I currently teach about 20 - 23 students for each class. Everyday that I teach, I bring my iPad and always find ways to use it in the classroom.
My number 1 is the use of an app called SplashTop Whiteboard. Basically you can sync your iPad to your computer and then annotate on anything that your computer screen can show. This allows for some neat effects such as I can be anywhere in the building and get on my computer; for meetings, if I am making copies and forget to print something off, I can print without going back to my room, I can stand anywhere in my room and continue working on the board, students find it interesting to write on the iPad and have it show up on the board. I find that opportunities to write on the iPad is a strong motivator for students to want to perform objectives in class.
What about allowing students to use the iPads. Well there are several ways to go about this. Often in a class I will have one student surpass the others. A way to challenge those students more is by giving them my iPad and allowing them to figure things out on their own. As a math teacher, I have my students use the WileD Math app. The really neat part about this app is that it fits perfectly with 8th grade curriculum, as well as most middle school and high school math. As I am working with other students, my excelling student can continue to excel by trial and error with other topics we have not covered yet. I have a very particular student demonstrate high success in geometry, that when she finished her geometry work, she moved onto graphing on the WileD Math app. Although she struggled in the beginning, she has successfully taught herself how to graph using slope-intercept form. As she is an entire chapter ahead of the rest of my class, I view the opportunities I gave her as a perfect example of effective technology use. My students are entering the graphing portion of math now and I have some neat plans to have this student help other students be more successful.
"That is all fine and dandy, but I want to make sure all my students earn opportunities to work on the iPad."...I couldn't agree more!
To ensure all students have opportunities to use the iPad; here are 5 ideas that you can pick and choose to use when you deem appropriate.
a) Why not use the iPad as a positive reward system. See a student helping another student, have only a few students staying on task the entire time, give an assignment and only a few turn it in...why not make a little pass that students can use to earn some iPad time after an assignment is completed.
b) Group work can be an effective teaching strategy for projects and other concepts. Why not group the students into small groups and the end requirement is to record a video using the iPad. Give a few days to work on the project then on the last day, provide time slots for students to get the iPad and record their presentation. This way you can preview the videos ahead of time, edit them as needed (or even better teach the students how to), and then play them in class the same or following day.
c) Often in class I will reference a famous building and then at the end of the class we have a problem that connects it to the famous building (Such as the leaning tower of Pisa). What could be better than using Google maps to truly show the students the lean on the tower. Perhaps take a measuring devices and do a measuring problem. Pictures of real objects provide great opportunities for proportion problems.
d) Set-up stations around the room and have one of the stations be an exploring activity using the iPads. Give a website that shows a video, use Khan Academy to teach the topic over again, have students use a manipulative website to demonstrate a skill or topic previous or will be covered.
e) Lastly, ever hear of QR codes? Basically think of them as a better bar-code. Instead of being solely 1-dimensional, QR codes are 2-dimensional which opens the doors to a lot of use. QR codes can be scanned to take you to a website (ever want to use a website for students to use that had over 100 random letters and numbers in it?). QR codes can also be used to send a text message and nearly anything else where a device is connect to the internet. I always have a QR Code Webquest available for students who could use additional motivation to learn. When teaching Pythagorean theorem, I made a QR code that when scanned took you to the video of football players intercepting and tackling each other where at the end the players talked about the math behind intercepting a player and tied it to Pythagorean Theorem. There are a lot of QR Scanner apps out there, the one I primarily use is
i-nigma.
Making your own QR code is easy, check out this user friendly site and get QR coding today!
Want to practice your new app, i-nigma? Scan this QR code now!
Leaf Snap is an app best served for devices that have a wireless internet signal outdoors.
In high school, if you offer a biology/anatomy and physiology app then this would be an amazing way to investigate the human body. Students can zoom in and out of what they are looking at, draw pictures and diagrams and fill out notes without the teacher giving the students a slide or having to explain a lot, students will be involved and active in their own learning.
KineMath - This is an incredibly powerful app for graphing equations. Graphing can be quite a difficult journey for students when it comes to some of those more complex graphs or when trying to figure out what does what to an equation, such as when I have a quadratic equation, what does a number inside the parenthesis do versus outside of it? I see this app as such an amazing way to investigate properties of lines. Plus it is extremely touch interactive.
The last app is dedicated to those sophemores and juniors looking to take the SAT's.
Graphing Calculator - I just wanted to add this app so that you can consider if in a school with iPads already to save some money and simply get a graphing calculator app for $0.99 and perhaps use that money to buy a class set of iPads.
WileD Math - I designed this app intentionally for teachers to use in the classroom to motivate students to learn to answer questions correctly. The app covers 36 topics including algebra, geometry, graphing, inequalities, algebraic properties, percent problems, fractions, and many other categories. As you answer questions you can earn credits to play little mini-games as a reward. Students love to compete against each other in the mini-games to see who can score the most points. A lot of the topics feature technology enhanced topics such as plotting the inequality, shading, and determining an open or closed point. Another technology enhanced topic involves picking two angles that meet a certain geometric definition. My students love using this app and enjoy the days we get on the iPad. Students are asked to complete so many questions correctly for credit for the day in class or take a "mini"-quiz on it then earn the credits. The app also features a variety of options, including a tag mode that allows the user to e-mail their tag score to a teacher or someone else. This app is currently free for download on the app store.
Numbler - This is a really neat app that works on the orders of
operations scrabble style. Working on number sense, this is an app to
try. Note there is still some orders of operation improvements needed for this app.
