A New School Year!

It's only October, and I am already so excited by the increase in the daily use of technology in my classroom, as compared to last year.  In September of 2013, I had a desk top teacher computer that was pretty fast, two student desktops that were virtually unusable, and . . .  oh yes, that's right- nothing else.  Fast-forward to September of 2014, and I have a new teacher laptop, three iPads from my technology grant, one iPad from our PTA, and an Apple TV.  We are still far from where I someday soon want to be, which is a device in the hands of every student, but we are making progress.  We started using our new technologies the first day of school, and haven't stopped. 

Here are a few ways my students and I incorporate technology into our day:

•  iPad presentations replaced posterboard visuals for our "What's Your Bag" beginning of the year introduction speeches for both students and teachers.

• As caretakers of the learning garden, we spent a day pruning and harvesting tomatoes, peppers and ground cherries.  Groups were able to use iPads to photograph their work.  We were pleased that the wifi reached outside to the learning garden, because we had to look up information on "ground cherries" (or Husk Cherry Tomatoes), because none of us had ever eaten one/harvested one before.   Back in the classroom, groups used the PicCollage application to create a collage of favorite moments from the day.

• Testing greeted us from pretty much the first week of school.  EasyCBM testing takes place in the main lab, but we relied on the iPads for students that were absent or simply needed more time to finish.

• A focus for me this fall has been to increase the use of technology in math.  Last year, getting the iPad to project through the projector was clumsy and time consuming, but the Apple TV has made this process easy and quick.   Once I have uploaded teacher overhead photos into the ShowMe application, students can work directly on the screen and discuss and share their work with the entire class.  A press of a button and the work is cleared, and the iPad is passed on to a different student to repeat the process.   They love it, and it frees me from being tied to the ELMO document camera, giving me the ability to more closely monitor student work during sharing/discussions.

• I am loving the ability to use the iPad and Apple TV as a portable document camera.  This gives me the ability to walk around the room and share a large variety of student work in a short amount of time.  It also helps when work is not easily portable, such as math patterns built with manipulatives

•  Finally, the iPads continue to be a life saver when it comes to use as a research tool in all academic areas.  This is the least "ah ha" use of the iPads, but honestly, it is the most useful and real life use for us.

Future Plans: 

• Introduce students to Google accounts, and start to share documents through Google.
• Continue to slowly introduce the use of students' personal devices at school.
• Purchase and download both literary and informational texts that align with our content standards in social studies and science onto the iPads.
• Introduce and use MobyMax as a station during reading and for use at home.