C4T #4

For my first C4T assignment I read Scott Jealias' Blog. The post was titled "How to run a smooth iPad deployment, and lessons learned." This blog post was about the distribution of iPads at his school (to replace books) The staff at his school distributed more than 600 iPads in one night. The purpose of this blog post is to help other schools who may be faced with the same task. He doesn't go into much detail about problems they had except to say that you should notify Apple if you are going to be uploading new Apple IDs from your site otherwise it will shut down. That seems to have been their biggest issue. He also offers tips like sending out an email prior to registration day to let parents and kids know how to sign up for Apple ID's prior to coming to get their iPad. They also set up stations for the students, 5 that were mandatory and 2 that were optional.

Mr. Elias, I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am currently studying Elementary Education and was assigned to read your blog through my EDM310 class. I enjoyed reading this post. A few weeks ago we were learning about students using iPads in schools instead of books; I thought this was something that would occur more frequently in the future and was shocked to find out that the high school in my community just recently initiated the use of iPads. I think this is a great way for schools to be more "green" as well as educate kids about technology. It seems like they mainly do these distributions in high schools. I hope soon they will allow iPads, or Macs, to be distributed to younger children as well; that way when they reach high school and are presented with an iPad they will be familiar with the programs. Thank you for this helpful post! -Kathryn

For my second C4T I commented on Mr. Jelias post "Caught in an Ed Reform Whirlwind. This was a post about the "Wal-Martization" of education. Mr. Jelias talks about how it is a little known fact, but our school systems are funded by some of the wealthiest people in the country. He talks about a new program that his school is testing out. In his words: "In addition to piloting the evaluation system — a 23-page-per-teacher document that comprises 50% of a teacher’s “effectiveness” combined with 50% from (you guessed it!) scores on state tests — we are also what is called an “integration” district. This means that we are also rolling out massive curricular shifts in the form of what are being called the math and literacy design collaboratives. These are huge initiatives that tie classroom instruction and assessment directly back to the Common Core State Standards." He continues on to say that none of this is bad per say but that with the way things are changing so rapidly and so dramatically that hopefully we will not stop one day to look around and ask "how did we get here?"

In my comment to Mr. Jelias I wrote:
This was a really interesting post. I had no idea that schools were being funded by some of the wealthiest in America. Reading this post, and watching the video, makes me feel a little nervous about the future of our education system. Even the term "Wal-Martization" is scary (I myself not being a WalMart fan). One point I found very interesting in the video is how they are placing superintendents that are in the top of their field which is not education (military, business, etc.). I have to wonder, why would they want people who are not part of the education system to have so much influence over education? To me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.