What is your A to B? 5 takeaways from @gcouros!

On April 10 we hosted our first ever Technology Integration Conference.  The conference was for all teachers in our district.  Mr. George Couros, The Principal of Change, visited our district as the keynote speaker.  Mr. Couros, who hails from Canada, was able to provide us with a tremendous amount of knowledge that day but more importantly he was a motivational and inspirational force.  Being three terms into our 1:1 program we really needed another push to challenge our thinking and help us recommit to our plan. George helped us do that!  In the morning he spent time with teacher leadership teams and our administrative team.  In the afternoon he delivered a keynote that is the topic of many of our conversations a week later and will be moving forward.  After his address we held breakout sessions for the 300 teachers in attendance.  Thank you to all of our presenters.  No matter how large or small your session we are confident people walked away feeling like they were engaged in a very meaningful day!

Here are five essential leanings I had after George's time with us.

1) If you are not on Twitter, you are becoming illiterate.

As an educator it is our responsibility to keep up on what is current.  This is a communication tool that needs to be in your toolbox if it is not already.  It is the best free professional development that is available and opens you up to a network of resources.  If you are not engaged in this you are truly getting further behind.

2) 1% of the online community produces 99% of what is consumed.

What are you producing?  What are your students producing?  There are so many opportunities that if we are not engaging ourselves and others in this we are missing out tremendously.  Do you post on Twitter, do you blog, are you creating videos?  If not, you should be.  We all have something to contribute!

3) "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less." General Shinseki
     
We all have to adapt and be flexible.  Our teaching and learning model has to be transformed dramatically with how quickly we can access content.  It is easier to do this than ever before and we as educators have to think about we are not facilitators of learning and not just there for disseminaters of information.

4)  Take risks!

Not everything is going to work the way you would like it to the first time you try.  If you are a leader we have to acknowledge this and allow teachers to take chances.  Teachers need to have confidence to step out of their comfort zone.  What we are asking from them is not the way they taught or learned so it will not come naturally to everyone, but everyone needs to know they are supported to take a chance.

5)  How do we move people from their point A to their point B?

This is what I would like to issue as a challenge for everyone.  How do you grow?  Everyone has room for growth, but my growth looks different than yours.  How do we help each other to keep moving  forward?Technology is just a piece of this, but the message is that we have to continue to learn and grow.  If you are a leader how are you modeling your growth?

Be Great!

Matt

Some Madness of Our Own!

How do you raise your game?  Many basketball teams in the NCAA tournament produce a better performance than they exhibited for most of the season or play even better than they thought possible.  Why is this?  I believe that it is because human beings generally rise to the occasion when presented with a challenge.  When we have higher expectations for ourselves and get challenged to do better, we DO better!

         

This past month we issued a challenge to our staff.  Let's get after it and increase the number of missions we are completing. The result ended up being 700 completed missions on our PD site, Mission Possible.  We handed out free keyboards, an Apple TV, Otterbox cases, gift cards, and more.  The staff really committed to diving in and learning with and from each other.  Our next challenge, now let's present to others.  We have several staff members taking what they know on the road nationally and state wide this Spring.  Our teachers have found that they learn best from each other and that it is infectious.

I have been proud to be a part of the staff here at Bettendorf High School.  I have slacked posting lately in part because of several personal issues, most of which are all positive. For those of you that do not know, next year I will be taking over as Principal at South East Junior High in Iowa City. Our family is excited to begin another new journey and thank everyone here in Bettendorf for their generosity during our time here.

Have you been camping lately?

This may seem like an odd question at this time of year.  I like to camp and always have.  My parents used to take us on camping vacations every summer to Leech Lake in Minnesota.  We did not have a ton of money so we used to camp.  This was always great fun for us.  I came to enjoy setting up camp, sitting by the fire, cooking our meals, fishing, and I even enjoyed the long rides in the back end of a pick-up truck to our destination with my brother.   I was also an Eagle Scout and learned many life skills by having to stay away from home on trips while camping with the Boy Scouts.  I feel that I can contribute many of my leadership skills to experiences learned in this arena.  However, to me one of the most enjoyable aspects of camping is the quiet calm surrounding you when you are immersed in the wilderness.  This always gives me the opportunity to reflect on the past and set goals for the future.  So what did I do this weekend?  I went camping, EdCamping! I was able to take part in the same type of deep thought this weekend just in a different setting.

This week Bettendorf High School was a co-host for the first ever Ed Camp Iowa.  This event brought together educators from all over the mid-west.  We were joined by a simultaneous Ed Camp for the western half of the state at Buena Vista University.  Scott McLeod, Jimmy Casas, and I all helped to organize the event and were very pleased with the participation and sharing that went on.  EdCamps are not your typical conference, they are actually an un-conference.  The participants determine the schedule and facilitate the sessions.  We started the day by building an agenda (after doughnuts of course) on a Google doc.  From there the participants were engaged in five sessions of their choice.  This was my second EdCamp experience and similarly to the first my head hurt by lunch time.  Many people commented on the way out the door that this was the most valuable education conference they had been to.  Awesome! It is even more exciting when we think about the fact that it didn't involve a big name presenter, time out of class, and a day of "sit and get".  The only thing we needed were 150 educators committed enough to give up their Saturday to come and talk about the topics they were most passionate about.

So the reflective part of me started thinking, if this experience is so much better then how can we take this new experience and actually do something with it?  How do we not get the same results of other conferences?  What will be our next step?  How do we transform our words into actions for our students?  There is no easy answer to this or a quick fix solution.  Rather, I believe it has to be about mobilizing these voices and building this culture of learners in our own building.  What if we ran our next professional development this way?  We design it for the teachers by having the teachers design it right there! How great could these conversations be?  The most empowering part of the whole experience for me is realizing the answers are within us! We are the solution! We just need to make it happen! Have a great week and as always it is a great day to be a Bulldog!

Matt

What is your journey?

Last week Kate and I had the opportunity to attend the inauguration of President Obama.  What an event! Having once taught American Government I was like a little kid in a candy store.  Between all of the museums, memorials, and monuments I literally got the chills. (I know I geeked out. :)) We had the chance to meet the United States Representatives and Senators for Iowa, and don't worry I told Rep. Lobesack I would send him a Bulldog pennant when we got back to Bettendorf.  We got to see Barack Obama being swore in and his family in the parade. Oddly enough though, the most significant takeaway for me was just being in the masses of people during the ceremony.  This in itself helped me realize that this was more than an "inauguration." This was the inauguration of a black man as our president for the second time!  Not only was this individual selected to lead the most powerful country in the world once, he was re-elected, and therefore inaugurated a second time. The significance of this is of course is that a majority of Americans believe he was the right person for the job regardless of his race.  This has mobilized a whole race of people in our country. I do not think I fully realized this until I was there in the masses of people and walked with them at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and watched on with them during the ceremony.  It would be easy for them to think all is accomplished, we have done it!  However, in President Obama's speech he referenced MLK Jr. and reminded all of us that our journey is not complete.  He stated that we should not settle for gains and achievements that have been made, and forget about others that have not. I couldn't help but wonder about the journey of all the others around me and how similar and different some of our struggles may or may not be.




Think of this in terms of your own role in education.  What has your journey been this school year or for that matter for your career? Are there parts of changes you have not fully embraced?  Parts that you hoped would go away?  What do you see as the next big shift in our field?  How will this effect your journey?  Whatever the answer may be I think we can all agree that the journey will continue to be different than those before us.  We can decide to embrace, foster, and welcome change or we can dig our heels in and resist.  I personally believe that we cannot keep constant with the status quo and offer a product like we have for the last fifty plus years in education.  We have to evolve and create a new system that challenges and inspires are students to do more and be more. Some of this will undoubtedly be uncomfortable.

A step to doing this was to give our students a modern day tool, the iPad.  Take time to think about how the iPads can help to ignite this change within your classroom.  How can they reshape your journey as an educator? They are just a tool, but they can also be seen as a catalyst for so much more.  Like President Obama we cannot believe that all has been accomplished because we accomplished one objective and now have a modern day tool.  We need modern day educational thought to go with it! I am proud of what we are seeing and hearing as products of this implementation and of your hard work in committing to not doing things the way we always have.  I would like to challenge all of you to keep pushing though, keeping thinking, keep redesigning, think big.  We will support you.  I am not speaking of minor changes.  Remember we are looking for transformation!  As an educator we all have an opportunity to leave a legacy.  How will people describe your journey?

Stop it, no really STOP IT!

This year Kate and I are taking on a new year's resolution that involves stopping something.  Often time’s resolutions involve starting a new activity or recommitting to an old one.  We have taken a different approach, we are embarking on a no spend Saturday once a month.  Kate read this somewhere and we decided to give it a try.  I will say that after three hours on Saturday morning I was shocked at how many times I had to catch myself from spending money.  Whether it was the morning doughnut run, washing the car, or getting a cup of coffee while dropping one of the kids off at an activity, I found myself questioning the purchase and refusing to spend.  It worked, at least for the one Saturday this month.  

The reason I bring this up is because I immediately thought about our classrooms and schools.  What else can we stop doing this year?  Maybe it is to stop assigning homework that is not as meaningful as you would like.  Better yet, what if you would stop assigning homework all together?  How would that look?  What if we stopped giving detentions or F’s?  Maybe it is refusing to assess the same way you always have.  Or what if you refuse teach a unit the way you have every other year?   What if I limit the time I spend on email or social media?  I think there is great power in thinking this way.  We question our practice instead of just doing the same thing we have always done.  So, when you think of this in terms of technology integration, you can also consider my question this way.  What will you not use these devices for?  If we go back to the premise that the intent is transformation not integration, remember that they are not here to simply make things easier or paperless.  What practice can they help you stop in your classroom? Therefore, what meaningful task will replace the stopped practice?    

To this end, there will be opportunities to push and challenge your thinking through staff development.  Below I have listed our professional development dates and tentative plans.  We are excited to help you get inspired and moving for the remainder of the school year!  

January 23^rd – Wednesday AM meeting to begin Mission Possible 2.0

February 6^th – Digital Learning Day: Mission Possible

February 7^th – 9^th and 10^th grade teachers working with Jonathan Wylie, GWAEA

February 15^th – Staff Development: Teach for Learner Differences and MP

February 16^th – Ed Camp Iowa @ BHS – Sign up now if you have not! 

March 6^th – Mission Possible

It's a Great Day to be a Bulldog!

Matt

7 weeks in!

It has been about a month since I last posted and after another tough afternoon against the Vikings my Bears season has hit a new low.  I am happy to report our path in Bettendorf is trending in the exact opposite direction.  We have two weeks left in the second term, which means we have completed 7 weeks of Freshman and Sophomore students carrying their own iPad to and from school. We have some great successes, thought through new challenges, and stretched our thinking! The piece that I keep having to remind myself of is that it is really only 7 weeks.  With that being said we have some teachers seeing powerful student learning in their classrooms using Educreations, Edmodo, Evernote, Pinnacle video, Google (everything), and much much more.  As a staff we are asking the right questions.  What do we want the students to do differently and how can this device help make that meaningful learning task easier?

We have worked with the staff and families to help with the transition to a 1:1 platform as well. It has changed the dynamic in the classroom and at home and we need to help support both of these.  We have held parent meetings and worked with teachers that are having to now account for a powerful learning tool but also a gaming device in every student's hands.  The cool piece of all of this is that just like anything in education we are helping to shape student behavior.  The BYTE Squad has been a great group to support our need for increased technology questions as we have many current students in the trenches helping others students throughout the day.

A couple exciting opportunities for professional development are quickly approaching.  On December 12, we will be having cross curricular conversations about the transition and classroom practice.  We are pleased to announce that on February 16th we will be hosting EdCamp Iowa at Bettendorf High School.  We are the host site in the East while there is also an EdCamp Iowa West.  You can register at the following link:
http://www.EdCampIowa.org.  Additionally, we will be holding a Bettendorf only tech conference on April 10th featuring, The Principal of Change, George Couros.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone for their support in this effort and wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season.   

Now what? Integration, no transformation!

As I was preparing to write this post at the kitchen table and nervously awaiting the start of the Bears and Texans game I get hit with a black bean from Alice.  This broke my train of thought where I had found myself thinking, now what?  Now that we have attended conferences, gone on site visits, presented to the board, got the devices, handed them out to the staff, handed them out to the students, had professional development, presented to others, hosted a couple visits, now what?  The answers that kept circulating were all about helping support integration. How do we give time to help support integration?  How do I help the staff and support their efforts? How do we get people talking to each other?  How do we give time for people to see each other teach?  How do we get answers to their tough questions?    

These are all important and necessary, and things we need to account for and accomplish.  The problem is that this does not go far enough and that is why I think I have trouble with the word and where I get frustrated.  It is a starting point, but if we simply integrate we do not reach the ultimate goal of transformation.  This week in our Organizational and Educational Leadership class we talked a lot about transformation versus reform.  Reform involves just adjusting current practice.  This may be where we begin with our instructional design process but it cannot be the end. The technology is a driver to help us transform our instruction.  "Technology has not added something to your plate as a teacher, it has transformed your plate." Benjamin Friesen via Twitter.  This goes for anything and everything, from classroom management to how we assess our students.  We want people to feel comfortable taking risks, but I also want the staff to know this is a process.  I think this is where sometimes teachers get frustrated too, because they want to transform but aren't sure how or what this looks like. True transformation is a huge process and does not happen overnight.  

The plate is different, which means how we work on it has to be different.  We need to continue to create times for conversation, support for new learning, and resources for help.  A quick reminder on some of the resources available in our building include; LeAnne Wagner and Eric McCoy in the library, these two have functioned as true all-stars throughout the roll-out. They have a ton of knowledge and ideas.  Colin Wikan, our Math teacher that has a open period committed to helping support teachers wanting to begin steps towards integration.  He has been hosting a conversation time after school on Thursdays as well.  The staff tech team, they have representation on every team in the building.  All of these folks have received advanced training on specific tech tools.  Finally, don't forget about each other.  Just because you haven't had a lot of experience in this area doesn't mean you can't be a resource.  What you are really trying to do is think about your classroom differently.  What do you want to try?  What do you want to change?  How can technology help support that?  I would encourage you to find an area of comfort or an area that you struggle with and start with a simple change there.  The more you use it the more the ideas will come.  The point is we want to reach transformation but there is nothing wrong with starting at reform our integration.  

Thank you for all you do for our children! It's a great day to be a Bulldog! 

Find your niche!

We have had some great PD opportunities the last couple of weeks.  We had a group of staff attend ITEC in Des Moines where Chris Like and LeAnne Wagner presented Mission Possible.  This conference is always a solid event with a lot of sharing from others across the state.  Later that week a group of staff attended EdCamp in Chicago.  Ed Camp is not a typical conference, rather it is an unconference where the agenda is determined by those in attendance.  Our staff went and stepped right in and facilitated some sessions.  We will be hosting something similar in February. Please stay tuned if you are interested.  Following that Jimmy and I had the chance to attend the ISTE Leadership Forum in Indianapolis.  I was very proud of Iowa and our district.  I felt like we had as much insight to offer as many other districts.   This is a great organization to stretch your learning if you are passionate about technology as a driver of change.  Additionally, check out what it takes to be a Google Certified Teacher and an Apple Distinguished Educator if this is where you find yourself gravitating.  These are two great programs! 

With all of this being said, I think the coolest thing that I heard by far this week came from Mrs. Ahrens' classroom. She was circling around to groups in her room and noticed that one of her students that was sick for the day had Skyped into her group's conversation.  The student then asked Mrs. Ahrens's a question and was able to have it answered right there. Talk about anytime anywhere learning!  I would encourage each of you to find something you want to do different in your classroom and see how the technology can help with that. Remember, the primary concern for all of us is teaching and learning, not the tech.

Wednesday after Mr. Raso's presentation we will be discussing a few iPads specific topics and giving you some time to work on missions in Mission Possible.  Colin Wikan will be holding Thursday After Class starting this week in his room D308 to host conversations centered around teaching with technology be sure to attend!    

Please let us know of any concerns you are commonly seeing or dealing with in your classrooms.  I think the more conversations we have about this together the better.  

Welcome to 1:1

At the end of this week we will be at full implementation for freshman and sophomores.  We are happy with how smooth the process has been.  Parents have been very happy with the information they are receiving and believe in what we are doing.  After all of this I am most excited to turn the focus back to how this opportunity can help our instruction.  We will be focusing back on Mission Possible and what can be done in different content areas. Remember, we should be asking ourselves what we want to do and then looking for tools to make this happen!

Staff, please make sure to read the information on the bulletin board.  There have been some questions that have come up and I will address those as timely as possible.

Finally, this week some of your tech team members are attending ITEC on Monday where Chris Like and LeAnne Wagner are presenting about our professional development.  We are also completing a site visit and attending an EdCamp at East Leyden High School outside of Chicago on Friday and Saturday.  Be alert for news on Bettendorf hosting an EdCamp in Iowa soon!  We will be releasing more details in the near future.  We are excited for the opportunity to bring some educators together to share and learn from each other.

Thanks for all you do each and every day!

Matt

On to the sophomores!

We have around 400 of our 800 iPads out to the students.  Parents and students continue to be excited about the opportunity. This week we will begin distribution to sophomores.  Also in October we are going to begin addressing digital citizenship topics through advisory.  We believe that these are important conversations and should take place throughout the curriculum throughout the year, but also deserve to have some special attention devoted to the topics.

I have only had a couple requests for apps from teachers, remember if you have an app you want to try, complete a form and submit it to your team leader.  We will have some iPads available for checkout in the library once we get all of the devices to freshman and sophomore students distributed.  We will have some challenges with managing these devices in comparison to the ones that are personalized to a specific user.  Finally, we are starting to get some requests for visits.  We know that this is a process and that not everything will look different right away, but we do want to show and share with others our path.

Make it a great week!

Matt

Are these free?

This could have been the most humorous question I received all week.  Yes, after all of the information we put out about the iPads some students were still wondering if there was a charge they would need to pay.  As of today we have about 200 of the 800 iPads out.  The first three distribution nights have been a success as we have been able to be efficient with our time and the students along with their families are so appreciative to receive their device.  If you see LeAnne Wagner, Colin Wikan, Jennifer Like, Robert Ogan, Eric McCoy, Christina Linville, Beau Huber, and Jason Verbout please thank them for all of the help and support they are providing.

Students have been told the devices need to be left in their cases. Please do not allow them to remove the device from the case.  We are working to develop a solution for locker room storage with a concern about security.  We will keep you updated when we have something with more direction.  If you are a coach/sponsor please think through how to handle students that bring devices and where they are stored.  Please see me with questions.

A good reminder and awareness piece for all staff is that these devices all have camera, video, and audio recording capabilities.  We should always hold ourselves to a high standard and be open to anyone seeing what goes on in our building.  However, there is a legitimate concern about taking bits and pieces of what we say and editing it.  Remember, we will not be disabling any of these as that would work against where we are headed.  If you have a concern of this nature I would be happy to meet with you and talk through it.

We are excited to keep moving forward this week with the final freshman distribution nights.

Matt
     

The time is now!

The time has arrived.  Wednesday, September 26th our first group of Freshman will receive their iPads.  I am so excited that this time has come. There are so many people who have worked to make this possible and we all have been anxiously waiting on implementation!  Our student tech team, newly named the BYTE Squad received their's last week so we have went through a practice run and feel confident in the process.  You will soon be able to identify these students in their specially designed lanyards.

If you have still have freshman or sophomore students that have not signed up please direct them to the following link.  http://bhs.bettendorf.k12.ia.us/Teachers/library/ipadresources

Again, thank you to everyone that has played a part in this effort.  We could not have accomplished this without everyone working together.  This however is just the first step. The meaningful work begins now.  Please, please, please communicate your wants and needs as we continue through this process.  I hope this is a vehicle for allowing the change you want in your classrooms. Finally, we are closely monitoring the bandwidth situation and will adjust accordingly.  If something is not working be sure to speak up.  "It is truly a great day to be a BULLDOG!"

September 12 Professional Development, 12 Days Away!

Below you will find the agenda for September 12th.  On this date we are giving you time to explore and discuss with your content team and for to share content specific apps.  Your team members on the tech team have some exciting things planned for you on this afternoon with what they have learned.  Please be familiarizing yourself with LeAnne's Bulldog Bytes as they come out.  She has a lot of good resources included. We have about  35 students signed up for the Bulldog Tech Corps and will be giving them devices on September 17.  The first Freshman distribution date is on September 26.  Let's get ready!

1:15 - Meet in Fine Arts room for United Way Presentation

1:30 - Explain afternoon format
            Math - Ms. Wikan's Room - C301
            SS - Ms. Ahrens' Room - C362
            Language Arts - Ms. King's Room - D112
            Science - Mr. Bruecken's Room - D317
            World Language - Mr. Bonnstetter's Room - D264
            PE - Ms. Puglisi's Room - B208
            Special  Education - Ms. Retter's Room- D114
            Business - Business Lounge Area
            Industrial Tech - Cadd Lab - G108
            Art - Mr. Solbrig's Room - E103
            Music - Instrumental Music Office

1:35 - Dismiss to Departments for Team Time

3:15 - Meet in Fine Arts room

Make it a great week!
Matt

One Week Closer

Last week we held professional development sessions on learning management systems.  I want to be clear that our position at this time is to not choose a single system or app.  We want to explore these further before investing into one. I also believe there is value in asking the students to use different options.  With the rapid changing world we live in I believe it would be short sighted to go with just one.

There are only 16 days until we start giving out the iPads.  Please pass the word to Freshman and Sophomores that they need to be registered for a distribution night.  The link is: http://bhs.bettendorf.k12.ia.us/Teachers/library/iPad%20Resources:%20Parent

This week is the first opportunity for staff to have app and accessory purchases approved. Please make sure those are submitted by 4pm on Tuesday.  Other major steps this week will be to complete the student enrollment process for devices and to discuss wireless security options for the building and district.  We also are looking to add some additional devices.  We had about forty more freshman than anticipated this school year so we will be increasing the amount of iPads we have for check-out and break/damage scenarios.

The Bulldog Tech Corps had their first meeting this week and will be holding another session at 3:15 this Thursday in the library.  Please encourage any interested members to attend.  This group's purpose is not just to take apart computers, we will be working with all aspects of technology, so please help us recruit.

This Thursday Johnathan Wylie, from GWAEA, will be here to work with the Tech Team.  We will follow up with this work on the 12th of September at our next professional development opportunity.

Finally, favorite app that I found this week: Pulse News.  You can create your own news magazine.

Follow this blog at: http://bettendorfbulldogs.blogspot.com/

22 Days! Where are my Dogs?

Another week is gone and we are that much closer to implementing our 1:1 iPad project.

To teachers of freshman and sophomores not only would I keep exploring and working towards a learning management system, like EdModo, I would also think about how you will want your students to stay organized.  Have you tried Evernote?  It is a good free app that allows you to tag and store several notes.  We will have to teach organization on these devices just like we teach organization with folders and notebooks now.

On September 6th, we will be hosting local iPad guru Johnathan Wylie from Grant Wood AEA to work with the tech team.  We are excited to continue our learning about the iPads with our tech team and will be planning for future professional developments in the progress.  If you are on the tech team plan to bring a lesson or unit on that day that you would like to improve.

This week we will have our first meeting for the Bulldog Tech Corps. This group will serve as our first line of tech support for students.  We are excited to get them involved.  The meeting will take place at 3:15 in the library.

Finally follow this blog @ http://bettendorfbulldogs.blogspot.com/ and continue to check out the Mission Possible site for news and information.


Please note that if you have a student you can sign up at the following link: http://bhs.bettendorf.k12.ia.us/Teachers/library/iPad%20Resources:%20Parent


WE STILL HAVE YOUR EAR BUDS.  Stop and see LeAnne if you have not yet got them.

Day 1 of school + 29 school days until the iPads are out!

My post for #leadershipday12 is extremely late, so I apologize. We had our first day of school today and it was a smashing success. I say a success because our students left with smiles on their face and their cup full of school spirit.  We treat the first day different and run a completely different schedule with rotations to indoctrinate students to different parts of the building and to purposefully create a social experience for the first day.  The students always give rave reviews of this experience and are happy to leave the first day energized and prepared for what lies ahead.  As I watched students interact today I wondered how this day will be different next year when our school has three grade levels equipped with iPads.  I am certain that some of these students relationships will have grown stronger and that they will form deeper bonds with one another.  I am also certain that it will have changed the way we think and operate about our day to day activities at the school. (Already today, staff members are asking about why we have paper copies of schedules.) I am not so certain that we know just how big this impact and transformation will be.  While I am excited we have several students, staff, and parents that range from nervous to terrified, which is fine.  It is our job to educate and address these fears while pledging to move forward. This should be big think and big shift time for our district.   We just need to continue to provide leadership in this direction. Our first day of school demonstrates the spirit we have as Bulldogs, this spirit and tenacity is what will help make our 1:1 program a success.

Welcome back!

We are excited to get our students and teachers back this next week.  Within the last month we have received all of the student devices and we are working to finalize plans on our roll-out events. The plan is for families to sign up for a night and come in to get their iPad, enroll the device and go over policy.  All dates and times will be communicated out soon.  There will be a website up and running with a lot of information and answers to questions as well.

The Tech Team has received training this week on course management systems.  The staff will have time for missions during staff development time this week and we are looking to see people move through the levels of Mission Possible.  We are excited to see what our teachers have worked to change in their courses over the summer.

Finally, there are two new hashtags to check out.  #bettfuture will be mentioned when talking about educational updates and news.  #betths will be used to follow all things to do with Bettendorf High School.  Get connected with us and join the conversation!

Summer Planning

Sorry that I have been away for a while, things have not slowed down with the end of the school year.  The summer is rolling along and the school year will be here before we know it, time flies when you are having fun!  This summer we are working to finalize our professional development plan for the 2012-2013 school year which includes additional professional development opportunities for staff in August and planning professional development throughout the school year.  We are taking time to think about how our iPad deployment will look in the fall and are excited about getting iPads in the hands of our students.  We finished the school year strong and have been excited about the progress that staff members have made through Mission Possible.  We would like to see you to take advantage of this online learning opportunity through the summer.

I am hopeful that everyone is getting a chance to rest and recharge during the summer months.  You all deserve it.  We have a busy year and a tremendously exciting year ahead of us!

May 16

On Wednesday we think that it is important that you have time and options.  So if you have your iPad, have completed Level 3, and are ready for some Level 4 missions you can do it.  If you need time to see Eric McCoy because something isn't working right you can do it.  If you would like to complete your final Level 3 missions you can do it.  The day is meant to be flexible.  The Level 4 sessions are listed below.  If you are on the Tech Team we will be having Stacy Behmer here in the afternoon as well and you will be receiving a note about that schedule, it will be an advanced iPad session.

1:30-2:15 - Level 4 Missions (Pick 1) - Evernote (Mr. Like's room) or Dropbox/Cloud On (Ms. Ahrens's room)

2:15-2:30 - Break and Transition Time

2:30-3:15 - Level 4 Missions (Pick 1) - Screencasting (Mr. Like's room) or Google on the iPad (Ms. Ahren's room)

3:20-3:30 - Recognition and wrap up in Fine Arts room
                  Plan for summer and term 1

We are rolling!

Congratulations to Joe Buck who is the current leader in Mission Possible!  We began distributing iPads last week and have about 15 left to give out.  On Wednesday, May 16 we will be offering another day of START training with Mission Possible.  There will be some sessions offered for support or you can work through some missions on your own.  The last thing we need you to do before this game becomes totally self paced is to complete the last five missions of level three so that you can participate in level four missions on May 16. (You most likely have already done these, but just haven't submitted the form.)  The schedule for the day is below.  Eric McCoy will be available throughout the afternoon for tech support.  He is located in the social studies hallway now.  Thank you for all of your hard work at this busy time of year.  Let me know what questions you are having.

1:30-2:15 - Level 4 Missions (Pick 1) - Evernote or Dropbox/Cloud On

2:15-2:30 - Break and Transition Time

2:30-3:15 - Level 4 Missions (Pick 1) - Screencasting or Google on the iPad

3:20-3:30 - Recognition and wrap up in Fine Arts room
                  Plan for summer and term 1