The end of the year, the final ipad assignment..

Our learning journey, cut short by delays in delivery ended too soon. Now that I had loaded apple apps such as garageband we decided as an end of year assignment, students inspired by Atomic Tom, would have the chance to create their own music..

Here is the assignment:

Now that you have had some exposure to the iPads, here is your final task.

Remember Atomic Tom - the band that performed on the subway...

Your Task ...is to join together in a group (3 or 4), and use garageband on the iPad to either create or recreate a song.Remember the audience is middle school students.
Everyone needs to play an instrument on the

iPad, there is a huge selection of instruments available.

Citations:

1.Garageband: http://www.apple.com/hk/en/ilife/garageband/whats-new.html

Student Feedback / First Impressions..

For us as a class we were so excited to receive the ipads, the class enthusiastically turned on ipads, gingerly touching the screen and orientating the view to suit their learning style when almost too soon frustration and despair was evident when everyone tried to connect to our wireless network. During the year the class had struggled and overcome difficulties connecting using macbooks, but we realized that the ipads would be challenging, no sooner had we logged in then we were "booted" off the network. To access apps that required a network connection took an enormous amount of time, as each log in required entering a user name and password to our network.

With encouragement the students then began to explore "offline apps" such as Boggle and Scrabble quickly organizing player groups; math games and science apps. In the end a successful day.

Note to oneself ; Contact the tech department re network settings for ipads...

ipads first impressions..

Finally our 25 1st generation ipads arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (after a delay of 2 months). The students had provided some valuable feedback as well as suggested apps that would help them in the classroom. In addition two 6th grade teachers (Bron Narsiman - Humanities/ I.T. and Pam Smith - Math/Science), spent many hours researching and testing apps on their own ipads.

The ipads were charged, had apps installed and were ready to be quality tested by our 6th grade pilots ~ the cart was opened and...

This was their task..

What an exciting moment , as we explore the ipad reflect upon:

1. Internet access ~ Could you log in straight away?

2. Consistency of signal (include placement in classroom).

3. Tips / tricks that you learned / discovered.

4. Are the apps installed operational? Would they be useful in class?

5. Can you suggest additional apps?

6. Think about existing systems we use at ISKL ( Google Docs, Blogger etc) Problem solving ~ is there anything that you can't do on the iPad?

Place your feedback on your blog!

Enjoy

Mrs.N