I'm Back . . .

These couple of months have been crazy. I finally finished my Master's and passed my State Principal test! Getting your Master's, being a mom, wife, teacher, and so on is a difficult journey, but it is not impossible. I am not the only person out there who has worked hard to achieve it. I had a wonderful group of teammates that helped me go though this journey (picture on the left). The most amazing thing happened during my commencement ceremony, I saw my 3rd grade teacher (picture on the right). This is the person who inspired me to be a hard working teacher.

Enough about me, this year was an amazing year as I had the wonderful opportunity to use iPads in the classroom. This experience helped me realized the role that technology plays in helping students learn. Students had the opportunity to use the iPads to do many projects, activities, and discoveries. From creating an information pamphlet, creating presentations, playing games, and researching.

This is a list of a few apps and websites that my students and I loved:

My personal favorite is NearPod. I love using this app to teach. It allows teacher to still guide a lesson but have students individually see the lesson on their iPad, and my favorite part is the individual student control components and instant feedback. Students can take quizzes and answer opened ended questions and immediately see their response.

 XtraMath is a great website where students log in daily to practice math facts. My students enjoyed this and looked forward to it. As a teacher you got to see their practice and see how many students struggle with simple facts that many times we do not think about. The only downfall is that using the website on the iPad is a bit tricky and it would freeze on students, the reports are a bit confusing to understand at first, but the benefits are more than worth it.

HaikuDeck was my students top app. HaikuDeck is like a PowerPoint/slideshow. My students wanted to create a HaikuDeck for every concept and activity that was interesting and meaningful. Students get to create a slide with information and then put a picture either from their selection or from their own pictures. Once the slideshow is published it will be online. Once published you can save the presentation as a PDF.  *Students never wrote their name they wrote their iPad number* -Requires a password-

 TenZen Light is a great Tangram challenge for students. My students enjoyed this app and constantly wanted to solve the challenges to finish all the levels.

Sushi Monster is a scholastic app where students get to practice math facts while feeding a monster. This is a great game, the name alone is fun.

My students loved practicing their telling time skills by playing Kids Clock. They did not only like to play the game but also loved the noises that it would make. Great review method.

 Singing Fingers was another kid favorite. I used this app to help students practice their spelling skills. They had to say the sound of each letter in a word as they wrote the multi-color letter. After they finished, if they retraced the letter without making noise they could hear their records. This is a fun app.

 Sky Drive was a great resource in my classroom my students used the online version not the app. Using this app with a class of 3rd graders requires patience but the outcomes are wonderful. It is a bit challenging to use it on the iPad because of some features and the keyboard, but nothing too challenging and students get to use Word and PowerPoint. I would suggest first using HaikuDeck then introducing PowerPoint. A great way to for students to turn in work that was done on the iPad.   -Requires a password-

 Dropbox is a great method of making files accessible for all students to see at the same time. This is a great way to save paper. -Requires a password-

Inkflow  is a great way to take notes, solve problems, and brainstorm. It's like a digital notebook.

Time Math is a great app to help students to learn and practice telling time. The great feature of this app is that it takes students through each component of telling time in different levels. This is a must have app when teaching how to tell time, and even after learning it as practice.

Wings  students loved this app. This is a game app that allows students to practice multiplications and arrays. Students need to fly the bird through the greatest array from two that are presented.

VersaMate was another favorite app that was constantly played. Students played against the computer or other students. This is a great way to for students to practice identifying fractions.