In December, I sent in a proposal for an iPad Inquiry Project hosted by CUEBC. I found out at the end of January that my proposal was accepted. So excited! We have 11 iPads to use until spring break. The focus of the proposal was to enhance our astronomy study but I will also be using the iPads for math as well. This afternoon I told the students and I don't think they really believed me at first. I think when I brought out an iPad Oath for each of them to sign, they knew it was for real!
I talked to them about how fortunate we were to have this opportunity and that they needed to understand their role in the inquiry. iPads are an amazing device but what I want to explore is how they engage and enhance...what they provide that other instructional tools and approaches may not. Over the next three weeks, we'll be exploring different ways to use the iPads and have the students share their thoughts on them as well.
More information can be found on the iPad Inquiry blog.
This afternoon, we started by exploring a few math apps just to get the students use to the touch screen, how to scroll through pages and how to work together in pairs.
We used the GLOW BURST LITE app (sequencing of numbers)
and the POP MATH app (computation for all operations) - the students really liked this one!
The students tried out the app CHICKTIONARY which is a word creation game. We then explored the DOODLE BUDDY app and the students quickly figured out all sorts of things we could do with it.
We then moved on to working on our Moon Projects and trying to find information to answer our inquiry questions. First we used the NASA app and students learned how to tap on different space objects, have a textbox and article pop up to read along with weblinks to further investigate. This is such a great app with very readable information.
Next we explored the MOON GLOBE HD app. The students learned how to use the touchscreen to increase and decrease the size of the moon and how to rotate it so they could see the "dark side" of the moon. The students explored the labels and what happened when they touched the labels on the map of the globe.
One pair of boys were able to find the landing location of one of the Apollo missions which then led them to zoom in on the location (one boy said, hey, this is like Google Earth!) and they saw the footprint from one of the astronauts. A short but powerful 2 minute experience on the iPad!
Most of the students quickly figured out how to zoom in to the surface of the moon and couldn't believe how much it looked like the simulation we had yesterday with the playdough, flour and golfballs!
Next we used the Safari browser to access WorldBookOnline and did a search for an article on the Moon.
The students took notes for their moon project and accessed the diagrams and images connected to this article and played around with the touchscreen on the iPad to interact with these text features.
The students had about 10 minutes at the end of the day to explore on their own with the iPads. It was a very full but exciting iPad afternoon!
Comments