Fotobabble

Another successful app to use with young children.  A great way to record student voice - giving children the opportunity to publish their writing or to express their opinion about something they have learnt. It is easy for them to take a photo and to record, then listen and rerecord if they wish. Then this can be shared - via email to their parents or the link is copied and uploaded to their Padlet page (I am doing this for them at this point in time.)

 
Samantha explaining her garden plan; Scarlett talking about how a food pyramid keeps us healthy; Cooper counting in 5s.
Here are examples of how fotobabble can be used to record student learning - it also gives children the opportunity to talk to or about a topic without having to read a script - which is an important skill in itself!

Blogger - Our Class Blog

So simple! Using the iPad Blogger app has made it easy for the children to write a new post each day on our class blog. I was determined that by the end of Term One they would take responsibility for choosing the learning of the day that they wanted to share and be able to publish the post themselves. 
To achieve this I had to:

• set aside time each day to show 2 children how to take/choose a photo, write a title, write the caption, write their names as the labels
• suggest the photo/learning to share
• suggest an appropriate title, they could usually think of a sentence to write on the topic
• be available to edit their writing before publishing
• make sure that the task was shared around ans that everyone had a turn
• make sure that there were 4 children that were shown 

Padlet - Term 1 2014

This has turned out to be the most successful app for the beginning of the year for my Year 2 class. It is so versatile and has enthused and motivated the children into taking photos, videos and writing and then sharing their learning with their parents.

As an introduction to Padlet we had class pages where we all wrote on the same page.
Now:

everyone in the class has their own Padlet page 

each page is uploaded to the class blog -  http://www.chelseabachelors.blogspot.co.nz/

it is then able to be accessed from home as well - several children have taken off with this and have added photos and captions of themselves at home

writing on their Padlet page has become part of the Daily 5 reading rotation 

writing on their Padlet page has become part of the writing rotation

children choose what they want to write about - choose or take their own photo, write their own title and write their own sentence/caption

Storyboard or Storyjumper

Last year I had the children writing collaboratively using a website called Storyjumper. They wrote little books using characters provided. However the characters they tended to choose had very limited story lines and plots. I found another website where they had a lot more choice - settings, characters, text styles etc. 
Again I offered it during the Daily 5 reading rotation and called it Buddy Writing. It was very popular, however the end product of a 6 - 10 page book was a long time coming for some. There were too many distractions and too much choice - lots of discussion and collaborating. They boys especially spent much of their time choosing characters, talking through ideas and making changes rather than actually writing. 
2014 - offer it as a before school collaborative activity?

Facebook

Is there a place for Facebook in schools? Should schools have a Facebook page? Most schools with Facebook pages use them as a notification service or as another way of informing parents of what's going on at school.
How different is a Facebook page different to a class Twitter feed? 
The Chelsea School Facebook page that was set up before Christmas has certainly got a number of friends who are actively following the posts and liking and commenting.

The holiday competition sending in photos of interesting places to read a book has certainly flourished with Facebook as an outlet for viewing all the entry photos - it's been a very positive use of Facebook and a great success!
I am now an administrator as well and can also post events and news items. I will be posting happenings in the Bachelor Syndicate such as 

Maths Apps for the iPad

Slide Maths - a great free app - up to 4 players can play at once! 

Bitsboard 
- a free app
A huge range of games for every curric area - load the board with your choice of topic 

Sumdog
- now has some iPad friendly apps - go to the app store and search under Sumdog
(See a much bigger range of games on the Sumdog website - make a class account with individual logins)

Hoodamath
 Another free app with a range of games - some great logic games that would be good for extension activities
(Also available on their website)

More iPad apps

Fresh Pick - at a supermarket - the reviews are positive as an app that requires application of knowledge via problem solving

The chn love this app - it requires a certain amount of thinking to solve a range of problems

- giving directions to get to a product

- giving change

- buying products - how many apples at 50c each for $2

- using the language of position of products on shelves

- a memory game

Daisy the Dinosaur

Daisy the Dinosaur - reviews say this app gives children the beginnings of basics in software programming

- you have to make Daisy move across the screen to a target - you can programme her to do all sorts of moves  - spin, turn, jump, roll, walk forwards, backwards, programme her to do repeats of various routines

So very much a problem solving, thinking app

Popplet - a simple, fun way to get chn to write!
A great brainstorming app. I saw Year 5/6 children using very successfully it to show their research on a topic at Point England School when I visited during October this year.

Little boxes that link together - add text via keypad or drawing and add photos.