Finally! An Apple ID for Students under 13.

Posted on 03/03/2014 by William Stites

COPPA_VPC_APPLEAfter much debate, discussion and begging by schools Apple has created a program that will allow student under the age of 13 to create Apple IDs.

This announcement was made along with a number of other improvements to the MDM platform in their “IT in the Classroom” series.

In short schools will need to enroll in an Apple program that will allow them to easily collect verifiable parental consent so that a parent can set-up the account. Once the student turns 13 the account is then transitioned to a full account with all rights and privileges.

This focus on 13 is a direct result of COPPA and the restrictions it places upon parents, students and schools when trying to use service that do not meet the guidelines set forth by the act.

The act has always had the provision that if schools were able to provide parental notification and consent they could use these services, however the enrollment process would often not allow students to use the correct information, such as their birth date, and would require them to lie. By creating this program Apple has moved a way from what Danah Boyd (@zephoira) referred to as a “culture of lying” between parents and their children when wanting to use non-COPPA compliant web sites and services.

For complete information on this new program see the following:

 
Posted in COPPA | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Finally! An Apple ID for Students under 13.

Big Data? We need to focus on Little Data!

Posted on 02/03/2014 by William Stites

focus_in_little_data

It’s everywhere!  People are talking about it in all aspects of life. Business, research, education, economics, socialnomics… you can’t escape it!

BIG DATA!

Data is everywhere and in everything that we do. If you’ve bought anything, searched for anything or signed up for anything online you’re part of big data.

Our schools gather data all the time on students, parents, faculty, the assignments given, the tests taken, all of it contributes to data used to measure schools and those inside their walls.

Dashboards, info-graphics, charts, spreadsheets and reports are issued using all of the data at our disposal to paint the clearest picture of how “things” are going. But how do we know that the data is right and those “things” are being reported on correctly?

Data is fraught with errors, omissions, and mis-entered information. It’s because of this that we need to focus on Little Data.

Mark Bonchek (@MarkBonchek) in the Harvard Business Review defines Little Data as:

“…what we know about ourselves. What we buy. Who we know. Where we go. How we spend our time…”

But what I am talking about is smaller than that, what I am talking about it how we manage the discrete pieces of data that we capture and enter before we can make use of any of this information, spot trends or make predictions.

Why do we need to focus on Little Data you might ask? Because we are only as good as our data.

Continue reading →

 
Posted in Administration & Management, Data Management, Schools | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Make the Bretford PowerSync Cart for iPods work with your iPads

Posted on 01/10/2014 by William Stites

Bretford_R2D2How many of you are still using the classic iPod or iPod Touch in the classroom?

Many of you, like us, have moved from iPods to iPads and with this transition may be left with devices and hardware to repurpose or dispose of.

As we transition to iPad we were able to find people interested in the iPods, but were left with some of the carts we used to store, sync and power these devices.

The model cart we used was the Bretford PowerSync carts – model TL357LL/A – we had purchased  (affectionately referred to as R2D2). The cart did a very good job at helping us manage our iPods, but wasn’t configured properly to deal with our iPads.

Our iPads were going to be used on an as needed basis as part of a pilot program we were starting at our Middle (4-8) and Upper Schools (9-12). We needed to ensure that the devices would be able to be charged on a regular basis and if needed securely stored overnight, weekends and during holidays/vacations.

We had a problem to solve and “necessity is the mother of invention”.  Enter R2D2  and que Star Wars theme song!

Continue reading →

 
Posted in iPad, Technical | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Make the Bretford PowerSync Cart for iPods work with your iPads

Using Evernote to Manage your Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Posted on 08/16/2013 by William Stites

A teacher is a life-long learner, a student by nature, and their learning process continues to grow and develop in many ways.

Experiences in their classroom, conferences, people they meet, colleagues, listservs, blogs and people they follow on Twitter or other social contribute to their ongoing learning process of.

All of these various ways of continuing their professional development and learning are generally referred to as their Personal Learning Network (PLN) and Evernote can help you manage all of it.

Here’s how to Evernote, the web clipper, your Evernote email and by following @MyEN can help you manage your PLN.

PLN_StackBefore we start, the first thing you will want to do is to create notebooks to organize your PLN.  If you’re working on learning a new pedagogical process or exploring a new curricular idea you’ll want a notebook for that.  You can even create a stack of notebooks to keep your entire PLN in one place.

Once you have the organization elements in place it’s time to get started.

Continue reading →

 
Posted in EdTech, Evernote, Teaching & Learning | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Using Evernote to Manage your Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Evernote Business for Education

Posted on 07/02/2013 by William Stites

evernote_business_edu

Yesterday, in an email announcement, Evernote opened up Evernote Business for education.

My first look at Evernote Business was when I attended last years Evernote Trunk Conference and heard the announcement of this new service.  While the focus was clearly on the “business” user, the offerings were very appealing to educational institutions as a whole and I was very excited.

Outside of the classroom schools function a lot like a business. There are groups of people meeting to go over projects or initiatives,  various offices that have information that they need to share amongst their members as well as school-wide (company-wide) information that needs to be disseminated.  The offerings in Evernote Business allow school to do this much easier.

Here are just a few of my early thoughts on how Evernote Business might fit into your school (K-12, college and university).

What might Business Notebooks look like in a school?

Continue reading →

 
Posted in COPPA, Evernote, Schools | Comments Off on Evernote Business for Education

Success is about sharing.

Posted on 02/08/2013 by William Stites

After work­ing for years on our school’s 1:1 Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive we are now com­ing to the end of our first three-year device cycle of and, it is helping us exam­ine, inves­ti­gate and reaf­firm where we are and what will be doing for the next three years.

sharing_successWe are taking into account all aspects of our pro­gram, lessons learned from our suc­cesses and fail­ures, con­ver­sa­tions with stu­dents, col­leagues and families, along with new research and exam­ples from other schools and institutions.

And of course we are sharing as much as we ever have with anyone who wants to learn from us.  Indeed, the sharing process has always helped to steer our program, and it, I believe, a hall­mark for any strong pro­gram, insti­tu­tion or leader.

Recently we hosted a site visit.  We hosted vis­i­tors from ten schools and five states, all interested in hearing about our pro­gram and seeing our school in action.  The is the third time in as many years that we’ve done this, and all told, we have hosted over 35 schools to date.

We run these events not only because we believe that we’ve had a successful program so far, but also because  they force us to think about what we are doing and explain our program in a way that will help other schools grow and develop. Sec­ond, we believe in pay­ing it for­ward — we are shar­ing as oth­ers have shared with us.

As we explored the pos­si­bil­ity of our own 1:1 Ini­tia­tive we went on the road and vis­ited a num­ber of schools and attended numer­ous con­fer­ences (see below) to hear the good, the bad and the ugly from those who came before us. From these vis­its, we learned a great deal about what we wanted to do (stu­dent lead­er­ship), what we needed to explore fur­ther (own­er­ship mod­els) and what we didn’t want to do (for­get about pro­fes­sional development).

The open­ness of oth­ers and their col­le­gial­ity helped us develop our pro­gram and have the suc­cess that we believe we’ve had to this day.

Shar­ing can hap­pen in a num­ber of ways and can be about the big and the small. Suc­cess in sharing shouldn’t be judged by size — only by the way it impacts those asso­ci­ted with it.  Truly, from small suc­cess, greater suc­cess can grow.

You don’t need to look far to find exam­ples of suc­cess and shar­ing that we can all learn from easily.

Continue reading →

 
Posted in 1to1, Administration & Management, Teaching & Learning | 1 Comment

Using device management to teach responsible use.

Posted on 02/05/2013 by William Stites

If you attend an educational technology conference, follow any of the Ed Tech listservs or are active on the Twitter hashtag #edtech you’re bound to find conversations on device management or deployment.

The conversations will generally revolve around how to image and deploy devices, applications (apps), mobile device management (MDM – iPad/Android) and pushing management settings to each device to control the environment.  You’ll hear about installing profiles or enrolling device in any one of over three dozen systems on the market (comparison chart).

But these con­ver­sa­tins often skip over an important question: what are you teaching?

Our school’s 1:1 “Learning” Initiative focuses on the teaching and learning that occurs with the device. For this reason, we don’t have a 1:1 “Laptop/iPad/Tablet/etc” Program. as the focus is on the learning.  The difference is subtle, but since we focus on the learn­ing, we say that.

Because of our focus on learning, we use our man­age­ment sys­tem to help instruct while main­tain­ing a degree of con­trol over the devices.

We use JAMF’s Casper (@JAMFSoftware) suite to manage our entire fleet of devices. On each managed device, the end-user (both faculty and students Grades 4-12) is an administrator.

While attending the JAMF Nation Conference, Damien Barrett (@damienbarrett) sat down and gave an interview on how our program works.

Continue reading →

 
Posted in 1to1, Teaching & Learning, Technical | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Enough with the jargon! Simplify and talk about Teaching and Learning.

Posted on 01/27/2013 by William Stites

jargonI like things simple.  Break things down for me into their simplest terms and let’s talk.

This is the model I follow when I talk to anyone about technology I try to break things down to their simplest parts as I would when I was planning lessons for when I taught in my third grade class years ago.

By thinking about things within the lens of explaining something to a 3rd grader, I force myself to focus on key concepts and ideas. This is not to imply that I talk down to people or dumb down the issues; rather I try to understand the point or lesson I intend to teach and get those points across clearly and with as little confusion or frustration as possible.

Simplicity is something that I think is sorely missing when from professional development in education.

Attend any conference — or  take a look at any  conference program — and you will see sessions offered on the Flipped Classroom, Close Reading, Backward Design or whatever the flavor of the month (or the hot book is on ASCD) happens to be.

Recently I attended the Educon 2.5  conference at the Science Leadership Academy and sat in on an excellent session on “Close Reading” with Christopher Lehman (@iChrisLehman – ChristopherLehman.com) & Kate Roberts (@TeachKate) from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. I had no idea what close reading looked like these days and was intrigued by the description:

“With 24-hour news cycles and the constant presence of screens, text rushes past us at an astonishing rate. We must slow down, read closely, and uncover subtle messages in texts. This conversation focuses on studying, collaboratively with students, close reading skills and their transfer into media, culture, and daily life.”

Reading this I thought I was going to hear a conversation that related to media literacies and how to parse information from all of the different sources coming at each of us — teachers and students alike — on a daily basis.

What I learned was how to “carefully and purposefully” read a text to take it apart and “annotate, look for patterns and ask questions” about those “patterns” by using the “lens of word choice and evidence”. [Using close reading strategies I pulled out these words:screens, rushes, subtle, media, culture, life – proof I was engaged and paying attention]

But wait… isn’t “Close Reading” really just talking about comprehension?!?!?

I asked that very question and the answer was yes (though nuanced to focus on a short piece of text).

So why not just say you are going to talk about new or improved comprehension strategies? Why call is something different, something that might confuse someone or make him/her think it is going to be something drastically different from something with which he.she has already spent time?

Continue reading →

 
Posted in Conferences, Teaching & Learning | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Enough with the jargon! Simplify and talk about Teaching and Learning.

The Art of WiFi… literally.

Posted on 01/07/2013 by William Stites

The following video was done by three people in Oslo, Norway is amazing!  It uses light and a long exposure shot to show wifi signal strength and show the juxtaposition of the physical and wireless worlds is truly a work of art.

More information here: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/02/visualizing-wifi/

 

 
Posted in Randomness | Tagged | Comments Off on The Art of WiFi… literally.

Using Minecraft in your school’s admission process.

Posted on 01/07/2013 by William Stites

Do your students like to play Minecraft? Have they asked you if they can put a Minecraft server on your network? (Have you let them?)

I don’t know about you, but every time I walk into our Middle School Tech Center during recess I see students wall-to-wall with the majority of them playing Minecraft?  They are playing on their own, with others and in all sorts of ways.

It is amazing to see the structures they build, the worlds they design, but it wasn’t until I saw what they were able to do with the inspiration from outside the window that got me thinking about how the school might be ale to use this interactive world as an Admissions tool.

For the past year or so there has been a lot of construction going on outside the windows of our Tech Center as we constructed a new dining call and common room.  This had the attention of many of the students and when finally complete it inspired them to build the space in Minecraft.

As you can see the space had many interactive parts (including a working fireplace) and does an amazing job of replicating the space in a digital environment.  The ability to interact with the space, to walk around, to turn things on and off, to truly explore the space is what got me thinking about the use of Minecraft in Admissions.

Continue reading →

 
Posted in Administration & Management, Schools | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments