10 Must-Have Apps For iPads In The Classroom My students love using their iPads in the classroom! iPads in the classroom provide student with the opportunity not to be restricted to the traditional way of learning. As a teacher, it is a wonderful feeling to see students being engaged and interacting in their learning. Since our school’s 1:1 iPad initiative in all Math and Science classrooms, I have become passionate about finding technology tools that will motivate and inspire my students to learn. Great use of iPads technology tools directly impacts the learning environment of the classroom. The following is a list of free apps and websites that I have found that really motivates and inspires my students to be actively engaged in their learning. (1) Today’s Meet ~ A backchannel website that helps you connect with students in real time. (2) Corkboard.me ~ A website that allow students to collaborate in real time with the use of sticky notes on a board. (5) Sonic Pics and (6) Doodle Buddy ~ This duo is a perfect pair.
24 Ed-Tech Terms You Should Know If you’re a teacher or administrator who has been to an educational conference or sat in on a product demo featuring the latest classroom innovation, you know that the intersection of schools and technology is littered with buzzwords. From mLearning to mobile apps to asynchronous instruction, the ed-tech landscape is equal parts high-gloss marketing and roll-up-your-sleeves instruction. In the face of increased pressure to improve student performance, how can K–12 educators cut through the promotional hyperbole and put the focus where it should be — on classroom improvements? It helps if you speak the language. This Ed Tech Cheat Sheet, which we first encountered on the Mr. Are there any other terms you’d like to see on this list? iPads improve special education at Coon Rapids school The addition of a few iPads to the special education toolbox has raised the achievement bar at Northdale Middle School in Coon Rapids. In the third year of their use there, the tablet computers have led to increased engagement among some of the most severely disabled students and have accelerated their learning. Other schools have made use of technology in special education, but Northdale is the "grass roots" of the iPad initiative in Anoka-Hennepin, said teacher Mary Fleegel, who has led the program along with speech language pathologist Kathryn McLachlan. In Fleegel's classroom for students with developmental and cognitive disabilities, students took turns last week matching pictures on a projector screen and their iPads to vocabulary words about desert biozones as part of a unit on ecosystems. Students used their fingers to tap the correct word, either vocalizing it or letting the computers speak, then touching an arrow to turn the page.
9 Tools to Create E-magazines and Newspapers for Your Class 1- Uniflip UniFlip converts your magazine, brochure or catalog from its original PDF format into an exciting, professional multi-media digital format with pages that flip. 2-Joomag Joomag is a web tool that lets you create your own magazines using a simple online editor. You can draw shapes, write texts, add rich media elements like video and audio players. 3- Scribd Scribd is known for being a reading library where you can search for and find ebooks and slides but it is also a magazine creator which allows users to upload their own content and turn it into a magazine 4- Issuu This is like Scribd above. 5- Zinepal This tools lets you create an ebook or magazine from posts and articles of a blog. 6- Build A Newspaper This one is a professional platform that provides teacher based templates to create mazagines. 7- Fodey This is most simple of all the tools mentioned here. 8- Open Zine 9- Calameo Publish your magazine, presentations or documents and share them with the world.
Dispelling the Myths About 1:1 Environments In my last post, I shared what we learned last year during our 1:1 iPad and Google Apps for Education launches. In this post, I’d like to dispel myths about 1:1 environments. My assertions are not based on opinion, but on evidence directly observed in secondary classrooms at Burlington High School and from the students that traverse these halls daily. Our school launched 1,000-plus iPads last year, and we're starting our second year with the device in the hands of all students and teachers. Myth 1: The Digital Generation Needs Technology False. I did not pull this evidence out of thin air. I like to quote Chris Lehman anytime technology integration comes up. Myth 2: The iPad is Simply a Tool False. When I presented this analogy to one of my help desk students, Hannah Lienhard, she responded by saying: I agree that both the iPad and the hammer occupy a finite space physically. Myth 3: It's Not a Distraction False. Myth 4: Creating or Purchasing Textbooks for the iPad is a Grand Innovation
The greatest creative writing activity ever UPDATE: This post was awarded the British Council’s Teaching English blog award for February, 2013. Thanks to all those who voted for my work, you’re awesome. This post is a response to a question posed on the British Council’s Teaching English page on Facebook: ‘Have you got a favourite lesson plan or class activity that you come back to and use again and again? What does it consist of? Ok, let me dive straight into it. First, I’ll describe the activity, and then I’ll tell you why it’s great. 1. How long have you been on the planet? 2. You are going to write a paragraph that tells a story.Your paragraph will be a response to these questions.Any sentence you write is OK, but you must follow the sequence of questions.You can ask me for help while you are writing. 3. What kind of language might we use to answer the first question? 4. Twenty minutes is long enough for most to finish. 5. Why does this work so well? 1. ‘When did you arrive on the planet?’ You can equally make it more complex: 2.
Some Schools Actually Want Students To Play With Their Smartphones In Class : All Tech Considered hide captionIn Durham, N.H., Oyster River Middle School seventh-graders Patrick Beary and Morgan Bernier play with StoryKit, a free app that helps middle-schoolers put together simple presentations, and elementary students make storybooks. Sam Evans-Brown/New Hampshire Public Radio In Durham, N.H., Oyster River Middle School seventh-graders Patrick Beary and Morgan Bernier play with StoryKit, a free app that helps middle-schoolers put together simple presentations, and elementary students make storybooks. If there is one thing that the mobile-computing era has made clear, it's that kids love touch screens. Because those touch screens — smartphones, iPads, Kindles and the like — are an inevitable added distraction to the classroom, schools across the country are struggling to deal with the growing prevalence of the technology. But a growing number of schools are embracing these hand-held, Internet-ready devices by creating policies that put them to use in the classroom.
Alternative Video Use in the Flipped Classroom Guest post by FLN executive director, Kari Arfstrom. Recently, you may have heard about flipped learning. If you read any professional journals or education publications over the summer break, most of them have written at least one story on this new ideology. Every education blogger seems to have an opinion on the topic as well. National news organizations like CNN and NPR have covered it, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, which has done multiple stories. Your local newspaper or TV station may have run a story on a school in your area. Survey says: Flipped learning boosts grades, attitudes, satisfaction You may have decided to flip your classroom (or are thinking about it) to increase student interest and learning, to stave off doing the “same thing day after day,” and to utilize past technology purchases that can finally be realized as increasing satisfaction for both teachers and students. Where and how to use video: 6 styles with examples Can’t see the video?
29 iPad Resources, Tutorials, and Guides Every Teacher Should Know about iPad is gaining momentum in the educational sphere and might , in the near future, be integrated as a leading learning method. iPad is part of the gesture-based technology that is widely embraced by teens and which has pushed some school districts especially here in Canada and also in the States to start using the BYOD approach, for the costs of iPad and their apps is still relatively high. As a teacher who has not yet tried mobile technology in his teaching, you might be wondering where and how to start. What resources to use ? Well, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has some answers for you. 1- Teacher's Guide to The Use of iPads in Education 2- 8 Free Resources on The Use of iPads in Education 3- A Free Comprehensive Guide to iPad Apps Evaluation 4- A Quick Guide on Bloom's Taxonomy Apps for iPad 5- Teacher's Guide to The Use of Google Docs in The iPad 6- A Simple Guide on how to Create eBooks on iPads Using iBook Author 7- Using iPads to Enhance Students Reading Skills