Lessons and Teacher Things

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci iPods in Education, Lessons and Teacher Things

iPod Project: Student Self-Reflection

Did you ever forget old standards because of new information? You get so busy looking forward you lose sight of what is around you…In a previous post I discussed how I was using Examview Test Generator to make short quizzes to embed on the class wiki for my students. I continued to do this with short quizzes to see how my students were understanding our class discussions. I was also printing out a single class set of a paper quiz. Students still took the quiz online via the iPod Touches, but they had a paper copy to read off of. Many prefer to read of the paper copies

The quizzes allow me to break up information into small chunks to work with for the students. The only issue I had was that we are covering a lot of new information and continuous quizzes would wear down my students. If they were not grasping the information well, the quizzes would pull students grades down markedly.

I usually ask questions and try and get discussions going, but even seniors do not like admitting publicly that they do not always understand concepts. I came up with an idea that I forgot about for awhile…I have started using a Google Form to have the students reflect back on the day’s lesson.

The concept is so simple, I cannot believe that I was not doing it sooner…I make a simple Google Form, four or five questions long and embed it on a wiki page.  The link to the page is placed in Edmodo and on the left hand navigation column of my class wiki, so the students have easy access to the form.  The questions are: Name, Period, What did you understand best, What did you understand least, and what do you feel you need/want to learn more about.  They receive participation points for taking the exercise seriously.  All questions have room for the students to explain why they answered they way they did.

I get a nice little spreadsheet of information to work from.  I review the students responses and create a file in Easiteach to hit the areas that students feel they need help with or are interested in.  My review requires the students to participate, I prompt them to their notes from past lessons and try to add to those notes.  The students use their iPods to find answers to the new questions and we work on bridging the gaps in understanding.  So far, the process seems to be working.  Hopefully the success will continue into the future.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci iPods in Education, Lessons and Teacher Things

iPod Project: Moving into the 21st Century

I will be the first to admit, that I did not start out using my classroom set of iPods as 21st Century Learning devices. The learning curve was not steep, but getting everyone, including myself, to full speed took some time. To paraphrase the drill instructor-like driving instructor who had a one episode cameo in SpongeBob Squarepants, ” Before you can run, you must learn to walk. Before you can walk, you must learn to crawl.”  We started at a crawl, and quickly moved to a walk. I am now in the process of getting up to full speed with the iPods.  I am attempting to make my lessons more interactive and have a true conversation with the students while getting them to learn.

In the past, getting information out to them was a chore.  If I made a PowerPoint the way they are supposed to be, there was not enough information for them on the screen.  They did not listen to what I was saying, and they struggled.  If I put all the info on the slides, they wrote to there fingers bled, still didn’t listen, and thought you needed to embed a Word Doc to make a good PowerPoint.  Neither option was acceptable, I had to practice, “Do as I say, not as I do,” when I assigned PowerPoints as projects.

I have a Polyvision Interactive Whiteboard in my room now, with a working copy of RM Easiteach, which I did not have last year.  I now import my PowerPoints into RM Easiteach, either with “Glass Mode” or “Merge” .JPG files into each page of a file.  I then make a bare bones outline page in between each PowerPoint slide page.  The bare bones contain a few critical questions I want the students to know.

I then flip through the Easiteach presentation, I state the topic, and pose a few questions.  The students are encouraged to brainstorm ideas.  I still need to remind them, “each of you has a computer in front of you, (iPod Touch), use it.”  They are getting better.  They search for answers, some on the mark, some not, but that is okay, we are learning.  We put the brainstormed and “Googled” ideas up on the board and sift through the information.  The critical thinking process is modeled and worked through as a class.  We discuss the points and see which is correct and which may not be.  The reasoning as to why each is correct or not on topic is discussed.

Once we answer these questions and narrow the focus to the correct topic, questions usually pop up to further the conversation.  If this does not happen, I ask a few more questions and the process is repeated.  Students still need prompted and I still need to circulate through the room, but they are working, they are thinking, and they are active.

Once we have a good bit of information, I pull the board into “Split Screen” and we compare the facts the students found to what I had on my PowerPoint.  Sometimes, the information I have is a few years old and out of date, we correct the information and move on. At the end of the period, I “Save” the file for that class and reopen a scaled down mater file for the next period.

The following class repeats the process, but does not always find the same results.  This is another lesson unto itself and we do work through the divergent information to see if one is correct and one not, or they are both correct, just different.  Students learn from the process.  They learn how to find information, how to discriminate and choose the correct information, and they learn the curriculum.

I can copy and paste the slides into grouped information, then upload it into my Edmodo classroom.  The students can use the free Easiteach reader download to view the files from home.  I also create a podcast for each file, nothing spectacular, just an audio of the focus points of the file.  I push the podcasts out to my Podbean.com account and iTunes.  In an unabashed act of egocentricity, I subscribe to my own podcast on iTunes and push it out on the iPods.  Now my students have access to the material even if they are not in class, or if they need to review information.

I know I name dropped some specific brand names, but we are a Polyvision school. I am pretty sure I could do similar style lessons with other brands of Interactive Whiteboards.  The concept is what is important, getting the students to participate in learning and thinking, not just sitting there…passively.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things, Rants

Jury Duty: A Teachable Moment

Okay, I explained in the last two posts about my jury duty experience. It probably sounded a lot like complaining, because I did complain a lot. I do not like to complain without offering a way to remedy my grievances; here is my attempt.

Now, here is what I can teach my classes about my experience. First and foremost, every employee I encountered at the Lawrence County Courthouse was helpful and seemed like a truly nice person. The were polite and professional, and they did their best with the situation at hand. I do not have anything but compliments for them.

My issue is with the process jury selection process itself. There have to be more eligible prospective jurors in the county than what they call. Please do not say it is a “Civic Duty” when it is not required that everyone show up in a cycle. That also goes with my premise that it is truly not a random selection process. There may be a bit of randomness to the procedures, but in today’s world, it should not be that complicated to expand the list of people to draw from.  It was also not a very diverse panel of potential jurors. The male to female ratio may have been close to being even, but ethnically there was no diversity whatsoever.  Use the county computer records to expand the juror pool to ALL eligible jurors. Cycle us through with everyone having to possibly show up before you go back through the list. People may still not have to go to the courthouse, but at least they are on the list.

The next issue is the selection process.  Prospective jurors are sent a questionnaire to fill out and send back. They then go into the courtroom, if on the list of possible jurors. They are then asked the questions again, and respond by standing up if their answer to a question is yes. Then the jurors can be called up the the sidebar to explain their answers to the Judge and attorneys.  We are already required to explain in writing why we answered the way we did. It may be petty, but why do it twice, especially if the first response does not count.  It reminds me of busy work, which I despise. Do it once, when we are called into the courtroom. Make people stand up for their convictions, if they truly are convictions, they will not mind standing up in front of others.

By the end of today, I do not believe a defendant would have had a fair trial.  The jurors all seemed like nice and rational people, but they had had enough. They did their duty yesterday, were told they did not make the cut, then were told the rules changed, we were not done with our “Civic Duty.” We had one more case then we would be done. Well, that case was settled on a plea bargain, yet we were not done, we had one more case. That is not right, even if they hold all the cards.  If I were to be called for duty, then do as I pleased, I could and probably would be charged with contempt of court.  Those with the authority must not abuse that authority if they want to be respected.  They played patriotic music in the movie we watched on Day One, quoted Thomas Jefferson, stated how important jurors are to a free society, then blew it all up with changing the rules as they went along. This goes back to including more jurors in the prospective pool, the more jurors, the less recycling jurors who did were pushed off of an earlier case.

I guess my main point of information for my students is, DO NOT choose a jury trial if you ever go to court.  You have no idea what the jurors have been though, or their frame of mind due to their experience.  A trial under the supervision of a judge takes out the variable of a group that may not be in a very objective mood through no fault of their own.

Once again, the court employees were very kind and very professional, they worked with a system I feel is inadequate in the 21st Century.  Adjust the system and the jury becomes what it was meant to be, an impartial panel of peers to view the facts and pass judgment on a situation based on the rules of a society.

On a personal note, I have only reinforced the fact that due to my family, friends, and working with “At-Risk” students for a number of years, I am not a good fit for a criminal trial. The court knows this by now, and if they do not, they can read my responses.  If that is not of any help, I stand up to respond yes to the questions, again, then I explain my answers on the sidebar. If I am turned away, why in the world would I be made to go through the process again.

Judge Piccione made a very good point and made me rethink my answers during the sidebar on Day One. He asked if I could put my biases aside due to my life experiences. I answered that I was reasonably sure that I could. He reminded me that it was a yes or no answer, not a matter of degree, which is true. I honestly cannot say that I could keep my personal experience out of my judgment of a case.  There is no rubric to use like I have for my class projects.

Because of this, I am toxic to a criminal defendant.  My grandparents were in a car accident caused by someone who was driving while impaired. I have many friends and family who are in law enforcement. I am a throw away juror, no competent defense attorney would choose me unless they were gunning for a mistrial.  By keeping me around, there is one less possible juror who could be unbiased to a defendant. That seems a bit unfair to the defendant. By pulling in all of the rejected jurors to another trial, you seriously cut the chances of an unbiased jury for a defendant. That just does not seem right. That seems to be against the spirit of Thomas Jefferson and the United States Constitution.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things, Rants, Uncategorized

Jury Duty: Day Two

I returned to jury duty at the Lawrence County Court house this morning at 9:15 AM. On my way in I was able to apologize to the lady I was kind of short with yesterday. She was very kind and said no apology was necessary, but I thought I owed her one anyway. She explained that once you are summoned to jury duty, there is no limit to how often they can call you, unless you sit on a jury. In my humble opinion that is nonsense, my family situation is what it is, and cannot change.

I went in with laptop in bag hoping to get some work done. I still could not get on the Internet.  The courthouse system blocked me and wanted to download some sort of anti-virus software. Yeah…right Sporto, “That ain’t happenin'” For goodness sakes, I have a Macbook…but I digress yet again.

I was able to type a good bit of my Literature Review for grad school and work on an Easiteach file for Econ. I used the Google Form feedback from my students to find areas that needed addressed. So my day was not a total waste.

About 10:30ish the gentleman in charge of telling the prospective jurors what was going on came in. He let us know that the case we were to possibly sit on had reach a plea agreement. Sounded good, however the county changed the rules and did not release us as they had originally planned.  They were trying to organize another case and would need us to stay longer. Very dirty pool in my book.

Around 11 AM we were told that we could leave for lunch. No pizza today, the roads were passable. I was going to stay and continue working on my grad work, until I realized that we were getting TWO HOURS for lunch! What a waste of our time.  On the way out, we ran into the jurors from the case we were not chosen for. The defendant accepted a plea agreement right before the trial was to start. They were done.  I drove home and shoveled my driveway yet again. I was able to get some work accomplished because I have Internet access there.

Upon my return to the courthouse at 1:15 PM, I sat and talked with a number of jurors, none were too pleased with the rule change by the county.  Most of us had been thrown off the previous case jury because of knowing family members who were either victims or law enforcement officials. All were in agreement that we were not a very fair jury pool for a defendant.

About 2:15 we were summoned to the jury waiting room and were told we could leave, the last case had reached a plea agreement. The District Attorney, Josh Lamancusa, came in and thanked us for our service. Once again, we had no choice, so no thanks were necessary. I commented that is was a good thing because, “Only a moron of a defendant would want to pick a jury on a Thursday Afternoon and tie everyone up for another week. Like they would even get a fair trial.”

The District Attorney laughed, he must have thought I was joking.  In all seriousness, I do not believe there was a fair trial to be had, there were few people who were happy to be there and most were unhappy with the change in rules by the county. Many of us were repeat potential jurors and knew of many who never were summoned.

Overall, they showed us a video on jury duty, which played patriotic music, quoted Thomas Jefferson, then held us longer than necessary.  So much for my civic duty, but I did gain a teachable moment from the entire ordeal, but that is another post.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things, Rants, Uncategorized

Jury Duty: A Lesson in Citizenship

I must preface this post with the the fact that I am not happy with being called to jury duty, every three years since moving to Lawrence County in 1997. I know people who have never been called for jury duty and they have lived here all of their lives. My wife never had jury duty until we were married 5 1/2 years ago, she has had it twice since then. I teach social studies and thought I was fairly well versed in Civics, but I am being reminded that book knowledge and practical knowledge are not equal.

I was summoned again to serve on a jury about a month or so ago.  When I received the summons, I called and talked with the county officials in charge of jury duty. I asked why I was being called every three years and others never get called. The answer from the older gentleman on the other end of the line was, “Names are picked randomly.” I explained my situation and was told, “If you aren’t actually picked for a jury, you could be called more often.” So much for my argument. In my defense, if random is every three years at this time, I should have hit the Powerball Lottery a couple of times by now.

So I filled out the questionnaire and returned it to the county. I was truthful, the threat of perjury for lying on the form has a tendency to do that to people. The two big questions that will usually disqualify me are, “Are you related to any law enforcement officials?” and “Were you are any family members ever the victim of a crime?” The answer to both is yes. I have several family members in various jobs within law enforcement, I have many friends in law enforcement, and my grandparents were almost killed by a driver who was impaired by some substance. There was another question asking to describe my answers, I filled up the space and used part of another section to be thorough.

I lucked out days 1 and 2, not having to go to the courthouse. Last night, in the middle of the snow storm, I called the courthouse and the recorded message said I had to report. I called back twice to make sure I typed my juror ID number in correctly, but the answer was always the same. Soon after I received the call from the school that we were closed. Yay.

I got up, dug out my truck and hoped for court to be canceled. No such luck. I dug out again, and forty-five minutes later I completed the normally fifteen minute drive. The courthouse employees were all very friendly, they even had donuts for us. We waited around and finally I was called for a criminal trial. The judge had us all sit in the court room and reviewed the details of a criminal case.On the way in, one of the court officers thanked us for showing up. Not to be a funny, or sarcastic, I mentioned that there was no need for thanks, “we didn’t have a choice, but to show up. Opting out is called contempt.” Another prospective juror chimed in, “If I don’t show up today, you’ll have me here in cuffs next week.” The court officer laughed and said we were still appreciated.

In the court room, we were asked if we were related or on friendly terms with any of the people in the court. Then they read the witness list and ask the same question. Then they started asking the questions from the questionnaire we had to fill out and send back. We were to stand if our answer to the question was “Yes.” Once again, I stood for the two questions I answered yes to on the questionnaire.We broke for lunch, the court house ordered pizza for everyone since it was still snowing outside.

After lunch, we returned to the court room and one by one, prospective jurors were called to the side barand asked the details to why we stood up during previous questioning. I had gotten this far three years ago and once again I was called up to the side bar. I was asked about the details of why I stood up. It was a lengthy answer. After each answer I was asked if I could still be impartial. I think I could be, but who knows for certain and I said as much. During the questioning I discovered that the Assistant District Attorney on this case and my wife are distantly related through marriage. The Assistant D.A.’s aunt is married to my wife’s uncle, who was a police officer. Needless to say, I was not picked to be on the jury for this criminal trial.

We were sent back to the jury holding room and were told that we had to report the next day at 9:15 AM. They still had one criminal case that possibly needed jurors. I asked why I needed to show up, I was just disqualified from a criminal case. I was told, that they needed prospective jurors so it didn’t matter that I would probably be dismissed. The message was simple, we need people and you have to show up.

Nice…the only way I make a criminal jury is if the defense attorney is totally incompetent, or they want a shot at a mistrial. I made the fifteen minute trip home in about thirty minutes, the roads were getting clearer. Once again, I received a call, school was canceled. Tomorrow I head back to court, to be someone they can send home after wasting a day sitting around doing nothing.

In Lawrence County, Pennsylvania we receive a whopping nine dollars a day for showing to the mandatory jury duty. I guess I just resent the fact that they try and make it sound that we are picked randomly. There were several people in the court who are picked every couple of years, so it is not just me who thinks the randomness is skewered. I also disliked the fact that I have to go back again, for another criminal trial tomorrow, when I was not picked for a jury today. My family situation isn’t going to change overnight, they know it, they just need bodies in a room, even if it is just to take up space. Whoever the defendant is, they will have a pool of rejected jurors to choose from, how fair is that?

I do owe one lady an apology. On my way out to my truck, in the snow and wind,  one of the court employees asked if I was in the jury room and knew I had to report back the next day. I said, “yes,” and I guess she could tell I was not happy about it at all. She tried to apologize for the inconvenience, but I brushed her off. I should not have done that, she may have been sincere.

I am just tired of the insincerity, “we randomly pick jurors,” “we need impartial jurors,” “we are sorry for your inconvenience.” If I am to take them at their word, I am sure they could sell me some oceanfront property in Nebraska. No wonder people hate being summoned.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things

Keystone Commons

Keystone Commons is an interesting concept. Keystone Commons was created by PAIUnet to link the Intermediate Units in Pennsylvania along with other educational institutions. You can find more information about PAIUnet by visiting their website. The Keystone Commons is for educators AND students to use. In my humble opinion, it is Facebook, Twitter, and Ning all rolled up into one site for education. I understand some people are unfamiliar with those names, or may have heard of them, but that is it. That’s okay, I think that is why the site was created.

The purpose of the site is to create a monitored online space for communication and show students the responsible way to behave online. Kids use the sites mentioned above, often times in inappropriate ways. By blocking these sites in schools we tend to contribute to the problem by ignoring it. However the problem does not go away, nor does the inappropriate behavior. This site gives us the opportunity to teach how to use these tools in a positive fashion. In today’s world students need these skills, their future employers and many institutions of higher learning demand them.

Just a quick overview of the site, I will write in more detail as we experiment with it more in class. You can create a profile page, and add files and bookmarks to your profile much like Facebook. You can post messages in 140 characters or less just like Twitter. There is a place for groups to collaborate in groups just like other sites such as Ning. The groups may have open or closed membership requirements, it is up to the group organizers.

Users must create an account from a school computer, initial access can only be successful in this fashion. Once an account is created, users can access the Keystone Commons from any computer that has Internet access. The nice thing is that all members in the state can monitor the behavior of students on the site. If a student is acting inappropriately, you hit a button that says “Report This” and the activity is sent to the site administrators. I do not know what happens once you hit the button, because I have not had to do so yet.

I started a group for New Brighton Staff on the site, you can check it out by searching for NBASD Educators. If you would like to join and check things out please do so. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me and I will do my best to answer them.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci iPods in Education, Lessons and Teacher Things

iPod Online Quizzes

Yesterday, I ran a quiz for my Senior Econ  classes online, using Examview Test Generator and our class wiki. The results were rather good, although there are adjustments I need to make.

I made the quiz, a review of the terms we had been discussing, in Examview and chose to save them as an html file. I went to my class wiki at http;//mrsal.wikispaces.com and upload the quiz as a regular file. I have a page set up for this purpose.

In class the students went to the wiki page and opened the test on the iPod Touches. They had to enlarge the text to read the choices. All the questions were multiple choice or true/false, so the students only had to negotiate a drop down menu to answer the questions. You can create any number of formats, but I did not want to overwhelm them on the first try.

I allowed the students to use their online notes in Google Docs or Evernote, or their paper copies of the notes. Most of the students used the on;ine version of their notes and were scrolling back and forth between the web pages. This was difficult for a few students to handle, so they reverted to paper notes.

We did have a couple of students hit the wrong button to submit the quiz to me via e-mail, however we were able to get back to the quizzes without losing any information. The quizzes and results were then sent to my e-mail.

The first adjustment that I need to make is to have a paper copy of the version for students to have, just in case they want an easier copy to read. They will still answer online, but reading from a paper copy will help several of my kids out. They were struggling with scrolling around the screen while trying to read the enlarged text.

The main adjustment is for me to use quizzes for formative assessment, short quick reviews and study guides, instead of larger summative exams. The shorter versions will allow, or force students to see how much of the material they understand. They can then adjust their study habits accordingly. I will give them participation points for using these as a self-assesment tool. In the past it seemed to help my students greatly.

Overall I was very pleased with how the exercise went.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things

Edmodo: set up an online classroom easily.

I have known about Edmodo since sometime during the 2008/2009 school year. I set up an account and even set up my classes. I just never enrolled my students. I was using BlackBoard, which the district had invested in BlackBoard licenses, and I had wanted for my students for years. Why try something new when I finally got what I had originally wanted? The redundancy factor between the two also played a roll in not using Edmodo. I was a classroom teacher AND CFF Coach, so I did not have the time to experiment with many tools that did the same thing.

This year, BlackBoard is gone, I still have my Edmodo account, I set up new classes, but…I still have not enrolled my students. Why is this? I hope to use our school Moodle site once everything is up, running, and open outside of school. My plan is to build a complete online course in support of my traditional classroom, much like I had in BlackBoard. I am currently using my class wiki in that capacity.

So, if I do not use Edmodo, why am I promoting it? Two of our staff members are using it with their students. Bryan Pasquale, who teaches social studies, and Kerri Heymann, one of our high school math teachers. They love the ability to quickly set up classes, and HAVE THE STUDENTS ENROLL THEMSELVES. All you supply is Internet access and a code for the students to type in. The students do the rest. This is great if you are not planning to build an entire online course in Moodle!

What does Edmodo do? Why should I use it in my class? Well, for the limited time we have used it this year, we have created threaded discussion boards for the students, posted formative surveys/polls for students to respond to, posted assignments online for students to access, collected assignments electronically from the students, and set up an easy, secure, and monitored channel for communication between staff and students.

Now, what we will do beyond the first day we used it in class…

Seriously, it is that easy to use. The Edmodo page looks and acts like a Facebook homepage. The kids picked up on that right away. Most of them use Facebook, all of them have seen Facebook, now is our chance to show them how to use a similar tool appropriately. We can see everything that is posted, the students may post to the entire class, or directly to the teacher. Staff and student files may be posted in the same fashion. You can also use the built in calendar feature to keep students aware of the class schedule, and there is a handy links feature so students can jump from Edmodo to important class Internet sites.

Here is a screenshot of what the Edmodo home screen looks like,

Edmodo - Home

The Edmodo Class Homepage view

So, there is a quick overview of what you can do with Edmodo…and I almost forgot…Edmodo is FREE!

If you would like anymore info on Edmodo, fell free to e-mail me or fill out a request on the CFF wiki for Tech Tips.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things

Three Programs You Need Now

Here is my first Tech Tip Blog Post. It deals with the basic practicalities of making your job easier. There are three programs you need right now, and they are all free. The reason that you need them is that they will allow you to work with others and will make life so much easier once you become comfortable with them.

The first one mentioned, Google Apps, is supplied by the District. It allows you to store documents, PowerPoints, and Excel files online. You can not only access them from anywhere there is an Internet connection, but you can also collaborate with others easily, no cutting and pasting, no e-mailing attachments, and all that other rigamarole. New Brighton’s start page to log in is http://partnerpage.google.com/nbasdcff.wikispaces.com. If you need your log in information, please e-mail me. We are setting up student accounts so they can have the same sort of access to their work. By creating accounts for the district we will be able to administer student accounts for such tasks as fixing lost or fogotten passwords. You can also set up a personal account at http://google.com.

The second is Diigo, a social bookmarking site. It allows you to store your favorites, or bookmarks online, so you can access them on any computer once you log in to the site. You can also share bookmarks with other individuals and groups. This allows you to have access to the research of others, once again without much effort. There is a group for New Brighton Teachers, and there are numerous other groups for educators. You can also create groups for your classes to give students access to approved bookmarks for your class in a secure setting, see me for details. The general site to create an account is http://www.diigo.com. Once you have created your own account, you can go to sign up for an educator’s account at http://www.diigo.com/education.

The third program dovetails nicely with existing programs in the district. Many teachers use Kidspiration and Inspiration software to create graphic organizers for use in the classroom. There is a free web-based, (online), program called Webspiration that allows you to do the same thing. Webspiration allows you to upload existing files to the Internet, download files to your desktop, and share your files with others, just by typing in their e-mail address. The people you share with must also have a free account to acces your files. You can edit the files together, or just pass them around by sharing. Webspiration also contains free clip art and media to drop into your graphic organizers to make them more interesting for the students. The program has many other features that I will not get into yet. This tool is available at http://www.mywebspiration.com.

The main themes that bind these three programs together, beside the fact that they are all free, is that they allow you to access information from anywhere in the world, and that they allow you to easily collaborate with others. Let’s face the fact that there is not enough time in the day to accomplish everything we would like to do. By working together, we make tasks easier and can accomplish more in the limited time we have. if you would like help setting up any of these accounts feel free to contact me at school.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci iPods in Education, Lessons and Teacher Things

iPod ID and Sync

I synced the iPod touches over the first two days of class, and I learned a lot in the process. First and foremost, I reinforced the fact that I hate reading directions, and that not reading directions adds time to tasks if you are unsure what you are doing.

To ID and sync the iPods, the computer walks you through the basic steps on the iTunes interface, so I was supremely confident that I did not need the manual. I was so confident that I timed myself during the set up and hit a consistent 6 minutes per iTouch to ID the units. I even “Tweeted” the fact that it was so easy. I completed the ID of about 15 iTouches on Thursday afternoon and finished the process Friday morning.

After all 25 were ID’d I plugged in the cart to sync the first 20. The cart holds 20 in a drawer with each drawer having its own USB cord to connect to the computer. This is the step where I realized that I should have read the manual. When I plugged in the USB and turned on the cart, every single application in my iTunes account began loading into the iTouches. This was an issue, because I have my daughter’s apps on my Macbook too. My high school students did not need letter tracing and beginner puzzles on the iPods. I had to go back in and reset the application tab to “Sync only selected apps.” This allowed me to pick and choose which applications I wanted on the school iTouches. It was not a major problem, but I should have done this when I named each iPod.

At this stage, I also made adjustments for podcasts,which I will be using often in class. I set the iPods up for selected podcasts. At a later date I will push podcasts over to the iPods for the students to use. I repeated the process for the remain 5 iPods in the bottom drawer.

I now know to read directions, but more importantly, I realized that I can use the iPods to differentiate instruction for my students. I can adjust the content on each individual iPod depending on the student, then I can push information through, or sync up to 20 at a time. It is a pretty cool set up.

So overall, if you set up the iPods properly from the beginning, it should take about 10 minutes to ID an iPod and set the upload criteria for all apps, photos, and podcasts. It is still a small amount of time for a major benefit. I lost a bit of time doing things my way, but in the end, I learned a fairly good bit of knowledge about the iPods.