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"This past week I spent three days in iPad training, as every student in 6th, 7th, and 8th grader, in the district I work in, will be carrying their own iPad. All instruction will be geared toward this initiative. Huge changes are coming our way and I have to wonder if we, as teachers, are ready for how instruction will be delivered and assignments will be collected."

"While teachers of special needs children have a variety of resources in their classrooms to reach their students, one resource in particular is becoming one of the most valuable - the iPad. For the past year, Huron Learning Center (HLC) teachers have been discovering the many benefits of using iPads for their special needs students."

 special needs, students, school, resources, teachers, subjects

"A Maryland high school math teacher has launched an educational app for the iPad that allows students to add their own notes and markups to teachers' Word, PDF, and PowerPoint files without the need to convert those files to another format."

"Even though it's October it still feels very much like the beginning of the year. One of the first thoughts that many teachers have about their students is "they look so little!" It's true. Those tall confident students that left us have gone on to be "little" to next year's teacher and we have our own new crop of "little" people to educate. This becomes even more pronounced in a technology classroom. Everything takes longer, typing, starting, opening, finding, searching. Whatever it is they need time to figure it out. Patience is key. So what can we do?"

"The summer break is winding up and many teachers are getting ready to head back to work for another school year (and many IT staffers in those schools are trying to make sure everything's ready when those teachers return)"

"SNApps4Kids has created a pilot program to test a service for matching applications or "apps" to IEPs of children who have special needs."

"Dreams come true, and I'm thrilled to share this one with you. Using the $15 Reflection App on an Apple computer, it's now possible to MIRROR the screen of an iPad2 or iPhone4S right on your screen. This essentially makes your Apple computer function like an AppleTV for iOS mirroring, except you don't need to purchase and install a $99 AppleTV with a HDMI cable. This is HUGE for teachers and anyone else needing to share an iPad screen with students over a projector. "

"This week, Grade 5 began a unit on Volume, Capacity and Surface Area. On a weekly basis, I take combined groups from the 4 grades consisting of the higher achievers, while the classroom teachers concentrate on the mainstream group and students needing more individual instruction to achieve success. I made a conscious decision this week to focus on using iPads with my group to explore both volume/capacity as well as surface area."

"One question I seem to get a lot about the iPad is what apps do I recommend that are free. I am hearing from a lot of teachers that they have no way to add paid apps and thus are stuck trying to find free apps. My experience is that many free apps stink. They have many adds, require in app purchases to be useful, or are just junk. I tend to stay away from most free apps. So what are you to do if the district controls adding paid apps? My suggestion is to build relationships with the decision makers. Don't just ask for a bunch of apps, instead provide documentation and purpose for a few apps you would like to have. I know this process takes time and effort but if you can show the purpose and learning you have a much better chance. If you need lesson ideas I suggest checking out my Pinterest page, and three of my favorite Pinterest pages: iPadsammy, TechChef4u, and Sue Gorman. Look for apps and lesson ideas there and modify them to fit your standards and kids. If I was starting from scratch this is the $10 iPad app setup I would push for in my kindergarten classroom. (I will be posting a $20 setup later)"

"Despite all the recent buzz about iBooks Author, teachers and students looking for an intuitive, easy-to-use app need look no further than Book Creator for iPad."

"iTooch Elementary, by edupad, has hit a another home run, and this time it is a grand slam! They have combined age groups and content to give this app an incredible shelf-life. If you don't find what you need, you can even make your own. The app is free to download and nine titles can be tried out before purchase; in-app purchases can be made for each topic."

"We know that apps are here to stay. Schools are jumping on board quicker than you can say, "WOW!" Our request? Please look at the gaps in education, as far as apps are concerned. ABC and Math apps are covered! How about some apps that address the various skills involved in reading, social studies, history, science, health, nutrition and physical education. There is a definite need for apps that cover content"

"I searched all summer for a fun Back-to-School activity. Well. . . unfortunately I couldn't find anything!! So, I have been racking my brain to come up with something exciting for Open House. This is when my kids will find out who their teacher will be for the year, and they will also find out that we will have 30 iPads in our classroom!! Yay! I decided to incorporate the QR scans and create an Open House Scavenger Hunt to give the parents and kids the information needed to begin the new school year. As the students arrived, there was an iPad and the first page of the scavenger hunt on their desk. They were instructed to work through the scavenger hunt with the help of their parents. Here is what I created:"

"Apps on multi-touch devices like the iPad or Android smartphones have the potential to revolutionize early childhood education, and help build a stronger foundation for lifelong learning in the 21st century. But, this potential needs to be realized. It is not a given that technology in the hands of young children will benefit their development."

"Individual Education Programs (IEP) can be difficult to put in place at the best of times. IEP's are sometime a source of concern and frustration. The more informed people are about the IEP process the better the IEP can be. Parents will normally work with teachers to develop a plan to help the students succeed in school. The IEP assists this process by describing the goals the whole team sets for a student during the school year, as well as any special support needed to help achieve them. Here are a number of apps that make managing and collecting data for the IEP Process just that little bit easier."

"Rainbow Sentences, by Mobile Education Store, is another incredible learning tool, just released, by the award winning developer Kyle Tomson! Initially, when using Rainbow Sentences with students, we were taken aback by how many different levels of play can be adapted for differing student's needs. There are three levels of play with 55 sentences in each level, and 6 levels of sentence complexity. Kyle worked diligently on this app perfecting ever feature and made the app customizable with every conceivable setting. Rainbow Sentences offers a unique environment for improving a student's ability to create grammatically correct sentences."

"The jury is still out on school iPad deployments"