Andrea Stineff
University of Alaska Southeast
Fall 2013
Background:
The goal of my mentoring project was to help find uses for one iPad in the classroom. I mentored my friend, a part time librarian, and her coworker, the full time librarian integrate one iPad in each classroom of their grade 3 - 6 elementary school. They requested assistance with finding possible apps the teachers can use on their new iPads with their students.
I felt this was a good project as there was an actual request for mentoring. I am interested in iPad applications myself, and my children would likely benefit from this too as they attend this school. I had sent them a few ideas to get them started and had a teacher contact me for specific math apps for students who planned to be absent. The feedback was very positive so I felt I could be of good use to them. I wanted to mentor this person because she is a friend of mine with an expressed need. She is the part-time librarian, I was also familiar with her coworker, the full time librarian, who spearheaded this technological movement. I helped them gather potential uses for one iPad in the classroom along with implementation guidelines and recommendations.
Literature Review:
Mentoring is…
an on-going relationship, voluntary, based on confidentiality and trust, active listening, guiding and sharing, a workplace partnership. (The Aged Care)
Mentoring involves…
sharing information in confidence, an informal plan, a schedule for communications, encouraging protege to write a list of questions. (wikiHOW)
Mentoring skills…
create open and supportive climate for discussion, demonstrate good listening/follow-up skills, provide constructive feedback and advice. (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)
Mentoring motivation and rewards...
"By using your influence and resources as a decision maker, you can bring new hope to young lives through the power of mentoring. You might be surprised by how much you will benefit as well." (MENTOR)
Methodology:
I helped them gather potential uses for one iPad in the classroom along with implementation guidelines and recommendations. A simple google search gave me multiple sites that helped me on my trek to discover potential iPad uses. I also followed the #ipaded hashtag on TweetDeck for ideas and advice. And appreciated any input from my classmates via our blogs and Twitter sessions. I took a week to collect ideas, we weeded through the material together, then planned to distribute our findings to the teachers while gathering their input as to their needs/desires. This is where the best laid plans took a turn. We intended to repeat and fine tune this process the next week until suitable uses were found. I then intended to help organize a meeting with the teachers to introduce the apps and make myself available to my friend the following week to help troubleshoot any issues. The meeting to introduce the apps to the teachers never came to be. There were grand ideas to have an 'Apps with Apps' night, appetizers and iPad navigations to explore best possible apps to be used. But it never got off the ground, coordinating times never seemed possible and the semester continued to pick up speed for all parties involved. Instead the iPads were released to teachers and specific app suggestions were handed out upon request of the teacher so as not to overwhelm them with our compilation of possibilities. 'Apps with Apps' night is still in the works but has been put on the back burner for the moment. I continued to check in weekly and provide further research where needed. We still are having an open conversation.
I collected data through my own reflective journal after each interaction.
Results:
I started with researching recommended subject-specific apps and sharing them with my mentee. This got her motivated and she returned to me with apps of her own she found and requested recommendations of apps currently being used by teachers. With so many apps available, having reviews from teachers actually using them was a huge filter for weeding through the masses. We kept in weekly contact troubleshooting and evaluating apps as they came across them.
I had a pretty strong read from my observations on the apps being positively received. Within the first week of providing a list of apps for my mentee, I was approached by another teacher in the building for help finding subject specific apps for two of her students to use on their own iPads at home. I quickly sent a list off to which she responded, "Wow! Thank you". I also ran into another parent around town two weeks later who thanked me for the apps, the librarian had passed my list on to her, and she was extremely grateful to have a 'guide' for apps for her kids to use rather than 'spending two or more hours every night' searching and not finding much. There seems to be a definite need for assistance in wading through the endless apps available. In week 5 the head librarian personally thanked me for the provided apps and that she has been sharing the list around school and the community. She was planning an 'apps with apps' meeting and wanted me in attendance. She was grateful but uncertain about being able to setting time for meeting in the near future.
My own child's teacher has the iPad in her class and occasionally lets students use it as another computing device for online exercises. It has not been used beyond that as far as he reports.
Discussion:
Overall, it was a mainly successful endeavor however I need to keep the ball rolling. It was easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of the year and push this project aside for both myself and my mentee. But we are not finished yet. She has requested assistance using the Reflector app which we both believe will open doors for many new uses of the iPads for the teachers. I will attend their meeting to introduce apps to the teachers and will observe the teachers' responses and their embracing or ignoring of the apps presented at that time. I anticipate positive results as the teachers seem ready and eager to embrace technology and have the continued support of the librarian team to be successful. The shear volume of apps available is definitely overwhelming for many, so it is useful to have a PLN to help navigate and share findings with. Finally, we must remember to have patience. Technology integration takes time and will evolve as needs and opportunities arise.
Resources:
The Aged Care. Mentoring Colleagues. Retrieved from
http://www.accreditation.org.au/upload/images/Mentoring%20colleagues%20-%20Anne%20Ivanson%20and%20Lois%20Knox.pdf
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Mentoring and Coaching Skills. Retrieved from http://www.asha.org/students/gatheringplace/coach/
wikiHOWto do anything. How to Become a Mentor for Young Work Colleagues. Retrieved from
http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Mentor-for-Young-Work-Colleagues
MENTOR. National Mentoring Partnership. Retrieved from http://www.mentoring.org/get_involved/for_mentors
NCWIT Mentoring-in-a-Box: Technical Women at Work. Mentoring Basics - A Mentor's Guide to Success. Retrieve from http://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/legacy/pdf/IMentor_MentorGuide.pdf
You said, "I also planned to observe the teachers' responses and their embracing or ignoring of the apps presented, if I did not get a good read from my observations I then planned to send a survey via survey monkey to the teachers. Since my child is a student in the school I also thought I would get a sense of the impact any apps had on his particular learning."
ReplyDeleteI was confused by this. It sounds like you planned all this and never carried it through. If you didn't carry it through and still intend to do this, you need to write it this way, maybe in a "next steps" type format. Also, I would rewrite your results section. Make it shorter and more anecdotal instead of including all the data. In our action research class, we only wrote about what we learned from the data, not all the details of the data. You can quote or reference some outstanding data, but don't need to reference all of it. I think if you make these changes, your paper will be much stronger. If you rework it and want more feedback, I'd be happy to look at it again. ;)
Thank you so much Barbra! I was really lost as to how to write this paper so I really appreciate your feedback!
DeleteHi Andrea,
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about #iPad on TweetDeck for ideas for iPad use. I will check with the few teacher in my building to see if they use.
I also sympathize with you regarding plans that fall through and tumbling into the busyness of the school year. The demands on our times is staggering. Don't give up, it sounds like a great idea.
I have a question, do each of the students in each class have an iPad assigned to them? Do they take them home? It sounded like it when you said that students who plan to be absent can use them for math.
I don't have any further comments to make on your paper, I think Barbra covered them.
Hi Debbie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your feedback. There is only one iPad in the classroom, students were using their own iPads at home when they were absent.
I will be sure to clarify that!
Andrea
I've found that it's hard to incorporate new apps on a regular basis. If I haven't been using a tool consistently for a year or more, it doesn't come naturally to incorporate it or build a lesson around it. Having someone in a mentor role to check on your app incorporation process seems like it would be valuable.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree--there are a lot of crummy apps out there! It really takes all of us to play around until we find the most useful ones.
Hi Andrea - it's great that you were able to do this project within your kids' school! Many teachers new to the iPads make the mistake of thinking that it's all about the apps, and subsequently spend probably far too much time trying to vet their own. I know I am far more likely to take recommendations from someone who has already used them, whether it's a colleague, or someone in my PLN whose blog contains a description of the app and how they used it. I was wondering if you did any mentoring with the librarian or the teachers about strategies for integrating the iPads into instruction. Were they used in centers? Shared around on some kind of schedule? Just curious if that was or will continue to be part of your conversation with them. That's one area my mentee really needed help with - the actual incorporation into instruction, no matter what the app. Also, love the "apps with apps" idea - how fun!
ReplyDeleteHi Tracie, I did provide them some articles and blogs on implementing the iPads I kinda stumbled on them in my research and seemed just as important, if not more so, than the apps themselves. Each teacher has their own iPad for their class. Great idea to assist incorporating apps in to instruction. Most teachers are pretty tech savvy in the school but will definitely check in to see if they need further assistance!
DeleteI agree with Tracie! Loved the "Apps with Apps" night idea. Very creative and hope it gets off the ground once things slow down after the holidays. I was curious too about the management aspect of juggling the one iPad with a whole class. I know it is a challenge, especially in an elementary classroom of 27 kids like mine. I've heard of several ways to make it work but was wondering if that topic came up with your mentee as well. Great work! Happy holidays!
ReplyDeleteWe are currently exploring the Reflector app as a way to juggle the demands of 20+ kids on one device :) This blog had a good explanation if you're interested. http://www.appeducation.com/2012/06/10/reflection-app-mirror-you-ipad-in-the-classroom/ Happy holidays to you too!
DeleteI LOVED the idea of the Apps with Apps night. I am sad for you that it did not happen, but glad to read that it might still be in the works. I know a lot of teachers feel that their non-teaching time is so precious that they do not want to use it for teacher related issues. That makes me sad some times, especially when it can be something fun and really beneficial as this sounded. I agree that managing one iPad in a class would be hard, so I am glad that you were there to help and happy to see that although things did not go as initially planned, you made them work with how they were going for you.
ReplyDelete