Get a group of administrators, teachers and district staff together – add food and boxes and more boxes of brand new iPads. What do you have? Excitement, anticipation, a bit of wonder, “eyes wide open”, tons of chatter and buzz… Last week, we spent the afternoon with a set of goals: introduce the iPad, configure the iPads for access and set up accounts, share a couple of handy apps (not too much) and a story of how this might look in a real classroom; interspersed with lots of adult play/explore time.
Let me step back a bit in time… To say that a lot of coordination went on before this happened is an understatement. Organizational structures such as set up of wifi access and accounts, Apple IDs, email accounts for budgeting, school processes for management (administrative and classroom), even what protective covers are best to address variety of environments, bulk purchasing, creating a sync apps process for multiple devices, staff learning (professional development), collaboration teams for sharing and learning were all considered. We already had a number of these devices out in schools. With these numbers and another batch expected in the near future, it was an opportunity to bring everyone together in a festive party atmosphere. And a party it was!
Fast forward to now… As staff start to explore the devices and download apps, we hope to capture the learning, the questions that come up, and together 
develop understandings of how this device can be used to engage learning and even more importantly, go deeper in the critical thinking and communication process. Our new blog called ‘idevices‘ is ready to capture these journeys as well as share understandings. As well our iUsers Cafe continues to be another forum that is a sharing place. Be a part of this journey – we have no real answers, but we have lots of good questions.
What’s just around the corner? Why, another event of course, to bring together learners of all stages — to join an “Apps Shootout“! Stay tuned in the Staff Development Calendar or the blog for this “not to be missed” afternoon.