Eight Questions I Ask Before an App Can Stay on Student iPads

For the past couple of years I've been really fortunate to have access to iPads in my classroom.  The increased access to this mobile technology has provided my students with that many more individualized opportunities to show and share their learning.   Now if you're new to this blog you may not realize that student choice and voice is something I believe very strongly about. Very strongly.  This means I am constantly looking for apps that  allow my students to learn, show, and share their knowledge in innovative ways.  As a result I purchase and download many, many iPad apps for my work iPad. I take them for a test drive sort of speak before they make their way onto the iPads my students have access to.  The reality is very few apps I test drive end up on my student's iPads.  But why?  Below you will find some of the questions I ask (and why) before an app will make it on my students iPads.  I am hoping this information will be of benefit for both teachers purchasing apps for their students, and developers creating apps for students.  Here are my top eight questions.

1. Does the app promote consumption or creation?

I hear over and over again how iPads are so easy for children to use.  In some ways I agree because it is not hard to tap an iPad screen and make things happen.  But where I cringe is when I see how iPads are being used, particularly in a classroom.  iPads (and I'd think most mobile devices) are powerful tools in the hands of children so it's so frustrating when I see them being used at the simplest level.  When I look for iPad apps for my students to use I want an app that my students can create with.  I want an app where they tell it what to do, vs the app dictating what the child should do.   Eg. I much prefer apps that allow my students to create content, and not just answer questions that are thrown their way. The creation apps are my apps of choice vs the consumption apps.

Now please don't get me wrong, my students do use consumption apps from time to time too. We use them to learn sight words, or to practice math facts  but we use creation apps far more often. Far, far, far more often. Most of our creation apps can be used in a variety of settings, vs consumption apps which typically have just one purpose.

2. Does the app let my students enter at their just right level?

Nothing frustrates me more than having a levelled app, and having the app expect all my students start at the same starting point.  When I make this remark to the app developer I'm often told not to worry, they can pass through the initial levels quickly. Imagine walking into a new library and having to read every book below your reading level in order to get to the books that are at your just right reading level.  If an app offers levels, I want my students to choose the best level for them and that best level isn't the same for every child in my class.

3. Can the app be personalized?

I love it when my students can add their own content to a "drill and practice" type app.  There are a couple of really great word work apps we use where my students can add their own personal words to practice and learn in an engaging manner.  If my students can take a simple app and personalize it for their individual learning needs, I'm more likely to keep it.

4. Is the app simple enough for my young learners to use independently?

This year I teach 24 six year olds, on my own.  Like a typical grade one class, my students have  a variety of strengths and challenges which I do my best to meet individually.  With 15 boys and 9 girls my room is a very active place for learning.  I also try extremely hard to provide my students with choice of tool to learn, show, and share their knowledge.  If an app requires a lot of my time and guidance for my students to be successful it's an app I more than likely will  stay clear of it.  If it's an app that, after a quick demo, my students can use, for the most part, independently, I'm all over it.  Having said that, there are many fantastic apps out there that are just not the best option for my young learners.  For an app to get on the iPads my students use, it has to be age appropriate for my students too.

5. Where does the app save what is created?

A lot of what my students create on their iPads is uploaded to their individual blogs through the KidBlog app.  As I said before the more my students can do with out my help, the more I'm freed up to work more closely with my students.  The KidBlog app, and so many other productivity apps, easily upload from the iPad camera roll so I'm always looking for apps that save seamlessly there.  This includes apps that create images or movies.  For images my students can easily take screen shots if this isn't an option, but for videos this needs to be an option.

Some apps require an account to save to their websites.  I don't have a problem with setting up a class account for all my students to share their work too, but if I have to download from that account to have the work appear on their blogs I'm not interested at all.  In addition I live in British Columbia, Canada and we have the toughest privacy laws in Canada, and more than likely North America.  In order for me to use an app with my students that stores information on a site away from the iPad (i.e. on a server some where in the world) I need informed consent from my students' parents to use the site. So if I need to create an account and log on to use an app, I'll think more closely before I agree.  Informed consent adds another variable for me.

6. Where does the app share to?

My students know to look for the little box with the arrow pointing out from it.  For some apps that is how they get their creations into the camera roll. For other apps that icon produces a whole bunch more options. My class most often needs to be able to share to the camera roll, dropbox, or twitter.   Some iPad apps provide a link to a website where the content is stored.  While this is okay (when I have permission to store my students' work there) it's not ideal for my young learners.  The iPads we have access to don't have e-mail on them so it's not an option we have available to us so if emailing is the only way we can share content, I'll run from the app for my students.

7. How much space does the app take up on the iPad?

If an app is really large in size, and is taking up a lot of space on our iPads it better have a good reason for that space.  Space is very precious because once an iPad is full, an iPad is full.  I used to have a lot more interactive books on our class iPads, but I've since removed many because they were taking up way too much space.  I love when I find a great app that takes little space. Love, love, love it!

8. How much does an app cost?

I won't lie, if there is a good free app that does pretty much exactly what I want it to do the likely hood that I'll spend money to buy the upgrade is limited.  Money is tight and so it needs to be spent wisely.  Having said that there are apps that I will pay for because there is nothing like them in the free realm.  I appreciate quality and functionality and I will pay for that.  The more versatile an app is - i.e. one that works for a variety of age levels with out being too complicated for younger learners, and too young for older learners, the more likely I will invest in the app.

Of course before I add any app to the iPads my students have access to I need to have a need for the app.  An iPad can be fully functional with just a few open ended creative apps. I'll admit we have too many apps on the iPads we have access to now, but most if not all apps are used, some just more regularly than others.  I also find different students work best with different apps and I want to provide them with the choice of app that works best for them.

I'm curious, how do you choose which apps to add to your mobile devices?

My One Little Word for 2014

Photo Credit: linh.ngan via Compfight cc

In 2013 my one little world was BALANCE to help me regain it after my world exploded in 2012.  You can read more about my 2013 word choice here.  

As it turns out 2013 was an even crazier year for me than 2012 which meant the word BALANCE was more important than ever.   I tried hard to keep BALANCE at the front of my mind and I really appreciated when my friends would remind when I was obviously showing signs of imbalance.  

So how did I do with the goals I set in 2013?

• better BALANCE the time I spend between work and pleasure < I probably worked more than I should have, but when ever I had the opportunity to socialize outside of work I took it. 
• better BALANCE the time I spend between inside and outside < I still need to get outside more particularly since I know I'm happiest when I'm outside in nature.
• better BALANCE the time I spend between being active and being at rest < The first half of the year I wasn't as good as I could have been but the second half I was much better. I  returned to swimming, found a friend to run with, and attended weekly spin classes.  Unfortunately I was also dealing with very unhappy lungs, and feet issues which meant I was not able to be as consistent as I would have wanted.
• better BALANCE the time I spend on line and  off line < Definite fail here but when I was  with  friends my device was kept out of site. My biggest problem is when I'm at home my devices are usually on and really close by.
• better BALANCE the time I spend between saying YES and saying NO (or at least thinking a bit longer before saying YES so quickly) < I was successful here. While I took on a few projects that had me completely over whelmed, the results of my hard work and concentrated effort reaped huge growth for me. 
• better BALANCE the number of projects I get my class involved with (not limiting but thinking about before moving forward with them) < I definitely did better here.   I started involving my students more in the decisions of which projects we were willing to take on. I also started created projects that we wanted to do instead of what others had created. When I'm in control of a project it is much easier for me to keep balanced.
• better BALANCE the foods that I eat - thankfully I really love healthy food but even too much healthy food isn't a good thing. < I weigh pretty much the same as i weighed this time last year. That's probably not a good thing but I am making better choices about the foods I eat.
• better BALANCE myself. < I know I've improved a lot this year, but I still have so much more room for growth. Being single means I have a lot of extra time on my own and I really enjoy learning and reading educational blogs. So I spend a fair bit of time doing that, which puts me off balance. Hmm.  Maybe I need a lot more help here.

2013 was an excellent year for so many reasons but it was also filled with some struggles and challenges.  I improved my exercise regime but it is no where near where I know it could and should be.   I have been extremely fit (a five time Ironman finisher) and I know how great I feel when I am  fit so I have no excuse other than focussing too much of my time on my career, and not enough of my time on me.  In addition in 2013 I finally faced the fact that I needed to change schools after 18 years. That was by far the hardest things I've done in a  very long time.  Tons of tears were shed in the process but four months into my new school I  have no regrets.  The move has taken a huge weight off of my shoulders that I didn't realize was there and I am enjoying the "new beginning".   

Photo Credit: ...anna christina... via Compfight cc

Unfortunately despite trying really hard to be more balanced  I still have a long way to go.  In fact it was tempting to keep the word BALANCE for 2014 too but I didn't.   My word for 2014 is LIVE.  In 2014 I want to LIVE more. I will continue to put my all into my job, but I want to give my leisure time the same about of respect it deserves too.    My career is in a place that I am fortunate to have wonderful opportunities coming my way but my personal life is lacking. I will continue to take the opportunities that come my way both personally and professionally, but I want to create more personal opportunities so I can get back to living my life more fully.  I will take more time for me, for my friends, and for doing the things that I love away from my job.   I am going to try harder to put the stresses of work aside more often and just enjoy living again.  In 2014 I am going to LIVE more completely.

Now I'm curious will you come out to play with me and what will your word be for 2014?

*Update - The more I think about my word the more I think about what Dean Shareski said about taking life less seriously.  My work is important to me but I need to get out there and smile, laugh, and be silly a whole lot more both at and away from work. Who wants to join me?

Professional Highlights of 2013

As the calendar year comes to an end I like to take the time to look back on  2013.  It truly has been an incredible year for me for so many reasons. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Face to Face Meetings

This has been another crazy year of face to face meetings. If I started to list off all the incredible people I was able to meet face to face this year I'm sure I'd forget some along the way.  Here are just some of my many face to face meetings in 2013.

Laura, Kristin, Joy and I

Theresa and I

Kristen, Me, and Val

Me and Miriam

Denise and I

Jen, Me, and Sue

Linda and I

Melvina, Me, and JoAnn

Sara and I

Kathy and I

Preston, Louise, Me, and Anne

Me and Tina

Drew, Me, and Brad

Joan and I

Me and Julie

Peter and I

Joan, Krissy, Cheryl and I

Matt and I

Me and Rodney

Me, Melvina, Louise, and Paula

Kristin, Kristen, Me, and Kathy


Tanya and I


Me and Jenn

Tanya, Me, Marcie, and Kristen

Colleen and I

2. Conferences and Learning Opportunities

In 2013 I was very fortunate to attend many workshops, conferences, and learning opportunities.  Highlights include:

• Days spent in Kathy Cassidy (Moose Jaw) , Kristen Wideen (Windsor), and Kristin Ziemke's (Chicago) classrooms
• Surrey's Digital Dinner Series
• Discovery Ed Hangouts with Dean Shareski and Friends
• Connected Ed Canada (Calgary)
• ISTE (San Antonio)
• Apple Institute (Austin)
• ECCO (Niagara Falls)

Kristin's Classroom

Kathy's Classroom

Kristen's Classroom


Airport Pick Up for the ADE Institute

The crowd I presented to at ECOO

3. Recognition and Accomplishments

In 2013 I was recognized for three major accomplishments. These included receiving my twenty year coaching award, being chosen as an Apple Distinguished Educator, and being awarded the ISTE Kay L Bitter Award.

20 Years of Coaching Recognition

ISTE Kay L Bitter Award

4. Other Crazy and Other Exciting Things

A few pretty crazy, exciting, or lucky things also happened to me in 2013. These included:

Using face time to bring a video game programmer into my classroom, while at the same time Skyping in a #1stchat friend's son so he could learn with my class too.

Presenting for an on-line course through Skype to a laptop in Ontario Canada since I couldn't get into the blackboard collaborate room where the "live" session was talking place.

My computer as my voice was skyped into a session I couldn't get into.

Being in an interview with Alec Couros and then crashing Dean Shareski's Discovery Ed Google Hangout with Alec. I loved the look on Dean's face but I especially loved the magic Discovery Ed Mints which passed through the computer screens.

Brings a surprise guest to a Discovery Ed Google Hangout

A surprise lunch with Kathy Cassidy, Alec Couros, and Dean Shareski. It pays to make the trek to Moose Jaw.

Lunch at Dean's with Alec and Kathy too.

Trying Google Glass!

Yup, that's Google Glass

Eating Texas shaped waffles.

State of Texas Waffle
(Well not exactly with the right plate placement)

Being asked to do the very first Edu Slam and having so much fun with Tanya and Holly.

Winning my conference registration for ISTE 2014 at ISTE 2013.

Being on TV during the morning show with  Jill Krop of Global TV talking about using Social Media in my grade one classroom.

Eating the craziest breakfast in Portland of fried chicken and waffles. But don't worry, it was shared.

Fried Chicken and Waffles for Breakfast

Being part of not one, but two lip dubs. Well I guess technically it was just my class in the second lip dub.

So as you can see 2013 was a pretty incredible year for me and I can only begin to imagine what is in store for 2014.  Wishing you and your loved ones a healthy, happy 2014.

The Global Read Aloud - Creating the Project I Wanted to Join

When the Global Read Aloud was set to begin early last fall I signed up my class and started looking for teachers to collaborate with over the chapter book Marty McGuire by Kate Messner.   If you don't know much about the Global Read Aloud you must check out the official blog created by Pernille Ripp.  Last year my class connected with several different classes for a variety of purposes.  This year I wanted to do something different.

Over the past year my class and I have dove quite deeply into co-creating with others.  I've figured out ways to make it work over different devices and operating systems.  When there was a challenge, or issue, I found a way to solve it.  This year for the Global Read Aloud I wanted to see what would happen if I invited the world to co-create with my class over Marty McGuire.   I created a project and invited the world to join along.

I had this brilliant idea that I would ask classes to take ownership of a section or two of the book and then I would combined all the contributions together into a movie.  I set up a google doc with information and shared it on twitter and the various sharing sites Pernille has set up for us to connect with one another over the shared book. I was over whelmed with the responses I received as the project filled up quite quickly.  Those who had signed up for more than one section were great though and gave up sections to let others join along.  Every thing was moving smoothly and over 40 different classes were involved.

I purposely left the parameters of the project wide open because I didn't want to add any pressure to teachers, and I also wanted to see (and learn about) the different ways classroom teachers were documenting their learning through Marty McGuire.  The submissions that came in covered so many different aspects of Mary McGuire. Plus they were all so different which was exactly what I was hoping for.

In order for me to collect classroom submissions participants could either send me a link to shared folder where their contribution was stored and I could download from, e-mail me their contribution directly, or use the dropitto.me I had set up.

At first contributions were really slow to come in and I was worried.  Were my e-mails getting through to the participants? Were people creating anything? Was this project going to be a flop?  Thankfully my worries were calmed when submissions started to come in.

I had trouble with some of the submissions I received. Some classes created entries with apps or websites that I could not download from.  I could view them but I couldn't  add them to the project in the format that they were in. I did  some problem solving and "google/twitter research" but eventually I was able to do something with most of the entries I received.  You'll notice that the quality in some of the entries isn't ideal because I had to screen cast them in order to add them to the final project .  In other cases it was the audio I received. I played a fair bit with audio tracks but for so many of them I just couldn't get them sounding as clear as I would have liked.  As a whole I think I did a pretty good job with all the submissions I received.

After several e-mails reminders about submissions, and stretching deadlines I had all the submissions I was going to get.  For some chapters I had more submissions than others but as a whole I had plenty of submissions.  It was then time to put the project together.

This past summer I was fortunate to attend the Apple Institute in Austin, Texas where I learned a ton about Apple software.  Final Cut Pro x was one such piece of software. I used it to create  the final project because it has way more options for creation than iMovie.  It was a great learning experience for me to play with the program and get to know it even better.

With the project complete I created a quick time movie and attempted to share it to youtube. At that point it was HUGE in size and would have taken days to upload to youtube.  I had a quick panic (yes, I had a few of these over the course of the project), did a bit of "google research" and found a way to make it smaller in size.  Unfortunately when I made it smaller the quality also dropped a lot and it still took over 12 hours to upload to youtube.  But it was what it was at that point so I sent it out to the participants.

Unfortunately at that point I realized I had forgotten to add one of the submissions  I had received. I felt awful and quickly added it to the finished product.  I waited a bit too in case I had forgotten others.  I didn't hear anything so I felt it was safe to go through the uploading process again.  The second time around I was a lot smarter. I was able to make a much clearer smaller version and so instead of taking 12 hours to upload to youtube it only took five or so (not exactly sure as I did it while I slept).

The final version is now complete and ready to share with the world.  I will admit it is much longer than most primary students can sit through but I highly recommend you take the time to watch the different entries. It's broken down into chapter sections so that may be a way to watch it in small installments.  In hindsight I could have created movies for each chapter or every so many chapters.  I toyed with the idea but there was quite a discrepancy with the number of entires I received for each chapter. For some chapters  I received every single entry plus some I didn't know I was receiving, and for other chapters I received very little.  I didn't want to make those missing entires seem so obvious. It is certainly something I'd think about for next time.

So, are you curious to see how the final version turned out?  No problem. Here it is.