An App a day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 29, 2012....FREE

Zapd

I am always looking for a new way for my kids to "Show what they Know". With the new common core standards, kids have to use higher level thinking skills. When they have to create, that is what they are doing. With this app, kids can create their own webpage about any topic they want. After they create their account (we had a class account that everyone shared), they can just email their webpage link to others to check out! I would also have the kids showcase their webpage on the Apple TV.  The apple TV was the best purchase to go along with our iPads. It allowed for kids to share their creations easily on the Smartboard.

An App A day on a teacher's pay!

June 28, 2012....FREE

ShowMe
I used this app a lot to have kids record how they would solve a math problem. The app video records the screen and then they can email me the link to their video. I created one account for our class to use. All of the logins for accounts created for my class to use were posted on the wall, so the kids could have access to them all throughout the day. Many times I would give students a rubric and let them choose how they would "Show me what the Know." This app was one they chose often.

An App a Day on A teacher's Pay!

June 27, 2012..... FREE

Calculator

I thought a calculator would already be loaded on the iPads, but nope! I just chose the free calculator. It was really funny on the first few weeks of school. The kids (and I) were trying to get use to using the iPad on a regular basis. I emailed them a PDF math sheet (To save paper) they were using the iPad for the worksheet questions, a calculator to do the work and then a Senteo Clicker to answer their questions. By the end of the year, we only needed the iPad to do all 3 things. 

An App a day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 26, 2012....$9.99

KeyNote

Another Pricey choice, but used often. This app is like MicroSoft Powerpoint, but even easier to use. This , along with iMovie, was the main way my kids presented information. They created their on Keynotes to share with the class. This was an app that needed little instruction. The kids were teaching me tricks after just a few minutes.

An App A day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 25, 2012....$9.99

Pages

This is a very PRICEY pick, but I use it nearly every day. It is easy to use and converts to Microsoft word Great! Every once in a while you may have a Word Document that is formatted strangely when sent to Pages, but it is an easy fix. My students use this app for every word processing assignment and even notes that they complete in class. We did not have an air printer this year, and I do not for see one in the future, but the kids were able to email it to me as a Word, Pages or PDF so that I could print it for them if needed. The majority of their assignments were graded on the iPad and I gave them written feed back on Edmodo. Since my kids had to share the iPads with 2 other students in other classes, we did not send emails to the students about work, since it would not be private. This year, with the one-to-one iPads personal email will be a bonus!

An App a Day On a Teacher's Pay!

June 24, 2012.....$.99....lite version free

Doodle Fit

This was probably one of the most played apps in my class. We tried the lite version and loved it so much that we purchased the full version.  It is a great visual problem solving puzzle game.  Be warned... it is addictive!

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 23, 2012.... FREE

Dictation

My kids love to use this to help with writing they are doing. They just talk and it types what they are saying. I have to remind my kids that the iPad does not always hear it exactly,so they better edit it before turning in the assignment. I found that using headphones with a microphone help kids talk into the iPad easier and more clearly.

A app a day on a teacher's pay

June 22, 2012...FREE

This is a great app for kids to take audio notes. I mainly used it to have kids read aloud into. They could hear themselves read and then email it to me, so I could check out their fluency.

Audiomemos

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 21, 2012.....FREE, teacher iPad only

Commoncore

This is a great resource to have the Common Core Standards at your fingertips! 

An App a day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 20, 2012....FREE

Chicken COOP

Who doesn't like to catch flying eggs as a  hen lays them?  This app was a MAJOR hit in our grade level.  Working with decimals, proper and improper fractions has never been so fun. Give it a try.......It is FREE!!!! 

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay!

June 19, 2012.....FREE

Brainpop

Brainpop is a very popular website that our district subscribes to. In order to see all the videos, you do need to have a subscription. There are a few free ones to try out. What I like about these videos, is that they are great little reviews or previews of topics. They are short and to the point. My kids ask to watch the movies in their free time. With this app, as well as online, the students can take a quiz over the movie they watched. My kids would take a screen shot (Home button and power button) of the screen and email me their score directly. (This was how they turned in most of their assignments to me.) I was then able to see how well they understood the topic.

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay!

June18.......$0.99

Tools4students

I got this app towards the end of the year, so I was not able to work with it a lot. It is a great tool for helping kids create graphic organizers and they email nicely. It has 25 different types of organizers to use! My class found it very useful.

An app a day on a teacher's pay

June 17....... Free

Factor Samurai

This app is a very motivating way for kids to practice their factors. We review this skill a lot in sixth grade so we can reduce FRACTIONS!
This game is like the popular "Fruit Ninja", but it is a math game! It was great to see kids trying to beat their own high scores.

An app a day on a teacher's pay

June 16..... $0.99

neu. Annotate +PDF

I have the older version of this app and I got it when it was free. My class used this app almost daily. I was able to eliminate paper copies all together with this app. I could scan a worksheet or reading assignment and email it to the kids. When they opened it up in Neu. Annotate, they could write on the document and then resubmit it to me to grade. Yes, I could  get a 100 emails a day, but it was great to be able to take all my grading home on my iPad! Really, this is a great way for kids to edit and add notes to PDFs.

An app a day on a teacher's pay

June 15, 2012......$5.99 (offered free often, so track it!)

iCard sort

I got this as a freebie, so track it and try to get it free! I originally thought my class could use it to sort things, but I really never had the kids use it. It did however become my best friend!  I loved being able to create decks of cards, one card for each kid in my class. I then color coded the cards to help sort my kids for differentiated instruction groups,  to have an at-a-glance look at their levels on our school's computer program or even just for a seating chart. It is an easy paperless way to manipulate any kind of groupings.

An App a Day on a teacher's pay

June 14, 2012....Free... This is one is just for the teacher's iPad!

AppZapp

A lot of the apps I will be posting were free at the time I added them to this blog. One way I find cheap or free Apps for myself and my class is by using an app tracker like AppZapp. When they are on sale or free, I download them to try out.

This year, since only 6 teachers had iPads in their class, we were able to get free apps whenever we wanted and could manage them ourselves. Next year with an entire school with iPads, we will have a tech teacher to manage them and an app application to fill out to get apps. I will let you know how it goes when we get it up and running.

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay

June 13, 2012.........$4.99

iMovie

iMovie was the creation app that my students started using first. It was so easy for them to navigate through, that they needed very little instruction on how to create with it. With the recent updates, kids are able to create trailers in just a matter of minutes. As the year progressed, so did their skills at editing and adding special effects; like music and voice over.

My students created movies to retell stories, interviewed classmates about topics being learned in class, created final projects to prove to me what they learned and to help teach their classmates how to better understand a concept.

The main limitation my class had with the iMovie was that the movie cannot be longer than a minute to email. We were unable to use Youtube in our district, so our tech department helped link our server to the Web Dav app , so movies and large files could be shared. It worked like a charm. We then would upload the videos to our grade level website for kids to share with their families at home.

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay!

                               June 12, 2012....Free

Edmodo

One of my students introduced me to this App. It took a little time to set up as a teacher and a class, but it was worth it. I had been using Moodle, but my class and myself found Edmodo to be much more user friendly and FUN! It looks a lot like Facebook. It is a social network that is safe for students to use. I created "classes" for each subject as well as a "Chat" page. In Edmodo, assignments can be created, completed, graded and returned with just a few clicks of the button! It's use is endless. I did allow my kids to "Chat" on the chat page, but not during class. They used this page instead of other social networks, since parents felt it was safer. (As a teacher I received an email every time something was posted, so I could monitor the chats.)

An App a Day on a Teacher's Pay

June 11, 2012....Free

Red Laser

This app is probably the most versatile app I used in class. I used the website http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to create QR codes. I would create review questions, tests, and links to websites as QR codes and my students would use the app to scan the codes to complete the activities.

An App a day on a teacher's pay

Summer is underway and the days are full with swimming pools and baseball games! 

Over the past school year, I had the opportunity to apply iPads and apps into my class. I will be sharing an app a day to showcase  a few apps I found I could not live without, along with ideas on how I have used them.

June 1....Already thinking of the first day of school!

The school year is over, but the ideas for a new school year are already on their way. This year was the first year of an iPad pilot in my district. What a wonderful adventure it was! My grade level had a class set of iPads to share among  the three of us. Since this technology in classrooms is so new, it was up to us to figure out how to apply it in our classrooms. We learned as much as our students did!

In the fall of 2012, we will be opening a Sixth Grade Academy, which will house all 6th graders in our district and each student will be issued an iPad. I hope to use this blog to help other classrooms get ideas on how to manage, teach and learn with iPads in the classroom.