The copy numbers are in. Where do I stand?

Periodically, a spreadsheet is sent out showing the number of copies made by every person working in the school, from teachers to secretaries to custodians. Partly I think they send the info so people know where they stand relative to others and get a sense of how many copies are made. Mostly, though, I think it's a shaming exercise. They used to highlight the top ten, and I was consistently in it, or just outside. What can I say? I have lots of students, and I'm a handout kind of guy.

But this year, it's different. I'm way way down the list at number 42 (hey! the meaning of life). The top ten are almost all 2X my number, and of those below me, many are part time or in the PE and Art departments, which of course have low copy numbers.

So, some facts to back up my previous post on the number of copies saved. I think it's a good argument in favor of investing in e-schools. Over x number of years the savings in paper will pay the cost of the hardware.

An aside: we have 60+ teachers?! Egads.

Rank	Department	# of Copies
1	Science	4130
2	Science	3861
3	English	3452
4	English	3335
5	English	3083
6	Social Studies	2986
7	English	2979
8	English	2925
9	English	2919
10	Math	2897
42	Mr. B	1584
43	Science	1531
44	Part time	1517
45	English	1443
46	English	1440
47	Math	1425
48	English	1423
49	Part time	1386
50	English	1291
51	English	1255
52	English	993
53	English	963
54	English	957
55	Part Time	597
56	English	576
57	Art	570
58	Part time	532
59	Part time	507
60	Part time	291
61	Physical Education	240
62	Physical Education	179
63	Physical Education	149
64	Art	125
65	Physical Education	120

Another facepalm. Boys will be boys.

I was assisting a student with his work, and I noticed his IPad language was Japanese. Can you speak Japanese, I asked him (many of our students can).

"Nope." He replied.
"Then why is it Japanese?"
"Somebody changed it, and I don't know how to change it back."

Face, meet palm.

All kidding aside, though, this kind of a thing can be a problem. The students are often trying to sabotage their friend's IPads: changing the language, locking it, etc. They all use passwords, but they're not adept at keeping passwords a secret. To them, it's all good fun, but there are some potential problems. Learning could be disrupted, somebody might cross a line or provoke a reaction. More troublesome is some students disregard for personal space and property. Of course, the school has official guidelines and procedures for these issues. But, as we all know, boys will be boys.

There are some great parents, and then there are...

Class is just getting started, when a hand goes up.

"Yes"
"I don't have my IPad today."

I mentally prepare responses of why his excuse is lame.

"Why not?"
"My dad said he needed it for work."

The Great Paper Save

As I wrote in my previous post, Apps such as UPad are replacing paper handouts and notebooks in the classroom. So, just how much paper is being saved by UPad in my class? Well, quite a lot!

Last year, I had 52 grade 7 students, this year 50. And that's in 2 different classes, in case you're wondering.

In a typical week in a geography class there would be at minimum 4 sides of paper copied per student: one quiz double sided copy and one study guide also double sided copy. So, the minimum paper being saved is 50 students x (1 quiz + 1 study guide)  = 100 pieces of paper every week.

But that's the minimum. Now, with older students I use a lot less handouts, but with 12 and 13 year olds I do use more. And as it's a geography class we do a lot of map activities as well. This all adds up. I can't give an exact number, but we can make the assumption that there's at least one more handout every week, and up to three more on top of the quiz and study guide.

So, 50 students x (quiz + study guide + 1 to 3 additional handouts) = 150 to 250 pieces of paper a week, or 2 reams a month. Or, 1 ream / class a month. 10 reams/class over the school year. Of course, that's just their geography class. They also use IPads in mathematics and science, and in the future they'll be using it for all their classes. Add it all up, that's a lot of paper.

To the good people of Prince George, British Columbia: I'm sorry, but your stinky, job-creating pulp mills I passed every year on the way to visiting Nana and Papa are going to be a thing of the past one day.

App Review: UPad

I love UPad. I really do. It was when I first started playing around with it that I said to myself that these IPads and learning will work. Now, whether you use UPad, Notability, Penultimate or other similar programs is up to you and your school. This post isn't about comparing and contrasting these "note-taking" apps and making any recommendations. But you absolutely must use one of them. These are the apps that are tossing the paper and pens and pencils out the door.

In fact, I had presumed I would be using Notability, as it was the first one I was introduced to. I thought it was perfect. However, last year some of the first teachers using IPads used UPad, not Notability, and we feel it's essential to be consistent with App use, so UPad it is. Ah well.

Ah well, indeed. UPad is also great. So, what do these apps do? Well, think of it as notebooks combined with handouts, complete with erasable pens of any color/thickness, plus highlighter, and the function of adding photos, text, and shapes. It's also very easy to use, easy to share, and easy to organize.

Did I say I love this app?

So far, I use the app in one of three ways:

1. To read our textbook and highlight and annotate main ideas.
2. To complete handouts and summary frames/study guides
3. To create original material.

I don't think I've had a lesson I haven't used this app. Some examples:

This lesson was early in the school year. In one respect, this lesson was to learn about latitude and longitude, but at that early point in the school year I was more interested in the students learning how to use UPad and Google Earth.  Notice the different colors for text. It's easy to move both text and pictures around. You can also rotate pictures.The students grabbed screenshots, but when you add photos you can take one then and there, add from your own library, or copy & paste from online.

An example of a study guide, which is downloaded as a PDF into UPad. Students then upload it, either as a PNG or PDF file. Now, this is very old-school teaching just being done in a different way. Students are still reading their text, summarizing and making notes. The difference is they're doing it in a cooler way. Also, a positive change from the past is that students are summarizing more in their own words as it is more difficult to copy the textbook verbatim, as they need to switch back and forth between their textbook and study guide.

UPad is flawless, IMO. It costs 5 bucks American, 150 Taiwanese dollars. Considering that it becomes a notebook, binder, set of pens and highlighters, plus more and is so easy to use, that 5 bucks is a steal. And as I said, this isn't a comparison with their rivals, nor an endorsement of UPad over the other similar apps. But if you're a teacher soon to be using tablets in your classroom and you're concerned about the transition, then relax a little. Not only will you not have to re-invent the wheel, but you're going to have so many more options of how to do your lessons.

First assessment's in. So how do they compare to last year?

We've recently had our first major assessment, and I've been looking forward to seeing how this year's group did compared with last year's. Apart from using the IPad, all the other variables are the same: same curriculum, the exam was very similar, the population sizes are the same (50 this year, 52 last year), and the teacher's the same. So, how did they compare?

Here's the data:

	Fall 2012 No Ipads	Fall 2013 Ipads
AVERAGE	80.5	83.7
MEDIAN	84.5	89.5
STANDARD DEVIATION	16.6	13.8
P VALUE	0.2

As you can see, the IPad class performed better. They average higher, over half scored an A, and they're less scattered. However, we can't read too much into these numbers. That high p-value rules out any decisive conclusions. 

I was somewhat surprised by these results. As I wrote previously I thought that there was less focus on the actual content as we spent time "playing" with new apps, configuring dropbox and schoology, on top of technical issues. We also had less periods because of some holidays and other scheduling issues. So, it's good to see that the early glitches and lost classroom time did not have any negative effect on the learning.

No matter how crappy it is, it's still better than the previous generation

My previous post, "This patience is getting too bitter to eat" appears to be the nadir. Following that frustration I announced to my class that I would no longer answer "technical" questions. Wi-Fi doesn't work? Ok. Fix it. The file won't download? Alright, what else is new? As I said before, I can't be handling these situations when I should be focused on the lesson objectives. And it's not like I have any sage advice. My answer is typically "do it again".

Well, it seems to have worked. For the most part I think this is because the students have made the adjustments. But it is a relief that I'm no longer constantly harassed with technical questions,  and when I do get the technical questions they're real bafflers. I'm the one thinking WT*? That shouldn't be?

And we had another quiz. 0 problems. Well, except for the 2 students who didn't bother to submit. One I tracked down before the end of the day. The other one I discovered when I was showing my visiting retired-teacher mom the wonders of the IPad over the weekend on our trip down south. She had a rejoinder: "In my day..." Ya, I heard this one before. Carbon copies, blah blah blah. Anyways, as for the quiz NP, we fixed it on Monday. I suppose the concept of "submit" is new to some. But at least I didn't need to use the paper copies I printed out made carbon copies of..

Darn it, next time print carbon copy them out one-sided so at least you can re-use them as scrap paper. Another learned lesson. 

Learning, learning, learning.