What parents think of technology in our school distict.

For the past three years, we have conducted a short on-line survey with our parents regarding technology in our district.  Here’s a quick summary of the results…

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Download a copy of the survey and the full results (including all comments)

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Sample comments regarding things that are going well…

* I like the new late assignments alert.

* Love getting the emails. That’s the most help for me as a parent. The emails with missing assignments is really a help. Thank you for sending those.

* I really like Infinite Campus being able to check grades and lunch accounts (what food is purchased). Daily school messages are helpful — I especially like how VSW puts a BOLD heading for each announcement as it makes it easy to find the areas that apply to my child only.

* I was thrilled to find out my son’s kindergarten class was receiving 3 ipads! I would love to see them using them more in the classroom. I also love the idea of using the laptops in the classrooms!

* The iPads are fabulous. Would be nice to see more of that.

* I like that flyers are electronic now. It prevents issues with them getting lost.

* I HIGHLY enjoy the ability to schedule PT conferences online! That has been a blessing!

* I have been impressed with the ability for me to interact with my child and teacher while deployed with the Army. I was able to conduct 2 parent teacher conferences and talk to the class via video while deployed in Afghanistan. This is extremely important to our family since I am gone for several months throughout the year.

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Sample comments regarding suggestions for improvement…

* Use of technology is inconsistent between grade levels. Some teachers are really involved in technology and others are not. That is understandable but the discrepancy is pretty big.

* I believe that for the most part Valley is using technology well, I am disappointed with the continued notification of my children being absent from a class, when in fact I have called the school or they have had a note, this is often teachers not being aware or maybe the office not making the teachers aware and all is does is make for more confusion. Also they have been counted absent with they are at a school sponsored event, again, lack of communication.

* The weekly emails have some repeated content and the line spacing is bad, most of the time it all runs together. I would suggest different  formatting

* send text message instead of phone calls.

* Often I get an automated message from a teacher – but they do not tell me who they are or what subject they are teaching. With multiple kids in school it’s not easy to know which Math or Science or whatever teacher this is – and to which kid it pertains.

* I have a daughter at VSW and Fairmeadows. DAILY, I receive a minimum of 3-5 emails from West Des Moines Schools. It’s TOO much! I have stopped reading them and end up missing important info.

* I would like to see due dates of all assignments on Infinite campus so I can monitor my child’s work and progress. Too often we receive a late/missing assignment notice when it is too late!

* I would also like to again request that the Campus Portal say Infinite Campus on the district page. Why are two terms used for the same thing?

* We are always called/emailed when our son at Valley HS has an excused absence and has provided a note to the office. Why are notes even asked for if they are ignored EVERY time and we have to contact the office after the fact anyway? This is a terrible problem with the office and is extremely inconvenient for the parents.

* more use of iPads and laptops in education

* You need to rework the daily email messages. On most days, I receive 3-8 messages from the schools, and most of the content is repeated from the prior days’ messages. Valley Vibes is especially bad at repeating the same content for days if not weeks.

* I cannot tell you how many different times I fill out the same basic contact information for each child each school year.

* Stop using the virtual backpack…I really think the elimination of paper handouts for community are really damaging the numbers of community programs such basketball, softball, baseball.

What’s on my iPad: featuring classroom teacher Sarah Stevens

Name: Sarah Stevens

School: Crestview, teaching fourth grade

Email: stevenss@wdmcs.org

Twitter: @stevens4a

Years in education: Four

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What are your top 3 apps used in your classroom?

SCREENCHOMP

I use ScreenChomp mainly in my literacy rotations to create news reports, character interviews, and fluency checks. I also use it in math to explain how to solve a problem. Students record themselves talking while drawing diagrams and adding pictures. The final product ends up being a great video tutorial that we can watch and learn from. We also have used ScreenChomp to teach another school how to use PREZI (an interactive version PowerPoint). Students broke up into groups and each taught one thing about Prezi on ScreenChomp.  We tweeted these videos out and were able to help this class create projects on Prezi! This is a great collaboration tool between students, classrooms, and schools.

Here’s more specific details on how we use ScreenChomp in…

Literacy: I use this app for summarizing a chapter or book, interviewing characters (they can act out the parts), and creating a news articles about events in their book. We also use ScreenChomp to check our fluency. Students first take a picture of the paragraph they will be reading and put it on their ScreenChomp. Next, they record themselves reading that paragraph. When they play the video back they can listen for expression, rate, and also check for accuracy by following along with the words in their paragraph.

Math: Students take a problem from our math boxes or math journal page and use ScreenChomp to explain how to solve it. Students can take a picture of a math problem and add it to their ScreenChomp video.  Next they write directly on the screen as they explain how to solve it. This is a great teaching tool for all students.

ScreenChomp examples…

Screen Chomp video of a student news report created about their reading group

ScreenChomp video of students working on fluency, including listening for rate, expression and accuracy 

ScreenChomp video done by a student teaching how to solve a math problem

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KABAAM

Kabaam is an app that allows students to take pictures and then spice them up with fun captions and word bubbles.  With this app, students can write a caption for each picture. They can put more than one picture together to create a really neat collage. I also use Kabaam to allow students to summarize what they have learned in a particular lesson or unit. This can be a great wrap up activity.

I use Kabaam as a literacy rotation. I have students take one chapter of their book and “Kabaam!” it. Students find ways to show events in their book with pictures and captions. They can add pictures of their book, pictures they have drawn to show main events or anything else they can think of to represent their book. They can put many of these together to create what looks like a timeline of events or collage of events. Kabaam projects look like cartoons so the kids have fun making these.  We also use Kabaam when we create ScreenChomp videos. Kids can create a Kabaam and save it to your iPad photos, then use it as a picture for their ScreenChomp video. They have figured out that this is a way to add more pictures to ScreenChomp.

KABAAM example…

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CHECKBOOK HD

I use this as a behavior system. Students can earn money for making good choices and trying their best on school work. They also get money taken away for not making good choices.  I add each student as a new “card” on the account. It also will show how much money our whole class has total. I use the total balance as a whole class goal.

I use this app daily to encourage students to make positive choices with their behavior and school work. We have a list of things that students can earn and lose money for. This has been motivating for all students. At the end of each week we have a “Class Super Store” where students can spend their money if they wish. It also is a great tool for practicing how to add and subtract decimals.

Sample screenshot:

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If we asked the students in your class – what would they say are their top 3 favorite apps they use in your classroom?

1. Word Monkey
2. ScreenChomp
3. Storyline

How many iPads do you have in your classroom?
We have 3 ipads in our classroom.

You have more kids in your classroom than you have iPads, how do you possibly make that work?
I use our iPads in small group rotations and it works well for me. This encourages students to collaborate together. By using iPads in small group rotations, it allows for more differentiation.

How much money have you spent on apps so far?  Do you find that this takes a lot of time? 
The apps we use on a daily basis are mostly all free! I have not spent more than $15 on new apps this year.