On Thursday, January 21st, several middle school teachers from District 109 had an opportunity to visit two school districts using iPads and Macbook Airs as their 1:1 device for teaching and learning. Berwyn South District 100 and Barrington Unit District 220 graciously welcomed our team from Deerfield on a visit to observe how seamlessly the iPads were regularly integrated into daily instruction. Our visit mainly focused on how a tablet device, such as the iPad, impacts the learning experience for students.

As a predominantly Chromebook 1:1 program, our teachers in Deerfield have expressed curiosity about how other school districts use technology with students. At Berwyn South and Barrington, we quickly noticed that students with iPads were producing, rather than consuming, a great deal of creative content. Students used various iPad apps to create digital presentations, screen recordings, and videos to showcase their learning.

The Deerfield team that attended these site visits represented a majority of all content areas in our middle schools: English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Physical Education and Foreign Language. Because the Chromebooks used by Deerfield students do not have a touch interface or video camera, many of our math, PE, and fine arts teachers have expressed concern that the Chromebooks have been a rather limiting device.

Our team will be sharing our observations with other teachers in District 109 as we explore the future 1:1 devices for Deerfield students. While no decisions have been made at this point, we are studying how a different device may impact the ways in which teachers instruct students and students demonstrate learning in the 21st-century classroom.

The video below showcases several highlights from our visit. Special thanks to Apple, Berwyn South District 100 and Barrington Unit District 220 for hosting our teachers!

In Waukesha, Wisconsin, many schools have begun using a personalized learning approach that gives students voice and choice in much of their learning. With ubiquitous access to technology, personalized learning will undoubtedly be the wave of the future in terms of how we educate students. Traditional lessons with teachers lecturing full classrooms of students all at once will be rare as students begin learning at their own pace, while engaging in authentic experiences that won’t just mimic the real-world; they will be for the real world.

I had an opportunity to speak with some middle school students at FLIGHT Academy, which is a school-within-a-school model at Horning Middle School in Waukesha. Take a few minutes to watch this video and listen to the way that students and teachers talk about learning.

While students at FLIGHT Academy are still working on academic skills, they are also practicing life skills such as time management, self-direction, communication, collaboration, problem-solving and perseverance. In traditional classrooms, teachers work so hard to support students that they often protect students from experiencing failure. In personalized learning environments, because students truly are responsible for their own learning, the philosophy is for students to fail forward in order to learn and grown from mistakes.

In DPS 109, we will continue studying ways to bring personalized learning into our classrooms to give students more voice and choice in their daily learning. Some of our teachers who also attended the site visit have already begun this journey, and we hope to highlight their great work in the coming months.

Recently, our middle school librarian information specialists, Andrea Trudeau and Sheila Shiffrin, joined me on a visit to Hillel Torah in Skokie, Illinois to experience Google Expedition. The Instructional Technology Director of Hillel Torah, Beth Pollick Burke, happens to be DPS109 parent, and she graciously extended the invitation to the three of us to experience this exciting new technology in action.

Image Credit: Andrea Trudeau

Google Expedition is a virtual reality experience that uses a special viewfinder and Android phone that create a 360-degree panorama view of some part of the world. Controlled by a tablet, the teacher can take students to places around the world that students could never feasibly visit on a typical field trip. The students at Hillel Torah used Google Expedition to visit the Roman Coliseum, coral reefs, and Galapagos Islands. Students shrieked with delight each time they looked through the viewfinder to explore a virtual world.

Photo Credit: Andrea Trudeau

This type of technology can extend learning by allowing students to be transported virtually to a new location and explore details that go beyond textbook reading. Teachers guide students throughout the expedition so that they know what to look for and how it applies to the learning within the classroom. While we thought this was a very exciting idea, I fear that the novelty may wear off rather quickly. There is no student choice in these expeditions since the teacher controls the entire journey. I also found that while the 360-view was pretty cool, there is only so much one can see. In my opinion, this first iteration of virtual reality field trips is fascinating, but as emerging headset technologies continue to develop, the experience may ultimately be more worthwhile when students can choose their expedition, explore more deeply in the expedition, and interact with the virtual environment. We probably won’t be rushing to purchase these devices, but we were grateful for the opportunity to see Google Expedition first-hand.

Special thanks to Beth Pollack Burke for the invitation!

Wow. Just wow.

Mike Lubelfeld, Amy Rubin and I visited Hamilton County Schools in Hamilton, Michigan yesterday to observe an incredibly innovative approach to teaching and learning. At Hamilton Middle School, a handful of teachers are cultivating scientists, historians, business leaders, museum curators, and more, all through a project-based approach in their school-within-a-school called STREAM School. STREAM stands for Science Technology Reading Engineering Arts and Mathematics, and learning comes alive for all students in this incredible program.

In this environment, students lead the learning from start to finish, with teachers serving as facilitators and advisors along the journey. Authentic audience, natural community partnerships and shared vision among all stakeholders are what makes this program incredibly successful. Students at STREAM School internalize their learning on a completely different level than what we tend to see in most traditional classrooms.

Take a look at the video below to get a little taste of what STREAM School has to offer these middle schoolers.

The big question for District 109 is how can we bring this hands-on approach to learning into our classrooms? The answer lies within the small pilot groups that we are igniting around the District. Beginning this January, we will have 12 teachers utilizing a platform called DefinedSTEM, which “enables teachers to provide application of knowledge to students through the use of project based learning, real world careers, and meaningful reading and writing activities.” (Learn more at DefinedSTEM.com) We will be following this group closely on this blog to share how these experiences are impacting student learning and engagement in each of the pilot classrooms. Stay tuned for more information on our DefinedSTEM pilot.

A huge thanks to Hamilton’s Superintendent, Dave Tebo, who spent the entire day with my team giving us the grand tour of the exciting work taking place in Hamilton. Learn more about STREAM School by visiting streamschool.weebly.com and following them on Twitter at @STREAMschool.

Sarah Barnett

Sarah Barnett, a National Board Certified Teacher 1st grade 1:1 iPad teacher at Bannockburn School, welcomed some DPS109 1st grade teachers into her classroom on November 12th. In a very short time, we watched Sarah guide students through a variety of activities, allowing them to demonstrate their learning in creative ways.

Students in Sarah’s room have a considerable amount of ownership in their learning. They decide where they will do their best work, with whom they should collaborate, and which iPad app to use to showcase their learning. The 4 Cs are embedded in everything that Sarah’s students do! We loved watching students use apps such as Explain Everything and ChatterPix to share their learning.

While we were very impressed by how adept Sarah’s students are at using their iPads, our biggest takeaway had nothing to do with technology. We were struck by how often Sarah let her students drive the learning. She truly steps aside and lets her students get to work!

I highly recommend following Sarah on Twitter and reading her incredible blog, Mrs. B’s First Grade. She is an EduSTAR!