Guest Post: Three Ipad Tips in the Classroom

Hello, I am Kylene Brooks – I teach Kindergarten in Weber School District. I am excited to be guest blogging for Geoff today.  Let me start out by giving you a little bit of history about me.  I have been teaching kindergarten for 5 years. I LOVE it!  I love getting to be my student’s first teacher and help them see what great and smart students they are! I love getting to know all about each one of them and be a part of their lives. I love being a part of their excitement for school and learning.  I am also a teacher of technology for other elementary teachers at our school district.  Every summer, our district puts on a technology education and training conference for the teachers and administrators in our district.  I have been teaching at that for 3 years now. Technology is an integral and essential part of my teaching.  This past year I piloted a set of 6 iPads in my kindergarten classroom and will be teaching about how to use them in a classroom at the tech conference later this summer.

Today I want to talk about iPads, of course.  I want to give you my three essential tips for teaching with iPads.

Tip #1: If you have multiple iPads owned by your school or school district, you are under legal obligation to follow Apple’s volume licensing requirements which basically means you can only put each app you purchase on one device.  For me since I have six iPads in my classroom, if I want a particular app on each one of my iPads I have to buy the app 6 times.  Unlike my personal iPads at home, I cannot just buy the app once and install it six times on each device (which apple does permit for personally owned devices.)  Because of this requirement, buying apps becomes very expensive quickly. Let’s face it, I could spend a boatload of money even if I just had to buy one of each app for all the apps I would like on my school iPads, so now that I have to buy six copies of each, it is very challenging.  That is why I love appshopper.com a website that has a complete list of discounted apps.  It changes daily depending on what is on sale (or free!!) I have saved a lot of money over time and got some great apps for free or a fraction of the normal price!

Tip#2: Have a management system for using your iPads.  Find a way to manage when and how students get to use them and then train the students.  iPads are an amazing and fantastic learning tool but like all learning tools, teachers need to give input and hold students accountable for their time.  Ipads can be used independently by students of all ages (kindergarten teacher speaking here!) but they should always be managed by teachers.  In my class, when students work hard without distraction on a task they can earn an iPad pass to use the iPad when they are done, before we move on as a class.  With an iPad pass, they have free choice to pick any app they want.  During our reading and math small group time, if I have a group working independently with the iPads, they have a poster that gives them the choice of several apps to choose from.  Students understand that when they do not follow the system, they are excused to a less desirable activity and lose their iPad privileges.

Tip #3: This last tip is short and sweet and pretty self-explanatory: invest in headphones. The first few months I went without and now I just can’t understand how or why I went without them for so long.

Let me leave you with my excitement for iPads in education.  I am impressed with the device and even more impressed with the variety of high quality apps. I love getting to use this tool in my classroom to help my students learn!   

iPad Implementation In a Classroom

I recently read this article from : http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/07/11/putting-the-ipad-to-work-in-elementary-classrooms.aspx

It is a very good article on using iPod Touch in the classroom. I have included the text below, as well as, some of my own thoughts/commentary following the article.

Lovely Lady Liberty: Active Media Engagement for Young Learners

Andrea Patrick is an exceptionally adventurous kindergarten teacher from Johnson Ranch Elementary School (Comal ISD) in Texas. Her students use iPod touch devices for all kinds of fun learning activities. Recently, while teaching a unit on American symbols, she found several videos that presented information in an age appropriate way. They were short and provided important facts, as well as context and a story for each of the symbols. She downloaded the videos from her school’s video subscription service and synchronized them onto the iPods.

There was only one problem. How would she know exactly what the students were getting from the experience? Were they just passively consuming or were they retaining important facts and ideas?

Being a great teacher, she knew just what to do. She built a scaffold to give the students a place to capture details and construct a concept map of the big ideas in the video. Essentially, she was just teaching them how to take notes. Wait a minute… Kindergarteners taking notes?! YOU BET!

By providing a simple scaffold that asked them to draw the Statue of Liberty and look for at least 3 facts about it, the students engaged with the media in a very different way. As a follow up, they had a conversation about their notes. In one case, Mrs. Patrick noticed that a student had only grasped part of an idea. She asked him to go back to the video and see if he could find out the rest. After a second run at it, he was able to add more detail to his notes.

Scaffolds like this are a great tool to increase engagement and provide you with material for assessment and coaching.

I was really impressed with this article and the use of the iPod touch in the classroom to enhance a learning activity. I was impressed for several reasons:

1. One of the first things that impressed me the most was seeing a teacher use this technology as a supplement to her own actual teaching or in other words to not rely on the technology and device to do the work of teaching. This activity was a success because of her teaching skills and the work she did to scaffold and help connect the students’ knowledge together.
2. She also did what is often forgotten or neglected with using iPads in the classroom and that is to have some kind of assessment or accountability for the learning that takes place on them. 
3. She used them to intertwine traditional learning (concept mapping) with the use of technology. Sometimes we are so “wow”ed by what technology can do we tend to let it overshadow or just plain replace some of the important or even vital aspects of traditional classroom work and learning. This should not happen. Technology like this should be used in an intertwined method such as this article presented or as an enhancement but not as a replacement for those important and vital elements of traditional learning.

I’d love to get some other takes on this—what do you think about this teacher’s teaching methods with her iPod touches (essentially mini-iPads) and how they can and/or should be used in the classroom?

Thoughts on Technology and Education

The advancements in technology have impacted every imaginable field. The field of education has changed a lot in recent years because of the technology that is now available, however, it is bound to change even more.

Here is an insightful article by Edutopia about technology in education:

Why Integrate Technology into the Curriculum?: The Reasons Are Many There's a place for tech in every classroom.

By Edutopia Staff

Technology is ubiquitous, touching almost every part of our lives, our communities, our homes. Yet most schools lag far behind when it comes to integrating technology into classroom learning. Many are just beginning to explore the true potential tech offers for teaching and learning. Properly used, technology will help students acquire the skills they need to survive in a complex, highly technological knowledge-based economy.

Integrating technology into classroom instruction means more than teaching basic computer skills and software programs in a separate computer class. Effective tech integration must happen across the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen and enhance the learning process. In particular, it must support four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts. Effective technology integration is achieved when the use of technology is routine and transparent and when technology supports curricular goals.

Many people believe that technology-enabled project learning is the ne plus ultra of classroom instruction. Learning through projects while equipped with technology tools allows students to be intellectually challenged while providing them with a realistic snapshot of what the modern office looks like. Through projects, students acquire and refine their analysis and problem-solving skills as they work individually and in teams to find, process, and synthesize information they've found online.

The myriad resources of the online world also provide each classroom with more interesting, diverse, and current learning materials. The Web connects students to experts in the real world and provides numerous opportunities for expressing understanding through images, sound, and text.

New tech tools for visualizing and modeling, especially in the sciences, offer students ways to experiment and observe phenomenon and to view results in graphic ways that aid in understanding. And, as an added benefit, with technology tools and a project-learning approach, students are more likely to stay engaged and on task, reducing behavioral problems in the classroom.

Technology also changes the way teachers teach, offering educators effective ways to reach different types of learners and assess student understanding through multiple means. It also enhances the relationship between teacher and student. When technology is effectively integrated into subject areas, teachers grow into roles of adviser, content expert, and coach. Technology helps make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun. Return to our Technology Integration page to learn more.

This article originally published on 3/16/2008  

What is your favorite technology to use in the classroom? What does technology help you with? Where do you see education going with the advancements in technology?

The "Must Have" Reading Apps for Kindergarten

With so many Apps out there, it is often overwhelming to search out and find good apps for your classroom. So I would like to start sharing some of the Apps that I think are "must have" reading apps for kindergarten.

Please look over this list and feel free to leave comments if you have found other apps that you think I should add to my "must have" list.

1. Montessori Crosswords - Spelling with Phonics
2. Beginning Sounds Interactive Game
3. Bob Books #1 - Reading Magic
4. Booksy SE
5. ABC Magic Reading Short Vowel Words
6. Letter of the Day Interactive Activities
7. ABC - Magnetic Alphabet HD
8. Jr. Bingo
9. Kids Learning to Read - Little Reader 3 Letter Words
10. AlphaTots

All of these apps can be found in the iTunes App Store.

Getting Started with iPads

I recently have decided to redefine what I will be blogging about for this class. Originally this blog was going to be mostly a place to chronicle new tools and systems that we are introducing into our district and a place where teachers inside our district could come for tips and tricks for using all of the available resources inside the school district. Now I would like to focus on iPads, and Apps for education.

So with that being said let me give you some links to help get you started if you are new to iPads in education.


photo by John.Karakatsanis on Flickr

Apple Volume Purchasing FAQs
http://www.apple.com/education/volume-purchase-program/faq.html

Apple has added a volume purchasing model for business and education. It allows schools and businesses to buy Apps in volume. There are a lot of rules to make sure you follow in order to be legal. This link answers some questions you may have.

Apple Education App Store
https://volume.itunes.apple.com/store
After you have read the FAQs above you can use this link to browse the apps available through the volume store. You can also see if the developer has decided to offer a discount for volume purchases. Apple allows developers to reduce the cost of an App by 50% after 20 licences of an app have been purchased in a single purchase. This is something the developer must choose to do.

iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
This is the link for the download page for iTunes. Get familiar with this software.

AppShopper
http://www.appshopper.com
This is a great site for discovering apps that have recently had price drops. I really like this site because it is updated regularly, but also because of the features it has for sorting. I have been able to save a lot of money personally, as well as for my district by checking this site regularly.

Otterbox Cases
http://www.otterbox.com/
If you are planning on using iPads in elementary setting, then you really should use a good case to increase the life of your iPad. I really like the cases that otterbox makes. They are sturdy, but not too bulky. I have had a lot of success with the defender cases. There are many other cases out there, so I would also recommend a search on amazon.com to find a case that best fits your needs.

Check out these links to get a little bit of a better idea of what it takes to start using iPads in a classroom. In the next post I will share with you my top 10 must have apps for a kindergarten classroom.

Signing In...

Hi- my name is Geoff and this is my blog. I am currently working on my M.E.T degree at Boise State University. As part of my degree, I am enrolled in edTech 597 - Blogging In The Classroom. The interesting thing about being in a class titled Blogging In The Classroom is that I am not a classroom teacher (though my wife is). I currently work for a school district as a Web Developer/Designer/System Specialist. In this role I get to help implement and create many different resources, tools, and technologies in our district. I am hoping that this blog becomes a place to chronicle new tools and systems that we are introducing into our district and a place where teachers inside our district can come for tips and tricks for using all of the available resources inside the school district. That being said, as the summer semester moves along it should become clearer what the exact focus of this blog is. Please feel free to comment with any suggestions that you have as you are reading through the blog.