In an effort to document how we are using the iPads in the classroom, I will try at least occasionally to post how we are using them day-to-day.
Tomorrow our School Board will be voting whether or not to fund another round of the iPad Academy. This means 5 more class sets of iPads, along with carts, appleTV and a Mac Book. I talked with my students about whether or not they thought this was a good idea. Since my 5th graders are working on Persuasive Writing, we decided to do a shared write letter to our School Board, which I plan to read to the Board during public comments. Since all of my students have Google apps accounts "inside our walled garden", we paired up students just to make the collaborative writing little less congested. On their iPads, half my students logged in to Google Apps, while the other half helped compose the letter. Students added their own sentences, edited each others and had some great discussions about how to persuade people to your opinion in a respectful manner.
This exercise also opened the door for authentic discussions about collaborative work. Since we didn't get a chance to finish, and to honor the need for think time, for homework students had to log in to Google apps (some did it from school), review the letter, do at least one edit or add, and sign their name, if they agreed to the letter. The students who had their iPads out for the letter writing in class had to "share" the document with a specific classmate.
Skills: Google apps: logging in, sharing, editing
collaboration
persuasive writing
keyboarding
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