The Shakedown Cruise

"It's the Shakedown Cruise," he said, as if I knew what that meant.
Amazingly, he's still asking the "How was work today?" question even though my answer is about an hour long these days with an occasional pause for breathing. You see, year 18 in the classroom is feeling awfully similar to year 1 in the classroom. iPads have changing everything, or at least it feels like it.
His response: "It's the Shakedown Cruise."
Apparently, every new airplane (or boat) gets a Shakedown Cruise - a test run, a beta lap - actually, a series of them - to work out the kinks before it's smooth sailing (or flying). He suggested that I allow myself one too, that perhaps this whole year would be a bit of a Shakedown Cruise. That's not good news to a Type A, but perhaps good advice.
And so, I refer myself back to my motto for the year (posted above my SMART Board): "We are all learners; we are all teachers."
I'm as much of a learner this year as a teacher. Case in point: one of my freshman (thanks A) taught me the following today: 1) how to allow students to follow my blog 2) a new idea about turning in student work  3) notice that google released a blogger app today.
I'll survive the Shakedown Cruise, I think, with a little help from my copilots.

The Music's Not in the Piano

A good friend of mine told us, when he first saw our living room, that we needed to buy a Baby Grand Piano. It would be perfect, he explained, in the corner by the windows, overlooking the lake. We had never considered the idea before, yet we both liked it. Only problems: Baby Grands cost about $20,000 AND neither of us plays the piano. Nonetheless, interior arrogance led us to float our contact info in musical circles, asking for a shout out if a used Baby Grand became available on the cheap.

Gratefully, no leads panned out, and as a result, 15 years later, no Baby Grand resides in the corner by the windows overlooking the lake. Just lush, beautiful, oxygen-giving plants.  

(Stay with me here - the piano analogy will make itself known by the end of this post, I promise).

So today, this iPad Day 2, I am here to report a mixed bag:

The sturdy, functional part of the bag: students are completely engaged, iPads in hand; iPads are, I believe, at one with the student mind. Quick enough, responsive enough, individualized enough to maintain student attention and engagement, period.

The soggy, ripped part of the bag: iPads are certainly are most successful in a 1-to-1 environment: it's challenging having 5 different students use each iPad, saving pictures, documents, tying to push their work out of apps to their own ends.

Two Teacher lessons-learned today:

1) I'm finding myself challenged with the notion of letting go of control. Case in point: students were writing on iPads today and as I was circulating, I saw one student had taken a goofy picture and embedded it in his document. That's not what I asked them to do, but when I look closer, I realized he was writing about the picture. I need to loosen up my presumptions and allow this multi-tasking generation to max out on these machines. 

2) At the same time, I have to figure out a way to help students leverage the technology to access and develop their critical thinking skills. I had my Sophomores today exploring the question: "What is Poetry?" I presented Bloom's Taxonomy for Technology, encouraging students to answer the question using higher levels of the taxonomy. Tomorrow, I'll see the full results, but from what I gleaned in class, most were clearly at the bottom level, knowledge. My work is cut out for me, central question being: how to help students use  this technology that they are clearly crazy about - to help them access high order thinking; after all, the music's not in the piano; the learning isn't in the iPad: I need to orchestrate; they need to practice; and only then, will boyfriend sing.

I love technology; I hate technology

So, as the Internet AND WIFI were down, this, the first day of school, I was on Plan B, already. (Plan A was uber cool, of course, for Day 1 of my iPad roll-out, but I digress, and since Plan A was not in effect, it shall get no more ink).
Plan B had us writing "Six Word Memoirs," modeled after the NPR challenge. Mine was easy (and spontaneous): "I love technology; I hate technology," and now that I think more about it, isn't that true of any really serious, can't-live-without, brings-me-to-the-utter-throws-of-happiness relationship? I guess that means we're serious about each other, me and boyfriend: this relationship is real [just to review, in the event of a single-entry reader, by "boyfriend" I mean iPad].
Update: after some highly-sought attention from our I.T. department, iPads were finally up and running the last two hours of the day today. And, they were quite breathtaking in effect, I must say. From the moment they were in the anxious little hands of my scholars, it was total engagement. We used the I/W (image/word) app to create visual memoirs (take a self-portrait, add words, and play with the aesthetics). It was a great intro to basic iPad functions and helped me get to know a bit about my new batch of young charges.  I projected the iPads onto the SMART board, so we could share our creations.  They were gorgeous snapshots of their lives, a tribute to what these amazing little devices are capable of when put into the hands of 21st century learners. I'm excited...and they are too. Day in review: I hate technology; I love technology. We have a real relationship.

iPads up and running...

I think I now have a taste of what it's like to be an I.T. person, or rather an I.T. Department. I spent about 40 hours the past 3 days getting my iPads up and running. BUT THEY ARE up and running : ) This entailed begging a coworker (thank you L) to put the iPad cart in his truck and bring it to my house. WIFI was once again not cooperating at school, and I knew the only way these would be up and running is if I used home WIFI. So there, at the dining room table, is where I spent the past three days with my 30 boyfriends (yes, I call my iPad, my boyfriend: that may as well be established up front).

A litany of snafus:

- codes to make me a volume app facilitator did not work (only after many phone calls and much trial and error).

- sync cart did not sync apps  (I could purchase on the macbook but had to download apps to each individual iPad).

- sync cart does not sync settings (I had to manually choose all settings on each iPad).

- sync cart does not organize apps (I had to make folders and move apps inside for each individual iPad).

This would be the equivalent of having no network at school. Each individual program would have to be loaded on each individual computer, as well as all settings.

Obviously there has got to be a better way (which I shall learn when the apple people show up) but I was determined to have these up and running on day 1, and so, they are.

At one point, I actually made my husband (my real boyfriend) repeat the following to me, so I could hear it and believe it:

"This will make you better with technology."

"This is going to move your kids ahead."

and he added:

"This will get easier."

And you wonder why I married this man? : )

2:47 a.m.

So, perhaps this will be my first blog post.
My room is getting there...desks arrived yesterday.
Ipads arrived five weeks ago, but with no WIFI, there they sit.
Excited. Anxious. Nervous. Optimistic. Grateful.
Lots to do before Tuesday when the scholars arrive.
I can do this...