Using iPads or iPods in the Classroom

There were several sessions at the ASCD annual conference on using iPads and/or iPods with students even as young as PreK. I want to share a few of the apps and ideas for their use in the classroom.

Sock Puppets: This is a free app for iPod and iPad. It publishes the finished video to YouTube which could be put on a teacher channel for the class to view. Great for kids to publish book reviews, science experiments, public service announcements, biographies, autobiographies, debates. Let them use the app to explain math problems, practice fluency, or a new way to publish their own writing.



Storykit App: Another free app for both iPod and iPad that provides stories from the public domain. The cool thing is that it allows you to edit those stories as well as create your own books. So make those stories modern by changing up the characters and language. Let students create their own biographies at the beginning of the year as a cool way to get to know everybody in the class. Start a ABC book and add letters as you learn them because the stories can be edited at any time.


BrainPop Featured Movie App: Free for both iPod and iPad. School subscription is not need to access a featured free movie every day. Questions are asked after each video to check comprehension.




StopMotion Recorder ($ .99): It is an iPod app that will also work on an iPad. A toy video camera that allows you to make stop motion video like those claymation clips you have seen before. Allows you to edit as well as share on YouTube (again think about saving to your teacher channel.)






Songify: This iPod app turns speech into music, automatically. Kids love it and can be used for storytelling, spelling lists, water cycles, life cycles, math facts, and more. Also works on an iPad.




Show Me: The iPad only app allows you to record voice over tutorials and share online. Let your students use the app to create their own Kahn Academy like tutorials to share with each other and online. Maybe create tutorials for your school or district. You can also insert pictures and have students voice over information about the photo. Think of a new way to label the parts of a plant for example complete with the purpose of those parts in the plants growth and survival!



A couple of things to keep in mind when choosing and using apps in the classroom:

• Mobile learning allows teachers to layer learning which is a requirement in Common Core.
• You can't rely solely on the apps for higher order thinking skills, it is the teacher's responsibility to use multiple apps if necessary so students can analyze, evaluate, and create.
• You can't teach the same way with the new technology. Pedagogy has to change by integrating the device into a sequence of activities. 
• Take advantage of the social aspect of the device. 

What are some of your favorite apps for classrooms? How are you changing your teaching as a result?