Nearly two months have passed since UCET 2013, and something I learned from UCET didn't sink in until a few days ago. Over the past few weeks I have helped Mrs. Barton at Crescent Elementary a little with a project she wanted to do. Many others helped much more than I did. The thing I learned from this experience was the power of one. It comes down to how one event can make an impact in one person and that is powerful indeed.

If you asked Mrs. Barton about her tech skills, she would say that they are not very high. However, she took on a project using technology in her classroom and enriched the school experience of the students in her charge.  Mrs. Barton teaches 2nd grade and everyone of her students created a stop motion movie as the culminating project for what they were learning about animals. This project took Mrs. Barton and several volunteers a lot of time to get the videos done. I am so impressed by the way she took this on, and how much time she was willing to devote to it. 

Mrs. Barton was the only teacher from Crescent who was able to take up the district on the offer of a free registration for UCET. She went determined to learn and did she ever. She attended a session on Using Stop Motion Movies as Student Projects given by Lisa Ferrara from the University of Utah. She had a great time during the session and determined she was going to take this back to her classroom. As I mentioned, she took a lot of time to get everything together, including purchasing a camera and the software  from her own funds to pull this project off. 

Last Wednesday, she invited parents, Mrs. Shumard, the principal, and others to attend the screening of these films. Though most are about 30 seconds in length, the kids put a tremendous amount of work into learning about the animals the chose to study. They also made backgrounds and other material for their movies. 

I am so proud of Mrs. Barton and her class for what they accomplished. Again, it goes to show what one person, attending one event can do that impacts not just one, but every student in her class.

We are learning a lot about the deployment of iOS devices in the district right now. We are learning that it is not a simple process yet. We are using the Apple Configurator tool to set up iPod and iPad labs in many schools. Our experience has not been consistent from school to school and that has added to our learning curve and frustration, but we are still learning. When everything does come together and work, we get to see scenes like these in our buildings. 

Look at both of these images and look for any off-task behavior. None. The students were working math problems on the devices and totally engrossed in it. Everyone of them worked through at least 20 problems in 25 minutes. They were set at a pretty easy level, so they all did pretty well, but even the ones who were struggling with the math were engrossed in the process on the iPads. 

The hardest part was have to have them put them back in the cart so they could be used by other classes. Both classes I worked with today groaned and I took that as a very good sign.

What I wouldn't give to be able to put one of these devices in every student's hands everyday!

We are getting a lot of questions and concerns about email space. This video shows you how to free up your space on the email server.