Busy Year, new accessories!

I am teaching a 1/2 combo this year as well as attending a lot of meetings so it's been a busy 6 weeks. I still love having the iPads in my classroom and enjoy seeing what the students create.

We have been testing out a variety of styluses this year. 75% of the students in my class prefer a stylus to their finger, although this could still be due to the novelty of having one--maybe by June they will have a different answer. Most of them do write and draw more neatly when using a stylus. Unfortunately we have gone through styluses quickly. Pushing too hard and playing with them has caused the rubber tips to fall off most brands we have tried. Although quite a bit pricier than most brands, the Cosmonaut has proven more durable. It is a lot heavier and doesn't have the rubber tip. Instead the stylus is built like a single unit.

We are also using an iPad accessory called GripStand. GripStand fits on the iPad and has a handle that doubles as a stand. It allows the iPad to rotate and stand upright at a variety of angles. The students like it, and the stand provides another means of differentiation--leaning and propping up to suit their needs. It provides a secure way for them to carry it around. I also find it easy to hold as I walk around the room taking anecdotal notes and controlling the computer. The GripStand doesn't have a cover over the iPad screen. This could be a problem if a student dropped the iPad, but most of the time they don't fold the cover over the screen on iPad holders that have a cover.

Predicting with StoryBuddy

My family has been taking care of my sister's king charles cocker spaniel (Max) for several weeks. During that time he has had many adventures and gotten himself into some trouble. I have been sharing Max stories with my students since school started, something they quite enjoy. Since my students have been studying predicting, I had them write a Max stories. I asked them to write 2 pages describing real trouble Max has gotten into and then write a third page predicting what he might do that day while all the people were away. They were lots of fun to read. I shared them with my sister and she was able to Skype my students to thank them.

Posterous For Sharing Work with Parents

This year we are using Posterous to share student work with parents. Each teacher has a Posterous site and within that site each student has a private Space. Spaces are accessible only to the teacher and parents. Students post their work from iPads using a general school email account established for this purpose.

We started posting work 2 weeks ago and so far it has gone well, with only a few glitches. There have been 3 problems. First, impatience. Generally work is posted quickly but sometimes it takes more time. Second, incorrectly entering email addresses, or not setting the school email account as a contributor. Finally, on some iPads the school email was "kicked off" the iPad so no email was being sent at all. Luckily once discovered all the problems were easily corrected.

So far using Posterous to create aprivate  e-portfolio for students is going well.

Diary of a ______

After reading and discussing Diary of a Fly my students were asked to create diary entries from the viewpoint of either a silkworm or butterfly. These were 2 insects we raised in class and followed through their life cycle.  I left the app open to them, most chose Popplet.

Alternative energy centers

Last week my students rotated through alternative energy stations. They played with solar cars, a wind-powered carousel, and a water-powered ferris wheel. For each activity, I had a list of experiments for them to do and related questions. Rather than have them answer the questions on a ditto as I did in the past, I asked them to create a Popplet with some of their observations.

Creating a Concentration Game

Using Doodle Buddy students created pairs of related terms/drawing. For example, one picture might have an analog clock and another picture a digital clock, both displaying the same time. The terms covered all topics we learned this year including science and social studies vocabulary, contraction, and synonyms. Students imported the pairs into the app MakenMatch and then played each other in a game of concentration.

Taking Care of the Environment

I broke students into groups and gave each group a different book to read. The topics were conserving water, keeping lakes/rivers/oceans clean, keeping the air clean, and conserving electricity. Each group created a poster using any app of their choice. Ahead of time we talked about and looked at different posters. We discussed the fact that posters are filled with a picture and usually have little text. The text is used to give a specific message. The apps the groups chose were Doodle Buddy, Drawing Pad, and Strip Design.