Flipped Classroom Adventures

For several years now I have been cross posting between this blog and my Suzanne's iAchieve Reflections blog - same posts on each blog of course. While it has been a great journey, I feel it is time to concentrate on one. So this blog is going to be "on hold" for awhile.

Please visit Suzanne's iAchieve Reflections for updates on the iAchieve Project and Flipped Learning: http://suzanne-sallee-iachieve.blogspot.com/

Thanks.

App of the Week: Evernote Scannable

Scannable is a new scanning app from the makers of the ever popular Evernote. It instantly locates and scans documents, receipts, photos, and other paper files. Your scans are cropped, rotated, and enhanced right in the app. It can even turn scanned business cards into contacts! Scans can be shared via email, sent to other apps such as Evernote, saved to Photos, or send to Cloud storage locations such as DropBox or GoogleDrive.

Download the pdf

Download the App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/evernote-scannable/id883338188?mt=8

App of the Week: Toontastic

Toontastic is a storytelling app for creating your own cartoon stories. Design your set, create characters, act out the learning. Students can draw, animate, narrate, and record their

Launchpad Toys, the creators of Toontastic, was recently acquired by Google and the full version of the app is now free! There are hundreds of characters and backgrounds to choose from and videos can be exported to the Photos app, posted online, or edited in iMovie.

Download the pdf

Learn more on their website: http://www.launchpadtoys.com/

Download the app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toontastic/id404693282?mt=8

Digital Math Manipulatives and Models

The use of manipulatives and models for math aid students in learning math conceptually. While physical manipulatives are great there are also a lot of math manipulative apps available.These math manipulative apps align well with the common core math standards and allow students to develop conceptual understanding of many math concepts.

Here are a few teachers and students have been using:

Virtual Manipulatives is a app from ABCya.com and provides both fraction bars and fraction circles. In addition to fractions, there are models for decimals and percents. The app includes an pen tool for annotating on the screen. In this lesson, the teacher and students were using the app to decompose both simple fractions and mixed numbers.

Virtual Manipulatives: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/virtual-manipulatives!/id471341079?mt=8

Number Pieces is from The Math Learning Center. There are two apps in this series:
Number Pieces and Number Pieces Basic. The apps both contain sets of Base Ten Blocks (ones, tens, and hundreds), and tools for annotating. The apps can be used for modeling a variety of problems. This teacher is using the app to model decimal division.

Number Pieces: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/number-pieces-by-math-learning/id605433778?mt=8
Number Pieces Basic:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/number-pieces-basic-by-math/id611452042?mt=8

Geoboard is also from The Math Learning Center and is one of my personal favorites. Students always love using Geoboards but mostly because of the the rubber bands. Now we have digital rubber bands! The app has been recently updated and a lot of new features added. In addition to the standard 25-peg board, you can change to a 150-peg board and a circular board on the iPad. There are also annotation tools and a text tool for writing equations and expressions.

The app can be used for learning about area, perimeter, fractions, the new circular Geoboard could help with learning about time, and much more.

     

The app is available for both iPad and iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/geoboard-by-math-learning/id519896952?mt=8

The Math Learning Center has other great apps for learning math. Check them out too. Many of their apps are available for IOS, Windows phones and tablets, or via the web.

Similes and Shadow Puppet Edu

One of the 1:1 iPad teachers created a nice flip learning lesson on similes. She created her flip learning video using Explain Everything, which her students watched at home.

In class the next day they reviewed the concept and the teacher modeled creating a smilie using the Shadow Puppet Edu app. The students first had to create their comparison and get approval from the teacher, then they created their own Shadow Puppet Edu video simile.

While observing, I created one too!

Download the Free ShadowPuppet Edu app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shadow-puppet-edu/id888504640?mt=8

Learn More: http://get-puppet.co/education/

App of the Week: Post-it® Plus

Post-it® Notes are really popular both for teachers and students. But what do you do with a all of those little squares at the end of a brainstorming session or project? You digitize them of course using the Post-It Plus app.

Download the pdf

Free in the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/post-it-plus/id920127738?mt=8

Practice for AZELLA Testing

In Arizona, students learning English as a Second Language are required to take a state assessment called AZELLA to check their progress in learning english. Prior to taking the test, teachers often have students practice some of the types of skills and activities they will see on the test. They are provided some resources for this but one teacher decided she needed more and wanted them to be more engaging for the students. She used the Pic Collage app to create these practice activities for writing. Much better than black and white practice prompts!