50 Must-Have Educational Apps It’s time for holiday road trips and you know what that means: driving, flying, cranky kids, and… teaching opportunities! What’s that, you say? Well, there is so much downtime during the holidays where kids and adults spend hours just passing the time… why not try out some new apps on your phone? Many of these apps were found by The Teaching Palette, be sure to check out their fantastic site for more helpful resources! From learning the ABCs to doodling, there’s plenty of terrific apps out there that will pass the time but also educate. *Most of the links below are to the iTunes store which will open another window and/or iTunes. Great Apps For Kids (And Adults) Alphabet Animals Perfect for your talented toddler, this game is packed with colorful animations, animal sounds, and tons of tips for learning their letters. WordSearch Kids Kids search and highlight vocabulary words by tapping the first and last letters. Mad Libs Just as goofy and fun as your remember. SmackTalk Annoying?
Teaching With Tablets Stephanie Hedge is a graduate student in the Department of English at Ball State University. You can follow her on twitter at @slhedge. I love my iPad. I bought it this summer, and it’s still new enough that sometimes I just sit there, stroking the burnished metal of the back, and marveling about how neat it is to live in the future. One of the most awesome things about this tech, for me, is the fundamental ways it has infiltrated my teaching style. When I teach, I use my iPad pretty exclusively, from lesson planning to classroom management to grading, and it has done a serious number on the way I think about being a teacher in the dawning age of ubiquitous digital technology. I present this post with a two caveats: first, this post is written with iPads in mind (particularly as I discuss apps), because that’s what I use, but the basic principles hold for any tablet, including the neat-o Microsoft Surface. Why use tablets to teach? Tablets are mobile within the classroom. Now what? Whew!
Rockville private school gives iPad a classroom trial Photo from Connie Coker (From left) Fifth-grade students Hannah Piepol and Gisellah Suleman set up a science lab while Davi Lennon and Sofia Retamal document the lab report on their iPads at Green Acres School in Rockville. The private school issued fifth- and sixth-grade students the devices this year as part of a pilot program to test the iPad for classroom use. Before this year, Joie Chen would have never found her son huddled in a corner, reading a book. Now, it happens all the time. Evan Goldberg, 12, will be so entranced by a story on his iPad, he will bump into the walls of their Bethesda home as he walks and reads, his mother said. While some parents were concerned when Green Acres School in Rockville gave each of its fifth- and sixth-grade students an iPad this year, most now say that it has excited their children’s interest in school and enhanced their learning. The school began exploring the idea in spring 2011 as a way to give students more access to computers.
cool Tools for 21st Century Learners: Digital Differentiation Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences that address the diverse learning needs of all students and help them develop 21st Century Skills. At it's most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences fueled by Essential Questions offering flexible learning paths, it can be the ticket to success. Here is a closer look at three components of effectively using technology as a tool for digital differentiation. Note: The interactive graphics you see below have been updated. The goal is to design student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by standards-based Essential Questions and facilitated by digital tools to provide students with flexible learning paths. Essential Questions: Student-driven learning experiences should be driven by standards-based Essential Questions. Teacher Facilitated Learning Experiences:
iPad Insight | iPad blog for app reviews, news, tips,how-tos Classroom Tablet Management SOLVED by TabPilot Wishing all of you who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy well. I am in the Boston area and we were very lucky here, only losing power for 10-12 hours. It did affect my blogging schedule, so apologies to my regular readers for the delay… For well over a year now I’ve been talking to teachers and administrators about transitioning to tablet use in their classrooms. The most consistent concern that I hear about, both nationally and internationally, is about the ability to “lock down” tablets, only allowing students to have access to what we want them to be doing in class. So it’s a problem, right? That’s why I’m excited by what the folks at TabPilot have come up with in their Classroom Tablet Management System. 1. 2. 3. Student Interface The student interface is pretty basic: a student turns the tablet on and sees a bunch of app icons and/or icons for websites on the wall. Truly, that last part blew me away and is probably what sold me on TabPilot. Try it, I did, and it works.
An Apple for the teacher: are iPads the future in class? | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional I'm a self-confessed Apple fanatic so I was curious to see how iPads and iPods could be used successfully in a primary school. I was sure they would inspire and encourage the teachers I work with to take a chance and think outside their comfort zone and embrace new technology. But before our school jumped on the iPad bandwagon, I wanted to determine how these devices were going to offer a better learning experience compared to the laptops that we already had in our school. My 'iPad journey' began approximately a year ago, when I bought an iPad 2. I was hooked. Having seen the huge potential of the iPads as an educational tool, I decided to investigate the pros and cons of iPads compared to laptops in the classroom. In my mind these were the pros: • Ease and speed of use and accessibility: The touch interface and app system on the iPad makes it easy to access learning tools. And here are the cons: iMovie: add video, photos, music and sound effects and trim the length of any clip.
Using Blogs in a History Classroom What Is It? Using the technology of blogging in the classroom to improve critical thinking and analysis skills. Rationale Using a teacher-created blog in a history classroom is a way to engage students through a different medium. Students of today relate more and more to technology and will welcome a different way of learning. Using a teacher-created blog will also allow you and your students to exchange ideas in an asynchronous environment. Description This teaching guide will assist teachers who want to set up their own blogs for their history classrooms. Teacher Preparation Choose a site. The screenshot above shows what appears after a student clicks on the comment link. In the Classroom There are several different ways a teacher-created blog can be used in a history classroom. Have students post ideas and opinions about topics discussed in class.Have students post potential thesis statements and allow other students to comment on each thesis. Common Pitfalls Acknowledgments Bibliography
12 Characteristics Of An iPad-Ready Classroom Implementing iPads isn’t exactly a just-add-water proposition. While they’re wondrous little devices capable of enchanting learners for hours, to get the learning results you’re likely after will take planning, design, and reflection. It can help to start out by asking yourself some important questions, such as “What can the iPad do that is not possible without it? Put another way, what problems does the iPad solve?” But the learning environment you’re starting with can make a big difference as well. Below are 4 distinct areas of instruction and instructional design that can help frame the concept of iPad integration. There is more to the conversation, but rather than overwhelm you (not that you couldn’t handle it), it seemed better to simply start your thinker.
Back to School – Top 5 iPad Apps for Educators What apps should I use? The number one question when an educator receives an iPad. Whether it is training colleagues with the technology, or educators finding their own way, the ‘best’ apps always find a place in the discussions. With that in mind, these 5 applications may help with integration of the iPad into the classroom. ‘Introduces you to the iPad, exploring the working parts and touchscreen interface. The app is highly effective in showing you how to carry out each task or function via a series of screens that have hot linked regions that must be touched or swiped in order to progress to the next step.’ The most impressive feature of this app is that the user cannot move on unless they tap the right area of the screen that relates directly to iPad functionality. ‘Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design tool that lets you annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. Put simply, Socrative is a superb ‘assessment for learning’ tool. Like this: Like Loading...