TL;DR – The extension to the grade 6 1:1 program has been approved! New name and focus. – TL;DR means Too Long; Didn’t Read and you’ll see it on various online forums. It is a very short summary of the text below.
Some History
The 1:1 Wireless Writing Program has been a long term innovative district program starting back in 2001 as a pilot and district wide in 2002. It has changed over the years in terms of number of grades, and types of devices. The name has always included Writing and our data focus has been around writing. Each year teachers and students completed two cold writes assessments as part of the district program. While the focus has been on writing, our teachers and mentor teachers, Toni in the past and now Glen, have expanded the use of our tools well beyond just writing. I’m continually impressed and excited by the innovations that occur!
Change
I met with the board earlier this year seeking to extend the program as I have done three other times in the last nine years. The board was positive about the program and recognized that it has grown beyond writing and asked for a name and focus change to represent that.
In the last fifteen years we’ve collected twice yearly writing data as part of the WWP. We’ve found through that data that our pedagogical approaches to writing with technology works. The Grade 6 District Cold Write Assessments will continue in the fall and spring with the data entered by teachers in the Assess portal; however, it will not be a specific part of the data for the 1:1 program. This is an excellent assessment for teachers and students and it will continue. We will continue to discuss and share writing strategies as it is important for everyone!
Data Focus
Considering the New BC Curriculum we have decided that we will switch to a qualitative data focus of Student self-reflections on core competencies with an artefact of their own creation. We are required under the new curriculum to facilitate student self-reflection on the core competencies and we hope that this data focus for the 1:1 program will become a beginning (or a mid-point for some schools already starting) of a Capstone project. More will come in the Fall inservices.
Name
In brainstorming important topics we saw that the letter C came up dozens of times in words that are prevalent today in education. In the slideshow above it shares some of them. Whether C to you means Curriculum, Classrooms, Creativity, Critical Thinking, or Core Competencies our grade 6 rooms will include technology for each student.
Curriculum with Technology
Core Competencies with Technology
Citizenship with Technology
Character with Technology
Creativity with Technology
…
So with that we introduce the CWT 1:1 program to School District 60!
Devices
Considering current device options and budget it has been decide that we will move forward with the iPad model with 32GB of storage. This is the larger screen model compared to our 16GB iPad minis we’ve used for the past three years.
We will be adding Apple TVs to grade 6 classrooms to enable wireless streaming. We will also be adding Apple Caching servers to some larger schools to improve bandwidth use and speed up updates for iOS and apps.
Our current iPad stands will continue to be employed and we will buy several more to accommodate new grade 6 divisions that are anticipated.
Plan
Work on approval and budget has been ongoing all year. With the purchasing approval from April 24, work on purchasing has begun in earnest.
Inservice for teachers in the program continues to be included in the budget.
Schools will have an opportunity to discuss how Technology Services will give out our old iPad minis. Please note these devices are limited to iOS 9.3.5 and they will have app compatibility problems going into the future. We will continue to license the old WWP apps on these devices. Other apps that schools will want to add will be at their cost but TS will support as is possible. Any costs associated to these devices must be covered by the school/department they are given to. A google form will go out in the near future asking for ideas. A lens of district goals as well as other lenses may be used to determine priorities for distribution. I look forward to the great ideas that will come. We used a similar process before when distributing older MacBooks and had more devices available than requested!
Work on the App list for next year is underway. Glen Longley will consult with teachers currently in WWP.
As new devices are received, inventoried and configured we will endeavour to get them to teachers who are confirmed in a grade 6 class for September of 2017. Hopefully we will be able to do that prior to the summer.
Old teacher iPad minis are assigned to the teacher until their employment ends with SD60. If a teacher does not need it they can be returned to TS to be reassigned elsewhere.
Distribution of iPads to students will occur in September as before.
Some schools that have purchased iPad minis for use by grade 5 students in a 5/6 split will be able to use them in future CWT classes if they can support iOS 10.3+(or the latest operating system supported by the new iPads). They will be a different form factor but we will keep them up with the CWT apps for use. Schools that purchased iPad minis for the WWP pool that cannot support iOS 10+ will be provided to the school for their use.
A $30 insurance fee will continue to be charged in the following years. This will be billed to schools based on the number of CWT ipads that have been assigned. The older devices are not included in the insurance program.
Questions?
Please comment publicly on the post or call/email myself, Jarrod Bell, and/or Glen Longley.
I’m very glad we are able to continue this project and look forward to the exciting things to come.
Cheers,
Jarrod Bell
District Principal
Technology Services