A Grant! A Grant! We got a GRANT!

Back in early November, my school system announced that they had some grant monies available for employees interested in putting together technology proposals for innovative ways to use technology in the classroom. They left the proposals open: anyone with an innovative idea could apply. I could have applied solo or with a group of people or... wide open.

So with the other ESL teacher in my building I applied for a grant that would give my students iPod touch devices or iPads to take home with them at night. We would integrate these into the classrooms, but the innovation here is that we are going to allow our kids to take them home at night to do work. I know this isn't all that innovative at a national level--there are schools where having an iPod touch for each student is the norm. I used to work at a laptop school where every student and teacher had a laptop to use in the classroom. But for our school system, this is something new. We don't generally send home hi-tech devices with our students.

Well, we made it through the first round. The district got 62 proposals, and they narrowed them down to 17. The 17 had to go over to Central Office to present their proposals to a room of about 15 people. That was January 3, and we had been waiting to hear back until Thursday night when we got an email letting us know the results. They selected five proposals to fund, and ours was one of them.

I'm thrilled. I don't know if that's the right word. I'm terrified and thrilled. This is an amazing opportunity to pilot something that our district would like to consider for the future. But it's also an incredible responsibility as I essentially vouched for my students in front of the board when we were defending the proposal. The catch is that there is no way that my students' families could pay to recover the cost of a lost/stolen/broken device, so the risk and liability falls back on my judgment in terms of who gets to take them home and who doesn't.

I also now have a lot of work ahead of me. I'm going to TESOL in March, and I'm really looking forward to soaking up from other professionals how they are using this stuff. Prior to that, there is just going to be a lot of experimentation. I have been searching for apps, but I haven't found anything that I'm REALLY excited about. I definitely want them to have a flashcard app, but I need to find one that includes an image and sound on it.

We'll see where this goes. In discussing the funding with the project manager on Friday, I found out that we may have the devices in our classroom by the middle of February. What an amazing opportunity.