What can be accomplished with just one iPad in your classroom? Lots! Take a look at a few of these apps and decide how you want to begin maximizing the use of your iPad. Here are a few ideas for you to consider!
1. Manage your classroom behavior using Class Dojo, Too Noisy or Stick Pick.
2. Take class pictures of your lessons, activities and assignments. Allow students to use the pictures to create an Animoto Video. Use the Explain Everything app to provide a how-to for students needing extra support.
3. Use it as a document camera or interactive whiteboard to take a virtual field trip using Google Maps or Globe for iPad.
Your iPad can become one amazing classroom tool for you and your students! Check out these apps! After you begin using one or more of them, your students will be pleading for more!
Monday, January 6, 2014
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Top Tech Tools
Besides Google Apps, what other technology tools might you be using to engage and interact with your students? After reading several articles, I repeatedly came across blogging and Voicethread.
For blogging, I suggest Kidblog.org. This site provides a safe and secure way to digitally connect with your students. Do students get excited about blogging...YES! Will they try to use it like a social media...YES! One cool advantage of using Kidblog is that the teacher can approve all comments before they appear on the blog whether the student responds from school or home. When the teacher models how to use the blog, the appropriate use of the tool can be discussed at this time. If a student submits an inappropriate response, the teacher can unapprove or delete the comment so that other students never see it. Pretty awesome, right? So, why go to all the trouble? I have never seen students get so excited about plate tectonic movements, as I did today when they were asked to blog about it. Using this digital format, the teacher was able to get 100% participation. The students were excited, and engaged. Moreover, they were begging to know if their answers were correct! Wow, every teacher's dream!
Voicethread is a technology tool that students can use to provide information about a specified topic. This digital tool uses images to guide the conversation. The neat aspect of Voicethread is that students can record or type their responses with each image. As they add responses, icons gather around the image. When a student clicks on play, all the responses associated with the image can be heard. In my opinion, this is one of the easiest tech tools to integrate in your classroom. Again, the student response to this tech tool is phenomenal! Using Voicethread, I am seeing students get excited about literature circles!
If you are already using these tech tools, way to go! If not, which one might you consider implementing in your daily teaching and learning? Notice where these two tools are found in the pyramid.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Using Google Apps
You may be thinking, Okay, I've gone Google, now what? I wanted to share some links with you that may help you decide how Google can be best utilized in your daily learning initiatives. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Powtoon and Simplebooklet are free apps that can be added in Google Drive so your students are safely inside of their own account when accessing these tools. Whether you are using a computer lab or just one computer, Google has features that can foster an optimal learning environment for the teacher and student alike! Take a peek at the first link to find out one way that Google can assist you in scheduling conference times, grading or creating a curriculum standards map. Then the other links are provided to give you more information about Powtoon and Simplebooklet.
The keys to using technology tools is planning and simplicity! Choose your tool, choose the topic, share the task with your students and give them time to write down their responses so that their time at the computer is efficient. I know that using less paper is one of our goals in the classroom; however, from my own experience, most elementary students submit higher quality work when they arrive at the computer with a written response. Simplicity will ensure that you keep using Google as a regular part of your classroom learning!
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