Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative. Post 7: Parent and Community Involvement

Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative.

Post 7: Parent and Community Involvement

Initially, we wanted parents to have an opportunity to help out with the setup of the iPads for our initiative!

We invited them to come help out with unpacking and setup of our iPads.  It was a very exciting day for all of us!  We stationed our new locking carts in the media center and had the iPads delivered to the media center.

We have also continued to hold parent training sessions and opportunities for students to showcase their work through the iPads, and our Learning Management System has a great Parent component.  We're planning a day of Student-Led Conferences also, where students will explain to parents how they use their iPad for school.

Refer to the original post for all posts in this series.  The posts will be active links when they are available. 

Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative! Post 6: Training and App Selection

Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative.

Post 6: Training and App Selection

We had a "Training and App Selection Team." Training and support is a critical need in the early stages of an iPad initiative.

Here are the apps we selected for our "boot camp"- an entire day of iPad training.

We also ability-grouped our attendees based on their honest responses to a skills index.  

Each group was named (we just used random colors) and name tags were the color of their group.

We met and distributed the training schedule, and were off on a day of learning and growing!  

We put together door prizes and had a drawing at the end of the day.  Each attendee received a nice new Stylus to keep.  We even provided pizza and salad for lunch.  It was a tremendous day of Professional Growth!

Here are the additional apps the team selected for the ipads:

-----------------------------------------------------

Refer to the original post for all posts in this series.  The posts will be active links when they are available. 

Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative (Post 2)

Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative.

Post 2: Start a shared planning blog.

Start a blog to collaborate and share ideas.  A Wiki or Google doc will also work, but I love blog gadgets and the ability to share out with others afterwards ... like I am doing now.

Here's the link to our blog we used when discussing ideas with each other.  Some discussions did not make it to the actual blog- this one mostly handles the training and app purchase ideas.

http://faveipad.blogspot.com/

Refer to the original post for all posts in this series.  The posts will be active links when they are available.

Everything I know about rolling out a 1:1 iPad initiative (Part 1)

I'll have a series of blog posts about my experience for anyone who wants to embark on the 1:1 journey!
I'll expand on each bullet point below in my next posts and share everything I have created.
Stay tuned!

We've worked for over a year to roll out our iPads for staff and students here at the 4/5 Academy at Fifth Avenue in City Schools of Decatur.   I am the Media and Instructional Technology Specialist, and my role was to assist with planning, purchasing decisions,  and training/implementation.   Other district staff members actually did the behind the scenes purchasing and app deployment.

After your project has been approved and funded- here are the planning steps you can begin.

2- Create a blog for your project or your wishes. 
3- Have a steering committee and a few sub-committees of people with specialized skills and interests.
4- Order carts ahead of time .
5- Have a "case research team".
6- Have a Training and App Selection team.
7- Include parents and/or community experts in the planning process.
- Hold a "Parent Work Day".
8- Have teachers/staff set up their own staff ipads.
9- Host a whole day iPad Professional Learning event.
10- Reach agreements about what teachers will implement in a six-week time period.
11- Plan parent communication about the iPad initiative.
12- Have students show parents their ipads.
13- Research and choose an LMS.
14- Create a handbook and a one-page at-a-glance chart.
15- Revisit ongoing Professional Learning and Curriculum Integration

- Take a deep breath- it is going to be an exciting ride!