Tool 9

There are so many technology choices available it can become overwhelming to decide. The learning objective needs to drive the decision to use a specific technology. If the technology does not promote learning and synthesizing the objective, it has no place in a lesson. Just as it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure the technology promotes the objective of the lesson, it is the student's responsibility to use the technology for the intended purpose to increase learning. Students need a form of accountability to ensure they are mastering the objectives being presented.

Thinkfinity had a lesson on making a year end digital scrapbook that could be used in my class. Students could collaborate on picture selection and editing. Each student would need to document their own role in the creation of their scrapbook which would incorporate skills learned throughout the year. Learning games for Kids has typing lessons on the site. This is a skill my students work on and could easily be a center activity.

The first really interesting app I found for the iPad was i-Prompt Pro. This app allows you to download text for speeches and presentations and scroll through it on the iPad like it was a teleprompter. This could come in handy to ensure a teacher covered all important points of a lesson. It can also be useful to students who need to present a project to the class. Students are frequently very nervous and simply read slides they share with the class. An app like i-Prompt Pro would allow them to create a more natural talk and share it without having to read every line on the slides. Students could prove their productivity in this station by simply having the product available when they present to the class.

The other app I found that would be quite useful for my students is Photoshop.com Mobile. Having basic photo editing available on an iPad in the same program my students use in class would allow simple fixes to be accomplished quickly and uploaded to appropriate locations or store them on Dropbox. Success with this app would also be documented with a finished product.

One other way an iPad can be quite useful in the classroom is as an interactive control for the teacher laptop. By installing Splashtop or Doceri on both the teacher laptop and the iPad, teachers and students can use the iPad from anywhere in the room to add comments to a projected flipchart, control ActiveBoards, manipulate files and documents, or control just about anything that is located on the laptop while giving the freedom to move around the room. It can also control the laptop without a projector enabled, allowing the teacher to take notes on student progress or enter grades from anywhere in the room.