Today's Free Apps

Two free apps that I definitely think are worth a look are Take a Stand and The Allen Adventure. They are both from the Queensland Government's anti-bullying website Bullying No Way. Take a Stand is an iOs version of the website and has heaps of information and activities to teach students about bullying and is rated +9 - it is an iPhone app so make sure you choose that at the top on the iPad. The Allen Adventure is an interactive story for young students about a boy who is new to a school.

Take a Stand

The Allen Adventure

Today's Free App

Math Evolve: A Fun Math Game
Math Evolve is a fun maths game for ages 6 and up but is challenging even for adults. It is great for practicing number sense and mental math skills. It has three levels of difficulty and covers all four operations.

Math Evolve: A Fun Math Game

Socrative

When I first heard KPS was selected to participate in the Early Childhood iPad Initiative for 2012 and would be receiving 50 iPads I was using one iPad in my classroom. Before the iPads arrived I began investigating ideas for using multiple iPads in a classroom. I came across the Socrative app. There is a teacher version and a student version and  it works sort of as an e-clicker, allowing students to respond to multiple choice and short answer quizzes that have been developed by the teacher. WiFi is needed for this app to function.

I can imagine this would be invaluable in a 1:1 situation but I have also found it very useful in group work. Students often work in groups of three on work flow lessons and I have used Socrative to have them reflect on the lesson and on their finished product. I have also used Socrative to check for understanding in a small group in which each student has an iPad. You can basically set it up to send the next question when all students have answered the last one. Another effective use of the app would be to poll students.

Other fantastic things about Socrative are that it collates and emails the results and that it is absolutely free, just requiring teacher registration.

Someone mentioned the app to me today and it reminded me that I hadn't used it in a while and how much I enjoyed using it. I will definitely be utilising it again very soon.

Kidblog

Kidblog is an App and it can also be accessed online through the Kidblog website. I have set up Kidbogs with five of my IT classes so far. The kids are having fun with them. I find it to be a fantastic way to talk about and demonstrate the use of positive online communication and discuss netiquette.

I like Kidblog because it is secure and no personal information is required of the children - just a first name (or nickname) and a password. The administrator (me) can set the blog so that posts and comments need approval before they go onto the blog and even if this option is not used they can always be read and deleted if necessary. Once the teacher has set up the class and added students, the students just need to find their name and log in.

As always, one of my favourite things is that Kidblog is a free App.

Kidblog

Today's Free App

LetterSlider- the word search slider puzzle game for friends & fun. Free today only. A puzzle game that allows you to manipulate the board by sliding lettered tiles into place to create words. The game includes word lists, two timed modes and bonuses for longer words.

LetterSlider

Turn a Website into an App Icon

Have a great website that you know you will use again? Do you wish it was an app? You can very easily turn it into an app icon. 

Step 1: Find the website in Safari

Step 2: Click the icon with the rectangle and arrow coming out

Step 3: Choose 'Add to home screen'

Step 4: Type the name you want it displayed as

Step 5: Touch 'Add' and the app icon will be added to you desktop

Maths Ideas

With iPads there are so many apps and ideas that you can use for creating literacy. I, for one, find it so much fun and so simple to create a workflow for literacy. I have to admit I find creating maths activities to reach those higher order thinking skills more difficult.

There are so many fantastic stand alone maths apps but I do have a couple of favourite apps that I like to use when aiming for those higher levels of Blooms. There are a huge number of whiteboard type apps with different features, many of which are great for adapting for maths tasks. My favourites are Doodle Buddy (so versatile) and Educreations, both of which are free. With Educreations you do need to create a free account in order to save creations but it is very simple. With both of these apps you can place a photo (or screenshot) as the background which opens up many possibilities. The beauty of Educreations is that it is simple to use and you can record what is happening on the screen as well as the audio. This is fantastic for creating lessons for students to watch and for recording them as they work through a problem. Imagine watching the students' creations with them and discussing where they went wrong. I have also used it to record a lesson with the recorded instructions for them to complete a lesson on the next page. Some screenshots of examples are below, obviously without the audio or the animation.

Today's Free App

ComicBook! Great for all sorts of literacy projects.

ComicBook!

Today's Free App

Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read Unit 1 is an app version of the first part of the Hooked on Phonics reading program, with music, games and engaging activities.

Hooked on Phonics

Today's Free App

Guess How Much I Love You interactive storybook.

Guess How Much I Love You

Using Photos for Research Project

I have been having a play around with some photo Apps. I was thinking if you were doing a unit on cultures around the world and looking at food, famous places, etc. how much fun would it be to superimpose photos of the students in these places. These photos could then be used in Keynote, iMovie, Book Creator etc. as part of a research project. Then I thought, what about going one step further and making a video from this photo using iFunFace. They could do a news report or David Attenborough type documentary. The videos could then be put into one of those apps or what about a collaborative class book, presentation or movie with everyone in the class having a page. There are a few free apps that you can use to do this. They do tend to have advertising as they are free. I found some by googling it first. I won't recommend one because they had different features depending on what you want.

Link here to watch a very quickly put together version.

http://vimeo.com/66602039

Tellagami

Tellagami is a free, user-friendly app which allows users to create a short video (or 'gami') with an animated character, background of their choice and up to 30 seconds of audio recording. 

As Tellagami allows us to change the emotion on the character's face, it can be used to introduce to learners some of the ways used to show the emotional state of the speaker. 

Tellagami

Today's Free App

Crabby Writer: Phonics Read & Write

Designed by a teacher for ECE and focuses on writing, reading, phonics.

Crabby Writer

Today's Free App

Extraordinary Jenny Jones is an interactive storybook about a girl who sees the world through very different eyes.

Extraordinary Jenny Jones 

Today's Free App

Prisoner from Carrot Castle

An interactive and beautifully illustrated story book when students help a boy named Aiden, who doesn't think he likes vegetables, as he attempts to escape from carrot castle.

Prisoner from Carrot Castle

Today's Free App

Veggie Bottoms

 This is a fun interactive story that teaches children about healthy eating.

Aurasma

This app allows individuals to create and publish their own augmented reality experiences they call "Auras."

There are so many ways this app can be used in the classroom to showcase student work. This is just one idea. Imagine Parent Open Night and students have created nice colourful self portraits. Have parents try and guess which portrait belongs to their child. You can have them download the app onto their smart phone or use your iPads to find their child and then see and hear them giving a message such as thank you for coming or saying something about themselves. Parents and students love it, and so do I!!

1. Open up the Aurasma app and pressed the plus sign.

2. Then choose device at the bottom.

3. Next, press the plus sign and choose the photo album option.

4. Then choose the video of the student from the camera roll for the overlay.

5.  Then, chose to create an Aura with the video.

6.  Then choose the trigger, take a picture of the portrait that the student created.

7.  Finally, give it a name and make it public so other people can see it.

Haiku Deck

I blogged about this App just the other day but the post disappeared and I thought it was definitely worth talking about again. It's a really fun and easy to use presentation App that has the added bonus of being free. My favourite feature at the moment is the easy to use and attractive graphs that you can create.

Strip Designer

Strip Design has long been one of my favourite apps for literacy activities. I think it is perfect for writing recounts or for retelling a story. It is a great app to use to develop a whole class recount using photos of an event. You can also use pictures that students have drawn in an App such as Doodle Buddy or photos of the actual book. It is perfect for reading response activities such as character comparisons such as the one below.

Make Your Own Handwriting Resource

There are some great handwriting apps that can be teamed with a stylus to produce a fantastic resource for handwriting. If you want students to practise a certain word, such as their name, or letter there is a simple way to make your own resource.

You can either use Keynote to create your writing, and then press play to make it full screen and take a screen shot or you can take a photo of the text or worksheet you want to use. Then go to Doodle Buddy and make the photo (or screenshot) your background. This can be used over and over as the screen on Doodle Buddy can be cleared and the background remains. Below is a screen shot of Doodle Buddy with the text from Keynote in the background.

Guided Access

One of my favourite features of iOS devices is Guided Access. This is a feature that let's you lock your student into a certain app.

Step 1: Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access

Step 2: Select Guided Access and toggle the switch to the On position

Step 3: Set a four-digit passcode

Once you have enable Guided Access, open the app you want to run and triple-click the home button. This will bring up options. You just need to touch Start and the feature is on. The student can use the app as normal but if he/she tries to exit the app it won't work. A box will pop up that says Triple-click the home button to exit. Even if the student can read this he/she needs to know the passcode.

To exit the feature, triple-click the home button, enter the passcode and touch end. To disable Guided Access on your device, just toggle the switch to Off in the Accessibility section of Settings.

The One iPad Classroom

Possible iPad Uses
Whole Class - Teacher uses the iPad to display content on a projector for the whole class.
Stations - A favorite in the elementary classroom. Attach a task to complete at a station.
Pass Around - Not great with large classes, but can be useful for some collaborative tasks.
Small Groups - Working in 2s, 3s, or 4s on some kind of collaborative group work.


Classroom Management
Class Dojo - Behaviour Management tracking tool for the teacher
Stick Pick - A can of virtual popsicle sticks, but also a way to record/evaluate student responses in class.
Too Noisy - An app to display on your IWB that monitors noise level
Australian Curriculum App - For planning

Lesson Ideas

Use the iPad to differentiate. Extend your more able learners, or give your struggling learners more reinforcement. Just be sure to use it for all students, and not just the "smart" ones. 

Use the iPad as a station in literacy and numeracy rotations and have small group work collaboratively on task.

Schedule 1 on 1 time for students with the iPad. Shared time helps get everyone involved, but as with real life, 1 on 1 time is important too. You could even break out the digital timers here.

Use the iPad as a Listening Centre or as part of your free reading time. There are many good, free books in the iBooks Store that could be used in your classroom during this time. Many have read aloud audio.

Find apps suitable for small group instruction. You as the teacher can lead the small group, demonstrate the skill with the app, and involve students in the learning process.

Work on Collaborative Stories. Several students can work on a story at one time, so you don't need one iPad for every student in this kind of scenario, if everybody plays nice and takes their turn. Assign roles and rotate students through them.

Make fluency assessments - Record students reading with an audio app, or with the built-in video camera, and let them hear themselves back. Pair them as reading buddies and let them record each other's mistakes as they read and reread the same passage.

Create a QR Code Scavenger Hunt. Have students complete the hunt in small groups, taking turn to scan the QR code and search for the information. 

Screencast! Use apps like Educreations, ShowMe or Explain Everything to record screencasts of group projects, science investigations, math concepts, and more.

Create Movie Trailers with iMovie - A great collaborative experience where students get to plan, act, and shoot their own movie trailer! Link to stories in Language Arts, historical events in Social Studies, school events, field trips, etc.

Scan Text/Worksheets - Use the camera app to capture text from a book, worksheet or self created graphic organiser, use VGA adaptor to display screen on IWB and write on or annotate it in Skitch.