Mrs. West's Class: iPads in the Classroom

I am so excited that our PTSO has raised enough money last year through our fundraisers, carnival, etc. that they were able to purchase our school its very own MOBILE iPAD LAB....woohooo! We have been using the iPads once a week (at least) to use a fun new app and apply it to something we are learning. The kids are so good with the iPads and are very creative! Check out what we have done. You may want to download the apps at home and have your kids play around with them.

Here is Group B showing me they are ready to get started!

We started off with a "get to know you activity" with the app called "telegami." In this app you can create your own avatar to look like you and design your background, mood, etc. We made our avatars, and then recorded our voices to tell something about ourselves to share with the group. As we recorded the voices, everyone had to go on their own so their voices wouldn't record in another person's video.

Abigail recording her voice.

Elizabeth was proud of her avatar and her background is our classroom (she took a pic of the room).

Ready to share with the group.

Group A is exploring the app and creating their avatars.

Eric is creating his background (he is also taking a pic of the room to use)

Brayden and his avatar.

Jake is super excited to get started on recording.

A.J. exploring the app

Brayden making his way to a quiet area to record his voice.

Blaine (back) and London (front) recording their voices.

We had a fun time using Telegami to introduce ourselves. We will use this app in the future to have our avatars read our stories we create.

Another app we played with this week is the "QR Code Scanner." These QR codes are popping up EVERYWHERE and it's good for the kids to know where they are and what they do/mean. Some kiddos have even spotted them around the school. I had them included in our first couple of weeks' newsletters. Here we are using the QR scanner to scan codes found around the classroom. The code sent the iPad to a sight word that was jumbled up. The kids had to work in partners to find the codes, scan them, and record the unscrambled sight words on a paper. They did a fabulous job. I let them explore alone on their own iPads afterwards. In the above pic, Akilah is scanning a code.