When this iPad journey began, I had never even touched one.   It has been somewhat scary, but very energizing, to welcome this new technology into my classroom.

The first reason is AR.  Since I have more iPads than the number of computers I used to have, it has made the AR testing process much easier.  There is always an iPad available for students to grab and take to a comfortable spot in the room and test away!

I also love:

Chatterpix – We read “Dear Mr. Henshaw” as a class early in the year.  When we were done, I had each student take a picture of the main character, Leigh, from the cover of the book.  Then they wrote a summary of the novel and used Leigh’s picture to “tell” me the summary.  I have never had students be so excited to do a summary and it was SO much fun to view the results. 

QR Codes – It is exciting to set up QR codes in the room or hall and let the students move around and scan them to learn more about a topic we are studying.

Make Belief Comix – The students have loved using this to summarize stories or give the most important details of a Social Studies topic.  Having only three or four panels available really makes the student focus on what is most important to communicate.

Popplet – Easy to use and very organized.  We have used it mostly to make timelines and other graphics in Social Studies.

Symbaloo – This solved the ongoing struggle of trying to read novels to my class.   It seemed like someone was always absent and missed part of the book.  This year I put each chapter of “Sign of the Beaver” on my Symbaloo.  I could still read to the class, but sometimes I had them read chapters on their own in stations.  AND any student who had missed a chapter could hop on an iPad to catch up.  Priceless!!

Word Web – With this app students were actually anxious to look up words and learn dictionary skills.   

I am nowhere near as tech savvy as many of you.  However, looking back on the year I am proud of how far I have come and I am excited to keep learning.  I appreciate the opportunities we have had to share information and I thank everyone who has helped me along the way!

EEEEEEKKKKKK!  That was my initial thought of iPads at the beginning of the year.  How was I going to use these little gems in my class?  The URLearning class has given me lots of ideas for engaging apps.  THANK YOU to all of the presenters who have shared their ideas.  I have also discovered apps by using my Twitter network.  I have always been on Twitter, but I realized I wasn’t following the right people.  Once I connected to fellow teachers who focused on technology, it really started to help.  Katie Hathaway and Alecia Perdomo are two people you NEED to follow.  A lot of who I follow now is thanks to these two awesome techies. 

 

My third grade readers have used:

- Toontastic to act out the life of famous scientist, Louis Pasteur.  

-MakeBeliefs Comix to create comic strips where the reader could infer the characters feelings.  

-Skitch to add details to photographs about their biographies

-Popplet to create Frayer maps for vocabulary words

-Chatterpix to record students summarizing their own writing

-Dictionary app to look up definitions of multiple meaning words

-Adobe Voice (MY NEW FAV) to tell the story about the sinking of the Lusitania during World War 1

-Seesaw, of course, so they put all of these creations into one place that is easy for me to check for understanding

 

I am so thankful we have been given this opportunity to integrate iPads in the class. 

This year started with a bang for me!  After being hired right before the school year started, I had many things to figure out quickly.  One of those pressing items was "how in the world was I going to incorporate ipads into my 2nd grade classroom?" 

I feel like I started slowly, but quickly it became apparent that those 7 ipads were going to be my friends and I better jump on board.  I used my ipads for AR, Epic, Xtra Math, and Pebble Go at first.  Then as the year progressed so did my confidence with integration into our daily plans.   

Going to each #urlearning session helped introduce me to apps that I should check out.  It was also extremely helpful when our learning specialists suggested apps or the other teachers on my team suggested apps to use with specific skills.  Now 8 months into the year, we use our ipads daily and I cannot imagine teaching without them.  Some of our favorite apps or websites to use on the ipads are: Seesaw, number pieces, pattern blocks, geoboards, sushi monster, xtra math, pebble go, kahoot, quizizz, chatterpix, pickids, popplet, adobe voice, and did I mention SEESAW!!! :)  

Here is a sneak peek of how we use iPads in room 514!

When naming fractions, we used the app Pattern Blocks and then saved into Seesaw which makes it easy to check for understanding. 

During our 3D Solid investigation, students sorted candy, wrote attributes, and saved a picture into Seesaw for me to check.  Much easier than trying to walk around and check work because we all know they just want to eat the candy!

Students counted coins in math stations and saved into Seesaw. 

                                                                              

We also used Popplet to show our understanding of nouns.  This app can be used in so many ways in all subject areas and it is much more fun than making a list on paper. 

Poetry can be recorded in Seesaw.  I love listening to them read their own poems and I am sure the parents  do too! 

While studying Jack Prelutsky's poetry, we did a visualization activity and listened to the poem Green Giant and drew our mental image.  After this was complete we used ChatterKids to record and practice fluently reading this poem.  

One of the most recent ways that 2nd grade incorporated iPads into ELA was during our research unit.  We started with a whole class research project on Alligators.  Next, students spent several days working with partners to research a new animal of their choice.  

We used Inigma to scan these cute QR code posters (thanks to Mrs. Perdomo) which made it easy for students to navigate from one website to another using iPads.  During the group projects, students researched and saved pictures of their animal diagrams into Seesaw. 

Our final research project was completed independently on different animals. All students made a digital product to be graded with a rubric.  Once all their information was gathered, my kids used PicKids, ChatterKids, and then created a final slideshow using Adobe Voice and saved it into Seesaw!  The products were amazing!

 Iguana Research Project using Adobe Voice

Jaguar Research Project using Adobe Voice

So what are you waiting for?  Try a new app today! :)