Group items tagged

17 Pros and Cons of Using iPads in the Classroom - For many schools this year, the dream of having iPads in the classroom turned into a reality. Some schools have brought them in through 1:1 initiatives and other seen them start to flood in after implementing BYOD policies. As with anything else, teachers have seen some pros and cons with this cool, new classroom technology. Here's a list of some things to expect with iPads in the classroom.

a website to empower teachers to solve their own technology shortfalls by connecting classrooms with their communities using the Internet. A year later, www.digitalwish.org launched with a simple wish list feature and a few technology products. The need for classroom technology was so great that 1,000 teachers posted wishes in the first month. With such high demand, we began the process of turning Digital Wish into an official nonprofit organization.

"It can be difficult to find useful and engaging programs to use in your classroom, especially when budgets don't allow for it. Here's a fresh idea: meaningful content using real-life scenarios that engages teenagers and doesn't cost a dime. That's Banzai." OMG this program and the reviews look great! Everything is there for you to use. Read the FAQ portion first and you will get most of your questions answered. It is suppose to work on the iPad but I would use traditional computers for this web tool. You need to print the booklets for the students first and the time to use the program is said to be three to four hours or at least 4-5 classes. It looks great to teach financial literacy with a small group or classroom.

"Shift from traditional paper forms to a technology-enabled observation process with Teachscape Reflect Live. Teachscape Reflect Live is a flexible, easy-to-use, and comprehensive observation management and reporting system. With Teachscape Reflect Live, observers can schedule classroom observations, collect and organize the observation data, and then store the data on one secure platform"

Whether you want to have students turn in homework via an online form or simply take a quiz or test, online quiz tools are critical to having a connected classroom. Most tools are free, all are robust, and they're quite easy to use. What could be better than that? You can use any of these below tools to get feedback from parents, students, colleagues, and more.

This is a site that allows the users to take a photo and ask a question related to the photo and the participants give back responses in texts, writing, drawing or voice. It is really cool . This was probably placed on the Diigo before, but this post is from Byrne on how this is implemented in the classroom. Check it out

an education platform that is customizing the way students learn by offering more than 28,000 tutorials on a variety of academic topics taught by thousands of teachers. This vibrant, first-of-its-kind learning community helps teachers enrich their classrooms, empowers students to learn in their own way, and provides a pathway to an affordable college degree.  FREE

This is another version of online student response system that seems to go a step further than the Socrative learning tool.  This system allows you to record the questions in audio, use pictures and set up different classrooms.  You can even provide a link where each of the students can view the same web page at once while the teacher discusses a topic.  The tool allows the students to respond with a drawing which is great for dyslexic students struggling with writing.  

A quiz that can be embeded in one of your presentation wikis for students to take or duplicated for use on the collaborize classroom.

TEACHERS CAN TRY THIS FOR FREE! "MRI is an online formative assessment tool designed to make teachers' classroom instruction more effective. The MRI questions focus on number and operations and are based on content from the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics prior to sixth grade. They are questions that we expect…and hope…all middle school students to answer successfully."

A good blog (actually looks like a newpaper page) that has lessons where students are asked to give their opinion on a topic. Very good questions to develop reasoning, judgement and decision making skills. These questions can be used to link in your own blog, wiki, or web tool (like the collaborize classroom). Students can comment on the blog site their opinion. Nice to get your school recognized.

a blog that reviews and discusses apps that are of value in the classroom.

This wonderful post discusses the iPad as uses for the following skills: reader, creator, student response system, classroom manger study tool, organizer and differentiator. Phenomenol post.

Bring the classroom to life with interactive mobile presentations that teachers create and customize themselves. And it's free. This works on the Ipad and the teacher has a content tool that they chose grapics, text, and materials from to present an interactive slide show where the students can interact with on their Ipads.

"Post assignments, announcements, and links to important resources Notify parents and students each time you update your classroom page Create an online calendar of class events and activities Use our free storage to upload documents and add images to your page(s) Access practical tips and other resources from EducationWorld.com Use our handy tools to create flashcards and other learning materials"

a free web resource for teachers, students and parents that finds and explains how to use free web tools in the classroom

"Splashtop Whiteboard allows teachers and students to turn their iPad into an interactive whiteboard. Once connected to their computer over Wifi, they can watch Flash media with fully synchronized video and audio, control favorite applications then annotate over lesson content all from an iPad. Now interact with students at their desk or from all four corners of the classroom!"

these guides will definitely help you better understand and use iPad for teaching and learning purposes. Enjoy ::

Improve student behavior and engagement by awarding and recording real-time feedback.