photo © 2011 inUse Consulting | more info (via: Wylio)Yes I am just loving the iPad2. It is a personal item, so thus far I have refrained from taking it to school. Well I did take it once. I have a student in my class, an eleven year old who is in the earlier stages of learning to read. I encouraged her by saying when she had a number of ticks for chunking through words, using the sounds and not making big, fat guesses, I would reward her with a story on my iPad. She worked hard and I gave her my iPad and she followed the story of Cinderella. Of course I sat along side her guarding my precious piece of hardware! The Cinderella app was not a fantastic app but we enjoyed the story and I already have another app waiting there for her when we make another page of ticks for meeting her goal. She is buying into it. I love it, because of course as a teacher I have a hidden motive. It passes more text past her eyes!
I love the way I can sit in my armchair, open the cover and there it is. No slow waiting for it to boot up. I barely got the cover off tonight when it started playing the video I had closed on the night before. Now there is a problem. I find my bedtime is getting later as I explore blogs, twitter etc on the iPad.
There are a wonderful array of apps to be explored. Some excellent ones for children. So far I have ignored games. Evidently Angry Birds is the in game! Where do people find the time?
As I read student blogs, it is easy to leave comments. I have tried writing a post on Edublogs with it. Didn't work but a plea for help to Sue Waters solved the problem. Write in the HTML tab and works perfectly. However probably the laptop is a lot easier for writing posts.
Watching videos on the iPad2 is a dream. What am I watching? Well, actually videos on phones!!!!! Yes I have decided now I want to buy a phone that will work for me in the classroom. After participating in a webinar on Tech Talk Tuesday, presented this week by Richard Lambert, I tracked down his blog. There he talks about the use of phones in classrooms. I'm sold!! I can't justify an iphone. Yes, I'd love one. However I splurged on the iPad2, so that's enough.
photo © 2010 George Kelly | more info (via: Wylio)So android phones are my area of research at present. I have decided it willl be either a Motorola flip out, or a Motorola Milestone. I want something with a keyboard, (note-taking), a reasonable camera and video, a good internet processor. These two fit the criteria.
And while I was attending the webinar, the topic was digital storytelling. Now I am all fired up to go with that. I have ordered his book. Now.... what gadgets will I need for digital storytelling!!
