I know everybody has their favourites but I thought it was my time to share the iPad apps that I can’t live without! I have had my iPad since September 2011 and found that as each day at school went by I was using it more and more. Regular readers of my blog would already be aware of my affection for Evernote and Good Reader and how I use these apps to eliminate paper in my reading assessments with students. These are just two of my favourites so I thought it was time to share a few more!

1. Evernote-

I have said it before and I will say it again and again until every teacher I know at least tries Evernote! Evernote is a note taking app that allows users to take notes by typing, audio, video and pictures. It can be used on a variety of devices and syncs, so if I edit on my laptop it appears on my iPad!

I use Evernote to-

Save all of my assessment notes and data-
I have notebooks set up for different subjects and add notes about students as I notice them! I always have either my iPhone or iPad with me in the classroom so I can update quickly and easily, it keeps me mobile, away from the laptop and I never forget anything!

Keep checklists-
I have checklists set up for keeping records for homework and home reading, as well as keeping track of spelling results. I also know of teachers that have set up checklists for use in guided reading.

Minutes-
I keep track of all staff meeting notes so that I can refer to them later, again I find this easier than writing my notes on paper or in a book as I tend to put it down somewhere and never find it again! I also take notes on team meetings and can easily share or email the notes between team members.

ifttt-
If This Then That- “Put the Internet to work for you!” ifttt is a web app that allows you to create tasks of a simple structure. For example I could get ifttt to send me en email with the weather forecast every morning or send my mum a Facebook message on her birthday.

I use ifttt with Evernote to-

• Save my starred items from Google Reader. It keeps them all together and easy to find at a later date.
• Save new blog posts- every time I write a new post it sends a copy to Evernote for safe keeping.
• Save my Twitter favourites- every time I favourite a tweet on Twitter it saves in Evernote.
• Make a copy of my YouTube videos.

Professional Learning-
I keep track of all of my professional learning using Evernote- I can create quick and easy notes, take pictures, video and audio so that I don’t forget what I have learnt!

2. Good Reader

Good Reader is an app that allows you to annotate PDF and Word Documents.

I use Good Reader to-

• Complete running records (I then save them in the corresponding student note in Evernote)
• Complete paperless Observation Surveys.
• Complete assessment checklists.
• Have important documents on hand ready to go- eg when I am completing a reading conference I have the CAFE menu open and have easy access to the CAFE Ready Reference Guides.

Basically anything that you can do on paper you can scan or email and do it on the iPad!

3- Twitter

The most influential and inspiring Professional Learning Network around! For any teacher reading this who is not on Twitter I would highly suggest that you get on and have a look. I use Twitter to
LEARN and to SHARE. Kathleen Morris shares her ideas for teachers new to Twitter- Using Twitter to Build Your PLN, Are You On Twitter Yet? and Top 10 Twitter Tips

4- WordPress

The WordPress app allows me to edit and update blog posts and make comments easily and efficiently.

5- OneNote

I do all my planning and work program using OneNote and since Office 2010 and the integration of SkyDrive it is even better! It is great having OneNote on my iPad and iPhone. The app allows me to have easy access to my planning documents at all times and I can add and edit on the go. The only thing I don’t like is that you can’t edit a table that has already been created- can be frustrating!

6- TED

Need some inspiration- take 10 minutes to listen to the latest TED talk.

7- Flipboard

Turns your social networks into an interactive, online magazine! Add your Facebook or Twitter account to view in a dynamic and different way on the iPad or iPhone. You can also set up different Twitter hashtags that you follow.

8- Prezi Viewer

Allows you to view Prezi’s on your Ipad!

9- Splashtop Whiteboard

Download the Splashtop streamer on your computer and iPad to create an easy and free remote desktop! Sit anywhere in the classroom and control your IWB or have students demonstrate on iPad rather than standing up in front of the class.

With Splashtop Whiteboard-

Teachers can:

Be in Control – Have complete control over the applications on the classroom PC as if you were sitting right there. No need to stay at the front of class. Be free to roam around. Hand the iPad to a student and let their imagination do the rest!

Experience lifelike play back – All video and audio are played in high definition on your iPad. Play Adobe Flash content, iTunes music, DVDs, CDs, etc.

10- iMovie

I love iMovie! It is so easy to use, very user friendly- I demonstrated once to some Prep, 1 and 2 students and that was it! They were publishing their writing using iMovie to be uploaded to our class website and were so excited about it. I find that it is a lot more instant than Photo Story or Movie Maker. I have used iMovie to create weekly school vodcasts, record and make movies of students working, had students make movies and photo stories to publish their work.

Ok so there are just 10 apps that I love and use lots! I hope that you get some ideas and maybe try some yourself!

How have you used these apps?

What are your favourite apps?

P,1,2 Team- Sarah, Bec, Gulsen

We teach in an open plan learning space, each class has their own room but we share a central learning space in the middle of all of our rooms. Each of us have an Interactive Whiteboard and we also have one situated in the central learning space.

On a typical day our morning starts in our individual rooms for morning roll, calendar and admin. We then meet in the central learning area as a P,1,2 cohort (63 students all up) for Literacy. We begin with a shared reading session focusing on a CAFE strategy, students then break of into Independent reading (or those familiar with the Daily 5, ‘Read to Self’). During Independent Reading we conduct individual reading conferences with students. We then meet again in the central learning space to set up for reading groups. We have recently restructured our reading groups, as we found that having such a wide range of abilities within each class meant more groups and less time with the teacher. As a result we have combined groups so that students from each grade are mixed together within groups. This may sound hectic but it has worked! We have found that by doing this our lower ability groups are getting two sessions a week with a teacher rather than one. When conducting Guided Reading Groups we each take notes and observations in Evernote and email these between us so we always know what each of our students are doing. After Guided Reading we meet again for writing and depending on the focus we alternate between doing this as a cohort and individual classes.

On Tuesday’s and Friday’s we also complete Mathematics as a whole group. The structure is fairly similar to Literacy. We start with a whole class warm-up / game, whole class focus, then split off into groups. Grade 2 student Anita explains it well in this Vodcast.

To keep a consistent approach between all grades we also have a shared Google site https://sites.google.com/site/acpsprep12/home. This allows us to not only collaborate as a team but gives us an opportunity to share and celebrate student learning with the wider community.

I believe that a huge benefit to team teaching in this setting is the fact that students are being exposed to a diverse range of teaching experience and styles. Each of us brings our own knowledge and pedagogy to the classroom which stengthens us as a team. I believe that utilising such a collaborative teaching apporach cannot compare to teaching as an individual.

As the year draws to a close it will be interesting to see what happens next year with our growing school and the employment of new teachers. I know I will be hoping to work in another collaborative team!

Do you team teach?

What ways have you been involved in team teaching?

Thanks to @JesseSBlack and the team at http://www.getclassmate.com/ I tried a fantastic and innovative way of incorporating Twitter into a maths lesson. You can download the lesson plan and resources from http://www.getclassmate.com/newsletters/110925/

I teach a Prep, 1 & 2 grade, and incorporated this lesson with a small group Of grade 2 students. As the lesson plans provided by Get Classmate were aimed at older students I did modify it accordingly. At Level 2.0 in the VELS (Victorian Essential Learning Standards) students are expected to predict the outcome of chance events, such as the rolling of a die, using qualitative terms such as certain, likely, unlikely and impossible.

http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/support/progression/maths.html#lev2

I started the lesson the day before with a little groundwork, explaining to the students what I was going to do with the Twitter post so we could gather our data. I sent out a tweet- asking my followers – P, 1, 2 students would like to know ‘What is the chance of rain in your area today?’

I chose to include the hashtag #acpsmaths so all of the responses could be gathered together. I was a little worried in the beginning, unsure if we would get enough tweets to work with. Over a few hours I retweeted my original post using different educator hashtags including #edchat #comments4kids and #VicPLN to gather enough responses. There was no need to be worried as the powerful Twitter PLN was a success. We had plenty of Tweets to work with.

When it came time for the lesson to begin I used http://visibletweets.com/ and entered #acpsmaths to display the Tweets coming in. When we were doing our lesson introduction the tweets were popping up on the IWB, this was when I saw how enthusiastic and motivated the students were, they could not wait to get started! I basically followed the Get Classmate lesson plan, however, I wasn’t originally going to include the percentages as students are not not expected to know this at a grade 2 level, but many of the tweets coming in were giving us a percentage so I decided to discuss this throughout the lesson got the students to decide where the percentages would fit according to our chance of events terms we had already come up with.

All in all the kids loved it, I thought it was a success. I found it to be very rewarding and motivating and impressive to see students engrossed in real world learning. It was a fantastic way to incorporate Twitter and technology into what can sometimes be a overdone and dull lesson!

How have you or could you use Twitter in the classroom?