Technology is a Wonderful Thing

Technology is cool. But who has time to mess around and figure it out? Or time to use it repeatedly so you don't forget what you did? Not many teachers at my school.

Last winter I was fortunate. Our school had just received 2 iPads and I got to take one and mess, play, and try to do something with it.

Sure, free game apps. Kids got it some. But I did not know how to teach the kids or what to teach them.

Mostly iPad time reinforced what they already knew, and they were never creating or documenting with it.

How can I justify wanting iPod touches or another iPad if I don't use this one til the battery runs down every day?

Today through blog hopping I found Sandy @ Soaring Through Second. So many ideas and tutorials! I loved the one about creating a SmartBoard file with music for transitions. She even posted a tutorial on how to do it. Find that tutorial here.

So I made one. It rocks! I cannot wait to show my kiddos on Monday.

I showed my family, but they were not as impressed as I would have liked. Maybe they were thinking, "Wish she was cleaning or cooking instead of being on that computer AGAIN."

I tried to take a picture of it to stick in here, but no tutorial for that and I cannot find the right buttons to push.

Other cool ideas: using iPods/iPads to create vocabulary videos! Wow that's neat. Publish kids writing and synching it to iBooks. How about recording kids reading with Voice Memos? (Already downloaded that and tried it out. It rocks.) Will be introducing that on Monday.

So much more research to do. I would love to be a techie as my students.

Good thing it is going to be a 2 day school week. And we don't have plans until Saturday. I'm pretty sure I will be glued to my computer. Creating more musical files. And planning more Critter Cafe lessons.

Seriously people, go see Sandy at

you will not be sorry!