teacher

When I was the ed tech specialist at my school, teachers usually called me for help when things weren’t working. Of course, they often needed the hardware fixed at that exact moment. Sometimes I was able to run to their aid but I was also a full-time teacher so, generally, I was in the middle of a lesson myself and couldn’t help out.

Then, one day, when my own interactive whiteboard wasn’t working properly, one of my fourth graders walked to the front of the class and fixed it. I realized I had a pool of slave tech labor just waiting to be tapped. I assembled a team of 4th- and 5th-grade students who were responsible and had some tech savvy. I invited the kids to attend a few tech training sessions, alongside teachers. Of course, the kids picked everything up extremely quickly. I created a protocol for this “tech help desk.” If a teacher needed help during the school day, I’d send one of the students. They had 10 minutes to resolve the problem. If they couldn’t do it, they’d return to class and I would try after school. I put the kids on a rotation, so they were only getting pulled out of class once every few weeks. I also created a short report sheet, which the kids had to complete, detailing the problem, whether they resolved it and how they did so (many of the students were lower ELLs, so the form was good writing practice). They would turn these papers in to me on their way back to class after their 10-minute troubleshooting visit.

I’ve talked to quite a few teachers who have used students in similar ways. Some schools are able to dedicate an entire class time to these squads, but my method worked well for my school — the kids resolved nearly all of the problems, making the teachers and me a lot happier.

If you’re interested, take a look at this post on student help desks for more details.

Classes and Clubs

While technology integration into content areas is the key to creating a 21st century school, you still need some courses and/or clubs dedicated entirely to technology. I’m not talking about a general computer literacy class. I’m talking about classes that help students gain and practice a variety of 21st century skills. These are classes that will really get students, as well as the community at large, excited about what’s happening at your school. Ideally, these would all be classes offered during the school day. But, realistically, it might not be possible to fit them into busy school schedules. At the least, though, they can be offered to 3rd- through 12th-grade students as clubs.

Electives: Low-Cost Option

What: Gaming Lab and Class
Cost: about $3,200 per school, plus added duty for one teacher
Hardware Life Span: 5-10 years

Again and again, research has shown that video games help students learn more and learn better. Video games have been shown to increase students’ problem-solving skills, collaboration abilities, and even their vision. And educational games can teach students content-specific concepts in a way that helps kids better understand and recollect that knowledge. So why not open a video gaming lab at your school? Housing various game systems, as well as a multitude of educational games, the lab could be open to students before school, after school, and during breaks like recess. One California high school noted a decrease in behavior issues at these times, plus added community building and cross-clique socialization, after it opened a gaming lab.

But the learning shouldn’t stop at playing games. There’s tons of FREE and low-cost software available that allow students to build games. We all know that when you teach a concept, you truly understand it. The same is true for students who build games that teach players specific concepts. Even elementary students can build computer and XBox 360 games. Older kids can create iPhone and Android apps.

For more, check out this post on gaming in education.

Electives: Lower-Cost Option

What: Robotics Class or Club
Cost: added duty for one teacher, plus about $100 per student (but loads of grant options)
Hardware Life Span: 5-10 years

This weekend, I was a judge at an underwater robotics competition. I spoke to teams of students, from 5th to 12th grade, who spent months designing and building a robot to complete a series of tasks underwater. I couldn’t believe the variety of skills and knowledge these students acquired — time management, team work, problem-solving, trouble-shooting, not to mention a deep understanding of science concepts like circuitry and buoyancy. The students were from a variety of backgrounds and communities. Some came as part of a class or an after-school club. Others just decided to build the robot on their own.

The best part about the competition was that it was clear that nearly all of the work was done by students. Teachers acted as mentors, answering questions but — for the most part — simply giving the students a place and the time to work.

Depending on the scope and objectives of your robotics class/club, cost can run from a just a few dollars per student into the hundreds. The cost estimate here is for materials that would outfit teams of three with LEGO MINDSTORM kits, which are about $300 each. But most schools don’t foot the bill. There are tons of STEM grants available for robotics programs, especially in low-income areas.

Electives: No-Cost Option

What: Tinkering Class or Club
Cost: added duty for one teacher

A tinkering class is the quintessential 21st century course. It allows students to be creative, collaborative problem solvers. In fact, tinkering is basically why Google is such a great company — they allow their employees to use 20% of their work time on projects outside their job descriptions. Employees can work on whatever they’re passionate about — tinkering with gadgets, computer code, whatever. The 20 percent policy is how many of Google’s most popular applications (including gmail) were invented.

A tinkering class is fairly easy to set up. Host an electronics recycling drive — collect old monitors, laptops, hard drives, etc., and store them in a room. Add in some random supplies that you can find in trash heaps, like plywood and nails. Get some donated tools — whatever you can find will work. Then, invite students to play. In the course of the class, require them to identify a problem and build a solution. Teach them safety procedures. If you’re teaching older students, review basic engineering principles, like circuitry. Guide them in their design, materials choice, and collaboration. But let them take the lead. Let them decide what they want to invent and create a plan to invent it. Let them fail again and again. And then watch them problem-solve their way to success.

Once established, tinkering classes can provide a wonderful resource for schools, which can ask tinkering students to build Wiimote whiteboards, LCD projectors, and a host of other equipment for use in classrooms.

For more information on tinkering classes, take a look at my “Let Them Tinker” post.

Still Can’t Afford It?

Although everything discussed above is fairly low-cost, for some schools, it’s still not enough. With budgets being slashed, many educators might not have access to any tech money at all. If that’s the case, there is a lot of money available for technology integration in schools. Below are just a few websites to get you started. If you have any other ideas — for grants or for low-cost tech solutions — please leave a comment!

• The federal Department of Education has made technology a priority and, as such, offers various funding options to schools ready to increase tech integration.
• Donors Choose is one of the best grant sources out there, especially for individual teachers. You write up a brief proposal for whatever you need — from a class set of novels to a mobile netbook lab — and donors can choose to pledge money to your project. Most projects are funded by hundred of small donations.
• As I mentioned in this post’s intro, the E-Rate program allows schools to get massive discounts on internet and wifi contracts.
• Also noted above is LEGO’s list of Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics grant opportunities.
• For more grant sources, check out this page at Edutopia.

Why social networking?

Let me back up a bit here. When I first speak with teachers about social networking in the classroom, I usually see an immediate reaction that my former students might refer to as “stank face.” The idea of bringing something like Facebook or MySpace into our schools generally conjures up a long list of cons before we, as teachers, ever think of a single pro. So before I talk about Edmodo specifically, I want to discuss the idea of educational social networking in general. (Hopefully, you’ll feel that “stank face” slowly melt away.)

In the past couple of years, surprising even myself, I’ve become a pretty strong proponent for social networking in the classroom. But by no means am I alone. Both the National School Boards Association and the Young Adult Library Services Association encourage the use of social networks with kids, in large part because they prepare students for the real world. The library association contends that social networks help teens “learn a valuable life skill, as these social networking technologies are tools for communication that are widely used in colleges and in the workplace.” Today, there are people whose entire jobs are to maintain a Twitter and Facebook presence for a company. In my work, I use professional social networks daily to collaborate with my peers around the world. The fact of the matter is that social networks are no longer simply for socializing. They are tools for networking and collaboration — key 21st century skills that every student should learn.

There is a lot of talk about internet bullying these days, and teachers often point to this as the main reason not to integrate social networks into schools. But I would argue that this is a major reason for social networking in the classroom. Taking kids off the internet isn’t the way to solve it. Our students will be on Facebook and Myspace and Twitter, whether or not their teachers ignore those sites. So why not take the opportunity to teach them to appropriately and safely use social networks? Why not scaffold that learning with a safe, closed social network in elementary and middle school? As the National School Boards Association puts it, “Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression — but students may learn these lessons better while they’re actually using social networking tools.”

Aside from these larger benefits, social networks can provide immediate, concrete academic benefits. Social networks can help students build a strong, supportive community. They help students see each other (and themselves) as holders of knowledge. Students will begin asking for and offering help, becoming leaders and collaborators while simultaneously taking some of that burden off of the teacher. (Translation: a classroom social network can actually make your job easier.)

Plus, a social network allows in-class discussions to expand beyond the 45-minute block of classtime. Social networks motivate students. Kids want to feel that their voice is important, and social networks give them a platform where they can be heard. When you start a social network in your classroom, suddenly kids will find and share answers to that question you couldn’t get to in class. They’ll even start asking and answering questions they didn’t have the time to think of during school.

My favorite thing about classroom social networks, though, is discovering the personalities of those kids who rarely speak in class. How many times has your class discussion been led by three or four students? Are there any students in your class who, even in March, you still don’t really know? Often, social networks give these kids an outlet — a place where they can think about and edit their questions and responses without pressure.

Why Edmodo?

There are a lot of good reasons to try out social networks in the classroom. But why, specifically, am I such an Edmodo fan? Three main motives: it’s FREE, it’s safe, and it’s easy.

I may be cheap, but I don’t automatically love everything that’s free. Still, it’s nice. And unlike most free educational websites, Edmodo offers a ton of useful features for absolutely no charge (at least for now).

Plus, Edmodo is the only social network I’ve found that gives the teacher all the control. Teachers create classes, and students join those classes — this is the only way someone can be on Edmodo. Students can only interact with the classes they’re enrolled in. I think of Edmodo as a virtual classroom — all the doors are closed and locked, so no one can just walk in without permission. Anything that anyone says is shared with the entire class, so posts are like students raising their hands to speak in class. The only private communication is between teacher and student, sort of like a desk-side conference.

Lastly, Edmodo is pretty easy to use. Teachers can get started with the basics in just a few minutes and then begin using more advanced tools as they get more comfortable.

Get Started

To start, go to Edmodo and create a teachers’ account. Then, create a ‘group’ (also known as a class) and get a secret code for that class. After going over expectations for appropriate user names, you can either create accounts for all your students or have them create their own, using the secret code to enroll in your class. (Kids don’t need an e-mail address to create an Edmodo account.) Once you do this, you’re pretty much done.

Students can add a profile photo (or choose an avatar from within Edmodo). All of your students, as well as you, can start posting things, and everyone can see everything, similar to the ‘news feed’ on Facebook. Students and teachers can share text (like Facebook status updates), as well as links, videos, and even files.

There are no private student-to-student messages, although the teacher can send private messages to students, and students can send them to teachers. Because everyone can see everything, kids generally don’t post anything inappropriate. And even if they do, the teacher can delete anything that’s posted on the site at any time. (I work with a half dozen middle and high school teachers using Edmodo, and they haven’t had any appropriateness issues, although one middle school teacher gave accounts to all his students’ parents for additional oversight.)

This basic posting feature is a wonderful place to start. It allows teachers and students to continue and expand upon discussions outside of the school day. It also allows students to ask for and offer one another help. A great way to start is to post a question or prompt to begin — or extend — a content-based discussion. But it’s important that students feel comfortable posting their own information, without a prompt. I tell kids that this is a “professional network” — everything on the site should be connected to what we’re studying. Whatever a student posts should be something they’d feel comfortable sharing in the middle of class because that’s what this is — a class discussion. Students can still be relaxed, informal, and even funny, but they should do this in a professional manner. In other words, this isn’t the place to post a YouTube video of a cat burping.

One benefit I’ve found of setting kids up like this is that I’m able to eavesdrop on students’ conversations. When they’re confused or they find something particularly interesting, they’re comfortable posting it. This lets me know what they’re actually learning and what’s most interesting to them. Students can’t (or won’t) always articulate their passions or misunderstandings — they rarely ask for clarification or help during class, especially during lectures. A social network gives teachers an opportunity to offer input if, for example, you notice that a lot of students are posting questions or misinformation about a particular concept or assignment.

Once you’re comfortable with the Edmodo basics, teachers can start exploring the additional posting options. In addition to general posts, teachers can post polls for students to respond to, which can be a great discussion starter. You can also post alerts, which are highlighted on students’ pages — alerts are great for things like field trip reminders.

Teachers can also post assignments on Edmodo, and students can turn in their assignments through the site. That’s right — they can attach documents and turn them in directly. The teacher can even post a worksheet as a Word file and require students to complete it and turn it in. (Better yet, teachers can post a link to a Google form, which students are required to complete. Google automatically saves students’ responses in a spreadsheet, so they’re easier to grade.) A totally paperless classroom! The great thing is that Edmodo keeps track of the assignments — who did and didn’t turn what in, so you and your students know whether you’ve received their work on time. Teachers can grade the assignments right on the site, and Edmodo keeps a class gradebook. The site will notify students when an assignment is graded, so they can review it. (Students can only see their own grades; not others’.) While I really like the gradebook feature, most of the teachers I know don’t use it because they already have a district-mandated grading system in place. Still, they’ll often assign and collect some assignments through Edmodo.

My absolute favorite thing about Edmodo, though, is the library feature. Anytime any student or teacher in a class shares a link, a video, or a document, that object is automatically saved in the class library. People are constantly sending me links that I love but, inevitably, when the time comes to share those links, I can never find them. With the Edmodo library, everything is saved in one place so you can go back and refer to the video one of your students (or classmates) posted months ago. Plus, teachers and students can create their own folders within the classroom library to organize the files, thus helping kids gain valuable organizational skills.

Multiple classes

If you teach more than one class, you can create different ‘groups.’ Students will only be able to communicate with the groups they belong to, so you can have a ‘Period 1′ group, a ‘Period 2′ group, and so on. As the teacher, you can use the ‘filters’ section on the right sidebar to see only posts from one class at a time. But students will only be able to see posts from the class (or classes) they’re enrolled in.

If you’d like, students can belong to more than one group. So if you have, for example, several sections of Biology 1, you might want to create a group for each section, as well as a general ‘Bio 1′ group. Students can belong to both ‘Bio, Section 1′ and ‘Bio 1.’ When they post something, they can choose whether to send it to just their section, to all of the Bio 1 students, or just to the teacher. Students can also use the ‘filters’ on the right sidebar to view only what’s posted to students in their section, to all Bio students, or to both.

The teacher can always view and edit a list of enrolled students for each group. That means teachers can delete or move kids if they drop the class or switch sections.

At the end of the semester, you can ‘archive’ groups. This saves the posts (as well as grades, etc.) for future reference, while not allowing students to make any additions or changes.

Internet Access

Anytime you require students to use computers or the internet outside of class, you have to consider accessibility. I taught entirely in low-income schools where almost none of my students had computers at home. Still, they all had MySpace profiles. I was surprised that, after my elementary students began blogs in class, they started editing them outside the classroom, from friends’ homes, relatives’ workplaces, or the public library. When I taught middle school, most of my students would access their MySpace or Facebook profiles from their cell phones. Even kids who seem to have no internet often have limited access. But I wasn’t requiring them to go online outside of class. If you are, you’ll need to ensure that every child has access.

You might consider sending a note home to parents detailing your expectations and offering suggestions that include things like the local library’s hours. It’s also important to offer students opportunities to access the class social network from school. If possible, keep a computer lab (or your own classroom, if you have a few computers) open before and after school and during lunch. Even if your school doesn’t have many working computers, there are options. If your school has wifi, host a cell phone drive to collect people’s old smart phones. Removing the SIM cards from smart phones means they can’t make phone calls or send text messages (so NO monthly bill), but they can still go online via wifi. If you can collect a dozen or so of these phones, let students use them to access the class social network from your classroom before and after school, during lunch, and during your planning time. If you live in an area with numerous free wifi spots, you could even allow students to check out the smart phones.

Behavior Management

Edmodo is so simple, there’s really no troubleshooting required for the site. But if you’re a teacher, you know that students sometimes require their own troubleshooting.

As I said before, because of the way Edmodo is structured, the teachers I know personally have had no appropriateness issues with their students. Still, as with any lesson, it’s important to set specific expectations for students. Just like some students will find ways to inappropriately use a pencil, sometimes you’ll have a kid push the envelope with Edmodo. I’ve heard of three possible issues with Edmodo that teachers should be aware of, but these are rare and easily corrected.

First, I heard third-hand that some students have started Edmodo teacher accounts and then invited other students to join their ‘group.’ Why would a kid do this? Well, it allows them to create a Facebook-type friends-only wall that they can access from inside their school’s firewall. In other words, it’s a way to access a Facebook-type site during the school day. I wouldn’t tell students that they can do this, but I would be sure to monitor students if they’re using Edmodo during the school day. In all honesty, even if students thought of trying this, it wouldn’t be rewarding unless a large number of other students joined the unsanctioned group.

Second, because students don’t need an e-mail address to set up an Edmodo account, they could potentially create anonymous users who join your class and post inappropriate things. I’ve never heard of any student doing this, but it’s a possibility. It’s also easily preventable. Once your students have joined their ‘group,’ you can change the group code. Then, don’t tell your students the new secret code. This means that no one else will be able to join your ‘group’ because they won’t have the code. Of course, teachers can always access a list of everyone enrolled in your groups so if there’s an unauthorized user, you can delete them at any time.

Finally, I’ve heard of students using unprofessional user names and profile photos. This truly is a teachable moment. With our aquarium students, we prevented this beforehand by explaining to kids that this was a professional network and they were expected to present themselves professionally. We told them their user names were required to include their first names and their profile photos needed to be appropriate. One or two students used weird user names, like ILoveOtters, so we told them they had to change their name or we’d delete the account.

Even if you have the world’s next evil genius in your classroom, Edmodo gives you all the power in the end. Suspending students from using the site for a few days (or weeks) will almost always solve any problem you’re having. Why? First off, Edmodo is fun, and they won’t be able to access the fun. Secondly, that student will no longer be in the know — things will be happening without him or her there. Kids (especially in middle and high school) are social creatures, and they’ll generally do anything not to be excluded.

Content-Specific Ideas

Social networks like Edmodo are wonderful just in a general sense. At the aquarium where I now work, we were amazed at how often our middle and high school students continued on-topic conversations at home, through our social network. They shared ideas, links, home-made videos. They even started asking questions we hadn’t yet thought of investigating. But, used creatively, social networks can go beyond simple discussions. They can help students better understand, explain, and enjoy complex content.

On most of my blog posts, I list grade-specific lesson ideas for integrating the tool discussed. But just like a chalkboard can be used to teach any grade level, Edmodo can be used with all levels of students (once students are literate). The only difference is what you write on it. So instead of lesson ideas organized by grade level, here I’ll offer some content-specific Edmodo extensions.

Reading

Anyone who has taught in a K-12 classroom knows that no matter what subject you teach, you teach reading. Reading comprehension is ingrained in nearly everything we do as adults and, as such, is embedded into every K-12 subject.

But, often, teachers complain to me that technology is destroying reading and, specifically, reading comprehension in 21st century students. Kids are so used to immediate gratification — to getting everything in snippets, to 120-character tweets, to Google synopses, and to Facebook status updates — that 500-page novels are a bore. “Can’t we just watch the movie?” they’ll ask. (I think this last question has been around a bit longer than the internet; I remember my own peers asking it 20 years ago.)

It’s true that technology has changed the way we process information, including the way we read. There’s a plethora of recent research studying how these new technologies have affected the way we interact, process, and analyze. There are studies suggesting that, as a society, our very brain chemistry is changing. Good or bad, this is happening. As teachers, there’s virtually nothing we can do to stop our students from having Facebook accounts or using their cell phones. But our job is still to teach them to read, understand, and appreciate tons of different writing — literature, science journals, historic papers, daily news, math proofs, websites, etc.

Frankly, it’s never been easy to get most students to love The Odyssey. But now, technology has given us a golden opportunity — a chance to hook most of our students into reading novels, textbooks, newspapers, and virtually anything else. We just have to do what great teachers do best — get a little creative.

Reading is all about empathy. If we feel for the people we’re reading about, if we can imagine what they’re feeling and thinking and hoping, if we can relate to them, we’re hooked. And social networks can help students become empathetic. They can allow students to walk around in someone else’s skin, virtually.

Say, for example, that your class is reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Assign each student a different character in the book. The student’s assignment is to pay particular attention to that character — their beliefs, actions, motivations, voice. Everything. And then, to become that character. Have each student create an Edmodo profile, posing as their assigned character. Then, as you read the book throughout the semester, students must post updates, comments, related links, videos, etc., on the class social network. They are to become their assigned character, interacting on a social network. (It’s great if the teacher takes on the role of a character as well.) What link would Ron Weasley share with his peers? How would Draco Malfoy react to it? These are all high-level questions students will have to ask, think about, and answer through the class social network. Best of all, they can be funny or ironic or touching — all motivation to try their best at the assignment. Your class Edmodo wall might look something like this:

Social Studies

Social studies teachers have started some of the most creative social networking sites I’ve seen. It’s easy to see why — social networks can make history come alive for students, through role play.

When I was a kid studying the American Revolution, our teacher assigned each of us a historic figure to research. One student got Thomas Jefferson, another was assigned Ben Franklin, and so on. We all wrote papers and made posters. Then, we stood in front of the class and talked for 5 minutes, during which only about 3 kids paid attention. With social networking, this assignment can become more interesting and much more meaningful for all students. Instead of (or in addition to) writing a report, each student could be assigned to create an Edmodo profile, posing as a historic figure (like this Thomas Jefferson profile). Then, students could be required to interact with one another as that historic figure. How would Ben Franklin respond to Thomas Jefferson’s comment about democracy? Students would have to understand a lot about their own historic figure, but they’d also have to know a good deal about other figures in order to converse with them. Deeper, higher-level thinking would be required of students, but the assignment would also be fun and motivating for them.

Social studies social networks don’t have to stop with historical figures, though. No matter what time period you’re studying, students can be assigned to act as countries, groups of people, or even historical events. “If Historical Events Had Facebook Statuses” is a funny look at this idea (be aware, though — it was written for an adult audience).

Science

Just like you can assign each student to be a literary character or a historic figure on a social network, you can extend that idea to science. You could assign your students to be famous scientists, scientific principles, or even scientific theories. What would Evolution say to Creationism? If you’re teaching marine biology, you could assign students to be different marine animals. How would they interact with one another if they had personalities, could speak, and could access social networks?

My absolute favorite idea for a science social network, though, was sparked by a video called “Chemical Party.” The video personifies chemical elements and compounds, and it got me thinking, “what would neon post on hydrogen’s wall?” Wouldn’t it be great if your chemistry students were asking this question at home on a Friday night?

Have you used a social network in the classroom? Do you have any ideas for ways to integrate them with content? Share your ideas, successes, and challenges as a comment!