SMART Response Breakthrough!

If your school is anything like ours, you have some SMART Boards and maybe some SMART Response devices. Those clickers are wonderful, but expensive. Soooooo... why not use iPod's / iPads? SMART Technology developed a way for mobile devices to link to your SMART Notebook presentation with questions. It's called SMART Response VE. When you start your question set, an assessment ID appears. Students use their mobile devices to navigate to http://response.smarttech.com/ and enter the Assessment ID and their Student ID. They answer the questions and you get the results right there in your SMART Notebook lesson. The versatility of the iPod Touch still continues to amaze me and it seems to grow each day.

So what was the big "Breakthrough"? I have been trying to get this to work for months with no success. I finally stumbled across some documentation that told me to change my setting to VE (beta) in the SMART Response Setup Tool (search for ve). You have to change your setup tool to match the clicker device that you are using. Since I was using the SMART Response PE clicker, I never got the Assessment ID option. Anyway... breakthrough complete. Now it is time to take it to the class for some action research ; )

Bumps Along the Way

Now that it has been about 9-10 months since our first iPod Touch's arrived at school, I thought it might be helpful to get some of our bumps that we ran into posted online for others to consider. However, looking back, these bumps seem like grains of sand amidst the beach of success stories that we have experienced.

1. Depending on how many iPod Touches you order, plan on spending a fair amount of time unpacking and setting up each device. Yea, a big box of iPod Touch's... here is the more realistic story... unpacking each one from its spandex tight plastic case, bar-coding each one, placing a silicone case and individually numbering each one, laying a screen protector on each one (ahhh), sync each device one at a time to the MacBook (this means naming each iPod, clicking the same check boxes, saying no to the same spam questions, and so on), repeating this last step for each device as Apple releases the latest iOS the very next week, and then figuring out a way for teachers and students to check them out. Whew! Oh wait, now it is time to set up the wireless for each device. Don't forget to change the proxy : )
2. We ordered one of the Bretford PowerSync Carts so that we could store, charge, and sync the iPod Touch's at the same time. We have one cable on the cart go bad and will not charge. It has not been an issue yet since each cart holds 40, but we stocked it with 30.
3. There has been one instance where an iPod was damaged because it was not plugging in correctly. The prongs inside the iPod where you plug it in has a few bent pieces. I just found this out and will soon find the resolution.
4. There have been two incidents where students were accessing inappropriate content. We treated it the same way as if they had brought it from home or accessed it on the school computer. This information is easy to erase.
5. Applications... We are trying to stay away from the basic drill type of applications. You cannot believe how many different ways you can practice your times tables on the iPod Touch. This is a tool and we are trying to find ways to push this tool to address lots of problems, not just to help me learn my states. Also, there are a few fabulous apps that work fine at home, but on the WCPSS network, they don't. Specifically, Dragon (a free speech to text app), and Remote (a free remote that controls your iTunes library). I cannot think of any other applications that do not work though. Finally, there is the issue of purchasing apps. The best way that we figured to set this up was by using iTunes gift cards rather than a credit card. Make sure to buy several small cards so that you don't leave much on the account. If someone figured out the password, there goes all of your money. You will also need to investigate the Volume Purchase Program for getting non-free apps onto multiple devices.
6. One final bump that we have yet to figure out is how to get the iPhone Configuration Utility to work. In iTunes, you can customize the applications, songs, photos, movies and more, that sync with each device. What the iPhone Configuration Utility does is to customize the settings for each device. You can control some settings manually under the Settings area, but this lets you create a specific configuration (say just for students) where you can be very specific about what the user has access to and what is initially displayed on the device. Remember me saying that it was now time to set up the wireless for all of the devices? Well this utility would have done that. Anyway, we have yet to successfully configure a device but are determined to do so in the near future. I am sure that there will be a post specifically dedicated to that.

4th Generation iPod uses

With the upgrade of the camera, internal microphone, better speakers, and brilliant clarity on the 4th generation iPod Touch, this device truly becomes a collaborative tool for the classroom. A first grade teacher has her students progress monitoring themselves as they record themselves reading. Next, they replay their voice memo to listen for errors. The camera can scan a QR code (printed from an app) and quickly link them to a file, webpage or something else. Another teacher is using her document camera to record short mini-lessons in a video format and then loads them onto the iPods for a center. We are amazed at how many different ways this tool can be used in the elementary classroom. It is truly the screwdriver in our digital toolbox.