End-of-Year iPad Clean-up

Students and teachers have been working hard utilizing apps and using  photos and videos to document and share learning. The use of iPads has opened up many possibilities for our practice, but it has also created issues of how to organize or preserve work we are proud of. This can lead to “cluttered” files, and large photo/video librairies which make finding work difficult, or take up valuable space. Though it is a busy time of year, as the school  winds down, it is time to start thinking about “cleaning” student iPads.

 

Take some time during the last week of school to address the following with your students:

• Go through photo library
• Students should have 20 photos on their iPads. Photos and videos take up space.  If students have favorite photos or videos, they can be saved to Google Drive. The rest can be deleted.

• Google Docs
• Students can delete any drafts and save their favorite published pieces in Google Drive.

• Book Creator
• Students can save their favorite Book Creator projects to Google Drive.  They should delete projects from the Book Creator App.

• Notability Files
• Any favorite projects can be saved to Google Drive.  All folders, subjects, and files should be deleted from the Notability App.

Thanks for taking the time to address these issues!

Collaboration and Communication With Technology

Written by: Debbie Berg and Abby Lauer

Do you regularly collaborate and communicate using technology with your
Hillcrest Community and PLC team?

According to our data, about a third of our Hillcrest Staff respondents feel that they
are in the “modification/redefinition” level for sharing technology with their school
community.

This may have you wondering, “How can I more efficiently collaborate with my
teammates and peers around technology usage?”

These may be some possible ideas:

Team Drive on Google with your grade level team

Team Drive on Google with the district grade level teachers.
(Christine started a Kindergarten Team Drive. Yeah Christine!)

Do you share blogs that you follow with your learning community?

Do you share on Instagram with your learning community or parents/students?

Do you share activities on SeeSaw? Are you using SeeSaw to its full potential?

Sharing ideas at a Huskie Hacademy session

There are so many exciting ways to share with our communities! What do you want to
explore next?
Maybe your ideas can be part of a Hacademy?

Get to Know Apple Classroom

Apple Classroom

Do you have students that look off task during independent time?  Do you wish that you had a way to spy on them while still meeting with your small group?  What if you had an app that could lock them into a certain app, from across the room?  What if that same app could send files to groups or your whole class remotely with the touch of one button?  That app is Apple Classroom!

This is an amazing app that can help you monitor and manage your classroom from anywhere in your room.  Karen Burr sent out an email last week showing what you need to do to set up Apple Classroom for your class.  There is a component on the School District of Waukesha’s Intranet website and an app on Self Service that you need to download on your iPad.  Here is a link to Karen’s document of Apple Classroom Setup instructions.

Now that you are set up what can you do with Apple Classroom?  Here is a list of things that we know of so far.  There may be more, but we have not explored everything yet.  

• View the screen of each student’s iPad while they are working by class, by student, or by group from anywhere in the classroom
• Push an application to launch on your student’s iPads and lock them into that application
• Put a website in your bookmarks, then open that website on all iPads in your classroom
• Lock iPads so that students can not use them - get a black screen
• Air Drop files to your whole class, small groups, or individual students at the push of a button

Here is a link to a website from Apple for more information. If anyone would needs additional help, let us know….. We are happy to help!

Christine Glatczak and Karen Burr

Blogging - Why? and How?

Blogging - Why and how?

Thank you for taking the time to view our Blog.  The Vanguard Team met to discuss ways to communicate with the staff and we decided that a blog would be the most efficient and non-intrusive communication method.  This blog is a collaborative writing project to be shared with everyone.  We welcome and appreciate all contributions from you, the reader.  We are interested in hearing various topics that you would be interested in learning about. Contact any of the Vanguard Team members about any topics that you would like addressed.

The results of the end of the year technology survey shows that Hillcrest’s use of technology has moved from Entry Level to Modification or Redefinition.  If you’d like to look at the results, click here:  Yearly Staff Tech Survey - compares Fall of 2013 to Fall of 2016.  Look at how we’ve grown! As a team we will continue to monitor our growth toward using devices to provide instruction at Modification and Redefinition levels.  *If these “levels” don’t sound familiar to you, stay tuned.  Future posts will explore the SAMR model as a way to think about the learning experiences we are developing.