This year we took a bold step and implemented school-wide wifi. This was bold for a lot of reasons including the lingering questions in our school and in Europe regarding the safety of radiation from mobile devices, “managing” behavior of students, fears over online bullying, you name it. In the end, we established a policy for students wishing to access our public wireless network and allowed those students who had signed and returned this agreement to have
by Paul Mayne
open access to the Internet in our buildings from their own devices. Opening access was more of a “pop” than a “bang” since the connection speeds were far below being useful, but now that we’ve had new fibre barried and our bandwidth is up to 24MBPS, we are beginning to see the usefulness of mobile technology in the hands of students.
A major touch-point this year has been a pilot project using video feedback in Physical Education classes. We were able to get 5 iPod Touch 4th gen on loan from Apple to use as with PE classes. Due to generous planning by our admin, we were able to get all PE teachers off timetable for two half-day in-service training days where we introduced the iPods (form & function), but mostly spent time sharing the vision Joost and Remke Langendonck and I had established as initial areas where mobile video could be used to enhance learning in PE. This pilot focused on using video to give instant feedback on performance of both physical skills and behaviors like leadership, communication, and collaboration. Typically, one student would video a single student or group as they performed a skill or task and then would provide feedback using the video to prompt their discussion points.
Additionally, Remke did the heavy lifting to produce a series of feed-pro videos which serve as visual cues to the “perfect example” including specific teaching points. Students used these videos to “front load” the idea of how to perform a new skill and then could perform it themselves while even comparing their own video performance to the perfect example. They have extended this pilot project to production of content for the ECIS iTunesU channel. By making videos available via iTunesU, students can easily download the latest content to their mobile devices and bring them in to class. We are now exploring lots of possibilities of extending the video analysis using apps like Cricket Coach Free and Siliconcoach Live as recommended by Jarrod Robinson, somebody we met though Twitter. The logical extension of this is developing ePortfolios where the students chronicle their progress from the beginning of a unit until the end and can critically analyze their skill development.
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iPods are appearing in lots of places around BBIS at the moment and I can’t say that we have a good handle yet on how they’re being used even by students on their own. But, teachers are certainly finding them very useful to record video and audio with their students. Students in grade 5 taught themselves entirely how to shoot and edit video on the iPods and will now avoid using Windows Movie Maker at all costs. This kind of organic learning with technology is really fun to witness and I believe is going to (already has) turned technology education on its ear. Keyboards and mice are a huge barrier to kids, especially in the elementary, but worse than that is the ridiculously complex log-in and network drive structure we make kids as young as grade 1 navigate. Touch devices take all that off the table and there will be an increasing number of these floating around BBIS next year.
iPod and iPad apps are going to be a huge area needing development next year along with the management of the devices themselves and the structuring of their use in class via centers, pairs, etc.
How are you developing mobile technology?
Please share with us your favorite lists of apps!
