Fire up your printer- This is an AMAZING Resource! Allan Carrington has taken Bloom's Taxonomy to the next level. He has created this iPad Wheel that has 62 different apps sorted by Bloom's Taxonomy, it even has action verbs and activities linked for each activity. Kathy Shrock, laid the foundation work for this- so it has to be good!
This is already in printable format so you will want to print it and hang it somewhere prominent. Yes, it is that important. Here is a direct link to the printable format. Enjoy!
Receive monthly tech tips, exclusive freebies and more sent directly to your inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter
Last week I had the opportunity to spend some time with several amazing secondary Science and Language Arts teachers. I had a great time with them and I learned so much from them. We looked at the logistics of integrating iPads into the classroom and worked with a few individual apps. Embedded below is my presentation. Know of any apps that I'm missing that needed to be added? Let me know in the comments below!
Receive monthly tech tips, exclusive freebies and more sent directly to your inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter
I have a four year old daughter who is learning to write and we LOVE using the iPad for this! Somehow she doesn't see it as tedious when it has sounds, music, games, and visuals attached. It was really important for me to get a stylus to use with these apps. I was very focused on getting her to hold a "pencil" correctly so writing with her finger seemed counter productive. We have two that we love but I'll talk about those on another day. :-D These are our FAVORITE handwriting apps- and we have tried a ton of them!
Letter school is the best out there for beginners- it really makes them want to learn and increases there overall knowledge! At least so far! It has capital and lower case letters as well as numbers. You can choose if you want Zaner-Bloser, D'Nealian, and HWT Style. And what is more you can have this customized for three different students- so if you want one student working on numbers, one on uppercase, and one only doing lowercase you can do that.
Every letter is displayed differently, in some of the letters it cuts grass, other lights up like Christmas lights, flowers bloom, candy goes around the letter, a rocket ship blasts off. Very exciting stuff! I found a video on YouTube demonstrating the app.
What I love about this app the most is that it breaks each letter down into three steps. Scaffolding at its finest!
This is my most recent discovery. I feel it is more for someone who has a grasp on what letters are and why they are important. This app has the ability to add you child's picture and name and then inside of words, it allows you to practice their name, choosing any color that they would like! How cool is that!
What really sets this app apart from all of the others is the history. You are able to see all of the past attempts for each letter and the date that it was written. Awesome! It will also tell you what letters are the favorites, tracks the number of letters written, time spent on the app, and what letters are tricky. This is great if you are not watching over the student's shoulder- and want to be sure that they are in fact practicing. :-) This app does not mandate that the letters are 100% perfect but does still make sure that it is close.
If you have never heard about the Handwriting without Tears program, it is worth checking out! This app offers capital letters and numbers. With each letter you write it three times. The first time you use a wash cloth, the second time a towel, and the third time a piece of chalk. This app is tough and sometimes frustrating for my daughter who is at the very beginning stages of learning her letters. It lacks the music and flashy elements but it demands a higher level of accuracy. In a Kindergarten or First Grade classroom this app would be hard to beat! When you go to far off the desired path, it will show you what to do and will have you start over. This app mandates that the letters are written well.
What I feel makes this app stand out is that you can pick and choose the letters that you would like to learn or you can follow the Handwriting Without Tears order. This order starts with the "easy" letters first and builds to the increasingly difficult letters. This method also claims to help students eliminate reversals.
I hope this helps in your journey to learning to write letters well. Do you know any other apps that are must have for helping to learn and master letters?
**** I am not being paid for these reviews or recommendations but if you would like to, let me know!
It's true- I'm a little bit obsessed with finding and trying new apps. I don't believe I have gone more than 2 days without downloading a new one. So I am constantly deleting subpar apps to make room for new exciting apps. So when I was asked to present "iPad Apps- In and Out of the Classroom"at the Tech Expo held at Sidney Local Schools I jumped at the chance!
I took note of all of my favorite apps- both those for classroom use and without. My list grew to about 60 different apps- seriously! And these are all ones that I actually use. :-D So I am so excited to be able to share this list with you! Not all of the apps are free but many are- so I hope you learn about a few new ones!
What are your must have apps? Did I leave any off?
The iPad is becoming a more powerful tool everyday. Recently, I found a YouTube video talking about how to build your own PVC iPad holder essentially turning your iPad into a document camera.
I sent these directions to our awesome industrial tech teacher and a mere $7.00 and 15 minutes later we had our very own stand. I found however that I wasn't a big fan of having to take the iPad out of the case and sliding it into the pvc pipe. So we created the model below. In our version the iPad just sits on the pipe, it might not be quite as secure but it is much easier.
To get the full document camera experience, you will need to have the Apple 30-pin to VGA Adaptor and a projector. Epson now offers several projectors that connect to your iPad through bluetooth that may be worth looking into if you are purchasing a new projector.
I use this with the app Stage, which is free on iTunes. This app allows you to write and label your image much as a SMART board would do. It is a very basic app but very powerful!
I hope you find this helpful! Do you have any other innovative iPad solutions that you would like to share? I would LOVE to hear them!
Photon is an app that allows you to see and interact with any flash based websites on the iPad. This $3.99 app was designed for gamers but works amazingly well in any context. Inside the app on the upper right hand side, you click the lightning bolt to enable any flash based content. Love this app! It allows me to work with all of my favorite sites without leaving the iPad. Hope you find this useful!
But what I just found out is that they have an app. This app is awesome for teaching fractions, decimals, and percents. The screen shot below is the directions for using.
Basically on half of the screen you can choose from fractions, decimals or percents and drag them to the second half of the screen. This allows you to compare fractions like the picture below. But what is even more exciting is that when you click on the fraction pieces it will show you the fraction as a decimal and a percent. It also has the feature that lets you draw.
This is an awesome app! I have my fingers crossed that they add more manipulatives in the future. At the price tag of free, you can not beat it! What do you hope they add next?
