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!