One of our 4th graders, let’s call him E, was seriously hurt in a sledding accident during last weekend’s snow storm. He was hospitalized Sunday for a lacerated liver (!!!) and just got out on Saturday. His home room teacher, the counselor & I dropped by to visit him at home yesterday. I think the highlight was viewing the video his teacher, Ms. B. made for him.
It should have been simple project: shoot some video at school, toss it into iDVD and voila!
The kids really like E, who is smart, funny and nice to everyone. So when Ms. B found an Oregon Ducks doll, they all agreed it would be fun to put the doll in E’s seat and let him participate in what E was missing. They had a blast with the project. They asked the doll questions, took him to PE and recess, and walked him in the hall. The glitch came when Ms. B., who had recorded the day on her iPad, tried to transfer it to her laptop to create the movie. Our school iPads require an administrator’s password to initiate conversations between devices. We don’t have anyone in our building with the password. Ms. B. asked our tech guy. He saw no way out, contacted IT and was still waiting two days later.
Friday afternoon, I had an idea. Our iPads all have the Dropbox app. Couldn’t we create an account, upload it and then open our Dropbox account on the laptop? So, I spent most of the Valentine’s Day parties working on this. I don’t have a homeroom, so it was possible for me to mess around with things. It turns out that, I could download Dropbox onto my own school laptop, assigned to me, but not on Ms. B’s, so I made an account for her too.
She had the movie finished & burned to a DVD to give to E on Sunday. It took a village to get the project finished, but the end product made E and his family laugh. And, in a way, maybe that’s what Valentine’s day should be about.
booksandbassets 
What a wonderful way to share with your missing student. I hope he covers quickly.
ARGH to admin passwords!! Control control control… Kind of like your other audiobook situation! I just go thru my iPhone and iPad with Audible and Overdrive. No issues with control on my end with computers but I just don’t need to use my school computer. Plus if I wanted, I could always plug my iPhone up to a speaker system to listen to the audiobook… Love your solution… Lacerated liver, haven’t heard of that one before… hope healing goes quickly!
It seemed to be the theme of the week. I understand why the district does it, but I don;t always like it.
Yep, agreed.
I’m in an Indie school, but there are still admin issues with those who have school-issued computers… You are so clever; and hurrah for the cloud! Soon it will all be there! I hope the student heals quickly-what a sweet thing his teacher, and all of you, did for him!
I love the idea of the Oregon Ducks doll to make note of what is being missed (we’d have to use a Husky here in UW country). It’s fabulous that you and Dropbox saved the day! And how fun for the student and his family to know that friends at school were thinking of him.
What a great way to celebrate a student and let him know that he is loved and missed!
Such a sweet way to show your student how important he is! It’s amazing how big a part each child plays in a classroom. Everyone is impacted when something happens to one of those parts.