For the past two days I have been training teachers at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Catholic School on how they can use their new iPads in the classroom. It was a ton of fun helping these teachers see the power of an iPad and how easily it can be integrated into their classes.
The training was broken into two half-day sessions. On the first day we covered what I affectionately called “iPad Basics.” No matter how many times I do this type of training, I’m still amazed at how much you can do with an iPad “out of the box” without installing a single app. Students can take pictures and movies, take notes, and surf the web to name a few. During my first day I also showed them some specific apps and especially a few Catholic apps:
We really hit home some simple, easy to implement ideas for integrating these devices into the curriculum.
On day 2 we covered digital storytelling with iMovie. Oh what fun this was! I started off covering what digital storytelling is, talked about storyboarding, showed them some examples and showed some other items. Then I turned them lose to take photos and videos. When they were done, I showed them how to put them together in iMovie and then we shared the results. All I can say is, WOW! These teachers did an amazing job. From creating a “first day of school” video to a sightseeing tour of the adjoining church.
We wrapped up with a great discussion / rapid-fire ideas for integrating the iPad into the classroom. The ideas ranged from the simple to the complex and I’m looking forward to hearing about each and every one of them.