My students and I have been overjoyed and overwhelmed these past few weeks getting to know our new ipads. My techco, Erik Cuevas, has been a huge help to me. He has taught me about the VPP program and the syncing process through the MacBook. I would still be taking baby steps if it weren’t for him but instead I am ready to share the ipads with the students.
On the first day everyone got a predetermined iPad “partner” and iPad #. I asked them to work with their partner to take pictures and videos of each other. I asked them to take one “for fun” video and one video in which they would discuss some of the recent books we have been reading.
The excitement was so great. Once all the ipads were distributed, the students forgot I was in the room. They quickly learned how to open the app, take the photo or video, view it and delete it. No problem, other than my class looked like utter chaos. I could not keep the noise level down, but I just ran with it, after all, I had planned on this being the “experimenting” day. They practiced on each other, on text, and even moving around the library to get different angles. The students were quickly troubleshooting their own problems and reviewing their work.
We viewed some of the photos and videos they made as a group and had a great time laughing at ourselves on video. I loved that some were painfully shy about it while others embraced the camera like an old friend. I would highly recommend this sort of experimenting before jumping into a project. The kids needed the time to get comfortable and I learned the skills I needed to teach them as a group right away. I also could pick out the “experts” in the class who will become my ipad helpers.
I have included a video of one boy because he was so thrilled to video himself, you would think it was the first time he looked in a mirror. So thankful for this grant and all the opportunities it has opened for my school library!
No comments:
Post a Comment