Water Pollution and Conservation PSA

After learning about the Water Cycle, students in my class talked about the environmental impact of water usage and pollution. Students researched causes and effects of water pollution and brainstormed ways to prevent water pollution and better conserve water. After researching the topic, students used the iPads to create concept maps in Popplet Lite. After brainstorming their projects, students downloaded images from the internet, took their own photographs using Photo Booth, and drew images using Drawing Pad. These images were then uploaded to iMovie on the iPad. Students created Public Service Announcements about this topic. They wrote scripts, created voiceovers, and selected music and sound effects to go with their movies. When completed, some videos will air on the school's closed circuit news show.

The apps workflow:

Ancient Civilization e-Books

3rd grade students in Ms. Manchester's class have been working on iPads and creating eBooks using Book Writer. During each lesson, as students learn more about architecture, art, geography, entertainment, and government in Ancient Greece, they add more information to their books. Students use Photo Booth to take digital photographs of images for each section. They also use Drawing Pad to create their own graphics for the books.

Creating and Publishing eBooks on the iPad

Creating interactive, multimedia eBooks on the iPad is easy and fun.  The creation of these books supports the writing and publishing process and can be done right in the classroom using a set of iPad apps for the workflow.

writing workflow (created in Inspiration Maps for iPad)

 Example from Ms. Blake's 2nd Grade Class:

The publishing flow and the apps that support the publishing process:

• Brainstorm you idea with Popple or Inspiration Maps for the iPad
• Create your illustrations with DrawingPad and save to the Photo Album for use in the book
• Create your book in Book Creator  for iPad or Book Writer for iPad, adding text fields, illustrations and movies
• Share your story to the iBooks on your iPad to be read like a book
• Share to Dropbox to share with the larger community and parents
• Create a QR code to share your online books

Commemorative Coin Keynote

Students in Fourth Grade at Jamestown Elementary School created designs for commemorative coins as a review of the famous Virginians they studied in the Revolutionary War unit. Each pair of students chose a person from a list of five famous Virginians (Jack Jouett, James Lafayette, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson) and used their digital notebooks, in iBooks, and Safari to research ten facts about that person. They recorded their ten facts on a slide in Keynote. The opening slide of the Keynote needed a picture of the person, and this was acquired through a Google search on Safari. The students then used Drawing Pad to design both sides of a coin commemorating one important event in the person's life. Once the drawings were completed, the students imported the images into Keynote and created a slide for each. They also wrote descriptions. Once completed, the presentations were posted to DropBox to share with others.

Loyalist or Patriot Movie Trailers

Students in Fourth Grade at Jamestown Elementary School depicted the difficult choice made by early colonists living in Virginia at the start of the Revolutionary War. Each pair of students was given a script and told to use their creativity to act out the difficult decision. Using iMovie on the iPad, the students used one 45 minute period to record their actions. They were given an additional 45 minute period to add the text, choose graphics and layouts, and export their finished trailer to the Photo Album. Once finished, all the movies were uploaded to the teacher's desktop to be shared through Blackboard.

Regions Of Virginia

Fourth Graders at Jamestown Elementary created review movies about the geographic regions of Virginia. Working in pairs, they used their digital textbooks, in iBooks, to research five facts about their assigned region. Then the students used Drawing Pad to draw a map of Virginia. They were required to accurately color in the assigned region and label it on their map. The next step was to open iMovie, import the picture and then do a voice over with the five facts they researched. After putting it all together, they exported the video to the camera roll. Once finished, they uploaded their video to the teacher's desktop and then it was uploaded to Blackboard for everyone to view.

Pre Kindergarten International Unit

During this month’s multi-cultural/ international unit I pulled my students out in small groups during playtime to explore the My Big World Application on the iPad.  It was very easy for the children to navigate and they had a lot of fun exploring different places on the map and doing the corresponding puzzles and activities.  What was particularly great about the application was that the children could use it independently with minimal supervision in small groups.   Not only did it reinforce and expand their knowledge of the different countries we were learning during our unit, but it also was a great opportunity to work on turn taking skills and working independently with peers using a very motivating activity.