Exploring New Technology- Delivering Instruction

I am blessed to be at a school that is 1-to-1 (meaning every teacher and student has a laptop). We also allow students to take their laptops home, which is huge for our community (we have about 60% on free/reduced lunch). Along with our laptops our school has been blessed to be the pilot school for a program called URcast, and I was lucky enough to be the lead teacher in implementing this program.
It's a very new program based in Wilmington, NC and basically it is a means of delivering information to students- with or without internet access. We have internet at our school (and that is required for the program) and students simply open the icon on their desktop and it automatically downloads any files the teachers have sent to their classes. After that download, the pdf, docx, mp4, off-line website, etc. is in URcast- and available on the student's laptop- until the teacher-set expiration date, even at home with no internet! Amazing, right?!
I primarily use it to send lesson videos. I run my class in rotations, and students watch the lesson video and copy the notes in the rotation BEFORE they see me. When they get to me we practice the skill they just took notes on. In the video I walk them through the steps for a type of problem (such as comparing with absolute values) and give them a few examples. Then when they get to me I answer any questions they had and we practice the skill.
Another resource I have been playing with a little recently is a website called eduCanon. This allows you to upload YouTube videos and embed them with questions. So I upload my lesson videos to YouTube, then open them in eduCanon and insert questions I want my students to answer along the way. You can create classes on eduCanon and set due dates for each video.
My next goal is to find a way to merge these two awesome programs; I'll keep you updated on that. But even if they can't work together they are both amazing tools I suggest any teacher in a 1-to-1 school check out.
P.S.- I create my videos on my personal iPad, using the Explain Everything app (totally worth the $3.99).
P.P.S.- If you have any questions about URcast PLEASE let me know. I absolutely love the program and love helping it spread to new school districts.

What to do about F's...

One of my biggest problems this year is the number of students who have an F; I feel like my expectations are too low as it is, so I don't want to lower them even further, but at one point 45 out of my 75 students were failing! So here's what I've been doing:

Each Wednesday I give each of my failing students what we call "slips"; they are slips of paper that have the student's name on it along with their current grade and their "goal" (which is 5% above their grade for my gen. ed. students, and 3% above for my students with an IEP). I also list five assignments on the slip that the student currently has an F on and that will help their grade the most if they get a passing grade. I reiterate weekly that they don't have to finish all the assignments to pass, but they are just a list of ideas of some things they can do to meet their goal.

My students with slips have until Tuesday to meet their goal (I picked Wednesday/Tuesday so they have a weekend in there to work on some stuff). If they meet their goal there are no consequences or rewards, but if they DON'T meet their goal they have to take home a progress report to get signed by their parents and bring back the next day. If they don't bring the progress report back signed then they have to call their parents in class and explain that they are failing and didn't get a progress report signed, and that they will need it signed that night.

At first everyone had a goal of 70% (the lowest passing grade), but for the students who had a 10% or 40% it just wasn't realistic of me to expect them  to turn it around so much in one week. I have talked with our EC (special education) teacher, and she said some of our mutual students love getting those slips, because it helps them know exactly what they need to do, but I still have about 20 students each week who don't meet their goal and never care to try. If anyone has any suggestions for changes or ideas of what I can do about my F issue please share!