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I am NOT interested in using the iPad with my students as a worksheet substitution! Kill and drill apps on the iPad are still just that… kill and drill activities. I want my students to : use apps to create, not just consume fluently pick apps that will serve their purpose fluently switch between apps, then insert, embed, share and disseminate their creations We have to expose students to a variety of apps to help them gain skills in iPad Fluency By fluency I mean the ability to: connect tasks effortless together (ex.creating and editing a video, then uploading, embedding and disseminating on several platforms) CREATE and then being able to COMMUNICATE- the ability to create and communicate your creation is one of the main characteristics of fluency record, edit and then publish a movie that automatically posts to my blog take an image…edit…then automatically post to my photo stream as well as embed into a blog post work within several apps, then remix content from each one by being able to import them from one app to another.

The iPads are finally set up and ready to go into the classrooms! It happened to be our first graders who were the first ones to get their hands on them!

A few days ago, I tested and reviewed a great new app: Book Creator

The first time, I brought the iPads into the class, we spent time talking about the care and handle of the devices. When picking the iPad up from the teacher we reminding them to carry the iPad with two hands to their desk set them down as quietly as possible don’t hold the iPad from the SmartCover don’t walk around the classroom with an iPad in your hand no pulling, showing or tugging on someone else’s iPad

So it’s exciting to see Skitch, the service that allows you to quickly annotate, edit and share screenshots and images, release their Skitch for iPad app today.

Similar to the Mac version, Skitch for iPad includes an arrow tool, text tool, drawing tool, shapes tool, crop tool and a cursor tool. Ability to import an image, take a photo, create your own drawing, browser a web page and take a screenshot and annotate a map using the inbuilt Google Maps interface. Extensive share options including share by mail, Twitter, save to camera role and full integration with Evernote. It’s free to download.  Read more about Skitch for iPad here.

Animoto has released a new free app for creating videos on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. The app will allow you to do all of the things that you can do on the Animoto website to create a video. Plus you can take pictures and videos on your iOS device and import them directly to your Animoto project.

Here are some possible ideas to create content: Any Unit of Study Book Report Anthology Poem Anthology Visual Quotes Collection Create your own Textbook Essay Collection about a Specific Topic Drawing/Painting Collection Portfolio

So, how do you create a collaborative CLASSROOM eBook? If you only have one iPad available, it is not such a big problem.  Each student waits for a turn to add their page(s) (or double page) to the book as the iPad gets passed around. What if you have a class set of iPads and you want all your students working on their pages at the same time? Here is our Step-by-Step procedure (we are using the BookCreator app).

Story Wheel is an app for the iPad and iPhone that is designed to promote audio storytelling. Spin the Story Wheel on your device and when it lands on an image, dictate a short story based on that image. When you are finished recording, you can play your story back with animations generated by Story Wheel.

For the iPad-using US History teachers and students out there, here is an excellent app that I learned about through the US History Teacher's Blog.