Reflections on a Site Visit to Shawnee Mission

On Thursday, January 29 a small team from our district had the opportunity to visit schools in the Shawnee Mission School District to see the instructional application of iPads in the classroom. Today’s post offers reflections from two of our staff members on what they observed and how it might impact our practice in Excelsior Springs.

Reflections from Mary DiGirlamo

I really enjoyed going to Shawnee Mission School District yesterday and observing other teachers use IPads in the classroom. The 1:1 initiative is very exciting but also scary at the same time. The possibilities of having this type of technology as a learning tool are endless, yet “the change” or “the unknown” is intimidating. It was nice to hear the staff talk about their journey throughout this process. It was nice to know that they had the same excitement and the same fears. It was great to see that they made mistakes, learned from the mistakes and kept growing together as a staff so that the IPads became the awesome learning tool that they were designed to be. I am excited that our PD days will revolve around learning about all of the great apps to use in the classroom. One app in particular that I kept hearing every staff member brag about was “Notability”. I would like to learn more about this program and use it in class. This trip to Shawnee Mission School District was beneficial because learning from other educators is so powerful because we all experience the same things that go on throughout a typical school day. Yet we have the same goal, to prepare our students for the future and to help them be successful in whatever it is they choose to do.

Reflections from Candace Johnson

While visiting classrooms in Shawnee Mission School District we saw students using tons of apps to enrich their learning. Apps like Nearpod to learn about linking verbs, Kahoot to review math concepts, and many Google apps to help with note taking and organization. The interesting thing to me was that our kids have had their iPads for almost three weeks and are using some of the same app already! Nearpod has been used in both 6th and 7th grade science, Kahoot in many different classes (math and ELA to name a few) and pretty much all teachers are learning to deal with Google Classroom. It’s comforting to know that even amongst the troubles and the stresses we are having with iPads; we are starting to use tools that others in 1:1 situations are using almost a full year into 1:1. Baby steps and starting small were ideas repeated over and over. In the honeymoon period of iPad use it’s hard to see past the issues and problems that come with it; but after seeing both students and classes with iPads for almost a full year it was awesome to see the student engagement and learning that is soon to follow.