Launch Day

Well at last after about 6 months of planning and getting funding and three frantic weeks of preparation after the devices arrive (see previous post) we are ready to go. It's FRIDAY 13TH of SEPTEMBER 2013 and there is a room full of iPads ready to be given out to students alongside stacks of ethical permission forms, Acceptable Use Policies, plugs, cables and other instructions and next door a room full of (hopefully) unaware students who are being given an introduction to the "evolution of learning".

We started the session by looking at the changing ways in which technology has been used in education - from the use of wax tablets to the laptop computer and how the adoption cycles for these had come into schools using Rogers Adaptation Cycle to consider this. We then has a colleague from a local school (Thomas Ferens Academy) to talk about how their 1-1 adoption policy was impacting on teaching and learning.

We then asked the students "How would you like to have an iPad" there was a susurration around the room which grew to an excited murmur and when we then explained that for this year they would all be getting the loan of a device then they were very excited.

Students waiting to get their iPads

Again the process has not been without some teething troubles - the cliché of a "steep learning curve"  was evident but the process went pretty smoothly as the students needed to:

1. Collect a device
2. Read and sign the Acceptable Use Policy
3. Read and sign the research ethics permission form
4. Log onto the Meraki MDM system
5. Collect their plugs, cables and instructions

There were lots of excited and enthusiastic students but my favourite quote of the day was one of the maths student teachers who said,  "When I heard we were getting an iPad I almost cried" - hopefully this was through excitement not because they has just bought one!

The students were then send off to "play" with the devices over the weekend and we will launch into the use of them next week as we begin the Inquiry based learning sessions in the university.