November 11, 2010

Hello, iPad.

As a reading and writing teacher, I welcome any and all venues for words - notebooks, post-its, newspapers, the back of a napkin and now...IPADS!

I am totally excited and also nervous to start using this new technology with my students. When I first started teaching, the fact of having technology in my classroom scared me. With more practice and more understanding, I have now totally bought in to the importance of integrating technology into education. So here we go...

I have been assigned to use these ipads with "high level" students...which unfortunately in most inner-city classrooms, "high level" usually translates into "grade level" students. My first idea on how to even go about this project/assignment came to me while searching through the app ibooks.

In 6th grade ELA, I recently finished reading one of my favorite young-adult books to my students called The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes. After unsuccessfully finding ANY high-interest (and also, free) books available on ibooks after many, many searches...I thought hey, let's take a shot in the dark and search for Nikki Grimes. My eyes widened when I not only saw a book available, but a book I have never heard of before: A Girl Named Mister. While beginning to browse through this book of poems about a girl who has fallen victim to a uncaring, selfish boyfriend and maybe even more to her low self-esteem, I realized...this could be it. Let's do an ipad book club...me with two of my "high level" students reading a second Grimes book. Let's read. Let's discuss. Let's write notes for each other using ibooks cool features. Let's compare and contrast this book to our read aloud. Let's use technology to grow our reading levels.

My one reservation? I am still a HUGE fan of ACTUAL books.. you know, the things that take up space in your bag and have pages you ACTUALLY turn. But hey, a digital book? That seems cool too.

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