Last week and this week, I spent some time in classrooms teaching model lessons with my shiny new iPad2 (thank you BES and BMS teachers for letting me take over your classrooms!). I had two goals:
1. Generate enthusiasm for our "Tech Bucks" program and get more teachers to come to our training sessions. (Rationale: if I show them how cool the iPad is, they'll want to earn one! Oh, and I got their students on board, too!)
2. Illustrate how even ONE iPad in the classrom can be a valuable teaching tool. (Ummm, our district doesn't have a lot of money right now, so rolling out an iPad for each kid just isn't going to happen.)
Well, I definitely achieved the goals above and then some! I - HAD - A - BLAST! And I think the students and teachers did, too. Below is an example of what I did in an elementary reading class. FYI: I did have to use a "dongle" to connect my iPad to the projector so all students could see.
It really was a MOST enjoyable experience and I think I even got a few teachers on board! In doing my research for these lessons, I also came across some other great "teaching with iPads" resources. Check these out...really, I could go on forever...
1. Generate enthusiasm for our "Tech Bucks" program and get more teachers to come to our training sessions. (Rationale: if I show them how cool the iPad is, they'll want to earn one! Oh, and I got their students on board, too!)
2. Illustrate how even ONE iPad in the classrom can be a valuable teaching tool. (Ummm, our district doesn't have a lot of money right now, so rolling out an iPad for each kid just isn't going to happen.)
Well, I definitely achieved the goals above and then some! I - HAD - A - BLAST! And I think the students and teachers did, too. Below is an example of what I did in an elementary reading class. FYI: I did have to use a "dongle" to connect my iPad to the projector so all students could see.
- App: Shake-a-Phrase - I used this app as a warm up on parts of speech. Students had to tap specific parts of speech in a silly sentence.
- App: Sparklefish - Then we created a silly story using parts of speech, similar to creating a mad lib, but you say the word and it records it and then plays back your story. :)
- App: AirSketch - This was my big "ooooh! ahhhh!" moment. I spent $10 on this app, but it was worth it. I found a PDF story map online, put it in my Dropbox, opened it on my iPad and then sent it to AirSketch. Then I plugged in my laptop to the projector, went to the IP specified in AirSketch, and now my iPad is a wireless tablet. OOOOH! AHHHHH! We passed the iPad around and let the kids fill in the story map while the whole class watched online. :)
- App: Sock Puppets - I wanted to go out with a BANG, so we then used this app to turn two student volunteers into digital sock puppets to retell our silly story.
It really was a MOST enjoyable experience and I think I even got a few teachers on board! In doing my research for these lessons, I also came across some other great "teaching with iPads" resources. Check these out...really, I could go on forever...
- Tacky Wales: iTool for Literacy
- 10 Free iPad Apps for Teachers
- Digital Storytelling with the iPad
- iPad Apps for Social Studies
- Apps for Special Populations
The students love using my ipad. What are some aweseome ipad apps for 5th grade science?
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