How does an elementary school teacher use her iPad to get the job done and what iPad apps help get her through her day? TiPb’s iPad at work contest aims to bring you just such slices of the iPad life. Here’s Courtfrogger's answer and as a small token of thanks we’re sending her a $20 iTunes gift certificate. If you want to see your name up on the TiPb home page and get a gift certificate all your own, head on over to the TiPb iPad Forum and share your story now!
The iPad has added another dimension to my classroom! I teach music, English and theatre at a very small public k-12 school. I use the iPad for lots of different things in the classroom, at meetings and at play rehearsals. For my youngest students, who sometimes just need to dance, I use Pandora. I can just type in "Tito Puente", for example, and get unlimited Latin jazz that keeps them moving and very happy.
For slightly older kids, who are learning band instruments for the first time, I can use the YouTube app to show them videos of famous musicians playing their instruments. With the cleaner interface, I don't have to worry about R- rated adds showing up alongside the content I want.
For the spring production of "A Doll's House," I loaded the script into iBooks. I found it free through project Gutenberg. I can easily toggle back and forth between that and my notes, keeping track of actors' lines while taking direction notes. I don't have to worry about running out of paper, dropping my script, or forgetting a pencil!
For fun, I showed my kindergarten class the Planets app. They're studying planets right now, and for music class they wrote rhymes about planets that can be sung to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star. Being able to spin beautiful images of the planets was engaging for them and added a tangible element to the class.
So there you have it! My top five apps for the music and theatre classroom are Pandora, YouTube, iBooks, notes and Planets.
Are you an elementary school teacher? If so, what apps do you use to enhance the learning experience in the classroom?
