There's an App for that Syndrome

The best of Apple slogans...

Macintosh-The Computer for the Rest of Us

Think Different

The Internet in Your Pocket

...and then the one that most of us know today...

There's an App for That

This is an older commercial but it is still pretty awesome...

 It's a phrase that has become a part of our cultural lexicon.  Apple and its many iOS products has moved us as a society from talking about software...to talking about "apps".  App this and app that it has even crossed over to other platforms that provide an App Store.

 As you can imagine, there are a lot of articles about 1:1 iPads, education, and school rollout.  I was reading this particular article--http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/10-steps which details the authors 10 steps to a 1:1 iPad initiative.  While they were all good points, number 6 just jumped out to me as I was reading...Overcoming "There's and App for that Syndrome".

 Go to the App Store and you are sure to find apps to satisfy every little curiosity that you have...apps for kids, apps for teachers, apps for Grandma and Grandpa.  You get the idea...so it should be really easy to find apps for all classes right?  I mean its an iPad, lets make sure our students have as many apps a possible...

 But do apps lead to better learning?  Are apps the key to a 1:1 iPad initiative?

 The simple answer is kinda yes but really no...

 Yes, Apps can allow students to do amazing things.  Note taking, book writing, photo editing, the list goes on and on.  You can find apps for the Common Core, you can find apps to make a comic book, and you can find apps that can help you  edit videos right on the iPad.  Amazing, amazing, stuff can be done on an iPad with really cool apps.

 BUT.....No, the Apps do not lead to better learning.  Look deeper, its not really the Apps but the awesome teachers that put kids in the situation to learn.  The iPad is another tool that teachers can use to improve school learning, but it dosent take great apps to do that........it takes a teacher that puts kids in a great environment to learn.

 Learning on an iPad is not app dependent.  Sure, there are some very good cross curricular apps that can work in Kindergarten as well as for High School Juniors.  Apps like iMovie, Explain Everything, and Notability are versatile apps that can do wonderful things...but they need creative innovative teachers putting students in a position to be creative innovative learners.

 Learners should not be bogged down in content specific apps.  While some of those are nice to have, and can be a nice resource, the real advantage to an iPad is the creative apps that allow students to demonstrate their learning.  Content heavy apps do not allow students to show, demonstrate, or create the outstanding things that our kids can do...

 So yes, there is an app for that, but even better, there is a teacher for that.

Setting a Good Example for Students Related to Internet Use

t is easy to forget the irritating little pains of the past.  Most of us have LONG forgotten the dreadfully slow Internet access that was experienced district wide near the conclusion of the 2012-13 school year. Painstakingly slow connections that made viewing instructional videos nearly impossible, halted some of our virtual academy students school work in its tracks, and wasted precious instructional minutes.  With our robust new Internet connection in the School District of Waukesha, we seem to have MORE THAN ENOUGH bandwidth to go around this year.  Right?

This is just a reminder that your actions as a classroom teacher, as a supervising staff member, as a member of our professional community, matter.  We model for kids.  Kids watch us closely.  Just as we teach them with our words, we teach them with our actions, as well as our inability to act when we should.  With that said, the example below is just one example of a way in which we can all set a better example for students.

We all know that the college basketball event known as "March Madness" can be a lot of fun.  This year's March Madness was even more special with Marquette and UW-Madison making it to the tournament.  As seems to be the case every March, a dedicated few sports fans seem to find ways to keep tabs on the game in a wide variety of ways.   While it is ultimately harmless fun (that can seem almost necessary by that point in the school year), what we often fail to see is the impact that Internet use has on those around us (across the entire school district).

The graph below demonstrates the bandwidth consumed in the School District of Waukesha during the time the first round of the 2013 NCAA Basketball Tournament was being played.  The red arrows and vertical red lines on the graph indicate the beginning and end of the basketball game played on that day.

Points worthy of noting:

• The bandwidth consumed in the final moments of the game is more than 10x the TOTAL bandwidth AVAILABLE in the district during the last school year
• Though our bandwidth use in general is about 4x higher this year than last year (a sign that our educational use of the Internet is far greater than what was even available last year), during the game our bandwidth use jumped substantially, and then returned to normal levels following the conclusion of the game (indicating an excessive amount of viewership for some event that happened within that time period...see if you can determine what it might be)
• Almost all of the traffic reported came from two sources, both of which were broadcasting the NCAA tournament at that time.
• 2 - 3 times the normal Internet traffic consumed during this period was streamed to about 130 users across the district -- that is approximately only 1-2% of our total number of users across the district
• Despite our incredible 1 Gig connection (an incredibly robust infrastructure in any school district), we topped out our usage.  This is same situation that took place near the mid to end of last year that caused the haltingly slow Internet speeds across the district.

While it is easy to track these stats on a day when we can predict additional bandwidth usage, such as during March Madness, the reality is that many of us have daily Internet use habits that chew away at the bandwidth intended for meaningful teaching and learning.  Whether that is having Pandora or iHeartRadio streaming all day in the background, watching Netflix or YouTube, maintaining constantly open windows with Tumblr, Facebook, and other services, or using the network for a wide variety of other uses not focused on education, the reality is the same -- your actions on our network impact others directly.  

As we gear up for Waukesha One, which will see a major influx of devices hitting our Internet connection, it becomes even more important for us to set a good example for students.  Asking a student to turn off a gaming site or a streaming radio station is much easier when we avoid using similar services ourself.  Instructing a student to turn off his/her sporting or gaming event of choice is a more clear cut conversation when we have resisted the temptation to turn on that March Madness game while at school.  This conversation will become even more relevant as we see our regular use of the Internet grow significantly as we make a change to more digitally focused teaching and learning.

All Internet use contributes to our overall bandwidth consumption! Overusing our Internet resources for non-educational purposes ultimately slows down the access for all -- including for teaching and learning.  Set a good example.  Help your kids see why educationally relevant use of the Internet matters at school.  Protect one of our most valuable resources!  

Breaking Down the Classrooms Walls for Professionals

One of the unforeseen blessings of having an educational role such as ours, Instructional Technologies Coordinators, is the opportunity to regularly visit the classrooms of so many professional educators on a daily basis.  I regularly learn more about becoming a better educator during these visits than I could have ever learned through years of "trial and error" in my own classroom. It is one of my greatest regrets that I did not seek out more opportunities to observe the professional practice of my colleagues when I was a classroom teacher.

At Waukesha North, a healthy culture of collaboration has been embraced throughout the building.  As a key element of that, staff members are beginning to seize the opportunity to step outside of their own classrooms and to place their professional learning front and center, as they learn from their colleagues.  Calling them "learning walks" or "instructional rounds," the goal is consistently the same -- learning to improve the craft of teaching by observing, reflecting, asking questions, and implementing.

Principal Jody Landish recently published a thoughtful, sincere, inspiring post about the instructional rounds taking place at North.  Read her reflections related to the value of this level of collaboration and professional learning on her blog post - Instructional Rounds in Education -- Principal of the Purple Palace blog.