EduCreations

Alrighty, so I had played around with the free iPad app, EduCreations, a little bit on my iPad and wanted to put it to use in my classroom.  EduCreations is an app that is a whiteboard that can also record voices.  I used it today in my 5th and 6th grade classrooms.

In fifth grade we are studying simple addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators.  The students were doing their partner cooperative learning techniques when one student was the teacher and the other the student.  The teacher would listen while the student explained how to complete the problem.  Then, the teacher would have time to talk while the student listed, etc.  So, the work is normally done on paper with pen or pencil.  However, today I snuck in my iPad into one of the groups.  With the first group, I was hesitant to have her record her voice because I thought it might be a little overwhelming for her.  However, she breezed through it and then when I played it through my AppleTV for the class, she explained then how and why she had done the problem.  So, then, I had the next girl actually record her voice when completing the problem.  Here is the video:
Paulina's Presentation

I loved listening to her "present" it on the iPad - I quickly realized that students take ownership of their presentation and take it very seriously.  They use proper vocabulary, fraction form, etc, - I'm assuming because it will be presented in front of their classmates.

Here are a couple more that we did today:
Bana's Presentation (Fractions)
Yessenia's Surface Area Presentation

The students were excited when I explained to them that when we roll out all of the iPads, they could all "present" it and then I would pick one my random to present in front of the class.

So, super simple to use, very engaging for students, and just overall a great app for classrooms!

iMovie Fun Fun Fun!!

So iMovie is an outstanding and EASY app to use!  Without any directions I was able to help my daughter create a 20 minute movie for a 5th grade Language Arts project.  Then, we split it into 2 segments and posted each to YouTube.  While the download (or upload - not sure what the difference really is) took hours for YouTube, it was easy to do!  I simply plugged in my iPad and went to bed - it was ready in the morning.  You can check out those lovely videos at YouTube cut1 and YouTube Cut 2.  What incredible acting, huh? :)

While the app is incredible intuitive to use, I felt like I was missing some important details.  Details that I was positive would help to make video projects for my students even more professional-looking.  I found a pretty good tutorial on Pinterest.  Here is the video tutorial.

Mac "swiping"

Wooohooo!  I was beginning to get frustrated with not being able to scroll down very easily with my new Macbook Pro.  I missed my "normal" mousepad on my old computer.  But, today as I was strolling through Home Depot pulling our cool Radio Flyer wagon behind with my son in it, I happened to spy a young man selling solar paneling in one of the aisles and he was using a Macbook.  I couldn't see what program he was using at first, but I could tell he was scrolling easily and without a mouse!!  So then I quickly covered the ground between us with my son squealing in delight behind me in the wagon and watched this young man's magic on his mousepad.  He put two finger vertically on the mousepad and simply swept them both up or down depending on how he wanted to scroll - up or down.
Then!! I was showing this cool new feature I discovered to my husband while on the internet and I accidentally went left to right instead.  Then...<trumpet> I discovered that I could go to previous websites and forward websites by placing my 2 fingers again vertically and then swiping from left to right instead.
Wow - and all of this knowledge while just hanging out at Home Depot!! :)

Okay, so I'm so excited that I just created my first app-smashing project!  I just love saying (and typing "app-smashing")...doesn't it just sound cool?!?!?  The apps that I used are all free and I spent about 10-15 minutes making this short little video about me.  If I did another video with the same apps I do not think it would take even half of the time, but I made some mistakes and had to fix 'em up a bit.  Once we all get used to playing and using these techniques, we will all get so much quicker!

I have already shown the students some of the easier to use, but still fun apps and I made a couple of mistakes in front of them.  But it was okay!  They weren't sure either and we helped each other out and got through it and all learned something!  Don't be intimidated and scared to make a mistake!!

So, back to this app-smashing stuff!  The apps I used were only iMovie, Google Earth, Skitch, Google Chrome (or could use Safari), and my Camera Roll.  I also used Tellegami, but it wasn't playing nicely with iMovie tonight.  I saved my "Gami," but it was completely blank when I opened it through iMovie.

Anywho, this is what I did...first I just used Chrome to get some pictures to represent my background - flickercc is a great website to use for this.  I was actually told at a conference that Google Images should NOT be used for any elementary students EVER!  "You never know what you are going to get," <Forrest Gump>.  So this flickercc site is a good alternative, they are all in HD, and they are not professionally done so you do not have to cite them, although you certainly could anyway.

Once I found some pictures, I saved the pictures by just placing my finger on the picture until a little popup appeared and I selected "Save image."  It automatically goes into your camera roll!!  I did this for several pictures.  I was going to place them directly into iMovie, but I thought to myself, I want to do more app-smashing!!!  So, I opened up Skitch and opened up my newly entered camera roll pictures.  Then I marked on the pictures - - and then...<trumpet> I clicked on my home button and power button at the same time, let go, and the iPad saved the image I had just created on Skitch to my camera roll!  It took a screen shot and directly saved it there for me!  How cool is that!?!?

I opened iMovie, put in the photos in the order I wanted and played it.  Although it looked cool the way iMovie sort of pans the pictures, I thought that it was way too boring.  So I clicked on music and selected just one of the generic themes available for free.  I will play with my own music when I actually have some!  So I played that to hear it and it sounded pretty neat.  But I wanted more, so...as much as I dislike hearing my own voice, I decided to record (was going to type "tape my voice" but decided that would age me a bit) my voice over top of the music.  So I did and then played it back.  It sounded pretty good considering how awful I sound. :)

So I was done in iMovie but wanted to be able to access it in the future in an easily accessible format, so I chose to upload it to YouTube.  I already have my YouTube account set up, so all I had to do was wait about 10 minutes for it to upload.  And here it is!!  Enjoy (and don't make fun of my voice and my mess-ups when talking!)!

So I am so excited to begin this journey of technology here at SJV!  The tech team just arrived back from their first training (iPad Summit in San Diego) and I definitely learned that I have a lot to learn!  But wow - how exciting!!  I now need to take a step back, re-think and re-organize quite a bit of what I do to see how I can better incorporate technology into my classroom.

I did pick up some really super easy ideas to sort of get teachers and students hooked in a fun way here at the beginning of our iPad incoporation.  One app that I have fallen in love with is called animoto.  Animoto allows someone to just use normal pictures that they have already taken with their camera roll and make a professional looking video (with music) in a matter of seconds!  Yes, a matter of seconds!  The videos can be made in less than a minute!  It's amazing that something that looks this good can be made so quickly!  So just think how awesome some of these projects can be if more time and apps are used!!

Here is a short animoto that I made about my 8th graders:  SJV 8th Graders

I will be sharing some more short, easy little ideas just to get you excited about using the iPad and then I hope I can have some even cooler stuff to share with you!