This marks the second week that Ms. Sonya Wild’s class Grade 3S have been running the 1:1 Laptop Pilot Program with Ms. Christine Usyak (Elementary ICT Facilitator) in collaboration with Apple Japan Education Sales Team. Apple Japan chose Yokohama International School to pilot and evaluate a 1:1 program and Ms. Wild volunteered her and her class to work closely with Ms. Christine to evaluate this 1:1 project. Ms. Christine has been chosen by the YIS leadership team to liaison between Apple Japan, YIS, and the classroom teacher during the project. Apple Japan has loaned YIS 20 brand new laptops for 3S to use for a period of 3 months starting January 2010. The laptops will be in the classroom first. After two weeks of the student using it in the classroom, with permission from each 3S family, the students will have the opportunity to use these laptops for school work at home. The YIS 1:1 Evaluation Team includes: Mr. Paul Neary, Ms. Shanel Catasti, Ms. Wild, and Ms. Christine.

What is a One-to-One Laptop Environment? Here is an excerpt from the One-to-One Institute of what is a ‘1:1 learning environment’: “In the one-to-one classroom, students’ access to personal technology and the Internet enables them to be self-directed and receive highly personalized instruction. Teachers can create Individualized Education Plans for each child, addressing his or her unique needs. Students use their personal devices to do research, homework, problem-solve, team projects, email and academic coursework. At the same time, they gain valuable 21st century skills that will be beneficial throughout their lives and careers.” For more resources on 1:1 and the YIS 1:1 project, please visit the following website.

On January 12, 3S students were asked to open the computers from the box. You can see a bit of what Day 1 was like through these videos and this link.

YIS 1:1 Laptop Arrival from yisevents on Vimeo.

“It’s like Christmas” is what one class in elementary explain as they are the only ones in the school who were chosen to pilot a 1:1 laptop pilot program.

Ms. Wild has been recording happenings in the classroom on her blog. The students use applications available on the Apple computer including Photo Booth, Safari, and Garageband. In the coming weeks they will be using iWork 09 and work with other Web 2.0 services such as Animoto and Posterous. Each 3S student has been assigned a school email address which is monitored by the school. Each student also has their own blog web site which the students registered using school email address. Ms. Wild and Ms. Christine have already told the students that the school email address is used for communication between each other and their teachers, as well as, for registering for online tools that we will be using for school related assignments. The teachers have communicated to the students that email is not a tool for negative behavior. There are many online tools on the Internet that prohibit children age 13 and under from registering for these services. Because YIS is issuing school email addresses that are maintained at YIS, the staff can assure parents that the school is able to monitor student email accounts and that students can register for online accounts under teacher supervision. Because the students have school email addresses, they are able to register for online tools such as Posterous for blogging and Animoto to create videos with photos and videos the students have taken.

There was an information session on Wednesday, January 20 for 3S families to learn more about the 1:1 project and to support parents voicing concerns about the project. This session gave families a chance learn about what a 1:1 environment is, the implications of 1:1 on student learning, and how families can support learning with technology at home. The collaborative work space (i.e. Also called a ‘wiki.’) was introduced to the families during the session where parents were encouraged to visit and comment. The work space is an ongoing collaborative online collaborative work space that YIS, Apple Japan, Apple Professional Trainer (John D’Arcy from Canadian International School of Hong Kong), Mr. Neary, Ms. Catasti, Ms. Wild, and Ms. Christine are involved in building resources and information for and from this 1:1 pilot project. The session was streamed live and recorded as well. See the video below or click on this link.

Ms. Christine is the Elementary ICT Facilitator at Yokohama International School. She is passionate about educating children in web literacy and instructs students how to use Apple computers and software, as well as, Web 2.0 services in their learning. Visit her teaching portfolio.

Notes:

Although ICT is not required in the exhibition, the YIS Grade 5 teachers and students have decided that they will be writing their reflections and documenting their learning process using Posterous blogs. You can find how to register for Posterous here. Each student has been assigned a school email address so that they can register for online tools such as Posterous. Some students have also registered for Animoto using a Classroom Code that the teacher obtained for the class. Both of these online services strictly prohibits students 13 and younger from registering unless the school provides a ‘dummy’ or alias email address that the school maintains. Apply for Animoto Classroom Code here. The teacher and the ICT Facilitator has supervised both Posterous and Animoto registration so that students use their school email address to register and understand that YIS does not tolerate negative behavior with email and online services.

Posterous – Blogging platform that students can use school email to send a blog post with photos, audio or video files to their website. The subject of the email becomes the title of the post and the body of the email becomes the description or ‘blog post.’
Animoto – Animoto allows educators to apply for a Classroom Code and All-Access Pass for free. This has allowed students to create a video out of their photos, video, and audio recordings without the hassle and time it takes to add transitions and make slideshows. Animoto videos can be downloaded and dropped into iMovie for further editing.

The role of the ICT Facilitator for YIS Grade 5 Exhibition is to:
- Be present in weekly grade level planning meetings (Every Wednesday from 2pm-3pm)
- Block times to work with students using the Grade 5 shared schedule (Times TBD)
- Work with mentors and mentor groups if requested
- Work with teachers and students on strategies to save work (ie. File sizes, Server, USB Memory Stick, Computer)
- Work with IT Team to ensure that printer issues are resolved in a timely manner
- Work with Grade 5 teachers and students on final presentation day to help organize and facilitate event

From the Exhibition Guidelines Handbook 2008:

Role of ICT in PYP Exhibition

Assistant, homeroom, single-subject teachers are invited to attend this workshop on Thursday, September 24 from 3:15-4:00 in KG (Kindergarten classroom).

If you cannot make it, please be sure to have at least one person from your grade level or subject area to attend. If no one can attend from your grade level or subject area, please get in touch with the Elementary ICT Facilitator.

There will be 4 topics addressed in 45 minutes. This blog post is to provide reading to prepare for the session and/or use this post to update you about ICT in the elementary. The session will be hands-on, so please bring your laptop.

Topics covered on Thursday, September 24

1. New IT Support ticketing system

Some of you may already know of the new online ticketing system the IT Department is using. This change took place this summer and we are encouraging all staff and students who have a FirstClass email account to use this system. We have also have parents using our system.

Prior to this online ticketing system we were using emails that went into a shared online work space using FirstClass. This system did not allow us to delegate tasks effectively in our department and did not allow us to gain any statistics about our response record nor allow us to track repeated queries about IT troubleshooting issues to improve our service.

We are hoping that this system will help record and delegate support queries effectively within our department and help track queries so they will be promptly answered via email or in person. The only way to improve the system, like many online services, is that the end user (ie. staff, students, parents) use our system.

2. Color Printing and File Size

If you are printing graphic filled documents from Microsoft Word or Pages, it is important that you check the file size before sending the print job to a printer. If you are at home sending a file that is 1MB or more you will notice right away because you are likely to get a printer error. Sending large print jobs to school color printers seem less obvious that a printer error occurred but, unfortunately, school printers are not invincible. Also, by trying to print a large file from an alternate printer will only jam another printer.

There are several ways to check the file size. The easiest way is to select the file that is saved on your computer then go to the File Menu and select Get Info (ie. Apple + I). Files more than 1MB are huge.

So what is going on in your document that is making your file so large? Text never takes that much room on a file, but pictures do. There are a few things to be conscious of and consider before inserting a picture into your document:

• When taking a photo is your resolution optimal for yearbook photo quality or for something to insert in a document? In other words, have you changed the settings on your camera so that it is the optimal resolution to use in a document?
• When downloading an image from a web site check the file size.
• After checking all the file sizes of the images from iPhoto or using ‘Get Info’, do they add up to less than 1MB?

If your photo is already in iPhoto, you simply go to the File Menu and select Export. You change the settings so that it is between 250 pixels, which is the optimal size to upload to a web page, or up to 450 pixels, which is an optimal size for a Powerpoint or Keynote slide. If you are more familiar with Adobe Photoshop, there is also an option to change the file size there.

3. Text Edit: Alternative application to Microsoft Word

Waiting more than a few minutes for Microsoft Word to open? Microsoft Word takes some time to load and so does Pages. If you are looking for a word-processing application and you are losing precious time waiting for Word or Pages to open, use Text Edit as an alternative. Granted, Text Edit is not a fancy application and does not replace Word or Pages as layout gurus. Text Edit is a simpler word-processing application that takes 10 seconds to open. During the PD days on Monday and Tuesday, I put a Text Edit shortcut on the left side of Microsoft Word on the dock of each iBook used in the elementary. The original application comes with every Mac OS X and can be found in the Applications folder.

4. Register for Vimeo as a grade-level or subject area & register for Animoto for an individual educator account.

Currently, teachers and parents are having trouble accessing the media on the classroom portals. Vimeo, similar to YouTube, and Animoto, similar to creating a slideshow using iPhoto or iMovie, have been used by teachers and accessed by parents at YIS. Teachers and parents have been able to access Vimeo and Animoto videos easily that the school is encouraging you to use these two free Web 2.0 services. Note: Free Vimeo accounts have advertisements and free Animoto educator accounts do not.

Vimeo accounts exist in the ELC, Grade 1, and Grade 2 as shared accounts. Please share these accounts with you classroom assistants if you have not already. Click here to register for a Vimeo account for your grade level or subject area. You will need to pick an email address of one person in your team who would be willing to touch base with you about successful video uploads and updates from Vimeo. Note on choosing a name: ELC has picked ‘yiselc’ and Grade 1 something like ‘yisgr1′ or ‘yisgrade1′ for their accounts.

We will also be applying for the Animoto educator account will give you the option to create full-length videos rather than the 30-second limit that comes with regular free accounts. Click here to begin the application for the Animoto educator account. They may accept your application immediately but it took 3 tries for me, but well worth it!

Shohei and I will be following up with your grade level and subject areas to ensure that you were successful in registering for Vimeo accounts as a grade-level or subject area, and individually for Animoto accounts.

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