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 :)

Creation apps

For many of you this is not a new idea...creation apps are some of the most effective apps to use in the classroom. I personally am not a big fan of what I call the 'drill and test' apps. They remind me of teachers who stand and deliver and use sheets to do the teaching. No, I like the apps that are really just tools that students are able to use to demonstrate their learning. Don't get me wrong, I do like many other apps, but I love the ones that students use to make something. In addition, I think there is amazing student learning going on as they interact with the iPads and work together cooperatively to create something. The rich use of the French language around the iPads is also wonderful to hear.

Here is a list of my favourite creation apps for my primary students:

Sock Puppets
My Story - Book Maker for Kids
Puppet Pals HD
Doodle Buddy
Toontastic
Strip Designer
Skitch

Toontastic is fantastic!!

We decided to add a little more fun to our creative writing by creating some comics. I have been sharing a variety of comics. We now have a comic collection in the classroom that consists of books, newspapers, and some online versions. We have talked about what types of things you find in comics like speech and thought bubbles. Each of my students decided on a setting and some characters, a problem and a solution. I printed off a few different strip designs and they were off. Talk about students engaged and on-task!

The second step involved animating the comics using Toontastic. Students used their comic to create an animated 'movie' version. Toontastic directs students to create a scene and characters, then think of a problem and solution. It takes students step-by-step through this process.

While the program is very easy, students still seem to need a lot of support. I have no specific concerns or things to make other teachers aware of. Like most technology, it really just takes time to become familiar with the program.

There is a great online teacher/parent guide that comes with this app (available online). The cartoon can be uploaded to a ToonTube account and viewed online.

Complaint = I can't save it and export it anywhere :( I want to save it to students' Evernote accounts but there is no option to do that...? I am going to do some online research on this one. Does anyone have any suggestions???? It looks like cartoons can only be uploaded to an online viewing platform.

Labeling and Doodle Buddy

Writing comes in so many forms. Today, my students practiced labeling. I began by showing them a few suggestions on how to use the iPad by projecting its image via my classroom projector and VGA adapter. I showed students how to use the camera app to take a self-shot. They learned how to turn the camera around and where the actual lens is located.

Once they had a photo, I showed them how to open it up in Doodle Buddy to use it as the background for labeling. Students then identified the parts of their body in French. Once complete, I took a screen shot and saved it then emailed the photo to their Evernote account (e-portofolio) by writing the child's name in the subject line (i.e. @John). All the finished photos are now saved in the student's Evernote personal notebook.

Evernote and 'saving' work: ePortfolios

As I am very new to the use of iPads in the classroom, I was struggling with a way to 'save' (in the traditional sense) the work students are creating. I only have 6 iPads for my class of 23 students AND we share the devices with three other classes in the school. I was concerned that some of the more intermediate students might delete projects or that primary students would delete work unintentionally.

I knew Evernote was the answer I was just not sure exactly how it worked. After reading many blogs, googling it, and watching youtube videos I figured it out (it's really quite simple!).

I created 'notebooks' for all the students in my class. Evernote provides you with a unique email address to send all documents to. These documents are then accessible from any device, anywhere, anytime. It also synches automatically in all places.

Now, when we finish something we email it directly to my Evernote account with that student's name in the subject line i.e. @Peter. If email is not possible, we take a screenshot and then email it or send it as a video link. I was also able to email their stories they created using the MyStory app a few weeks ago.

This is the start of my ePortfolios. I am trying to use the iPad to gather data on the students as they work. I take screenshots of their work. I have even started to put little assessment notes on the pictures. I created separate notebooks for assessment and for the portfolios I plan to share with parents (ones that don't contain my evaluation and assessment comments). I really like the idea of moving to a more paperless classroom; however, I need more iPads :)

A few issues:
I started recording my students' reading aloud with the video while doing a running record. I found that the video is too long to send to Evernote. Does anyone know of an app to use or another way to do it?
With my free education account I am only able to email 50 documents a day and I seem to hit that number a lot lately. I guess it's time to spend more $$.

I know there are infinite more possibilities with this app and I am slowly exploring them all. Feel free to share any ideas.

100 days at school and Doodle Buddy

If you are a primary teacher, you are aware of how important 100 day is. I wanted to try and think of something different to do with my students to celebrate the day. I decided to use a centers approach to math today. The iPads were one of those centers.

Students used the Doodle Buddy app to create a representation of 100 things. They used the stamps to stamp 10 different examples of 10 things to make 100 total. At the end of class, we shared their projects using the VGA dongle and my projector.

Below are some examples.

Faces iMake and descriptive writing

I love this app! It is very funny and really gets the right brain working. Students worked alone to create a funny face. Then, they saved their pictures to the photos on the ipad. I downloaded the photos to my computer and then printed them out.  We are learning to write descriptive sentences in French using sentence frames (i.e. Voici __________. Il a___________. Il est __________.)

I printed their 'face' and they used it to write. The results were very impressive and lot's of fun to share. I love a lesson that involves laughter and imagination, and a lot of student engagement :)

What do you think? Have you used this app in your classroom?

Here are a few finished sentences and the whole class display. I also created a class book for students to read a share.