First grade teacher Meade Guignon continues a series of articles on her experiences with iPads in her first grade classroom:
As the school year winds down and I begin to think about summer projects and
(gasp) next year, I’m forced to reflect on my teaching over the last nine
months. As with every year, there have been areas where I’ve felt successful,
and areas where I’ve…well, not felt so successful. Wins and losses, highs and
lows, moments of pride and shame. The ever-confounding and complex topic of
technology in education naturally would fall into both categories.
In my first grade classroom, we’ve certainly
jumped on board of the iPad train. The devices have been used frequently in
many areas of the curriculum. The kids love them, obviously. And frankly, I’ve
loved them. It’s been a fabulous way to have the kids practice phonics,
spelling, and math facts without using reams of paper, and it has engaged kids
in ways that other activities do not.
My goal for the next year is to use these
wonderful resources as tools to create rather than simply to practice. I want
to teach with the iPads, alongside the curriculum, instead of teach, practice,
teach, practice. Reaching that goal will require quite a bit of thinking,
discussing, and planning this summer, but I have some ideas and apps in mind
for how this will happen.
However, in my mind, using the iPads as a tool
for skill practice is where teachers begin when faced with this new technology
in our primary grade classrooms. I’d like to highlight several apps that I’ve
used with success this year. Here are my favorite Language Arts apps. I’ll be
creating a similar list of Math apps very soon!
Language Arts Apps for Early Elementary
Classrooms
This app is great and has the potential to be
a must-have app for any teacher that wants to customize an app to include a
particular word list. Again, each student logs into his or her own account and
then chooses a spelling list to work on. They can practice the words through a
word search or word scramble, study the quiz, or take the quiz. Their results
are shown in the “history” section.
Spellboard has the Dolch words readily
available for download into the app. There is also an option to make your own
list, complete with recording the word and sentences for context. These lists
can be shared across iPads via Bluetooth, and the same activities are available
for these words.
I’m a fan of this app- it seems clear and easy
to use, and my students are able to navigate menus and choose spelling
patterns. The choices for spelling patterns are pretty robust, although they
are missing a few, such as ui, ew, and a few other less common patterns. It’s
not game-y at all, and even has short introductions for each vowel pattern that
explain the spelling and the sound that a pattern makes.
This app features Dolch sight words leveled
for pre-primer through third grade, and each level includes words from the
previous level. A student logs into their player account, chooses a level, and
then can choose to practice the words or play the bingo game. The student has
the ability to choose which level to work on and it isn’t possible to prevent a
kindergartener, say, from going into the third grade level. This is a minor
con, in my mind, and the ability to turn levels off would be nice.
A big pro of this app include the ability for
each student to have their own account, and I can open the app and see each
child’s “report card,” which shows what each student has worked on and how
successful they are. The kids like the game-y music and earning bugs.
However, this game-y nature of the app is also
a con. I’m not sure the music, the bugs, and all the bells and whistles
actually enhance student learning, or just make the classroom sound like a
casino.
The Little Speller Series of apps are good for
basic practice of primary grade words. They have Little Speller for Three
Letter Words, Four Letter Words, and Sight Words. The Three Letter Words are
customizable to focus on just one, some or all short vowel sounds. The Sight
Word version allows you to select from “levels” 1-5 (although I’m not sure if
this aligns to Dolch or Fry or another sight word list). Four Letter Words
allows you to turn on or off words based on their beginning letter. I’m not
exactly sure about how helpful this feature is, but perhaps in later versions,
one will be able to choose based on vowel patterns or other features.
Little Speller apps do not allow each student
to have their own account.
Word Magic is a good spelling app for a
centers-type activity. It allows you to choose short vowels, long vowels, other
types (I think by this it means other types of vowel patterns), and
multi-syllabic words (I wish one of these apps would specify spelling patterns
and be a little more specific about word features, but this app comes fairly
close). This is a good app for general spelling and phonics practice. However,
just like Little Speller, it does not let you keep track of each child's
progress.
This app is another good spelling app for
centers or independent practice of spelling patterns. A fun feature of this app
is its “crossword puzzle” element, which requires that students decide the
overlapping letters. A recent update allows the student to to focus on a
specific sound or spelling pattern. Again, this is not an app that allows each
student to keep track of his or her work or progress, but it is a good app for
general spelling practice.
The San Domenico technology department works very hard to assist in the transition to new operating systems. We help users avoid the system conflicts and loss of data that might occur in the process of updating their devices.
Next week we will give the go ahead for students and staff to update their San Domenico iPads. We'll provide some instructions specifically related to the new iCloud Drive and how it can impact different Apps we use.
Overall, I love using the Apple TV mirroring function during class. The days of standing at the front of the class or sending students to the board have been replaced with technology. The 1-to-1 iPad program gets further enhanced by allowing the educator to use the iPad while still being able to focus on the students and their understanding of the subject material.
