From Stephen Rafferty

Stephen Rafferty is a whizz kid teacher who expands the use of ICT in education almost daily....but he hasn't quite worked out how to blog yet :-) Here are some comments from Stephen...

Using IPod every day.
Re-discovered/discovered music.
Started off a bit sad wearing my earphones everywhere. Now have confidence in “sharing” my music.
Very impressed at what Ipodogogy promised.
Have not quite realised the potential of my IPod yet.
I am happy with viewing, listening and sharing photos and music. I now realise that there’s more to I’Tunes than meets the eye. I’m beginning to get a handle on this but Podcasting…?

Music – excellent.
Photo’s and slide shows – excellent.
Calendars – great to be able to view calendars on the go. Discovered more features in ICal. I now make much better use of my notes for events and “to do” items. Excellent for inserting meeting agenda and minutes.

At our first meeting I raised the question of why IPods could not play video. Then, low and behold, Apple release a new IPod with video. Now that would be useful in my subject.

Our mikes came today – suddenly I see potential.
Recorded a meeting tonight and will send, as minutes, to the members of our team.

I just wish I had more time to get my head round podcasting.


So…
Has it changed my life?
Yes
Has it changed my teaching?
Not yet!
Could it?
I think so.

iPods in the History classroom

Curriculum areas

The staff involved with the project will be getting access to the blog today. We are well represented in terms of curriclum areas. We have staff from:

• Art and Design


• Craft and Design


• Modern Languages


• Geography


• Physical Education


• English


• School library


• Computing


• Science and Chemistry


• Music


• Mathematics


• History

Since most staff have had a few days with their iPods we'll be asking staff to post a comment about their initial experience so far and their personal aims for this project.

Staff receive their iPods

Most of the staff involved in the project received their iPods on Friday 30/09/05 at Edinburgh's eTeam offices.

They also received an introduction to iPods from Apple representatives Jim Elder, Claire MacRae and Stuart Anderson. Garry from Kudlian also demonstrated their new podcasting software which is freely available from their website while it is still in development. Geoff Elwood, CEO of Etech also gave a short presentation. We'll be using Etech's virtual learning environment Studywiz to support the delivery of content to the staff and student iPods.

Staff took their iPods away for the weekend and at least some have already managed to get some music and photos onto them.

This week the staff will get access to the blog so hopefully we'll start to see comments from them.

What is the Gracemount iPod Project?

Gracemount High School is located in the south-east of Edinburgh, Scotland. We are a secondary level school and we cater for students in the age range 12-18.

We are about to undertake a project that will look at the potential benefit to learning and teaching of Apple iPods.

A number of staff will receive an iPod each and on the 25th October 2005 a class of pupils will also receive an iPod each.

This blog is for staff to share their experiences of using the iPods.