IPads for the Elementary Classroom
J2Training - Janet Corder & Joan Gore
Four Star Apps
Chatterpix Kids
Duck Duck Moose
Shadow Puppet
Shadow PuppetEDU is a free IOS app that allows the user to easily create videos to explain an idea, tell a story and document learning.
To create an ABC Book:
- Each student is assigned a letter of the alphabet to illustrate. They must write the letter and draw a picture of something that begins with that letter.
- After students have completed their illustration, the teacher takes a picture of each drawing.
- The teacher then has each student record the name of their letter and what begins with that letter. Example: "A is for alligator".
- You will want to create a beginning an ending slide for your book, such as a class picture or a sign that says Mrs. Smith's Class Alphabet Book.
- When the book has been recorded, you have several sharing options to choose from within the ShadowPuppetEDU app.
Click on the "ideas" icon within the Shadow PuppetEDU app for integration ideas. Here are a few of our favorites:
- Sequencing - Tell about a process or event by using transition words (e.g., schedule for the day, timeline of historical events, etc).
- Summarizing - Take a picture of the book cover. Students record a summary of the book.
- Reading fluency - Students record themselves reading the text.
- Creative storytelling - Students work together to develop a story, take photos, and record a narrative.
- Self-published authors - Students write, illustrate, and record original stories, poems, or ABC books.
- Readers theater - Student draw pictures to match their assigned part of the story. Order the pictures and have students record their lines.
- About Me presentations - Makes for a fun beginning of the year activity.
- Show and tell - Students share interesting things related to the curriculum being studied.
- How-to tutorials - Create step by step directions for how to achieve a desired outcome (e.g., how to make cookies).
- Community & culture - Create slideshows of community workers or leaders, holidays around the world, or cultures and customs.
- Math word problems - Students create word problems such as, "In this photo there are 3 red blocks and 2 green blocks. The total number of blocks is 5 because 3 plus 2 equals 5."
Telestory
TeleStory - Write, direct and star in your own television show. Students pick a theme and one of more than 30 animated scenes and then write their script. Next, they choose from more than 50 digital costumes and record a TV show.
Quizizz App
Quizizz
Quizizz has a new feature that allows the question and answer choices to be read aloud using the Quizizz app. Only available for IOS devices. The questions appear on the students' devices.
Let's try it out!
- On your device, open quizizz.com.
- Click Join a Game.
- Enter the Game Code the teacher provides and click Go.
- Type in your name and click Join Game.
- Wait for the teacher to begin the game.
Good Luck!
Multiple Grade and Subject Levels
Trading Cards - Students share their understanding of various topics by creating a trading card
Skitch - Easily annotate images
Dragon Dictation - Easy-to-use voice recognition app
Word Clouds - Just like Wordle
Instagrok - An educational (re)search engine
Charades! Guess Words with Kids - Play this fun game with your kids! Add your own cards that are content-related.
PhotoCard by Bill Atkinson - Create custom-designed postcards with your own photos or the nature photos included in the app
Pic Collage Kids - The kid-friendly version of Pic Collage
StoryCorps - Use to record interviews. Excellent tips and interview questions.
Videolicious - Makes it very simple to create videos from the pictures on your device.
Adobe Spark - Turn your next newsletter, report, invitation or travel adventure into a gorgeous story. Your Slate web story gets its own URL and can be shared via text message, email, posted on social media accounts or embedded on blogs or personal websites.
Spelling City - A great resource for parents and teachers!
Science4Us - An interactive standards-based science curriculum for grades K-2
Logic Puzzles - Classic Logic Grid Problems
Hello Crayons - realistic drawing app that works like crayons
Also check out:
Doodle Pro - drawing app with shapes, colors and more
Mouse Timer - A visualized timer for everyone who wants to measure and/or visualize the time
Doodle Buddy - great drawing app!
Worth the Money!
Stick Pick App ($3.99) - A powerful tool that displays “question stems” that are uniquely tied to each learner’s cognitive or English language ability level.
Tellagami (free and in-app purhases) - Create and share quick animated videos called GamisTellagami EDU ($4.99) - Worth the price!
Green Screen by DoInk - ($2.99) - Easy to use green screen app
Animation and Drawing by DoInk - ($4.99) - Besides the animation features that includes multilayered frames, gradients and grouping, it is also a great drawing tool. Closest thing to Flash on the iPad.
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality
What is augmented reality? Movies have given us a sense of “alternative reality” for years. Augmented reality makes something come to life! It seems like magic.
Let's take a look at a few of our favorites:
AR Flashcards (free) - Animal/Alphabet Flashcards
1. Download and print in color the Alphabet Flashcard from arflashcards.com
2. Download the AR Flashcards App from the Apple store.
3. Open the AR flashcards App and press Get Started.
4. Hover you device over a flashcard. Make sure your sound is turned on. Touch the image when it appears and and you will hear the name of the animal and the letter it begins with.
Ideas for using AR Flashcards from Karen's Technology Locker:
-shuffle the flashcard and have students alphabetize them
-shuffle the cards, lay a limited number out, have students build beginning or ending sounds
-shuffle the cards, lay them out and have students spell their name (you may need two decks of cards)
-print two sets of cards and play memory
-identify the number of syllables in each animal word that is on the flashcard
Color Alive by Crayola (free, in-app purchases & coloring book purchase) - These coloring pages will entertain and enchant youngsters as well as the oldsters! You'll love the selfie feature! You can purchase pages within the app or buy the coloring books from Toys R Us, Walgreens, Michaels, JoAnn Fabrics or Amazon. The coloring books (Enchanted Forest, Barbie, Mythical Creatures, Skylanders and Minions) come with 7 crayons including a special color. When the special color is used on the page and then scanned with the app, effects like ice blasts, fire and pixy dust appear. *Google Play Store
Dragon
Fairy
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - An interactive narrative experience. The app is $4.99 and can be downloaded here. The book can be purchased from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
1. Download and print the Dot coloring pages from quivervision.com.
2. Download the Quiver Vision App from their website.
3. Have students color a picture related to your curriculum inside the Dot. Be careful not to color over the black outlines too much.
4. Open the Quiver Vision app and watch your picture come to life! Touch the purple circle to see more image.
Quiver Vision - Creative Writing
- Download and print any of the coloring pages from the quivervision.com. Some of the sets of pages require you to make an in-app purchase.
- Download the Quiver App from the Apple or Google Play store.
- Have students color one of the pages. Be careful not to color over the black outlines too much.
- Have the students write a creative story based on their pictures.
- Open the Quiver app and watch your picture come to life!
Examples:
- Tennis shoe - "When my tennis shoes came to life..."
- Hot air balloon - "My hot air balloon took me to..."
Print the coloring pages, let the students color the two characters and then let them watch the fable come to life by using the The Tortoise and the Hare app on a device. There is an in-app purchase to unlock more levels of the story.
QR Codes
The easiest QR Code Reader is I-Nigma. It is available for most devices.
Speech to Text Dictation
- Open Settings
- Tap General
- Scroll to the bottom and tap Keyboard
- Toggle Enable Dictation to On
- Tap Enable to agree to the privacy notification
- Tap Done
Use Speech-to-Text Dictation:
- A microphone (Dictation Key) will now appear on your keyboard
- Tap the Dictation Key
- Speak what you want to be typed
- Tap the Dictation Key again
Note: The Dictation Key will only appear if you are typing standard text. It will not appear when you are typing a URL (website address).
iPad Accessibility Options
Accessibility Options
Open Settings
Tap General
Tap Accessibility
Voice Over - speaks items on the screen:
NOTE - I would not use this option. It is very difficult to turn off.
- Tap once to select an item
- Double-tap to activate the selected item
- Swipe three fingers to scroll
Zoom - magnifies the entire screen:
- Double-tap three fingers to zoom
- Drag three fingers to move around the screen
- Double-tap three fingers and drag to change zoom
Invert Colors - presents white text on a black background
Grayscale - disables colors that make the display difficult for some to see (color-blind)
Speech
- Speak Selection - a Speak button will appear when you select text
- Speak Screen - Swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen to hear the content of the screen
- Voices - many languages to choose from
- Speaking Rate - slide the dot back and forth to control the speaking speed
- Highlight Content - highlight content as it is spoken
- Speak Auto-text - automatically speak auto-correction and auto-capitalizations
Larger Text - increase the font size
Bold Text - bold the font
Button Shapes - give interactive buttons a graphical outline
Increase Contrast - can improve the contrast on some backgrounds to make text more legible
Reduce Motion - reduce some of the special effects in later IOS versions that can be distracting
On/Off Labels - adds a more visible 1 and 0 digit to the standard white/green toggles
Hearing Aids - allows an iPad to connect with and manage compatible hearing aids
Click here for more information.
Mono Audio - assists users who are deaf in one ear
Subtitles and Captioning - provides closed-captioning when available
Video Descriptions - automatically plays video descriptions when available
Guided Access - keeps the iPad in a single app
Switch Control - to be used with adaptive switches
Assistive Touch - use if you have difficulty touching the screen or with an adaptive device
Home-Click Speed - adjust the speed for double and triple-clicking
Accessibility Shortcut - allows you to access some features by triple-clicking
Connect with Janet and Joan
Email: j2training@yahoo.com
Twitter: @corderj @joangore