Today I challenged my students to tell me about their favourite movie. They found a picture in Safari with Siri's help and took it into Book Creator. When they were finished they exported their book as a movie and blogged it to show their moms and dads.  Here are some of the journals.

Independent reading time is a tough time of the day when you are a non-reader or emergent reader. 20-30 minutes each day where you are expected to "read" a book without making any noise or causing any distractions can easily become a frustrating time for these students. The becomes especially pronounced as students get older and picture books turn into chapter books and it becomes harder to look like everyone else while still looking at books that are of interest and at ability level.
The iPad can be a great tool at these times. So many ebooks and audiobooks are available that all the student needs is a set of headphones and they can listen to or watch videos of books to their hearts content.

Most classrooms I visit have a time when students are asked to write. Sometimes it is a free writing time, sometimes it is a writing exercise based on a genre, sometimes it is journal writing. Often the students I work with have difficulty accessing these activities because of difficulties with fine motor skills, spelling or related literacy skills. This, however, does not mean that they don't have ideas to share and stories to tell. My favourite apps to recommend to help students at these sorts of times are Book Creator, Explain Everything and Clicker.

 


All three of these apps are easy to learn and simple to use. They allow for the sharing of ideas and knowledge to come first.

Book Creator

Here are some ideas to try with Book Creator.

• have students take a picture of a drawing they did and record themselves talking about it
• have students draw a picture and record themselves talking about it
• have students take pictures of something that interests them and have them record themselves talking about them
• record a video of the student doing something and then record them talking about it
• create a fill in the blanks journal entry. book creator will allow students to fill in those blanks with text, drawing or sound buttons.

Here is an example of a student using Book Creator to do a recount about a field trip.

Explain Everything

• have students take a picture of a drawing they did and record themselves talking about it
• have students draw a picture and record themselves talking about it
• have students take pictures of something that interests them and have them record themselves talking about it
• record a video of the student doing something and then record them talking about it

Clicker

I sat down with some teachers at my school recently and asked them to list for me the types of tasks they ask their students to do. Answers included writing reflections, explaining their thinking, word work (ie. word sorts), quiet reading, completing worksheets, etc. After looking at this list I have come up with 6 basic types of tasks. I created these posters for teachers to post so that both they and their students have ideas of apps that might be helpful for that type of task.

Grab your copy here.

Here is a little iPad skills checklist that I give to my students at the beginning of the year. When they have the skill they bring me the checklist and I put a stamp on the box. This learning happens very quickly because the kids are sponges when it comes to using tech. A great way to build confidence and independence.
Just a note that this could be helpful for staff who are nervous and unfamiliar with devices. ;)

It's official! My class has been accepted to facilitate an EdCamp Global session. We are going to talk about how we use iPads to help throughout the day and wow people with some of the amazing work we've done.