What 4 iPads can do

My heartfelt thank you goes to both SBISD's J. Landon Short and Donor's Choose for providing me with an iPad mini and 2 iPads.  Add that to my teacher iPad and I have a genuine station!  Finally!  I have applied again to Donor's Choose because it is time consuming doing one's best work to be published.  The waiting gets tedious for these 7 year olds, but we are ever so grateful for what we do have. 




Imagine my concern when over the Columbus Day holiday, a group of students broke into a classroom that had extra technology in it...technology for the purpose of assisting students who may be struggling with reading and writing.  Then we had theft in my classroom of 2 iTouches, which were eventually returned.  Even as we are working to give more access and opportunities, students are confused enough to take that away from the environment.  So we continue to discuss good citizenship, and I have changed where the technology is kept during the nights and weekends and holidays.  Yes, Monday mornings will now be about recharging devices, but that is a consequence that students will understand.

Without delay we began use of the devices for science demos, math explanations and digital storytelling.  The students are learning how important preparation is before publishing!  Awesome lesson!  Students are clamoring to show me edited writing and using vocabulary such as, "I am working on the resolution now" and "I tried to explain 3 digit addition with regrouping, but I was not quite successful."

We have had a few fits while using Telegammi (with thanks to Angelique Moulton for sharing this app) in publishing Flat Stanley stories in the style of author, Jeff Brown.  Telegammi is limited in length, and some students took this personally, instead of saving, and then finishing with a second video. Other students are competently telling and retelling their stories.  Here are a couple of working segments.



Flat Stanley

Flat Rosie

Conversations such as,"Does your story follow the rubric?" and "If your story shows Flat Stanley as a criminal, is that in keeping with the Flat Stanley character?" have invited rigor to the exciting use of technology.