Qwest grant (now Century Link)

I applied for a $10,000 Qwest grant in February and found out in April that I was one of nine people in Washington State to receive it.  One of the other teachers is Stacey Churchill who's an art teacher at Foster High School in my school district of Tukwila.

Here's what I said I wanted to do:

This will be a yearlong project with students in an English Language Learners (ELL) class. Students will be paired up to read interactive books that embed audio and video on an iPad. Students will record their own voices reading the books to improve their reading fluency, which according to Johns and Berglund (2006) extends to include reading comprehension.  Students will then practice editing digital books using the StoryKit app from the International Childrens Library.  Eventually students will be ready to create their own digital books, representing themselves and their cultures, and publish them online for the school community to access and respond to.  The digital books will include audio (student narration), video, photographic, and written elements and will be created using various apps such as iTalk.

My district received the money on July 1st, and we placed out Purchase Order immediately.  Thankfully I have the support of Mike Cullum,  the Director of Instructional Technology for the district, and my principal, Brett Christopher, or this project wouldn't have been able to even begin.  When you're purchasing iPads, $10,000 doesn't go far.  With their help and the grant, we were able to purchase fifteen iPads, a Bretford cart for simultaneously syncing and charging the iPads, iPad covers, and $500 for the Apple Volume Purchasing Program for apps.  Additionally, Brett purchased five more iPads for staff to use for classroom walk-throughs, so I can borrow those when needed.

Truthfully, as I read over the twelve pages of my complete application, I wonder if my plan is bigger than I can actually handle.  I think I have some great ideas, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it all with the students.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how long it took just to get the iPads set up, and you'll understand what I mean.