Suzanne's Ed Tech Reflections

Haiku Deck ( http://www.haikudeck.com/ ) is a really simple, free to use app for creating beautiful presentations right on your iPad. We have had several students and teachers using the app to show their learning and understanding of a topic. This presentation tool has a variety of slide layouts and fonts - just like PowerPoint. We think the best feature is how it finds just the right picture for each slide. Type in a word to search by and Haiku Deck searches a database of Creative Commons Licensed photos to put into your deck. A great way to help students learn about and understand digital citizenship and following copyright. In one classroom the students were learning about how a bill becomes a law. They used Haiku Deck to create their presentations and then mirrored their iPad through the Apple TV to present to the class. Creating a Haiku Deck presentation slide Completed slide Completed Slide   Student mirroring their iPad via Apple TV to shar

We had a really great iPad professional development on Saturday. The 8th grade math teacher at Kennedy School is doing a flipped classroom model and using iPads to help facilitate student learning. Her other 8th grade team members want to get on board with this new way of learning and allow the students to use the iPads throughout the day in all of their classes. We provided four hours of training to these teachers on Saturday, December 15. Guess they were really interested if they gave up a Saturday before the winter holidays! The training focused on developing procedures and classroom management routines since the students will now be taking the iPads from class to class during the school day. We also set up email, created DropBox accounts, and practiced with several apps that would be appropriate to support instruction and student learning. I know they look very serious in this picture since they are working on their procedures - but they really were excited abou

This post really has nothing to do with iPod touches or iPads but I was just so excited to learn about this and wanted to share. A lot of students get the letters "b" and "d" confused - along with some others. While visiting one of our iPod touch classrooms last Thursday, the teacher has this graphic taped to the top of several student desks. Such a simple idea that kids can easily remember - and they only need their hands. I just thought it was a very clever idea. The teacher also shared that these students seem to get "p" and "g" confused as well and was hoping to find something similar to support her students in figuring out these two confusing letters. Well, it seems that the clever person that created this "make your bed" collage also has one for the "p" and "g". It is called the "pig under the bed" collage!  You can find both of these here: http://www.cometogetherkids.com/2011/09/easy

ReadWriteThink ( http://www.readwritethink.org/ ) has a wide variety of student interactives. These are interactive activities that can be completed on a computer, such as Bio Cube, Trading Card Generator, and Word Mover. Now there are two iPad apps designed after these interactives: Trading Card and Word Mover.  The Trading Card app can be used to create trading cards for both fictional and real persons, fictional and real places, objects, events, and vocabulary. Each section of a card has guiding questions to guide you through creating an appropriate card. The cards can be customized with relevant pictures and shared through email. Word mover lets users create 'found poetry' by using word banks or words from existing works of poetry. There are six different poem categories and 12 backgrounds for customizing your poems. Poems can be saved to the Photos app or sent through email. Looks like a couple of very versatile apps for critical thinking and creativity.

So what can you do with only one iPad in a classroom? Lots of things! We have a large number of one iPad classrooms right now. These teachers are using their iPad, Apple TV, and HDMI projector to wirelessly present instruction and impact student learning while being "untethered" and able to move around the room. But teachers are also finding ways to use the iPad for small group or partner activities. They are utilizing apps that are designed for more than one user at a time. Here are a few examples: Futaba is a multiplayer vocabulary building game. Two students can play the free version but an in-app purchase allows up to 4 players and the game can be customized. There is also an "education" version - Futaba Classroom Games for Kids. Bluster is a free iPad game from McGraw-Hill. Use single player mode or team mode to build vocabulary skills. The game can be customized by choosing the level of play and types of words (e.g., synonyms, rhyming words)