Helping parents become digital superheroes

We just hosted a digital citizenship/how to have a sane summer with your kids and their devices parent workshop and we wanted to come up with an easy way for them to stay in control while helping their kids stay safe, healthy and engaged in appropriate apps. This was the infographic I made that went along with the discussions we had.

Here is the link to the pdf file.

What's Next in the Tablet Niche Market in Education?

Very interesting post here

Coding Apps for the iPad

In preparation for our HOUR of Code (Dec 8-14), we are trying out these apps:
So far, we love Light-Bot, Scratch Jr., and Hopscotch. Looking forward to trying the others!

Hopscotch

Kodable

Bee Bot

Code.org

Light-Bot

Codea

Codecademy

Hakitzu

Scratch Jr.

Book Creator our go-to tool for eBooks, Digital Portfolios, and quick formative assessments!

Book Creator has found a home here in our Early Elementary. Teachers are using it for everything from simple book creations by our 4-5 yos describing a unit of inquiry ("What is TALL, and what is SHORT?") to full-on Digital Portfolios with color-coded pages for each subject area. We are combining student-created ebooks into class-created ebooks to upload to our library iPad minis for a wider audience. eBook creations on Book Creator have also been exported as videos and uploaded to student blogs for some amazing examples of formative assessment.

iBooks Author Overview from Apple

This new overview provides a nice look at the app for your computer. We use iBooks Author to create "lesson" books for students and we are looking at having students create their own eBooks using iBooks Author.

Keedogo Assistive Keyboarding App

Keedogo is an assistive, keyboarding app for kids. The keyboard is designed for iPad for elementary-aged children. Here is what is looks like:

As an early elementary tech integration specialist, I think the Keedogo keyboard will be great because of its appeal to children. Keedogo Plus allows for predictive text which helps with spelling and writing. It looks like it will help as much with literacy as it does with basic typing skills. 

iPads are still the device of choice in the lower elementary at ISKL

Kids love them. Teachers love them. They are being used in many different ways from recording student learning, to create engaging presentations and ebooks. The learning curve to put the device to meaningful use that elevates tech integration to the transformative level has been quite a bit smaller than was anticipated. The device helps ease the learning curve in its ease of use!