Wow....what a year! I got hitched, graduated from grad school, and then we finally got our iPads in January. This girl has been busy! Don't worry, though. I haven't forgotten about the blog world. I have been keeping very detailed notes about my thoughts, feelings, and lessons I've learned about my 1:1 classroom. So here it goes...
1. You have to be FLEXIBLE! Sorry to say, but sometimes your network goes down, airplay doesn't work right or your iPad freezes up. That's the reality. I've decided that a teacher can either wash his or her hands of this whole technology thing or they can breath, relax and have a backup plan until things start working correctly. The great thing about my classroom is that I have 19 other brains to help me solve the problem. Most of the time, it's my kiddos that "fix it"! I also have a great grade level team that I can call up and ask for help if need be. Our classroom mantra this year has been, "When in doubt, power down and then turn it back on". Works every time :)
2. APP OVERLOAD! I love apps....I mean LOVE them. However, there came a time when I would get a million emails saying, "try this new app!". That can be really overwhelming. I felt like I was going home every night looking through all these apps and then thinking...doesn't Pages do this? Or doesn't iMovie do this? After some PD time with a really awesome Apple representative, I've learned to step back from some of those apps and start using what I already have to their full potential!
3. Create! Speaking of all those really cool apps...I feel like I was just using them for substitution. Now, don't get me wrong, substitution is perfectly wonderful (I've saved a least 100 trees this year), but our main goal is to CREATE with these iPads. I've learned that it's not something I or my kids can do each and every day right now. However, we can do it a lot more than what we've been doing. Currently, my kids are creating iMovies as a way to respond to their book club books. We have also used Keynote as a review tool. And I have dabbled in ibooks Author, which allows me to create multi touch books for my classroom (more to come on ibooks author soon!).
4. Collaboration: I wish I could say that my classroom is doing amazing things when it comes to collaborating with other classrooms and other communities. Sadly, this is not the case. My goal this summer is to learn more about Google Hangouts, Kidblog, and other collaboration tools. I would also love to get connected with professionals and experts in and around our community. We could talk to them about how they use math and science in their jobs. Math and science lessons would certainly become more relevant and engaging for my students if they had a true expert teaching them! Or we could even reach out to a children's book author so we could ask them questions about their purpose in writing. HOW GREAT WOULD THAT BE?!?! The possibilities are endless!
So much has happened since we received our iPads in January and to say that they have completely changed my classroom is an understatement. Next year, there will be more creating, more collaborating, and more engagement. For now, I will continue discovering new things, reading more blogs, and gaining a better understanding about how we can use our iPads in new and innovated ways!
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