Sabin Library Media Center Students Love Their iPads!! by Meghan Gabler, Librarian,Sabin Dual Language Magnet School

Students sharing comparisons of
"Three Little Pigs" via iDraw app

All students that visit the Sabin Library Media Center are thrilled for the arrival of our iPads!! I have to say the excitement was as hard for me to contain as it was for the students! As soon as they arrived I got to work organizing them, assigning them barcodes, configuring them as per the awesome Power Point we received via KC Boyd! I introduced the iPads slowly to the different grade levels. We have had discussions about respectful use of the iPads and respectful use of other people’s saved work on the iPads. We have cloths that we use to wipe down the iPads when we are finished using them. We have discussed making sure all iPads are back in their designated spots before one class leaves and another class enters the library. I am proud to say there have been many successes and no failures with the students use of the iPads.

Students select Chicken Big
during Monarch voting.

Our 5th and 6th graders are the most eager to work with the iPads. We are busy creating Prezi accounts and familiarizing ourselves with iMovie. It has been a group, student and teacher, effort. We have decided on a continuing theme throughout our school to create projects with. In groups of two or individually the students are going to choose a college or university of interest and create a Prezi or an iMovie. As a school we had colleges and universities promoted in various ways throughout the building and the students agreed this project is a great way to keep that momentum moving forward.

Luckily for the students and for myself, our iPads arrived just in time for the Monarch and Bluestem award voting. I was in the classroom most of that week due to testing. Regardless, it was the perfect time to bring out the iPads and have the Kindergartners, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders use them for voting. We read a book about voting and how serious we should take it. We talked about how our votes are our own personal choices. I set up a Google Drive form for each book and set up the iPads in front of the books so the students could walk along, browse, and then select their final vote! They loved it!

Students browsing their
Monarch Award choices.

Lastly, the third graders have been practicing taking screen shots and emailing their work to me. I am proud to say that have done a fabulous job and they are loving taking responsibility of their work. We read “The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf” given to us to boost excitement for the book fair. We created a Venn Diagram comparing the original tale and this tale. Students then worked with partners in the (free) iDraw HD app to split the screen and draw some of the differences between the two stories. They then took screen shots, emailed the drawing to me and included their names in the subject.


I cannot wait to see what else my amazing students create with these new tools. Thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to reading more about the other schools and their great creations as well as sharing more of ours!