Finally I am ready to share my adventures in iPads. I warn you, this is not for the faint of heart!
A little background is needed to understand where my school and I are starting from. During the past two and a half years, my school has undergone some massive personnel shifts including four different administrations. Due to these changes, most of the people in my building are undergoing the 4 observation/evaluation cycle this year, including almost all of the tenured faculty. Needless to say, everyone has way too much stress in their lives. As we come down to the wire, most of us have half of our evaluations still pending, putting everyone on pins and needles.
Add to this, last year we had a very good tech teacher who was also the building tech co, who really, really tried to keep up with the huge demands of a 1000 student school, three tech labs (including mine in the library), iPad cart, 2 laptop carts, individual teacher computers, and classroom computers and printers. We also had a school clerk/assistant who helped out when he could. That was last year. This year we only have the school clerk/assistant who is trying to do his myriad of jobs along with meeting the technology needs of the entire school, by himself. When I got my grant, this is the person I have been trying to work with to get everything up and running. It has been a struggle.
Last week, I finally got my iPads set up with the one app I purchased and iMovie on all of the devices. My tech co did not figure out how to use the configurator and instead just worked on each machine individually. He did not seem to mind doing this, but unfortunately, he just doesn’t have much time.
I am dismayed that this venture is starting out so slowly as I had wanted to already be using the iPads in my classroom instruction. My goal right now is just to learn one app well and then figure out how to maximize its use in the library. I do hope next year will be easier!
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