Bah Humbug to Apple Computers

For those of you have have been reading my blog for the past year hopefully you have noticed my thirst for knowledge about the 21 Century Skills.  I have spent many hours on the web researching and then purchasing apps to use with my class including 5 new apps that I was going to purchase for this coming year.  Thinking about the phrase " the glass is always half full or half empty"-now I am writing about the half empty.

At the end of last school year, I got an email from our district technology coordinator telling me that Apple has changed their policy about how many apps you can install on iPods.  Last school year,  because of the teacher/student agreement if I bought one app I was allowed to load the apps on all 25 iPods for free.  This supported my learning as well as the students and honestly I was very careful about the apps I purchased.

However, Apple has now changed their policy for this school year.  You no longer can purchase one app and add it to the 25 iPods.  I now have to purchase the app for every iPod.  Which means a .99 app now will cost me $24.75.  A $2.99 app will cost me $74.75. For my classroom specifically last year I purchased 14 apps and spent about $20.00 this year to get the same apps I will need to spend $764.46.  In these times of budget crunches, I know that I will have to choose very few apps and will not have the flexibility that I had last year to try and find an app for each subject.  Pardon me while I rant for one sentence:  I thought Apple's philosophy was to support teachers as well as students in education how does this change support 21 Century learning?

Now my glass is half full, and I am thankful for strong educational sites like Wonderopolis sponsored by NCFL that I have been writing about in my blog.  Wonderopolis is FREE and is available to anyone on the web.  It is a site that includes all the crucial parts of education:  inquiry, collaboration, new knowledge, excitement/hooks for learners and finally a connection between home and school.  In these challenging financial times, I am thankful to Wonderopolis for an amazing FREE site that allows teachers, parents, and students to continue their thirst for a wonder everyday.

Apps Connected to Blooms

You might remember that I mentioned that I love searching for graphics in my blog.  I found this amazing site that allows you to type the text and choose your favorite Snoopy characters.  I created the graphic above and it was fun-check it out.    


Summer vacation has started for me and one part that I love about summer is taking time to explore all the bookmarks that I marked during the school year when I didn't have time to explore. I was on twitter today and found this great link showing how apps connect to Bloom's verbs. I was so impressed with this chart that I plan on using this to help me when looking for new apps and actually match the apps that I already have on our class iPods. I am excited to spend time with this chart during the summer days.

2010-2011 LIst of Apps

Last week my friend Mary Lee left me a comment and asked me for a list of the apps that I purchased and some are even free.  Thanks Mary Lee for asking.....as you look at the photos you can see my list of apps.  Throughout the school year, I have blogged about the apps that my class used and also the ones that I chose to focus on for instruction. Most of these apps really were integrated into instruction this year.  I plan on this summer searching for more apps that can support curriculum that I had some "holes" in this year. I made a list throughout the school year to help me with my search. Stay tune this summer, and I will post updates.  PS: I love typing the word summer :)

Favorite 5th grade Apps of the Year!

With state testing finished and only three weeks left in the school year, yes we are out by May 27 even with our snow days!  I have decided to have my class reflect on their favorite apps of the year! This has been very interesting because just like multiple intelligences there are multiple apps.  As we discussed the apps, I could have predicted which ones they love because of how they learn, their favorite subject matter and all the conversations we have had this year.  So drumroll please........

#1  Math Bingo
#2  Bookworm
#3 Tap Reef
#4  White Board
#5  Rocket Math
#6  Word Fu
#7  Google Earth
#8  Dictionary
#9  Pop Geo
#10  Sonic Pic

It was fun to listen to the students discuss their favorite apps and then have to choose their top 10 favorite.   I had the students write about how the apps helped them and I will reflect on their comments this summer!  I hope this list helps you if are considering iPods in your classroom or if you just have an iPod at home!

Wonderful Word Wednesday New iPod Apps

Excerpt from part of a story

I have added two more apps this week for Wonderful Word Wednesday. I was searching for support with the introduction to parts of speech and an app that would allow students to create their own story.

MAD LIBS:  I remember when I was young, and I loved the paper version of Mad Libs.  Now the students get to practice their parts of speech and create a funny crazy story that they share with their friends. What a great reinforcement for parts of speech.

First page of the model story-some simple hand drawn illustration

STORY KIT:  This is my #1 FAVORITE app and it's FREE! I love it for so many reasons.

*the students create their own personal digital electronic story  

*students can put their original text on the pages

*students can draw original illustrations-what fun for them :)

*students can download pictures from the internet and add them

*sounds can be recorded to support the story

*students can move pages around/edit/revise their story

*to print the stories the students will email their final version to me

Another page of the story but pictures are downloaded from the internet.

on a class email list 
*I will print them for a final assessment

I have high hopes for STORY KIT.  Once I introduce the app I plan on having the students use it for content areas.  They could create a story about European Explorers or the steps of the Scientific Method.  I really believe STORY KIT has endless possibilities. 

Wonderful Word Wednesday Apps

For word study this week, we are going to continue to have fun with words by using our iPods.  I am going to introduce the class to two new apps although some of the students already learned how to use them this past weekend.

Bookworm was an app that I purchased for my students to create words.  The students’ link letters from left, right, up and down to build new words.  Once the words are made some of them are hidden in the Bookworm’s library and the goal is to find all the words within a book. The longer the word the more points the student earns; however if the students don’t build words quickly enough then the burning letters could spell disaster! This has been one of my favorite apps because it will help students to think about words differently especially using blends, plurals etc. After Monday's conversation, it was voted the most fun app!

Another app that I purchased was Word Fu.  I saw a great video on this app this summer and it looked amazing. First the students get to flick dice to choose any letters they want, and they only have 15 seconds to choose their letters.  This alone teaches students about how important blends, a wide variety of vowels and the letter “s” can really help with building new words.  Once the students have their letters they spell as many words as they can before the clock runs out. Occasionally the letters catch on fire (which is not good) or turn colors (which is good for bonus points). Once the students have learned how to play Word Fu they will be able to play their friends because our school is wireless and will work towards earning Word Fu Belts and become a true Word Fu Grand Master.

Once they have practiced with these apps I am sure the competitions will start in my room to see who can open the most books or win the most Word Fu belts.  

5 Top Apps to Start the School Year

I passed out the iPods last week at it was like Christmas in August.  The smiles and the questions and the FUN-oh did they have fun.  After I passed them out and went over all the information, I allowed the students time to explore which was really important.  Here are a few of the amazing things they discovered in the first 20 minutes without any teacher direction.

Notice the ear plugs-each iPod came with one set.

On Google Earth, many students found their homes and showed their new classmates where they live.  Another student found where they went on summer vacation.  I was excited that the students started using this app because we start geography today and will be using the app to extend the unit as well as apply the state indicators which includes knowing mountain ranges, rivers, and Great Lakes. Also with Pop Geo USA the students will be able to label states, capitals, cities, and national parks. 

On Whiteboard, they figured out how to write words and send them to a friend in class. I didn’t even know how to do that.  It was crazy to watch them “talk” to each other and send their message to a friend across the room. This was confusing in the beginning because each iPod is assigned an ID so the message came with ID and then the message. But the students figured out who was who and loved this application.

On Number Line, students began to put fractions, decimals and percents in order on a number line from least to greatest. This is a more advanced app because some of the fractions need to be reduced so there is higher-level thinking with this app.

On Homonyms, students were choosing the correct homonym to fill in the blank in a sentence. Some of the students referred to this app during Poetry Friday. It was exciting to see how the new app could be used with our new poem, "Book bags Weigh a Ton." 

Sharing new ways to use the Apps.

These are five of the apps that I chose to start this school year.  I purchased  Homonyms and Pop Geo and the other three were free.  They had fun exploring and they took their iPods home this weekend, so I am sure they will have a lot to share today during our weekend share time.

To Buy or Not to Buy That is the Question

How do you decide which apps to purchase? The first thing I did was look back at last year’s lesson plans and created a 6 box grid with the topics that I teach. You should know that I teach all subjects in fifth grade, so I had a wide variety of app choices. For example, I start with North America Geography so I looked for apps that supported locating the 50 states.

I considered the following questions when I was choosing apps.

*How will the app extend the students learning?
*How can the app help students create something new?
*How will the app help students review a skill?
*Would this app increase a student’s motivation for a difficult skill?
*Does the app have different levels of learning for all students?

Obviously not every app is going to meet every criteria and the process has been interesting for me. I thought I had found what I considered a great app after previewing the write up and then I purchased it. Some apps had boring graphics, poor sound quality, and were too confusing. The biggest lesson I learned about apps is that they do not come with directions. As a teacher, I love directions and for most apps you just have to play with them to figure them out. This became frustrating for me; however, I have found some wonderful apps to start the school year with in a few weeks.

Drum roll please, the app that made the cut for geography was PopGeo USA Geography I like it because it has the students place the 50 states (5 at a time) it extends the learning because the students can learn the capitals, famous cities as well as national parks. I can't wait to introduce the class to this app.

Turning the iPod sideways helps to play most apps.

Learning Curves are Huge

As Bill at Literate Lives wrote in his post, I was definitely not into technology but through student observations, conversations with colleagues and continued reading of professional books/blogs I now believe strongly that technology has to be a part of every classroom. That foundation tossed me into a huge learning curve similar to those on a roller coaster. Before I tell you about my learning curve, I want you to know that I started with very limited knowledge of iPods so I plan on writing about every step-even the small ones.

My learning curve started this summer as I begin to explore my new iPod and honestly getting it out of the plastic box was a challenge. I began to explore the apps that came loaded on an iPod, and I automatically started searching for new apps. I had been creating a list of apps that I thought I might like since I got my grant last spring. I will blog later about my favorite apps that I am starting the year with. I had no idea how to purchase apps so I really had to start with the basics.

1. Open your iTunes and set up a new account (I set up a separate account from my personal one)

2. Locate the App Store tab and start with looking at free apps-doesn’t hurt to try them ☺

3. Before you purchase an app consider the following; looking at the preview slides of the app, consider the customer ratings, and reading the reviews

4. Look at the final section found at the bottom called Customers Also Bought

It takes some time researching and considering how to use the app in the classroom setting, but I have found that extended time is well worth it. One great thing about getting free apps is if they don't meet your needs you can just delete them from your iTunes account.  Work in Progress: Favorite iPod apps to start the year with in 5th grade.