How my class got a new mac mini!

I went in today to tutor at school. I'm not fully sure what I was thinking on scheduling myself to tutor after returning home from an awesome trip with @mollymittura. Last Tuesday morning, we got up at 2:30am to get ready to fly to Boston to attend the BLC 12 conference from Wednesday through Friday. Then on Saturday morning, we took a bus to NYC and that evening took another bus to Mt. Laurel, NJ. On Sunday, we went to visit Philadelphia and then went to Atlantic City. We came home last night. It was so much fun, but a little exhausting. I think if we do this again, I may rethink the amount of clothing I bring because after the first few hours I cannot even begin to explain how heavy my backpack felt carrying it around NYC and Atlantic City. Thankfully, we did not have to carry it around Philly. Sorry, got a little bit off right there, but back to the story, since I was at the school to tutor I found a lovely new shipment of iPads and a new Mac Mini for my classroom.

When I speak to people about my classroom and I mention that I run a 1:1 iPad program. For people who do not have them in the classroom or have not seen them in the classroom, they are amazed, and are quick to say that they wish their school had the funding to do a 1:1 iPad program. But the truth is, is that I teach in a very small school and money doesn't necessarily grow on trees for us, so how are we able to fund this program? Simple, we have a Race for Education.

For the past two school years, every Spring students and teachers mail out letters asking relatives, family friends, etc. to sponsor us in running/jogging/walking for one hour. And the one thing the PTO was great about was motivating the teachers to take part by allowing us to use 100% of the money we raised to purchase items for the classroom. Okay, I'm not sure how motivating it is to all teachers, but I send out at least 100 personalized letters for this fundraiser. Last year, I raised enough money to purchase an iPad for the classroom. In this past school year, the parents enjoyed seeing what we could do with one iPad that they decided to use some of the money raised from the Race for Education to purchase an entire set for my classroom.

This school year, I raised over $1,000 to purchase things for my classroom. I allotted money towards a new Mac Mini, web hosting, digital camera, tripod, and green screen. All these things, were purchased for my students to use in the classroom. My expectation with these new tools is to teach my students how to create a classroom website and maintain it on the Mac Mini, use their iPads to link their blogs to the website, and create a news station and share what we do in the classroom. I'm also tossing around the idea of starting a podcast.

I guess what I am hoping to get across to my readers in this blog is, don't use the excuse we don't have the money for that. If you really want to see your school or classroom become a 1:1 program, it is possible. The Race for Education is great fundraiser because the school keeps 100% of the donations and you will find many people are very generous for this fundraiser, especially when they receive a handwritten note from a child.

Skype in the Classroom - Teaching From Afar

Recently, I attended the BLC 12 conference in Boston. If you have any interest in 21st century education or technology in the classroom, I would recommend that you attend. One of the sessions I attended while I was there was a session on Blogging for Your Students given by Sylvia Tolisano. You can follow her on twitter @langwitches. While sitting in her session, it gave me the inspiration to write a blog post that I meant to put on here before the end of the school year. Unfortunately, towards the end of the school year, I had a lot on my plate. I had taken some time off of work to help with my father because my father was very ill. Needless to say life was rather busy after returning back to work with wrapping up the end of the school year and being in charge of printing report cards for the school, but after sitting in Sylvia's session, I realized that I had this great idea that I should share with other teachers.

As I stated earlier, I am the teacher responsible for printing report cards for the entire school. Before you start thinking that this a a huge task for a teacher, please know that I work in a one track school meaning we have only one grade per class. However, the first and last time printing report cards for the year does require a larger amount of time. This means that usually the first and last time we get ready to print report cards, my class will have a substitute. My classes are usually pros when it comes to having a substitute because I teach the students how to run the class. In fact, this past year, they told one of the substitutes that she was not doing something correctly and took over the lesson. The substitute said she was amazed at how little she had to do because the children did everything. So, while I do not worry about the children's behavior for a sub, I do feel that I miss out in hearing some of their discussions on different lessons that are taught in the classroom while I'm out.

At the end of the year, I gave my class a choice of two books to read for the last novel of fourth grade. The students in the class chose to read On My Honor, despite my many warnings of this being a very sad book, this is the book they chose. While many will find this a depressing book, it opens up a lot of classroom discussions: lying, making right and wrong choices, peer pressure, etc. So of course, having to work on report cards, I was a little discouraged that I would not be in the classroom to listen to the discussions that needed to take place while reading this book. Then I realized with all the technology out there, even though I'm not in the classroom, I could still take part and listen. 

The morning of having to work on report cards, I went to school early, so I could install Skype on the iPads. I put one child in charge of running Skype throughout the day and inside the office I sat with my iPad next to me and a pair of headphones to hear the students. Since there are a number of people who come in the office, I was thankful for the mute button that Skype offers. I instantly fell in love with Skype, not that I didn't love it already, but I loved that it offered me a chance to be a part of my class when I wasn't in the classroom. It gave me a chance to hear the students discussions, to ask them questions, and it also gave them a chance to ask me questions when needed.