I just returned home from a quaint little awards ceremony in which I was one of 16 recipients of an Enrichment Award grant from our city's Education Foundation. Hooray! I came home with 4 new iPad minis and a charging station for my classroom...
Last spring, I wrote a grant for my school site which we also won. The grant outfitted each classroom at my school with 6 iPad minis. It took our tech department an exorbitant amount of time to get them in our hot little hands, but we did finally get them in October (about 6 months later), and my kids use them for all sorts of things. I LOVE them! But since 6 is hardly enough in a class of 24, I wrote this city grant for my own classroom. Now I have 10!
When completing this recent grant application and figuring out how many I could receive under the grant dollar amount there was enough funding for 4 minis plus a little money left over, but not enough to make it 5 minis. So I added on the charging station instead. During the
renovations this
summer, they brilliantly decided to cover up ALL BUT TWO electrical outlets in the classroom. We were told that they'd be back in to add them after the year started. It is now 7 months into the year, and I still only have two outlets.
This is what the back outlet looks like most of the time. The charging station seemed like a great idea!
I unwrapped and unpacked my new stuff when I got home and played around with the charging station just to see how it was set up.
I'm so pleased with it - keeping the cords tangle free, all the plugs are plugged into one surge protector which then plugs into the wall. It makes me giddy just looking at it. I can't wait to get it to school tomorrow.
My goal is to have 12 iPad minis in the classroom - 2 students per iPad is ideal. Off to a good start with 10!
Congratulations! And good for you for thinking outside the box and adding the charging station. It looks like a wonderful set up, especially now that you only have two plugs in your room.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, the station seems to be a great addition. Luckily, they are finally working on the electrical at the school and are a room away from starting in my room. Regardless, it's a much neater way of storing the iPads compared to what I was using. It keeps all the cords hidden and untangled. I think I'll be able to keep it plugged inside a locked cupboard which would make check in and out of the devices SO EASY. Fingers crossed they can make that happen for me.
DeleteWow, good on you.
ReplyDeleteSorry I didn't write more yesterday but things got a bit frenetic what with changing my mind as to how I'd finish mounting the pictures and then reverting meaning a few trips to shops. Did you know you can get double-sided sticky tape.
DeleteI read ths early yesterday morning and wondered why Apple. Here Apple is three time the price of a similar Android or even 4 times. Is Apple doing something with educational Apps that the others aren't.
Oh, over this side the feminazi's are out big time over 50 Shades. There's hardly a TV station hat hasn't pitted a couple of women, one who has read it and thinks meah what's the fuss and another who wouldn't pollute her lovely mind with what she's calling an abuses charter.
DeleteThanks!
DeleteWhile the Apple tablets are a bit more expensive here, not a lot, but a bit, they really are far easier to use. They integrate really well with each other, I can mirror what is on their screen to my Smartboard and I have found them a lot more intuitive than the android or pc based products. Our district has bought all PC based products (even though we all wish they went with Apple) including those black Yogas in the middle picture. They are a joke. They are supposed to be a tablet/laptop, whch is great in theory, but they are not intuitive at all. It's like they tried to make their own iPad, but weren't able to do it. They take the kids 4 times as long to get on and the touchscreen works only part of the time and if used as a tablet, there is keyboard folded up under the backside that causes interruptions when you push a key with your hand while holding as a tablet. I used them for about a week along with my 6 iPads and they took SOOOO much time and energy on my part to keep the kids on them, they've spent the rest of the time in the closet and I'm just using the iPads. They take seconds to pass out and start using rather than several minutes. AND the Yogas were probably $100 more than the minis. What also helps is the 2nd generation mini is a great product, but since they've come out with some upgraded versions of it, the 2nd mini's price dropped and it is quite reasonable - not the most expensive of their line anymore. Yes, I am biased towards Apple - but, in the classroom it's for good reason. ;)
As for 50 Shades - YES! Everyone is in a tizzy over its opening tomorrow. Having read the book I find it laughably ironic that it's opening on Valentine's Day because it was anything but romantic. The reviews have been mixed. It would be hard to make it WORSE than the book, because the book's quality was so poor. I am a wee bit curious about how they are going to pull off mommy-porn on the big screen. On the other hand, I'm not sure how comfortable I am watching mommy porn at the movie theater with a bunch of horny mommies. :) My book club, which as you remember read the book, has been emailing about going making a date to go see it, and one of the member's responses made me laugh, "I'm nervous about seeing it with you all at the movies. I watched a review and the reviewer said her vagina skipped a beat!" Very well put!
I've put up a post but it's not showing on yours for some reason.
ReplyDelete:(. I'm not sure why that is. I noticed that awhile back when one of your posts said it had been up for 15+ hours and it had not shown on the blogroll that long. Maybe it takes longer for WP to show up on blogger.
DeleteYou should definitely toot your horn for something like that.
ReplyDeleteCongrats!! How exciting!!
ReplyDeleteI have a huge cart in my room which houses the iPads for the 2nd grade...of course we have 10 for 25 students...to share with 3 classes. Can't complain though...my last school had nothing!