Look what we painted with 123 Color HD: Talking Coloring Book!
Here is a link to 123 Color HD in the App Store: 123 Color HD: Talking Coloring Book

Here is a link to the 123 Color HD website: http://123ColorApp.com

We are learning our numbers, colors, and alphabet comes in 1st grade, so this app was perfect for Spanish class today!  We just had to change the language to Spanish and away we went! We are also learning how to say fish, so this coloring page was perfect as well.  Check it out in the app store.  It practice fine motors skills too.

Futaba has been an excitement amongst the Kindergarten ELL students. With Futaba, each player takes a seat around the iPad and taps in to start. The game begins as images zoom into the playing area. The first player to match the word to the image scores a point. Win 3 rounds and you’ll be awarded a giant (but very friendly) seedling…
 They get an absolute kick out of this. Another advantage to this application is that you only need 1 iPad for every 4 students!

Check out the fun…

The 6th grade Spanish class used the iMovie app today during the last 10 minutes in class. We had a quick introduction to show us how to use it and then…check out below what we created in 10 minutes or less!
These are just a few of our vocabulary words from our new episode in our books. Great app!

The 8th graders and I attempted using an app called iTalk yesterday in class.  We were able to record ourselves and then hear ourselves during a partner speaking activity in class.  That was good, but then we wanted to be able to easily upload the sound file to our blogs or our social networking site for education Edmodo.  The file was a .aiff file.  We could easily email it to ourselves from the app, which was helpful, but from there we could not post the sound file for easy use in class to share and save for future reference.  So oh well!  That’s okay!  That was the first app that I have used with all ages and classes that I did not achieve success, nor what we had set out to accomplish.

SO now we are on to using an app called Sognify that turns our text into a song.  It did not function properly today, but hopefully tomorrow will be a different day!  It is a really fun app!  It is actually for use with iPhones and iPods, but works on the iPad as well.

This week the 6th-8th graders and I learned all about Guatemala.  We studied a bit of the country’s culture the week before winter break and this week we continued on to geography.  Usually I turn Google Earth on my Smart Board and my students and I go on a virtual tour of each country we study.  This week we used the Google Earth app on the iPad to travel to Guatemala.  It was so simple, yet such an incredible experience for me and the students.  It was like we were actually there!  The kids were amazed and so was I!  There is such a wealth of information at our finger tips on that app!  We were able to place some Mayan ruins and different lakes, volcanoes and cities we had studied on our paper partner maps.  Here it is below….

Partner Maps

As we explored the ruins, different cities, lakes and volcanoes (we felt like we were actually there with the amazing pictures quality and touch screen), we were able to touch a bunch of little hyper linked yellow and blue squares on the screen at each location that taught us EVEN more about the ruins, lakes, volcanoes and cities.  Honestly I was in in awe of the wealth of information right there at our fingertips and so were the students.  They couldn’t get enough.  There were over 20 different videos, pictures and articles linked at each location.  If we did not know what a word meant, all we had to do was click on it and it was defined for us, complete with definition and some times a picture of video to explain further.  All in one place!  What an amazing teaching tool Google Earth is.  Amazing!

One of my favorite uses of the iPad in the classroom is its easy video recording function. I quickly recorded two students showing how they figured out the question of the day in math. Check out the answer to this math puzzle from Mrs. Hughes’ room.

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The 3rd graders are learning transportation words right now in Spanish class.  We used a new application today on the iPad called ShowMe.  It is an application similar to Screen Chomp, but a bit better because you can add more than one picture at a time.  Today we made a ShowMe on the iPad together.  I wrote the words on the iPad and then the students pronounced them!  It was so easy to use and the students really seemed to LOVE hearing their voices all together.

Here is our Show Me below

http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=ZSdRBho

The first graders have been practicing their numbers, colors and alphabet in Spanish class. I found the coolest iPad app that we used in class today. It practices all three of those topics and the students and I just LOVE it. You can change the language from English (man or woman, Austrailan,American or British) to Spanish to French and to German! It so great! We obviously used Spanish in class. You can change the languages and have two languages (both primary and secondary) talking as you color. It is a great iPad app. It’s called 123 Color HD. There is fun music and it’s way more stimulating than paper and crayons! It’s like a talking coloring book! So cool!

The 7th graders are learning about conjugating irregular verbs in the present tense in Spanish.  It doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?  Well, they made it exciting and more fun for themselves one day in class.  We were watching a goofy video about conjugating irregular verbs in the present tense one in class.  It is by the Standard Deviants and it pretty funny and attempts to make middle school students chuckle while learning about grammar.  Well, we had the iPads out while watching the video and the students were using an app called Glow Draw  and Show ME to attempt some of the irregular verb conjugations during the video.  Well, I watched as I saw one student take it a step further.  She was conjugating the verbs and taking notes, AND THEN emailing screen shots of the notes to herself.  It was awesome.  So then we all started to do it.  Each student was actually enjoying taking notes on irregular verb conjugations on the iPad using the glowing or multi-colored letters. They were so engaged and engrossed in what they were doing.  The next class period we took it a step further and added the screen shots to a Google Doc that we can study from if we have a quiz on irregular verbs.

This activity was nothing of my doing.  All I wanted them to accomplish was to practice the conjugations.  I never thought that what they drew would be something we could keep and then use to study!   What awesome ideas come from students and teachers putting their brains together.  They are the digital natives and I am a digital immigrant immersing myself into their techno native land.    Here are some screen shots of our Google Doc of the pictures from our iPad screens.

The 3rd graders learned some vocabulary to teach them school supplies and school words.  You’ve all seen how Screen Chomp works (click the text if not to see blog post from past) so I thought I would share a video of them in action.  It is so incredible how easy this is for them.  I show them ONCE, JUST ONCE, how the app works and then how to share their work with me through an email (there are MANY steps to follow, it’s so impressive how quickly they can do this) but it is just so natural for them.  They can all do this so easily without my help.  It has proven to be so beneficial for them to hear themselves speaking Spanish when we watch their finished Screen Chomps, and even more beneficial that they are spelling the words and can hear themselves pronouncing each letter.  It is so great!  Here is the video of them making the Screen Chomps.