What a Surprise!

This summer our district was notified it won a technology grant. The grant was written in cooperation with two other rural districts. With the grant and other technology funds, our district was able to purchase three sets of thirty iPads and charging carts. Our PTO purchased another fourteen, and our special education department at the elementary purchased another six. Our entire district was rewired and wi-fi capabilities were added. This is a big deal to our rural school district.

In order to use the iPads, teachers have to be trained. We usually have mandatory K-12 curriculum meetings we attend several times during the year. Our administration agreed in exchange for the training, we can skip the curriculum meetings, since we are in an implementation phase for all core areas. We had to attend a two hour meeting last Thursday with all participants. The other sessions will include more relevant training in grade level specific groupings.

In addition to this training, I have agreed to serve on the advisory board for evaluating apps to be installed on the iPads. We have brainstormed a list of great apps that we want to start with, and will meet quarterly to add additional apps. We are looking for some great applications to use in our K-5 building. I would love to hear what you are doing with iPads and technology in your classroom. Come back here to follow our journey.