Fluency app

One of the things the first grade teacher is doing has to do with an app called "Fluency". At the last iDevice cadre meeting Gail and I were talking about this and when Heidi came over Gail got very excited about the same app and discussion ensued.  Next thing I know, Gail is wanting to get it purchased and put it on the iPad.  She had me test it out on her iPad after setting up a new Dropbox account--by the way how many new accounts and passwords are we going to get this year?  Crazy!

I find it interesting that my influence as a by product of Weston's grant has now come full circle! Let me explain....

As the OSTA region 5 representative it is my duty to not only make contact with other teachers, but also to continue to promote continued growth professionally and in the field of science. This has been greatly enhanced by both partaking in regional technology cadres as well as the many other technology cadres as the result of my acceptance of the TOSA position for Weston Middle School. This year I decided to see if there were any teachers in the Rock interested in coming to the regional technology cadre. One teacher in particular that I had hoped to bring in was the kindergarden teacher who just got a promethean board from the PRES PTC (OK, I had spear headed this after she approached me at the end of last school year).

Since this was a suggested requirement of getting the board I formally invited her to join us (after getting Joe's permission). She was excited and ready to learn. Later this year Quest sent out a grant opportunity for these regional members. Quickly I asked the kindergarten teacher if she was interested in putting something together. The short deadline resulted in a exspidited visit to observe Echo teachers using iTouches in the elementary classroom--this had been a plan for a while. Long story short, the K,1,2 teachers now have 8 iTouches in their classrooms and are doing amazing things.


So, Today I am here setting up this app for Gail. Here are some things to keep in mind as setting this up:

• Make sure have a Dropbox account and create a folder called Scripts.
• All word documents must have the ending .txt and should be saved in scripts folder in Dropbox.
• Plain text = .txt!  Duh!
• When you turn a pages document into plain text the apostrophes don't carry over.  (Am looking into how to fix this.)

Final note, once done it works fabulous and after talking to Michael (the designer) found out that he is working on an update which will include allowing teachers to set the time rather than students!  That will make Gail happy!  Glad I asked.