Mr. Mayoh's Blog

New School Blog - Please Help!

2010-10-23T13:52:00.001+01:00

Hello and thank you in advance to everybody and anybody who takes the time to read this post. I am taking a slight detour from my usual blog posts about our school's iPod Touch project to bring you this.

With the help of John Sutton of creativeblogs.net we have just taken the giant leap into the world of class blogging at our school and I am personally incredibly excited about the world of possibilities that this will open up to our pupils. Having explored some fantastic examples of blogging in schools, such as the class blogs at Heathfield Community Primary School - the brainchild of Dianne Spencer and David Mitchell - we were sure that we'd made a good decision.

We have begun introducing the blogs to pupils in the past two school days an some classes have already had some reluctant boy writers blogging as soon as they're home from school. Amazing!

Along with a few colleagues who have some experience of the benefits of blogging with children, I am doing everything I can to enthuse our staff and pupils about the exciting things blogging has to offer.

So, I am asking for your help! I have a mighty job on my hands trying to get around 70 members of staff and over 650 pupils blogging at our school - Bowling Park Primary School in Bradford. We have set up 23 class blogs and more are being set up for specific projects, clubs and members of staff to use! I would be so unbelievably grateful if you could do anything in your power to help convince our staff that blogging is as powerful tool as I know it is, and to help our pupils become hooked on it from the get-go.

What you can do to help

If you get a spare moment, it'd be marvellous if you could take a quick look at what we've got so far by visiting http://www.bowlingparkprimary.net/

If you're feeling really generous with your time our children would be thrilled if you could leave them a comment on one of their class blogs (which are all listed in the sidebar on the right of the homepage). Our Year 5 classes are learning all about the Victorians at the moment and are trying to find out as much as they can about Queen Victoria. Could you help them? Year 6's 'Big Question' is 'How can I live to be 101?' - they'd love to hear what you know about the way our bodies work. All of our classes will be blogging away over the next half term and so we'd love you to pop along to one of their blogs and introduce yourselves - they'd be thrilled to hear from you.

I also have a new school blog of my own - Mr. Mayoh - Excellence in ICT. It is really important that this blog attracts lots of visitors and gets lots of comments so that I can lead by example and prove to staff that blogging is a great way to provide a real audience for your work. Why not take a look and help me keep my job? :)

Finally, one of the easiest things you can do to help is to follow me on Twitter and look out for my tweets about the work our pupils are doing. If you like what you read we'd be delighted if you could retweet the link to give our pupils an even wider audience!

Thank you to everybody in advance. Your support is much appreciated.

On a related note...

Those of you who are used to seeing blog posts about our iPod Touch project - we will naturally be blogging away using these devices at some point soon. Look out for future posts which will hopefully combine the two worlds neatly! Exciting times.

Innovating with iPods - Learning with Apps Part 3 - Rory's Story Cubes

2010-10-18T21:54:00.000+01:00

The next post in my series of iPod Touch app reviews will focus on the truly brilliant Rory's Story Cubes. (It is worth pointing out, if it wasn't already obvious, that almost every app featured is compatible with a range of iOS devices, including iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad).

A bit of pretty exciting context.

Aside from the world of iPods exists an exciting educational game called Rory's Story Cubes. The game, which can be bought for a measly £10, consists of 9 dice, each of which has a seemingly random image on each of its 6 faces. The idea is simple: to create a short narrative linking all 9 ideas.

The information from the official Story Cubes website states:

"Begin with 'Once upon a time', and tell a story that links together all 9 face-up images. Start with the first symbol that grabs your attention.

Rory's Story Cubes can be enjoyed solitaire or by taking turns with multiple players.

Remember there is no wrong answer, the goal is to let the cubes spark your imagination. It really is that simple!"

And it is. It has massive potential to be a great tool for providing an environment to nurture creative writing.

And as they say on the Apple ads... there's an app for that! Rory's Story Cubes is available in the iTunes store here for £1.19.

Here's a video from YouTube which demonstrates the app:

It's a really marvellous way to encourage children to become great writers. Of course it also has marvellous applications for other areas of literacy. Why not link ideas together using interesting connectives? Or use fantastic 'WOW' words to describe your favourite images? Work on improving speaking and listening skills by practising oral storytelling to talk partners, groups or the whole class? You could even record these stories using Easi-Speak Microphones or flip cams? The sky's the limit.

Have you got any other creative ideas for using this resource effectively? Have you used the cubes or the iPod Touch app with your class? If you have anything at all to share, I'd be thrilled to hear from you. Please leave a comment.

Innovating with iPods - Learning with Apps Part 2 - Whiteboard Free

2010-10-17T19:29:00.000+01:00

My next few posts will focus on specific app reviews. Some will be far more detailed than others. Due to some technical issues, I'm going to keep this one very short (whilst I mull over a move to a more competent blogging platform. There, I said it).

The first app I will review is Whiteboard Free - a free whiteboard app! (You probably guessed that, right?) It can be found in iTunes here.

This does exactly what it says on the tin in that it's a simple little app which allows students to write or draw away on a single 'whiteboard' which fits within the length and width of the screen (i.e. not scrollable. There must be a more geeky word for this?)

It's a simple way of jotting down thoughts, workings or answers. We use it as a quick AfL tool just like we would with regular whiteboards, for the teacher to check for understanding and provide instant feedback.

The benefits over a regular whiteboard are threefold:

1. By pressing the home screen and power buttons at the same time, pupils can take a snapshot of the screen, saving their workings or answers into their Photos app. Pretty cool.

2. It is fully collaborative! I don't know what the physical limit is in terms of actual numbers, but automatically via the inbuilt Bluetooth, users within range of each other can wirelessly connect to each other's whiteboards. This means that pupils can work collaboratively with each other in real time (to play simple games or share ideas). That's a really cool feature.

3. It's really easy to share your whiteboards. The app is neatly set up to post to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr and has full email integration.

Top Tip: Take care with regards to e-Safety when using this app. Despite our largely successful efforts to educate pupils about safe use of technology, we have had one incident of a pupil writing inappropriate comments to other pupils using this app, so there is an inherent e-Safety issue to be aware of. Naturally, the situation was promptly dealt with and there have been no further instances of misuse.

The only limitation that I'm aware of with the free version is that you are limited to writing in red. Not a major stress, really. The Pro version is currently available for £0.59 if you're deeply offended by the colour red and need the option to write in black, blue and green as well.

For more information, check out the developer's information page about both versions of the app here.

Have you used this app with your students? Do you have any other ideas of how we could use it? Do you know of a better whiteboard app? Post a comment!

Innovating with iPods - The Project Launch

2010-09-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

April 2010

After months of discussion, planning, preparation, researching and a whole load of learning, James Langley and I were finally ready to roll out the iPod Touch project with our Year 5 pupils. We were so excited. We had no idea how it was going to go. Sure we'd tested everything countless times, but we'd never had the capacity to test a whole class of iPods all at the same time. How would the wireless cope? Would there be any unforeseen technical issues?

Not ever wanting the use of iPods to be an add-on, we had planned an engaging session which was tightly linked to their curriculum. Pupils were learning all about UK coastal town, Whitby, in preparation for a residential visit. They were reading Robert Swindells' Room 13, which is set in the area, and were learning all about the history and geography of the town.

We had always imagined that the iPods would be useful for two different types of learning.

1. For quick mental maths, brain training and word games that, with lots of repetitive use, would see pupils make great progress with these areas of their learning

2. For more extended, project-based learning, such as their topic work about Whitby

The first lesson

We had unbelievably managed to keep the project a complete secret from the pupils right up until the very last minute! We'd explained to them that both James Langley and I were going to be teaching something very exciting, but we hadn't revealed anything at all about the project.

We started by revealing the device and the nature of the project, to a room of audible gasps. Fourteen seconds into the project and we'd got them already.

A brief explanation of how to handle the devices followed (every class in school has a cheap Easi-View visualiser from TTS, which helped us to demonstrate the device), plus a hands-up poll of children who'd used the device before, purely out of our own interest. Across the three classes, no more than four or five had used an iPod Touch previously.

We allowed them to spend a short while working out how to navigate around the devices (swiping, tapping the home button, using the screen lock, etc.), and then directed them to their first bit of learning (as if exploring the devices wasn't learning enough). We showed them how to launch apps and asked them to launch Times Tables (more about this app in a future post). It was explained that pupils should choose one of their target tables to test themselves. Once they'd finished they should have another go, attempting to either attain a higher percentage of correct answers, or increase the speed at which they got them right if they had 100% success.

Once we had managed to prise them away from their intrinsic desire to better their own scores, we showed them another great app - Word Dash (again, more details will follow in a future post). This app is a Boggle-esque game where pupils have to make as many words as they can from a selection of tiles at the bottom of the screen.

They certainly found this quite a challenge, but soon regained any waining enthusiasm once they discovered that shaking the iPod shuffled the letters (good old accelerometer!)

All of this took us no more than ten minutes. The pupils were evidently hooked. The class teachers (whose only real training in the use of this technology was to be in the form of these modelled lessons) were also suitably impressed.

Whitby work

Once we'd spent time having a play, we explained that as well as these great apps, iPods could also be used as a quick and easy way to access the internet. We told them that since we were planning to go to Whitby in a few weeks we'd be able to have a quick sneak peak before we got there.

We used the preloaded Google Maps app to locate their own homes before searching for the seaside town. We tried to find some of the important places that we were going to explore when we got there, including the Cook Monument, Whitby Abbey and, crucially, the Youth Hostel where we were going to be staying!

One pupil very quickly learnt that using the satellite view was interesting to a point but discovered a far more exciting way to take a look around - StreetView. The idea spread like wildfire amongst his peers and we were all now comparing the localities of Bradford and Whitby with much greater ease.

But it wasn't going to stop there. It was all well and good looking around, but we wanted some evidence that we'd really seen some things in Whitby that we couldn't find in Bradford. It's OK telling everybody that Whitby's got a great beach but how were we going to prove it?

Top Tip: (This will be totally old hat to anybody who has used an iOS device before, I'm sure). We took screenshots of the things we found particularly interesting on our virtual visit to the seaside. To do this, press and release both the home screen and power buttons simultaneously, et voila, the image is instantly saved into the device's Photos app).

We used this nifty feature to allow pupils to save pictures of things they really wanted to look for when they actually got there for real. We wrote on the board a short list of street names, postcodes, etc. of anything particularly interesting that pupils found so that others could go and find them for themselves. We had very cunning plans about how to use the photos in future lessons.

Winding down the lesson

There was no question that the lesson had been a great success. Every pupil had been engaged, on task and learning, but it was time to pack away.

We'd bought some CD boxes from WH Smith which worked really well to store the iPods in. The children labelled the boxes with their group names, and then placed the iPods inside:

We repeated much the same lesson for all three classes partaking in this project and enjoyed the same levels of success in each class. There was no doubt that the pupils were excited about the prospect of being able to use their new devices more and more as time progressed.

And I was very pleased (although not entirely surprised) to see the level of care that all pupils took in caring for their iPods. There was a real sense of ownership and pride in their new pieces of technology. A few months on and we're still seeing this as strongly as on Day One.

Oh yes, and as for the technical questions? We needn't have worried. The iPods could all access the internet at the same time FAR faster than our netbooks could have done. It looked very much like we could have been onto a winner!

Innovating with iPods - Learning with Apps - Part 1

2010-09-11T22:35:00.001+01:00

An obviously important part of the setup process in our iPod Touch project was to find some great educational apps which we could use effectively in the classroom. We had a few main criteria:

- The apps needed to be easy to use

- They needed to have a genuine educational benefit - not just a fad

- They needed to be cost-effective

Preloaded Apps

The iPod Touch is equipped with some genuinely useful apps. Sadly, it's also burdened with some hopeless ones which you cannot remove. I am yet to find a use for the enforced 'Stocks' app. Answers on a postcard.

However, the following preloaded apps are very useful:

1. Voice Memos

Voice memos are a really good way to record ideas, stories, character dialogue, etc. right onto the iPod Touch. It's simple to use, with one touch record. There is the option to rename the files created and even share them via email.

Another great way of sharing created voice memos is to sync them to iTunes. There is a setting under the 'Music' tab in iTunes which allows you to automatically sync voice memos. This allows pupils' work to be easily shared with the rest of the class.

Sadly, the current iPod Touch does not come equipped with a microphone. To allow for voice recording, 'Thumb Tac' microphones can be purchased (for £8.95 at the time of writing) at Play.com and plenty of other places.

Despite their minute appearance, the sound quality from these microphones is really impressive - I can't recommend them highly enough! You won't need one per device as it's basically impossible for a whole class of pupils to record audio at the same time. We've currently got one mic per table group (i.e. 6 per class).

2. Google Maps

As you would expect from Google, this app is really well made. It requires a wi-fi connection to operate and includes functions to search for a desired location, pinpoint your current location or to find directions from a point A to B. Zooming in and out of the map is as easy as pinching the screen with two fingers.

There is the option to show a conventional road map, a satellite image or a hybrid of the two. You can also drop pins to easily refer to places later or help to plan a route.

Perhaps most impressively, though, is the fact that Google Maps on the iPod Touch supports StreetView. Just type in the name of a town/city, street or postcode and next to the name label there will be a red and white icon if the area has StreetView support (this is now the majority of the UK). Tap this icon and the screen reorientates itself into landscape mode. You can now navigate around your chosen location from the comfort of your classroom.

Note: There will be more info about uses for this app in the classroom in my next post.

3. Calculator

Does what it says on the tin this one. Its great hidden feature is that if you turn it to landscape mode it becomes a scientific calculator. Clever! Also, if you press and hold the 'answer' you have the option to copy it to another app. This could be useful if pupils are using the calculator app to find answers that they are typing into another app.

4. Notes

Again, this app is pretty much as you'd expect, but it's really useful. The main things we've used it for is to copy and paste chunks of information from the internet, or just as a simple way to write whilst on the go. As it does not require an internet connection it is possible to use the app to take notes whilst on school field trips and educational visits, which we've found particularly useful.

5. Clock

Now, quite obviously, this app contains a clock! (I worked that out all by myself). However, it also allows you to add clocks from around the world which could be used as part of work around contrasting localities, for example.

This app is also the place to find the iPod's inbuilt alarm. However, it is the timer and stopwatch functions which make this app really useful. These could be used very effectively for science experiments, etc. The stopwatch feature could also be used to time fastest laps in P.E. or as a way to try and improve speed at mental arithmetic.

Other Preloaded Apps

The other most useful preloaded apps include 'Music' - where you can manage audio content, including educational podcasts. The 'Videos' app works in much the same way.

'Weather' can have its uses, particularly if trying to compare parts of the world, and 'Safari' is the inbuilt web browser for accessing the whole of the world wide web (unless it's made with Flash - naughty Apple)!

Prize for the best suggestion of what to do with 'Stocks.'

Innovating with iPods - How to Lose a Day of Your Life - Part 3

2010-08-21T13:14:00.000+01:00

April 2010

This is the third and final part of the blog post about the day James Langley and I spent at Easter 2010 setting up our 3 class sets of iPod Touches and Macs ready for our new project.

Configuring iPods in iTunes

We'd now configured iTunes and were ready to plug in the iPods for the first time. We plugged 20 in at a time by using the Parat 'Parasync' charging and syncing unit mentioned in this earlier blog post. When you do this you are confronted with a number of screens. (Note: if iTunes is not already open, it will open automatically when you plug in an iPod).

You will notice that the iPods will all be listed in the menu on the left hand pane. The first screen you should encounter asks to register the iPod. I didn't bother with this, and just clicked 'Register Later.' You have to do this the first three or four times that you plug the device in. Then instead of 'Register Later' it will say 'Never Register' - click this and you won't be bothered again. (Unfortunately you have to go through this process for each iPod! (We had 96 - it took a while).

You may also be asked whether or not you wish to participate in a free 60-day trial for Mobile Me - Apple's online cloud storage facility. Again, we skipped this step.

You will be asked to accept the Terms and Conditions of the software before being moved onto the following Setup screen:

If you have set up more than one iPod, you will have the option to restore the new iPod from the backup of a previous device. Don't do it! Set each iPod up as a new iPod and press 'Continue.' You will be asked to name your device. I used the system BP01 to BP96 for each device. BP being the school's initials, the number referring to the number physically displayed on that back of the iPod.

Top Tip: When having our labels created we positioned the iPod's individual number on the bottom right corner of the device. This was a bad idea! As we were using a Parasync charging unit, once we set them into the dock, we could no longer see the number! It would have been much more helpful to print the number into one of the upper corners.

Top Tip: When naming the devices in iTunes, make sure to use zeros before single digit numbers, e.g. 01, 02 rather than 1, 2. iTunes automatically lists devices alphabetically in the left hand pane, which can speed up identifying any issues later.

The next screen gives you the option to automatically sync:
songs
photos
and applications

I made a BIG mistake here. So that you don't do the same:

Top Tip: Do check all three boxes to automatically sync content! It is much simpler to do this now than later, as you have to do it manually for each iPod on each occasion. 'Songs' refers to all audio content including Voice Memos (but you can change exactly what content later). My fear about photos was that it would automatically sync ALL photos on the system by default. It does not. Only the ones from a specific folder (iPhoto on a Mac, for example).

Once you have done this it will take you to a Summary screen, with tabs across the top to customise options for Apps, Music, Photos, etc. (See image at the bottom of this post).

We then set up each device to make sure it automatically synced all 'Events' from iPhoto, but no other photos.

We set up each device to automatically sync the entire music library (we currently have no music on the Macs we're using) and also checked the box to include voice memos (this can be very useful later).

And it was basically done. We had to go through this process on each of the Macs, for each class, and it took a couple of hours from start to finish. The status of all updates, downloads and installs is displayed in the grey bar at the top of the iTunes window.

Issues with syncing

Every now and then when we sync a lot of apps with a lot of devices, a few of the apps fail to install on a few iPods. Sometimes a variety of error messages will appear on screen. It's usually very easy to remedy: simply turn off the Parasync unit or unplug the device(s) manually (once all the syncing is complete) and then plug them straight back in. They will try and sync automatically again, and this almost always solves the problem. The classic "turn it off and on" procedure!

Serial numbers

In order to assign devices to pupils (we have one device per pupil, which remains theirs throughout the course of the project) we set up a simple spreadsheet with the following columns:
Pupil surname
Pupil forename
Pupil class
iPod number (e.g. BP60)
iPod serial number
This has been a really easy way to keep on top of which iPods belong to which pupils and a copy of the lists have been given to each of the class teachers.

It is also likely that for school inventory and insurance purposes you will need to hold a list of serial numbers. It seemed to make sense to collect these at the same time as compiling this list.

Serial numbers can be found in three places on an iPod Touch:
Etched into the bottom of the iPod on the back of the device
In the menu of the iPod itself. Go to Settings > General > About > Serial Number
In iTunes (which we thought was the quickest way, as you can easily click through to the next iPod in the list on the left):

Once these numbers are collected you're done. If you've already downloaded a few apps to get you started, then you're just about ready to go. If not, then this will be your next step. My next blog post will detail some of the great apps that we've downloaded and how we've used them.

Don't forget to subscribe for regular updates!

Innovating with iPods - How to Lose a Day of Your Life - Part 2

2010-08-19T14:48:00.000+01:00

April 2010

Continued from Part 1

We now needed to begin setting up the iTunes accounts on the MacBooks so that we could start to download content to the iPods.

Setting up iTunes

If you are using a Windows PC and do not have iTunes installed then your first step is to install it! The current UK version can be found here in the form of a free download: iTunes UK

It takes a fair few minutes to install but it will become a very important piece of software. At the time of writing, the current version of iTunes (on Mac OS anyway) is 9.2.1, but at the time of our setup it was the previous version that we installed.

Once iTunes installs you will need to create an account to download apps and other content to use on the iPods.

Top Tip: If you already have an iTunes account which you use personally or with another set of devices, do not use this account to setup a class set of iPods. Make sure you set up a totally separate account for this purpose to avoid issues with syncing content later.

Top Trick for using GMail

We have created separate iTunes accounts for each of the three classes taking part in the project so that different content can be added to each class setup if required. Each account needs to be registered with a different email address. However, as I am managing our school's project, I wanted all of the emails to come to me without having to set up three different email accounts. I already had a GMail account that I use for work things and was taught a superb trick by Tim Bleazard of Challenge CLC that works with all Google Mail accounts. This is how it works:

You can actually have an unlimited (I think) number of email addresses with GMail, all linked to the same account by simply adding the plus sign and some additional text at the end of an email address, before the '@' sign. These addresses are all 'unique' in that they can be used to sign up for the same service using multiple identities (such as iTunes). All emails sent to these addresses will then automatically appear in your regular GMail inbox. For instance, to sign up three class iTunes accounts to link to your GMail account:

firstname.lastname@gmail.com is the original email address, as an example.

So set up one iTunes account with the email address:

firstname.lastname+class1@gmail.com

Set up the second account with the email address:

firstname.lastname+class2@gmail.com

And the third class account with the email address:

firstname.lastname+class3@gmail.com

If you receive any emails to the +text addresses, it will appear in your regular GMail inbox as normal. A really cool and useful trick! Test it out - it really works!

**Super Top Tip** - Purchasing Content

One of the big issues we faced was exactly HOW we would purchase content through iTunes. I knew that you could register credit or debit cards but this still did not solve the problem. As you can imagine, the school Business Manager would be very reluctant for me to sign up to iTunes with the school credit card as I would effectively have open access to purchase as much content as I wanted, totally unregulated! Quite rightly, access to the school credit card should remain for a very small group of the staff.

The other way I could get round the issue was to set iTunes up using one of my own debit cards. This would mean that I would have to continuously claim money back from school (which we all know can be a time consuming process) and would mean that if other teachers were to have access to the iTunes account, they would effectively have free reign to spend money in the iTunes Store, straight from my bank account.

Hmmm...

And then I found the answer! iTunes vouchers! It seemed so obvious. We bought three £25 iTunes gift cards from WHSmith with the intention of loading them onto our accounts. Brilliant!

So I went back to set up my new iTunes accounts and load the vouchers. And then I found out that you HAVE TO sign up using a credit or debit card. Except, you don't...

They don't necessarily make this information obvious, but it is possible to sign up for iTunes accounts without a credit or debit card. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll just point you in the direction of the Apple support page you need:

Create an iTunes App Store account without a credit card - Cool!

It is a really useful way of keeping everybody happy and keeping the setup as uncomplicated as possible.

Once you have created the accounts by following the steps above, downloading your first free app, you will need to load the iTunes gift vouchers in order to buy content. You can download as much free content as you like (but remember not to exceed the storage space of the device - ours is 8GB, for example).

So...

Adding iTunes Gift Vouchers

Once you have signed up for an account and purchased your gift card, scratch off the panel on the reverse of the gift card to reveal a 16-digit alphanumeric code
Make sure you are signed in (to do this, click on the 'iTunes Store' link on the left hand menu, then click 'Sign In' in top right corner of iTunes) and then choose the option in the top right menu which says 'Redeem'
Enter the code on the card and hit 'Redeem' - and you're done!

You can now download content to your heart's content. The cost of apps, music, etc. will be automatically debited from the money in your account (which is always displayed next to your username when you're signed into iTunes).

Usefully, you will receive an email receipt for everything you purchase via iTunes. This can be helpful to keep tabs on what you've spent your money on, although frustratingly you can wait several days before receiving these receipts, although some are delivered immediately.

The next step is to create a 'baseline' setup of educational apps in iTunes. My next post will focus on the final part of the setup process that we undertook during the Easter Holidays.

Innovating with iPods - How to Lose a Day of Your Life - Part 1

2010-08-09T23:35:00.001+01:00

April 2010

It was clear that the next step in the process of setting up 96 iPod Touches ready for three Year 5 classes would take us some time, and with time running out before our intended project launch with the pupils, James Langley and I decided to devote a day in the Easter holidays to complete the final setup process.

It was only as we arrived, eager to see a 'ready-to-go' project at the end of the day, that we realised how much work there was left to do, including (vaguely in order):

Configuring the three Apple MacBooks
Factory resetting the 20 or so iPods which had been setup for testing purposes at the local CLC
Dividing the iPods into four groups: one group for each class plus a 'spares' pile
Applying screen protectors to all of the iPods
Attaching protective plastic cases to all of the iPods
Creating up a 'baseline' setup in iTunes on each MacBook, with some free educational apps, as a starting point
Configuring each class set of iPod Touches in iTunes for use with the respective class MacBook
Syncing all of the iPods with the MacBook to copy across the initially selected apps to each device
Entering wireless internet and proxy settings (see previous post) and testing the internet
Taking down the iPod's individual number (as written on the back of the iPod) and its serial number

Clearly we had to get to work! This was how it happened.

Configuring a MacBook

I am going to spend very little time talking about this. Straight out of the box it's so easy to do. Plug it in, power it up and follow the on screen instructions. It'll ask you to name the computer, add a password to allow protection of certain features (this could be a good way to block certain 'administrative' features if the Macs are to be given to other less tech-savvy teachers) and confirm your current time zone.

Once this is done it is important to carry out a Software Update to ensure that all of the Mac's software is the latest available version (including iTunes). It is a very similar (although less clunky, in my opinion) process to Windows Updates.

To do this, click on the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen and choose 'Software Update...'

When it's finished downloading, installing and restarting, you're ready to go.

Factory resetting an iPod

If you're starting totally from scratch, taking an iPod straight out of the box, you can miss out this step entirely. If you've previously set up one or more devices, it's important to carry factory reset the iPods. To do this, power on the device, tap Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.

When this screen appears, you're set for the next step:

We then grouped the iPods by the numbers we had assigned on the back, i.e. Class 5A would have iPods no. 1-30, etc. and put them into easy to distinguish piles to ensure that the rest of the setup was as easy as possible.

Applying screen protectors and clip-on plastic covers

It may seem obvious, but it is important to apply the screen protector before clipping on the clear plastic case (if you have one).

Big thanks have to go out to James Langley for his work here. I very quickly lost patience with applying screen protectors and so James took on this unenviable role. I have to admit, it's pretty difficult to get it right. The biggest difficulty is applying the protectors without bubbles appearing under the surface. It can become very a irritating task. And when you are operating with the insane quantities that we were faced with, it's inevitably going to take a while.

I've since discovered an instructional video on YouTube which may have helped me immensely. Check it out before you give it a go yourself:

Top Tip: If you're still struggling to apply the screen protector without bubbles, try using a credit card to squeeze out the bubbles as you apply it to the iPod. Worked for me!

Once the screen protector has been applied, clip on the hard plastic case (a bit of brute force needed). The major downside to these cases is that there's no real way to take them off. They either stay on or they break off. A term into our project and we're starting to find a few of the cases coming loose. Chances are they'll come off soon, needing to be replaced.

This is no major issue for us at the moment. The cases did come free with the iPods in the first place, but replacing them could become expensive if it needs to be done termly. I would be interested to hear of more long lasting alternatives if anybody is aware of any.

That's all for now.

My next post will focus on the second half of the setup process as listed above. Keep checking back or subscribe for regular updates.

Innovating with iPods - Accessing the Internet

2010-08-07T23:00:00.001+01:00

March 2010

After purchasing the basic equipment for our iPod Touch project, and working out how we would go about syncing content to the iPods, James Langley and I continued to battle away with research which would help answer some of our questions. We had meetings in person and via Skype at all hours to make sure we were getting it right.

We spent an afternoon researching some of the great educational apps that there were available. We were pleased to discover the huge wealth of free content available through Apple's App Store which would be really relevant to our project. The benefits to pupils' learning were just obvious. And even Michael Gove might be pleased. One of the first apps we found was perfect for learning times tables by rote, but as it was on an iPod Touch it seemed somewhat less Dickensian. (I will publish a full list of the apps we have used in a future post).

James and I met, alongside Tim Bleazard, ICT Teacher at Challenge CLC, throughout March to carry out some very important tests to answer the following questions relating to the use of the internet:

How easy was it to enter the wireless and proxy settings?
Could these settings be copied or synced between iPods or did they need to be entered manually each time?
Did our school internet filtering detect the iPods and block the same web addresses as on the netbooks, laptops and desktops?
Was there any content that would not be compatible with the iPods?

We found some great answers. And some not so great answers. Here they are.

Internet Settings

Entering web proxy and wireless settings is a piece of cake (although you may need to involve your technical support, if this is not you, to get some of the details you'll need).

The process: On the iPod Touch, open up Settings > Wi-Fi. You should be greeted with this screen:

Make sure that the Wi-Fi is turned on and after a second or two you should see a list of the available wireless networks.

Top Tip: If you have difficulty finding wireless networks which you are sure are available, there may be an issue with your iPod Touch's wireless card. To test this, first try simply heading back to the previous 'Settings' screen and re-selecting the 'Wi-Fi' option. Sometimes all it needs is a good kick up the backside. If this fails, try turning the iPod Touch off and then back on again (can you tell I work with ICT?). Finally, if you're still having trouble, try a hard reset of the device - details of which will be made available in a future post - and give it another go. If it's still not working, but others are, your wireless card is dead and the device needs replacing, which will be done under warranty.

Once the list of Wi-Fi networks is displayed on screen, enter the network's password (presuming that it has one). You should only need to do this once as the settings will save automatically. If your school accesses the internet through a proxy server, you will also need to enter these settings. To do this, tap the blue and white arrow next to your wireless network and scroll to the bottom of the next screen:

Enter the proxy settings and away you go. You'll probably want to test that it's working straight away by launching the iPod's inbuilt web browser, Safari, which looks like this:

Pretty easy, yes? And now for the bad news...

To my knowledge (and trust me I looked hard enough for the info) there is no way to synchronise an iPod's settings with a Windows PC or Mac, meaning that these settings need to be entered manually for each device. We bought 96 iPod Touches. 'Nuff said.

Access to internet content

As our school does access the internet through a proxy server, the iPods were also routed through this server. Therefore, all content which we block in school in line with our e-Safety Policy is inaccessible on the iPods. This, obviously, was a relieving discovery.

The great thing about the iPod Touch is that you can access the whole of the internet in the palm of your hands. Except that that's a big fat lie. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been forced to explain his reasoning for many times, iPod Touches do not currently include, nor do Apple envisage any plans for them to include, support for Flash or any Flash-based website. The implications of this are at best irritating, at worst lesson-killers.

Top Tip: I know you all would anyway, but... Make sure you test websites you plan to use well in advance of using them in class. This is more important than ever due to the lack of support for Flash.

And that's it for now...

It may appear to make little sense for me to talk about the finer configuration of the devices before explaining the wider process of setting them up first, but I am simply explaining the chronological learning process I underwent during the initial stages of this project. My next post in the 'Innovating with iPods' series will focus on the full setup process.

Keep checking back for updates, or subscribe to be kept fully in the loop.

Innovating with iPods - The Basic Setup

2010-08-03T11:33:00.000+01:00

February 2010

After James Langley and I had agreed the focus of the project, we had a whole world of unanswered questions. I had absolutely no idea where to start. You see, despite being reasonably competent with technology, I had never owned or even operated an Apple product in my life! I'd never used an Apple computer, an iPhone, iPod Touch or even the very first iPods which were just simple MP3 players. I'd never used any of it. It seemed I had a whole world of technology to understand before I could begin to proceed.

I borrowed an iPod Touch over the February half term to play around with and learn how to use it. It was only then that I realised the good news: iPod Touches are stupidly easy to operate. It took me about 15 minutes to grasp the concept and familiarise myself with the core features. That was it. No manual, user guides or difficulty. It just worked. (It is important to point out that this was a pre-configured iPod Touch. I will write details of the setup process for an iPod in a future post).

But I was still massively unsure of what to do next. I 'got' the idea of the iPods, but James and I still had no idea how to:

store 96 iPods
charge 96 iPods
add content to 96 iPods
extract content from 96 iPods
use iTunes (the online Apple store for downloading content)
share purchased content between devices (Could this be done? Did we need to buy content 96 times? Could we legally buy it once and then synchronise it across all 96?)
keep personal content on the iPods without it syncing to the other iPods
ensure that they were consistent with school's E-safety Policy

We put these questions on the back burner for a while until we could come up with solutions and decided instead to crack on with the things we knew we needed. After a brief discussion we decided to buy 8GB iPod Touches - we didn't believe we would need any more storage space than this, so we decided to press on with the purchase of these. And it made absolutely no sense whatsoever to do this alone.

Top Tip: When buying equipment for a project such as this, try and use the buying power of your local City Learning Centre to secure a better price. My thanks have to go to Challenge CLC for managing to secure a price of £118 per device, including hard plastic case and screen protector. They also produced labels which were applied to the back of the iPod:

The hard plastic case and screen protector (which you can't even tell has been applied)

The back of the iPod with label showing the school logo, address and the individual iPod number

After a bit of thinking, reading and with help from Tony Vincent's blog, we started to come up with some solutions to the questions we had earlier.

We learnt a lot more about charging and syncing. In order to charge and sync any number of iPods you need to install iTunes (free download) onto a Windows or Mac computer. This is the platform for transferring content to and from the devices.

Top Tip: I would highly recommend buying an Apple PC or MacBook for the purpose of syncing content to the iPods. Although it is technically possible to use iTunes on a Windows PC, it is far slower and much more buggy, which means that syncing multiple iPods at the same time is hit-and-miss at best. Again, I appreciate that this kind of decision is dependant on budgets.

We purchased three Apple MacBooks (one per class taking part in the project) for £619 each. Again we purchased these through our local CLC.

James Langley found a great solution to our charging and syncing issue from a company called Parat. They offer a 20-slot 'Parasync' charging and syncing dock for a price of... wait for it... £900 per unit. I know. Ouch. (We bought three of these through the CLC, who managed to negotiate a price of £850 per unit).

Having used them for a while now I can confirm that they're invaluable. The last thing you need is 20 USB cables trailing around a classroom as you attempt to sync a class set of iPods at the same time. The obvious issue is that, if you are planning a class-based project, you are going to be incredibly lucky to have only 20 pupils in your class, meaning that you will need to rotate the devices in order to charge and sync them all. This is but a minor irritation.

They also work with other iPod models, including iPod Classic, iPod Nano and iPhone.

Apple MacBook syncing content through iTunes, using Parat Parasync 20-dock charging and syncing solution

Top Tip: Parasync units are manufactured to fit an iPod Touch WITHOUT a protective plastic case. Make sure you contact Parat early on as it is possible for them to modify the units to fit an iPod Touch WITH a case if you provide them with a sample to work with. This process took around a fortnight and cost an additional £50 per unit, taking the price back up to the original £900. Convenient.

So that was it. The initial procurement was done.

This is what we had purchased for each class:

1 x Apple MacBook computer @ £619

1 x Parat Parasync charging unit @ £900

32 x Apple 8GB iPod Touch with hard plastic case and screen protector @ £118

Bringing the total spend to £5295 per class.

Innovating with iPods - Selecting the Focus

2010-08-02T10:04:00.000+01:00

January 2010

After accepting the offer of support, a meeting was held at school with SMT and Education Bradford's Paul Scott, Lead Teaching and Learning Consultant (ICT), to outline the proposal and to discuss our initial ideas for the kind of project we would like to run.

The Questions

We had a number of questions to answer which would shape our ultimate decision:

Which Year Group(s) would benefit the most from this additional support? Could this be backed up with pupil progress data?
What would be the specific focus of the project?
Which device would best address this focus?
Should we operate an "in school" or "take home" project?
What would be the implications re: staff training? Would the answer differ depending on the Year Group we chose? Would there actually be enough time to provide this training?
What on-site support would we receive from Education Bradford?

The Answers

After an interesting discussion, it was decided that we would run the project with the current Year 5 cohort. Selecting Year 6 would have given insufficient time for the project to have an impact before the pupils left school (as it was already the beginning of the Spring Term). By choosing Year 5 we were able to see the process develop over four terms, until Summer 2011.

The project focus was simple but incredibly broad: to raise attainment in all areas of literacy and numeracy with a view to the cohort reaching floor targets.

As will be no shock, given the title of these posts, we chose to purchase iPod Touches. 96 of them in fact. One per pupil and member of staff in the cohort, plus an additional 10%.

Top Tip: When running a project like this, try to buy around 10% more kit than you actually need (or as much as your budget will allow). This will account for the inevitable loss or damage of the equipment. It will also mean that you have a device immediately available in the event of new pupils arriving.

Top Tip: If you are running a project with specific classes, try to provide each class teacher (and member of support staff, if possible) with a device of their own. This will provide an opportunity for them to become comfortable with the technology.

We decided that we should keep the iPods in school. We all recognised the tremendous benefits there were to extending access to this powerful learning tool outside of conventional school hours. However, with pupil mobility at around 27%, it was decided that we were likely to 'lose' quite a number of devices. Many pupils leave school mid-year and some of those disappear without any dialogue with school. We also thought that if the iPods went home we would be presented with additional issues if pupils attempted to add their own content.

There were obvious issues regarding staff training. We decided that there was very little time to actually provide much hands-on training. We decided that we would hold an initial meeting to unveil the project to the Year 5 team, introducing the device and some of the ideas we had to use them effectively, but that thereafter all support would come through lessons modelled by James Langley and I. Most of the support we would receive from Education Bradford was through James's time in school.

So that was it; decision made. We were to invest in iPod Touches for Year 5. Would you have chosen the same device? A different Year Group? Leave us a comment with your thoughts.

Innovating with iPods - An Introduction

2010-08-02T09:53:00.000+01:00

About time too! It's taken me ages to get round to blogging properly about this, but with the summer holidays finally underway, I have now set aside some time to update my blog with detailed accounts of the exciting iPod Touch project my school has been running over the Summer Term.

For those of you who have been enquiring about our progress, I would like to thank you for your patience. I will endeavour to keep this blog up to date from now on.

Please feel free to leave comments with your thoughts, ideas and questions. I will read and respond to everything that I can. If you prefer, you can contact me via my Twitter page.

Background Info

I am the ICT Development Manager at Bowling Park Primary School, a split-site three-form entry primary school in Bradford. I have been at the school since September 2008. The main focus of my job is to manage the process of embedding ICT across the creative curriculum in school: planning, teaching, providing relevant staff training, etc. It's a diverse, interesting and challenging role.

Over the last two years, with the support of the school governors and SLT, Education Bradford's Curriculum ICT team and technical support provider Datacable, we have installed a wireless network across both sites, updated servers, implemented effective E-safety and Acceptable Use policies and invested heavily into new hardware (64 new laptops and 120 new netbooks) and software (such as the 2Simple Collection).

The Offer of a Lifetime

In January 2010, James Langley, Education Bradford Teaching and Learning Consultant (ICT), and I were approached to run an exciting and innovative project at school, using new technologies to engage learners and raise attainment.

Our school was selected for two main reasons:

After 18 months of hard work we had the infrastructure to cope with the demands that an influx of new technology would place on our servers (not to mention staff and pupils!)
We ticked the boxes. School had been achieving results below floor targets for a number of years and would, therefore, benefit from some additional, targeted support.

It will come as no surprise that, after a conversation with the Principal, we decided to accept the offer of this support. We were excited about the possibilities that were potentially being opened up to us and quickly arranged a meeting to discuss our ideas.

And so the journey began.