Farmington Elementary School iPad Delivery

This morning we had a great group of early adopters unpacking iPads and putting on the cases at Farmington Elementary School.  There was so much excitement for the upcoming school year.  Staff in all subject areas were discussing how to use their iPads for customized learning.  There were discussions about GarageBand in the music classroom, videos in the Phy Ed classroom and how to enhance literacy and math across the school.  The excitement is building, it's going to be a great year!

iPad Deployment Underway

Today we took another step forward in our Customized Learning initiative.  Over the past two weeks the iPads have been undergoing Casper enrollment and app syncing.  Today, we installed 493 Griffin Survivor cases on the iPads for Farmington High School.  Case installation may not sound like much, but the process entailed the removal of the cases and iPads from their respective boxes, the disassembling of the Griffin Survivor Case (two inner plastic components and one outer rubber casing) and the reassembly of the case with the iPad contained inside.  We had all hands on deck including Early Adopter Teachers, Principals, and the Teaching and Learning Team.  Staff seemed excited to have their iPads ahead of schedule and great conversation filled the conference room about instructional strategies and the endless learning possibilities that lie ahead.

As the syncing process is completed for the each school, we will be delivering the iPads and working with staff to assemble cases. Our Technology Department has done an outstanding job preparing the iPads for this Early Adopter phase and it was a great help today to have so many participants assisting with the installation of the cases.

Looking forward to a great year...more to come.

Schoology Has Arrived

          Schoology has been at the top of my to-do list for a long time.  We have made some very big steps in the last couple of weeks as we prepare to go live on the site by the first day of teacher workshops.  We now have all teachers loaded into the Schoology system and kids and courses are next.    Teachers, to log in go to schoology.com and log in using your user name.  Your password will be e-mailed out soon by a tech integrationist.  The plan is to have teachers set up their own courses within the system and to have master courses at the district level for teachers to add or get resources from.

          The more I play around with Schoology and its functions the more I get very excited to see it in use in the classroom. I see so many awesome features that can help teachers organize their courses, students organize their class loads, and find and share resources.  The other great thing about Schoology is that it has a great app for students and teachers to download for free.  The app isn't awesome, but it works as a great viewer for courses, calendars, or even uploading assignments per their newest app update.  The actual www.schoology.com is a more robust way for teachers to add materials to the course, and the app is a great way to view and access materials.

       Need a place to start?  Here are the first few things that you can do to get started with schoology.

1) Log in and edit your profile (update info, add emails, etc.)

2) Set up a class or course that you teach and organize your resources here

3) Practice adding videos, and other non conventional resources into your course

There are many other things you can do with Schoology, but this is just a place to get started.  Good luck and we will keep you posted on our progression.

Learning Forward

Welcome to the first post of the Customized Learning 192 Blog.  Here you'll find updates on our customized learning initiative including topics such as iPads, Schoology, and other areas of interest that develop over time.  We will also use this blog as a platform to tell the story of our journey in this process.  As a team will be posting regularly to keep you updated on the advancements that are made.

We look forward to getting more information out soon.

Customized Learning 192 Blog Team