Kathy's+Journaling+Page

10/5/10.   We have not yet received our ipads but we mentioned them to the students and they seem excited. We also have a parent of a special Ed student who feels that her son will benefit a great deal from the iPad. He has attention problems and she feels that this will peak his interest and motivate him to behave if used as a reward on top of the usual use in the classroom. We are looking forward to using it as a modification piece when students are completing their work for their word of the day. Their will be other uses with math and language arts and we are looking forward to getting started.

10/19/10. We have used the ipads for a week and a half now. The students are loving them and would like to use them every chance they get. It has helped with attention and as a tool for encouraging appropriate behavior. We have used the ipads for math practice and vocabulary/dictionary skills. It has been very helpful for spec Ed students who struggle with using a dictionary and because of the ipads they can look up the words more quickly and actually get the meanings of the words 11/1/10. Today we are at Pioneer observing a sixth grade class for ELA and social studies. During ELA, the students were doing research on the ipads going through wikipanion. The students seem very comfortable using the ipads and were fully engaged. The students also seemed to have a good grasp of the iPad routines.

12/15/10. The students are continuing to respond well to the ipads. The spec Ed students are able to keep up better in the classroom in certain areas such as vocabulary, math board work, and spelling. Many of them can type better than they can write so this frees their brains to focus on the work and not worrying about the physical writing piece. The students are still very motivated by the ipads and ask to use them all the time. The only thing that would make things easier is if we could print off the ipads. But I guess that is coming.

2/3/11. It has been a crazy couple of months. We have not used the ipads as much as I would like but do still use them especially in math for review of already learned skills. This keeps the kids engaged and tuned in when they would normally tune out and not care. We are starting a new unit in math. I am hoping to use the ipads more to teach and support some lessons.

5/12/11. State testing has ended for language arts and math. The kids have been putting their fictional stories in story kit and adding pictures to help tell their stories and then they will share them with each other. We are continuing to use the ipads to help practice our math and to use the dictionary to help look up words that they don't know when reading independently! As we are getting closer to the end of the year, I plan on using the ipads for different activities to help keep the students motivated to learn and practice what they have already learned.

6/8/11. As the year comes to an end idealize that I learned much more than I ever thought I would about using the iPad. It has been very exciting to watch my special Ed students take to the ipads like it was second nature. You could see that they felt very proud of themselves for knowing what to do without a great deal of instruction, which they are so often in need of. My students used the ipads to help assist them in daily vocabulary work as well as practicing their multiplication facts and reading stories at their own reading level. The iPad made everything that much more interesting. My students were much more attentive when working on the ipads and far less likely to get distracted. I believe that whenever you can help a student feel successful then that's half the battle. They are so much more likely to want to learn when they have a tool that makes the job more exciting and fun. I was happy to have the opportunity to introduce the ipads to my students and watch them grow as learners while using them.