Exploring Tone

I plan on using IBook in teaching how to note tone and tone shifts in poetry. In order to do this, I will download some poetry in IBook and have students listen to the text through text to speech. As they listen to the poem, I want them to note how they would read it in order to convey the meaning of the poem. What would they do differently?

Then students would read them noting any shifts in tone and how that contributes to the theme of the poem.

Then students will create their own IBook of poetry. They will choose the poems, listen to them read, and then do their own reading.

We're Flipped over FLIP TEACHING!!!

This week we've learned a new approach to teaching, called Flipping. Flipping your classroom does not involve putting the chairs on the ceiling. Rather, flip teaching puts teaching and learning in the students' hands, by providing content outside of the class and reviewing during school with the teacher. This allows students to come to class with questions and use valuable time with the teacher to review where it is needed or continue on independently. I fully anticipate implementing this style of teaching in my class this year. 

Numbers for Budgeting

I will try using numbers to create a graph of a budget for a shopping project in my class!

Explain Everything Using Explain Everything

As the Technology Director I will be responsible for training teachers and students how "to do everything" with their new iPads - turn it on, use dozens of apps, teach class with it, etc.

So, to avoid losing my mind before school even begins, I "plan" to create a @#$%^ load of video tutorials with Explain Everything.

Implementing the Magic Research Tool in HAIL, 2013-2014

This is an amazing tool that students can use to compile all of their research sources, open and actively read them, ... all in one place, in the iPad.

Using Blogger for student reflection

We are leaving Moodle this year. One of the features that I always enjoyed was the "forum", which allowed students to reflect on class discussions and continue the argument/discussion for homework. I see Blogger as a good replacement for that. Main difference: we're not behind the Walled Garden anymore. So careful setup with students is important! They need to be safe, and I need to ensure that they set it up correctly. Having done that, I think that the added "authentic audience" is one exciting feature. In addition, we have the ability to add links and media.

dot ePub is Magic!

I am pretty jazzed about a lot of the tools and techniques we have learned in the last few days, but one that I think my department members and students will love is the "magic sauce" Hans introduced this morning: dot ePub.  This allows you to capture web pages as ibooks.  I had not originally grasped the importance of this, but when Hans described this resource as a way to change the ways students research, the lightbulb went off for me.  

Instructions were pretty simple, and are laid out on the following web page.

iPad Lesson Plan Journal

You have essentially been spammed with an overload of information on how to use the iPad in the classroom this week. While we intended to blitz you with these tips, tools, techniques, and technologies, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed at this point. The balance of our time together is going to be spent narrowing in on one of the things that you learned this week, particularly something that you think that you will implement right away this fall.

For this assignment, you will create a blog post from your iPad Blogger App detailing how you plan to implement one of the tools that you have learned in this training. Your post must include the following:

1. an appropriate title that includes the name of the tool you will use
2. a picture that represents what you would like to do and is created on your iPad
3. at least a one paragraph narrative outlining how you will use this tool
4. a label that is the name of the assignment (iPad Lesson Plan Journal)
5. a label that is your first name and last initial (Justin J.)