It's your turn guys....

Today, rather than me lecturing on Shakespeare's background, English theatre in the 1500s, the Globe theatre, and the Bubonic Plague, my students conducted their own research and will be presenting that information to the class tomorrow. In this lesson, the kids had to find and evaluate sources, create a presentation, and deliver that presentation to their peers. I think that I sometimes get caught up in the day to day elements of a traditional classroom and forget to integrate more 21st century elements. It's difficult to think that I am teaching these kids to prepare them for jobs and a society that I can't imagine yet... I think that by focusing more on the ISTE ideas we discussed last week that I can perform better as a teacher and better meet the needs of my students.

Just a moment folks.. There seems to be a problem...

Well, I certainly had a technology hiccup this week. In order to help introduce a new drama unit with my students, I was sharing with them a rap that I had found that covered the elements of fiction: character, setting, and plot. My plan had been to play it on the laptop, which I set up that morning, but when I went to play it there was no sound. I ended up having to disconnect and connect my speakers as well as adjust my volume control in order to play the song. Turns out the audio jack was loose. In terms of hiccups, it really wasn't that serious, but it's never fun to have a classroom of students waiting for you to figure something out so that the class can move on... next time, I will definitely try to play the song before class!

An iPad 2?! For our class?! Really, Mrs. A?!

This week, I received an iPad 2 to use in my 9th grade English/Language Arts class. Having a 1st generation of my own, I was fairly familiar with how to use an iPad, but I was pleased to see the new features that were included in the 2nd generation. My students span the socio-economic spectrum, so I knew that while some of my students had iPads of their own to go along with their $400 headphones and latest smartphones, I had other students who had not had the opportunity to use/play with an iPad. Because of this, I was more than thrilled to have a piece of technology like this to use in my classroom.

After excitedly playing with my 'new toy' for a few days and talking with my equally excited classes, we've thought of a few ways that we will be able to utilize this awesome piece of technology in our classroom. Our list included: using the various vocabulary-building apps for practice after other work is finished, using Facetime to talk to other classes in other schools about assignments and even have discussions, using the connector Josh mentioned to allow the class to work together using the Smartboard, letting students use e(and i)-books to read indpendently after they were finished, using it to quickly research/look up a question during class, or even to use it create projects using iMovie and other creative apps.

Today was the first chance for any of my kids to use Seamus (as we affectionately named it). After completing their assignment, two students were able to use the iPad for vocabulary practice using an app called Bluster. While this app is geared more for mid-elementary grades, the students were able to work on their fluency and response time. Regardless, they enjoyed themselves and were able to use their extra 5 minutes to do something productive instead of pass notes, doodle on their papers, or distract the other students.

I'm excited to pull out my lesson plan book this weekend and come up with ways to integrate our new into my students' daily lessons!