When using an iPad...

My Favorite Grade

I love school!  Reading, Writing, Math, Science.  To me, the best grade was 1st grade.  I loved my teacher, Ms. Glascow.  She was awesome.  1st grade had a long recess and stations.  We had less homework than any other grade too.  I wish all grades could be like 1st grade.  It rocks!

What do you think?  Is 1st grade the best grade?  Why or why not?

Blogger App

Have you ever thought about using the blogger app for learning logs or reflections? Today I am checking it out!

How do I?

Welcome back to a brand new school year!


How do I?

Pin a program to my task bar

Set my Internet homepage and create a desktop shortcut

Set up Firefox as my default browser

Create a Pentamation shortcut on your desktop

Add a printer and set a default printer

Update my Schoolwires page

Add a contact group in Outlook

Access Cottonwood Creek information

Access Denton Creek information

Stay sane?  All I can offer for that one is keep breathing!

App Smackdown Vol. 7

I admit it.  I have been a bad blogger lately.  Something about the nice weather makes me want to leave the blogosphere and just be outside.   The good news is that I am back in action and ready to blog.  It is STAAR testing week here in Texas and in between my role of "break giver" I am ready to share some apps I have been obsessed with recently!


1.  Toontastic - This comic strip creator app is a great way to support your students as they learn about story structure!  Using the story arc, students can plan out the setup,  conflict, climax and other key peices of their story.  Simply select your characters and setting, hit record and move your characters around while talking through key parts of your cartoon.  What a great way for students to work on sequence of a story and more!



2. ScribblePress - This iPad app lets your students create and publish eBooks!  Books can be added to your iBooks library for easy sharing and reading. This is an easy way for your students to create and share for Writer's Workshop and beyond!



3.  Destiny Quest - A GREAT database for researching on our regular computers, CISD now has access to the Destiny Quest app!  Students can login to their school's resources, find great kid-friendly websites and even link to Safari Montage videos for viewing.  Just like in regular Destiny Quest, kids can build and keep a resource list.  This app is iPad only, but can really assist your students when researching.  See your Librarian on campus for more details!


4. Follett eReader - CISD also now has access to the Follett eReader app, which lets you and your students login to have access to a whole database of eBooks! See your librarian for more details!



5.  Wonderopolis - I am so excited about this!  One of my favorite websites now has a great new app!  Wonderopolis features a "Wonder of the Day" complete with a guiding discussion question, activities to support learning about that "wonder" and kid-friendly explanations.  I have heard of teachers using this as part of their daily calendar and for using "wonders" to support and enrich units of study!  This app makes it even easier to engage students in real-world learning.



What apps are you using in the classroom?  I'd love to hear and use your recommendations for the next App Smackdown!  Let me know in the comments!

Alli's App Smackdown Vol 6

It's been a busy week as everyone is working hard to prepare for Open House and make it to Spring Break! That said, my App Smackdown only has 4 apps, but they are apps that can be used in many ways!!

1.  StoryBuddy - A great digital storytelling app, StoryBuddy lets you create a book one page at a time.  Create illustrations, write your story and save your book into iBooks! This app is great because it can cross many subjects and grade levels.

Click here for an example of one of our Kinder kids using StoryBuddy (Thanks, Mr. D for sharing!)


2. Comic Touch Lite - Most of my Creekside friends have seen this one as it has been my obsession ever since my iDevice hero, Tony Vincent came to train Denton Creek in January. Basically, you use your photo library or take pictures with the camera  to create your very own comic image.  It is easy enough that our younger grades can create comics easily, while the older ones can do a series of comics to bring together for their own comic strip. I have seen it used in Math for depicting Geometry vocabulary, Language Arts for modeling personification and Social Studies to illustrate what students know about landforms.  A VERY versatile app!

3.  Pic Collage - Simple to use, Pic Collage lets your students create photo collages with captions and different backgrounds. They then can save the new image to the photo library on the device for use in presentations, movies or slideshows. Great for building creativity skills and for making a visual reflection of a concept or idea.

Please do not judge the app solely based on my non-student example above...the kids create so much better than I do!! ;)

4.  Pocket Zoo - Got animals?  Pocket Zoo does!  This app is great for animal researching.  Not only can students watch videos and read about different zoo animals, they can also watch live streaming animal cams and hear each animal's sound! This app would also be a great discussion starter for habitats and adaptations.


ENJOY!!!  Have you tried any of these?  How are you using them?

Spring Cleaning CISD Style

'Tis the season for Open House, pre-testing jitters, and my favorite, Spring Break countdowns!

It is also time to do some spring cleaning and in Coppell ISD's case, that means it is time to clean out your H drive!  Our goal is to get all employees down to 4GB or less.

Not sure how big your H drive is right now?  Check out this screencast by my awesome teammate, Technology Toni!

http://www.screenr.com/b1s8

Happy Cleaning!