Innovating with iPads

Innovating with iPads resources 
Today I am presenting on iPads in the classroom at ESSDACK’s Leadership 2.0 Conference.  The link above will allow you to download a PDF handout that includes links to some of my favorite iPad resources on the web.  The web links include a variety of lesson ideas, app recommendations, as well as tips and tricks.  Here are the links to the apps I shared in the presentation student iPad apps and math apps.

Talking Sock Puppets

A while back, I was introduced to the iPad app Sock Puppets.  The very day I downloaded it, my eighth grade daughter found it and fell in love with it.  She enjoyed how she could choose different sock puppets, backgrounds, and props, then create a movie.

To give you some background, I have spent many years avoiding the lens side of cameras.  I recently received an assignment to create a commercial for a children’s book.  Since I avoid cameras, I needed to find an option to record a commercial without being recorded.  Thank goodness for Sock Puppets.  Did I mention you can also modify your voice with the app too?

This project gave me the opportunity to try out an iPad trick I heard about.  The built-in microphone on the iPad is pretty good, but I was recording in an environment with background noise.  So I finally opened the camera connection kit for the iPad I purchased almost a year ago.  I used the USB connector to attach my Blue Snowball microphone to my iPad.

The Sock Puppet app is free and is very functional in its free state.  My commercial was longer than the maximum 30 second recording limit, so I bought the $0.99 in-app purchase to extend recording time to 90 seconds.  While I was at it, I also purchased the extra puppet content packages and the import your own background option.  Let me mention again, that app is great in its free state.  I chose to spend the extra $7 because I wanted to.

I wrote the script, chose the puppets and background, and recorded the commercial.  To share the video you have the option to save to the iPad or upload to Facebook or YouTube.  I chose to upload to my YouTube channel.  Once there you can share or embed the video as I have done in this blog entry.  If you don’t want to leave the video on YouTube, you can use a video download tool or option to harvest the video then delete it from YouTube.

I’m thinking that with the add background feature students could use this app to demonstrate their learning for a variety of content areas.  They could use an image of a Civil War battle field and share information about the battle that occurred there.  Another opportunity is in science and report on the contributions of a scientist.  In language arts they could narrate a short story or poem they wrote.

If you would like to use the custom background feature or need more than 30 seconds of recording time, there are other options other than spending $0.99 for each add-on.  One of the backgrounds in the free version is solid green.  You can record your video using the background and download it.  Using iMovie I was able to use the green screen feature to put in my own background and also stitch together several clips into a longer video.

Download this app, I am sure it will provide many opportunities for fun and learning for you and your students/children.

Math Transformations with Make Dice

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This lesson works if you have only one iPad in your classroom.  One of the math indicators I am responsible for teaching is geometric transformations.  After several lessons using pattern blocks and textbook lessons, I wanted to give my 4th graders a different experience.  I learned about the Make Dice App from a co-worker (thank you, Lisa).  This app allows for the creation of custom dice.  I used it to make a die with the three geometric transformations: rotation/turn, reflection/turn, and translation/slide.  At the time I had the the first version of the iPad so I used my document camera to project the image, the class and I practiced using pattern blocks.  After our practice session we moved into the hallway.  the first student laid down on the floor.  The next student rolled the die and laid down next to the first student modeling the rolled transformation.  Each student had several opportunities to roll the die and act out the transformation.  This activity was a hit with my students, they enjoyed the opportunity get away from their desks and move.  They also received valuable practice that solidified the concept of geometric transformations.  To save $0.99 use the Make Dice Lite App.

Postcard Research

Example PhotoCard created with Bill Atkinson PhotoCard

I recently ran across a free iPad app, Bill Atkinson PhotoCard Lite.  Wow what a great find, the photos included in the free app are breath-taking.  This app allows the user to create a postcard with a photo of your choosing on the front and text, stickers and address on the back.  The more I used the app, the more I thought it had possibilities for my 4th grade classroom.  Students could use a photo or drawing they created for the front, or even include an appropriate image from the internet (the caption feature allows you to document where the image came from for credit).  On the back they could include a list of interesting facts as I did in the example, or write a short narrative.  Since space is limited, word choice becomes increasingly important.  There is even an option to include a short voice recording.  When the student has completed the postcard to their liking, they add a stamp from the included sticker collection and address it with an e-mail address.  The person on the receiving end gets an e-mail with an attached .jpg file and possibly a .m4a file.

I must admit, that since I am “addicted to apps”, I did purchase the $4.99 version of the app.  The paid version includes a larger selection of stunning photographs and stickers, but operates much the same.  For student projects, I believe the lite version to be quite adequate.

The potential uses for this app in my classroom are endless, and may include such projects as: research of states, animals and people, creative writing, science findings, explanation of math problems, and who knows what else the students and I will come up with as we go along.  I can even envision using  a word cloud image like those created with wordle and tagxedo with this app.

Book Blessings and QR Codes

QR code for Applied Simplicity

At our school students do book blessings.  These are short, usually video, projects where students talk about a book they h ave read.  They provide a snippet about the book and provide reasons why other students should read the book.  Essentially these are commercials.  The book blessings provide a great opportunity for students to practice summarizing and persuasive writing.  In past years, iMovie or Photo Booth have been the tools of choice.  Students would film their book blessing with a handheld video camera of Flip video camera, or the built-in camera on their computer.  Once they were done filming they would import the footage, make necessary edits and post to a wiki.

Today, I had the opportunity to dig into iMovie on the iPad 2.  Creating the book blessings using this tool will streamline the process, no waiting on an import.  The students can upload the finished video to the wiki.  The piece I am most excited about is we can use a QR code generator to create a code to link to each book blessing.  The QR codes can be printed on labels and placed on the cover of each book in the library.  As students are searching for books to check out they can use their iPad 2 with a code scanner app to scan the QR code and watch the linked book blessing.

Encouraging Young Writers Using Talk-to-Type

Helping students select the best-fit tool for publishing.

Over the last several weeks I have been participating in a book study on how to facilitate a better writing experience in the classroom.  I was looking for ideas on how to engage and help my fourth-graders become better writers. As we had several discussions on this topic, one thing that kept repeating itself was; as students got to the publishing stage in a technology-rich environment not every student was ready type their stories.  As a matter of fact, typing these stories could be a long drawn out and sometimes, painful process.  This feat alone could discourage the potentially exuberant writer.  Although there are many programs or apps available that would help the student with keyboarding, trying to expand the students keyboarding skills during the publishing stage of writing is not the best situation.  To help with this quandary, I would suggest using an application such as Dragon Dictation, a speech-to-text program.  It allows you to speak your story into the iPad’s microphone and the app converts speech to text, as a matter of fact, I’m using Dragon Dictation to compose this blog entry.  Supporting early writers to publish or even get ideas to print is a task that teachers encounter across a variety of content areas from writing to math as well as reading, science and social studies.  I am not sure Dragon Dictation will work for everyone and there is a bit of a learning curve if you want to use all the punctuation commands, but it worked well for me.

Hopping into Data

iPad Screen Capture

A friend of mine shared an interesting app called Tap the Frog (thanks Tamara).  At first blush the game is a somewhat addictive reaction speed test.  After playing it for a while, my mind turned to the mathematics opportunity of the game.  You can make the task of collecting data as intensive as you like.  I suggest having students start playing the game once it is downloaded.  The key is to move through the levels until level seven is reached.  At level seven, the task is to tap on as many of the 40 available frogs in five seconds.  While playing level seven have students record  their scores for five rounds.  After collecting this data students can determine their mean, median, mode (or lack of), and range.  I then use a Google form to collect each student’s data and display it in a Google spreadsheet.  We can then manipulate and graph the data taking notice of trends.  Students could use Easy Chart (free iPhone app) to graph individual data over time.

The First Project

Taking a picture of a sphere with the iPad2

After spending time setting up and becoming familiar with the iPads, I offered the first project to the grant participants. Since we were focusing on math I challenged them with a geometry scavenger hunt. First we used the iPad2’s Notes app to record an extensive list of two and three-dimensional shapes. Then I sent the participants “hunting” the shapes when they found one they would capture the shape with the iPad2’s built in camera. After about 30 minutes everyone returned. We downloaded the Draw Free for iPad app. This allowed everyone to highlight the shape in each photograph. The 3-D shapes were a bit of a challenge to highlight (I believe this would lead to a meaningful discussion with students regarding the properties of 3-D shapes). Once each shape was highlighted and saved to “Photos”, we downloaded the Storykit iPhone app by ICDL Foundation. With this app participants assembled their highlighted photographs into a digital book. Some included texts to define the highlighted shape others chose to add sound bits to the page that explained and defined the properties of the shape. Once the project was complete the app offers an e-mail feature to share the book with others.

All in all I was quite pleased with this task. Everyone who participated was engaged. It introduced key components and functions of the iPad2 and supported several key mathematics concepts.

Two Weeks of Wow

I had the privilege of participating in a grant titled IMU-21.  The focus of the grant is to Increase Mathematical Understanding (IMU).  My part of the grant was to share technology to facilitate the teaching and learning of mathematics.  Each participant of the grant received an iPad 2.  We spent most of ten days of afternoon technology sessions exploring the iPad 2 and its uses in the classroom.  We discovered many useful apps and resources that I will share in the next posts.

Below is a copy of my day one handout. It lists and links to some, what I consider, invaluable resources and outlines some basic functions we covered. The QR codes will take you directly to the resource links.

View this document on Scribd