He started the lesson using Story Cubes, a fun story starter that randomly selects images from nine dice cubes rolled by shaking the iPad. The students were asked to construct fairy tales using at least three of the images for ideas. (To make this easier, Mr. Mitchell took a screen shot of the results and sent it out to each iPad.) They had a little over 30 minutes to agree on a story, compose it, create illustrations, incorporate the illustrations into the text, and finally email the first draft to Mr. Mitchell.
The students used the Pages app to compose the story and Drawing Box to create the illustrations. The illustrations were saved, opened through Pages, and inserted into the text. Once the drafts were received, Mr. Mitchell reviewed them from his iPad on the projector.
The students' fluency with Pages and Drawing Box is impressive. They move back and forth between the apps with ease. They are able to keyboard efficiently on the iPads. Most prefer to use styluses for drawing and for creating the page layout in Pages.
Writing should be fun. For this class, it clearly is.
Here are a few of the first drafts. Click to enlarge:
I am really impressed with the work you are doing with ipads. I have had my ipad for about a year (ipad 1) and I love it. Our school recently got a lab of 25 ipads with the mobile cart. I am looking for ways to get our teachers excited about using it. Some of our teachers have a very difficult time using modern technology, but I know it is the way of the future of teaching. How do you get the writing pages to transfer from the ipad to your computer as simply a page? I see the students email their project to you. Does each ipad have an individual email address set up? I have many questions that I would like to discuss with you. I will be looking over your website for more information.
ReplyDeleteLori Labrum labrum@emeryschools.org