{"id":76,"date":"2016-04-21T10:31:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T10:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jessicalindsay\/?p=76"},"modified":"2016-04-22T01:57:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T01:57:56","slug":"the-post-cohort-21-experience-1-year-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/jessicalindsay\/2016\/04\/21\/the-post-cohort-21-experience-1-year-later\/","title":{"rendered":"The Post Cohort 21 Experience – 1 Year Later"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Using<\/a>

Using Sesame HQ to take photos of one of his favourite books in the classroom to share with his Mum at home<\/p><\/div>\n

As my colleague, Melissa<\/a>, prepares to attend her last face-to-face, I am reminded of the transformation that I underwent this year thanks to Cohort 21<\/a>. I have been eagerly following Melissa’s\u00a0journey and it has been so affirming to have a colleague who shares a similar philosophy and mindset. We have been able to share our vision together, and be each other’s support as we launched a technology program in our school and worked to\u00a0continually improve our programs.<\/p>\n

Hang on, Launched a Technology Program?<\/h2>\n

Yes! (And how ambitious is Melissa to not even have this as her action plan!?) With three other colleagues,\u00a0we created a technology committee to submit a proposal to management for the purchase of Chromebooks and iPads. We received 16 Chromebooks (enough for biggest\u00a0Junior class) for the Junior Division and 8 iPads (just short of a class set) for the primary divisions. Melissa took charge of the Chromebooks, and may write about her experience with this\u00a0in the future. As an early years teacher, and armed with my Cohort 21 experience, I took charge of the iPads. I nearly lost my mind. To be teaching full time and launching an iPad program from scratch was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had.<\/p>\n

\"Recording<\/a>

Recording ‘signs of spring’ during our weekly Outdoor Discovery time.<\/p><\/div>\n

Logistics<\/h2>\n

Without allowing myself to go on a very long rant, the biggest issue was with the network. It was not able to support the implementation of all of these devices, so issues I was having for weeks with setting up the iPads\u00a0had nothing to do with me. To do the same resets, backups, profiles, blueprints, etc. over and over again to only fail was frustrating, to say the least. But, once I figured out the signal was stronger in another area of the school, the same process I had done all along worked beautifully!<\/p>\n

Since we are not one-to-one, we assigned students to iPads and have a travel cart to send them classroom to classroom. Aside from the occasional “who has the iPads?” when things go off schedule, this is working well for us. Maintaining the iPads is manageable, and we have a solid base of apps for the teachers to acquaint themselves with. I am hoping that we can expand our iPad collection next school year.<\/p>\n

Some of my major takeaways from this experience include:<\/p>\n