Playing with the iPad

Last night I had a lot of fun playing around with the apps on the iPad! There are so many programs that would work wonderfully in a classroom and would allow students to really get creative and learn at the same time. One of the programs I really enjoyed playing around with was the sock puppet app. Using this app you can create a stage for your puppet, move the puppets around the stage and when you talk, the puppet you have it clicked on mouth opens to make it look like it's talking! You can record the show you create and the program changes the sound of your voice a little to make you sound more like a cartoon character. This would be a great program to get students writing short scripts and creating their own show.   Students would love it! 

I also found there was a couple of great programs to work on fluency and rate. On one application, the student reads through a short story, then at the end, the program tells you how many words per minute you read. I read through a couple stories to try and improve how many words I read per minute. Other programs, like Toy Story, have an option where you are able to record yourself reading along with the book. This would be an excellent way for the teacher to check on the fluency of the students in the class, by listening to the recordings from the program. 

One app I thought was not as good as the computer version of it was Comic Life. I love using Comic Life on the computer, but on the iPad I was a little confused by it and couldn't do all the cool things I know you can usually do on the computer. It might have been because I haven't played around with it enough yet to figure it out. I will try playing around with it more tonight on the iPad. 

Becca took a picture of a chipmunk today on our walk!! =)