During our collaborative meeting today I put together a brief collection of our AHA! Moments. Please add your thoughts in reply to this post!
1. Take pictures of learning in progress and final products. Kids can post to their blogs right away with a brief explanation of their learning.
2. Use pages to add content that is more static on your blog (newsletter, reading strategies, character ed, etc)
3. Teach your students to add categories and tags to their posts for easy organization.
4. Add next steps to your comments in response to a blog post.
5. Digital Citizenship – How do we help our students make deeper connections between the learning they do in the classroom, and the way they use social media at home?
6. How do you feel about off-task behaviour? Recently I suspended a student from his iPad after he was repeatedly off-task using apps that weren’t related to our activity. Maybe I could be a little more understanding. We all need “brain breaks” 🙂
7. Typing on the iPad vs writing with a pencil – all in balance. Students need to learn how to type and how to write.
8. Spaghetti and meatballs? Who knew this yummy food can help kids learn how to leave appropriate spaces between letters and words.
9. Encourage parents to be the cheerleaders! Asking questions to further learning is a bonus.
10. Inquiry Homework – students choose their own inquiry question to research and then blog from home.
11. Using iMovie to create trailers, public service announcements, Tribes, etc
12. Learning how to blog and share the iPads is teaching students how to problem solve and collaborate with one another.
Another amazing day of teaching and learning! Thank you for sharing everyone. 🙂
Leigh Cassell
Leigh Cassell Consulting 
Ditto to… pretty much your whole list Leigh! I have also struggled with how to manage off task behaviour, but once again, Laura to the rescue: How often am I off task on my own iPad during a lesson or meeting? Unless the student is doing something completely unsafe or destructive (in which case iPads go away until tomorrow), I try to redirect them to the task at hand. Or I switch to a different task completely to re-engage them.
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