Last week was my first week back to school! We did something different then we did before. We held our own basecamp. Inspired by Lisa Johnsonlast year in Austin. Read her blog here.
Preparation started last year in May. We came to the conclusion that we need to help our new students with the first steps on their iPad: checking their accounts, downloading apps, step by step guidance while logging in to their digital learning materials from big educational publishers.
We asked our colleagues what every student need to know at the start of the first lesson? What app are you going to use? Are you sharing a OneNote, are you working with LessonUp? Do you use Quizlet?
In may we had a meeting with all who were involved in this introduction week. I already see the students walking through the school with their iPad in their hand, from station to station where the had little instruction and help. Unfortunately this idea wasn't workable because of the fact there is not enough room and we need a lot of people to make this work.
Another idea: students will stay in there own classes and there will be some experts with a step-by-step presentation passing by all classrooms. Together with 'helpers' (students in their second year, we only have our students for 2 year) they have 15 minutes to go their thing.
I create a schedule with time frames, 9 step-by-step presentations, instructions for teachers and for experts and a routeplanner so every expert was at the right place at the right time. 33 'helpers' came back to school while the rest of their class mates enjoy some free time! As a reward for their help, they received a voucher for 1 free lesson!
Tuesday, all 105 new students came to school and collect their iPads. They are school property so some of them where used before. 24 brand new iPads and 81 used ones. From the 81 there were 6 not empty. happy to have a couple of spare iPads. Easy to change and restart the roadmap. Everything went really well during this sessions.
Wednesday was B-day (basecamp-day!) new students from 8.40 till 10.55.....this went great!! Every expert with helpers was on time in the right place, the presentations where crystal clear! The first one took about 15 minutes, the last one only 4! Something we can work on next year!
Students in second year had their basecamp from 11.00 tot 12.30.....this one went wrong....but no problem we will fix it during regular classes. There were no expert teachers, every mentor had the same presentation but there was more to share with the class then just the iPad. Apps where gone, profiles on the iPad where gone, teachers (2) forgot to put the power plug in (these iPads were dead...) and the thing I feared the most: (students forgot their password, no wifi connection so I couldn't reset the password in our MDM) only 3 from 108!
Most of the things went great during this 2 days of iPad roll-out....somethings went wrong but we can learn from that! This experience made me stronger as a person, I know more about our MDM (Zuludesk) then before and there is so much more love and respect from my colleagues. Respect for the way this Basecamp find it's way to our school, respect for all the hard work I did. It's like they finally see what I do behind the scenes, things that needs to be done so all teachers can use the iPad in a proper way: to enhance students learning!
We asked our colleagues what every student need to know at the start of the first lesson? What app are you going to use? Are you sharing a OneNote, are you working with LessonUp? Do you use Quizlet?
In may we had a meeting with all who were involved in this introduction week. I already see the students walking through the school with their iPad in their hand, from station to station where the had little instruction and help. Unfortunately this idea wasn't workable because of the fact there is not enough room and we need a lot of people to make this work.
Another idea: students will stay in there own classes and there will be some experts with a step-by-step presentation passing by all classrooms. Together with 'helpers' (students in their second year, we only have our students for 2 year) they have 15 minutes to go their thing.
I create a schedule with time frames, 9 step-by-step presentations, instructions for teachers and for experts and a routeplanner so every expert was at the right place at the right time. 33 'helpers' came back to school while the rest of their class mates enjoy some free time! As a reward for their help, they received a voucher for 1 free lesson!
Tuesday, all 105 new students came to school and collect their iPads. They are school property so some of them where used before. 24 brand new iPads and 81 used ones. From the 81 there were 6 not empty. happy to have a couple of spare iPads. Easy to change and restart the roadmap. Everything went really well during this sessions.
Wednesday was B-day (basecamp-day!) new students from 8.40 till 10.55.....this went great!! Every expert with helpers was on time in the right place, the presentations where crystal clear! The first one took about 15 minutes, the last one only 4! Something we can work on next year!
Students in second year had their basecamp from 11.00 tot 12.30.....this one went wrong....but no problem we will fix it during regular classes. There were no expert teachers, every mentor had the same presentation but there was more to share with the class then just the iPad. Apps where gone, profiles on the iPad where gone, teachers (2) forgot to put the power plug in (these iPads were dead...) and the thing I feared the most: (students forgot their password, no wifi connection so I couldn't reset the password in our MDM) only 3 from 108!
Most of the things went great during this 2 days of iPad roll-out....somethings went wrong but we can learn from that! This experience made me stronger as a person, I know more about our MDM (Zuludesk) then before and there is so much more love and respect from my colleagues. Respect for the way this Basecamp find it's way to our school, respect for all the hard work I did. It's like they finally see what I do behind the scenes, things that needs to be done so all teachers can use the iPad in a proper way: to enhance students learning!
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