Journal entry and Doodle Buddy

Today I decided that rather than do our journals with a paper and pencil, we would create a journal entry using Doodle Buddy. Students worked in groups of two (because I love the collaboration) to draw a picture using the Doodle Buddy app. As I walked around the classroom, the conversations were music to my ears. I listened as students negotiated different ideas and tried to figure out (problem solve) the different functions of the app.

At the end of the project, students had to take a 'screen shot' of their picture and sentences. Then they had to email it to their individual evernote-notebook (eportfolio). These tasks require a lot of different knowledge/skills and I am impressed that my grade ones are able to do all of these things on their own, but they CAN!! (Just as a side note-this project was about the content of their writing and connecting the picture to some vocabulary. Students are still at the emergent writing stage so they are writing words phonetically and therefore there are errors)

Plants, Skitch, and Book Creator

We have been studying plants for the past few weeks. Today I decided that the students would demonstrate their leaning by using Skitch and Book Creator. Students worked in groups of four and were asked to do one of four things. They were assigned; the needs of a plant, the parts of a plant, or the life cycle of a bean. Students used Skitch to either draw or take photos. Students labelled the parts of their drawings and then saved them. Once saved, students opened Book Creator and began to create a book with their drawings and labels. Students also took turns recording their voices and sharing their information.

Skitch is great because it is compatible with Evernote so the work can be saved a student's notebook (eportfolio). This is helpful when iPads are shared with other classes. You don't need to worry if another student deletes or changes the work. I like Book Creator because not only can you open the book in epub form you can also email the book as a pdf.

Here are some screenshot examples of picture drawn or photos taken and labelled using Skitch.

My students used these in Book Creator to write and record their own book. Below are some screenshots of the pages of one book. You can see the audio symbol where the students recorded their voices. Unfortunately, you can't hear the recordings because these are just screenshots.

Now I need to learn how to insert a pdf into this blog??? Ideass? Suggestions?? Still new to this blogging thing :)