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The start of my teaching career.
In the fall of 2011 I was hired at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in the south suburbs. I was given a laptop for work outside of the classroom and meetings. It was more capable than most teachers laptops because of the 3d modeling software it needed to run. Aside from that, every classroom had a desktop computer setup we still call "teachers stations" and a projector connected to it. This was used to display the computers screen at the front of the room for students. -
Grade book software at HF.
When I was hired it was the first year that teachers were required to use Powerschool exclusively for their grade book. This is an electronic grade book tha was easy to use but not very feature intensive. It did its job though and at the end of each quarter we printed out our records and submitted them as part of the checkout procedure. This was part of the official record kept for our classes. The older teachers really made a big fuss about this change and that was interesting to watch. -
Document Camera.
My schedule was in four different classrooms/labs and one day the tech coordinator said he had something available he wanted to show me. It was a document camera. Just like overhead projectors and transparencies from back in the day, it could display a document on your projector screen that you could edit on the fly. I thought it was cool and saw a better use for my scenario. I took it and used it in my small engines classroom to demonstrate small assembly and disassembly procedure. -
Smart board.
In my second year they installed a smart board in a computer lab I taught architecture and Computer Aided Drafting in. This was a very expensive and brand new interactive projector that allowed you to digitally draw on the screen to edit whatever you had captured. This was really cool when it was new and the kids loved it. After the first school year of use it had already started to malfunction and became glitchy. It was still very cool and impressed students and parents alike. -
My first career move.
At the end of 2013, I got a phone call from an old teacher that knew I went into applied tech teaching. He alerted me that he was now the department chair at my old high school and he had an opening and wanted to talk to me. During my hiring process I was asked how comfortable I was with technology and how I felt about this big move they were trying to make. They wanted all students district wide to be provided an IPAD and they wanted me to be a part of the pilot program to test it. -
Other technologies at CHS
Aside from the IPADS, I also got a similar laptop to the one that HF gave me. My classrooms all also had document cameras, teachers stations, and projectors. They encouraged and facilitated the daily use of technology right from the beginning. -
1:1 pilot experience.
I was in a group of about 10-15 teachers in this trial program. All of our students got IPADS and each teacher got one as well. We were trained on and encouraged to exclusively use a few different apps to provide students assignments and have them complete and turn them in. -
Grade book software at CHS.
During this school switch I had to learn a new grade book software. It was not as easy to use but had way more features. I could set up the grade book anyway I wanted with a few different grade scale choices. It also had an app that students could use to monitor grades with a separate login for parents. We could send out grade reports automatically and the district was able to pull our records automatically for midterms and report cards. I found it to be far superior to power school. -
Full blown IPAD centered learning enviroment.
Despite frustrated reports from 1:1 pilot teachers, the district decided to pull the multi million dollar trigger and purchased IPADs for every student in all 7 buildings. Apple TV was added to the top of every classroom projector and the mass training began. Teachers were not forced to use it exclusively to distribute and collect assignments, but it was strongly encouraged. -
The apps that made it possible.
Our district paid for two main apps on all the IPADs. We use a learning management software called "Schoology" for each class. We can post assignments, discussions, links, and documents with dates and deadlines. Students would pull assignments off of Schoology and edit the PDF's in "Notability". This app allows you to hand write on the touchscreen, draw, or type on documents. It works pretty well but its not easy to write on a touchscreen. -
The downside.
The fact of the matter is that apple does not allow back door modifications to their operating system. What this means is that we cannot control what the kids can do with the ipads. We basically have them a hand held gaming device they could use in class. Issues with cyber bullying, inappropriate social media use, and classroom distractions went through the roof. Things seemed a bit out of control for awhile. -
The solutions to the problems.
First we had a movement to try and teach digital citizenship to the students. We had very good information, speakers, and events related to appropriate use and time management but it did not have the impact we hoped it would have. Shortly after an app called "Casper" offered their services. While on our network we could view students screens and lock them into one specific app. This did not work because we needed the students to use two apps to turn in a given assignment. -
Elimination of the teacher station.
Since the IPAD program has continually taken so much of the technology budget, the district decided to discontinue the upkeep of the teachers stations. Any station older than three years was removed from the classroom and all that were not yet 3 years old would be removed when they were. They have given the teachers enough technology and if they really wanted to use the PC, they could request a dock for the laptop they were provided. -
Current plan of attack.
The push to use IPADS primarily has died. The older school teachers still use paper and pencil for assignments while most end up doing a mix of both. The tech department found a way to restrict app downloads through the Apple ID and students are always finding innovative ways to get around this. I myself still use Schoology and notability but I frequently have issues with academic dishonesty and just flat out not being able to read the touch screen scribble. -
The problems I have with 1:1.
I am a little sour about this program so I thought I would close with why. Between email, air drop, and messenger it is extremely easy to share assignments. In a split second one student can share a finished assignment to an entire class. They have also found apps that can change color and font quickly so as a teacher I can't even tell it is copied. The files have no electronic signature stating when or where it was saved so it is impossible to trace. Assignments have lost a lot of value.
