In one of my first classroom teaching experiences using iPods with students, I found a way to use them that I did not expect. I was not prepared for students overwhelming interest in the music side of the iPod.
By the second day students were asking me if they could play music before school using the battery operated (or power) speaker system. So every morning they would set up the iPod touch on the speaker system and play music until the bell went, and then they would switch off the music and start their day's work.
On the third day I noticed one of the students had a particularly great singing voice, so I showed her the iKaraoke (US$19.95). We hooked it up to the speaker system and iPod, and she was away, so every morning as well as the music we were being serenaded with other students making 'requests' for songs that she would sing.
But one particular use I noticed that sneaked in was students listening to music while they worked. In this photo, the student has just removed the head set to talk to me but he had been working away quietly listening to music.
What was interesting was that I noticed that the children who voluntarily used the iPods for music were the mostly 'rambunctious' lot who had the loudest voices, and were the 'ones' that you noticed the most in the class. But when they were listening to the iPods, there was a noticeable silence. These students were on task, doing their work and not bothering anybody else. I had no problem with them listening to music as they worked as that is something I like to do. So think about using your iPods playing music when students are working in their books, particularly for those students who are easily distracted.
Students and teachers can waste a lot of time looking for Apps. They need to be categorised and organised into folders.
Set up 'curriculum' pages.
Maths
These could be set up into strand, stages and/or Number Knowledge and Number Strategies.
Students should be directed to the folders that are related to the teaching and learning intention of that day.
Writing Literacy needs to split up into at least Reading and Writing. Depending on how many apps you have you may split it even further to have a Spelling and Grammar page. In this example I like to have a separate folder that offers many different ways to publish.
Reading In this example the books have been divided up into Junior and Senior Books. You may want to consider reading ages as folder names. I have separated the 'interactive' books such as Mushroom Age or The Mystery of the Crystal Porter as they have less reading and more interactive tasks in them.
Music
I have divided up the music apps into the different categories of
Wind
Percussion
Strings
Singing
Piano
Art
There are so many wonderful art apps available. I have separated the drawing ones from the apps that do special effects.
The other curriculum apps like Social Sciences and Science can be divided up between pages as well.
There are only two weeks left until the end of the school year in New Zealand,
so it is time to start thinking about Christmas activities we could do with the students in our classes. Even though Christmas is during Summer we still adopt a lot of the Northern Hemisphere traditions and teach them in our classes. One noteable case last Christmas was showing the teacher of the bi-lingual Tongan unit how to make paper snowflakes online and offline!
The next few posts are going to concentrate on Christmas activities you can do in the classroom using computers.
Twelve Days of Christmas
This was a favourite activity I did with students every Christmas where we would
students could draw or paint pictures, take photos of final products
or use online programmes to create drawings such as Sketchfu ( need to set up an account, click on Download to see image and screen capture or print); Odopod is more suitable for older students, drawings look like watercolours; Sumo is more suitable for older children as it has quite comprehensive tools; Artpad is a simplistic art tool suitable for all ages, take screen captures of finished art work
other programmes that could be used are PhotoStory 3 (Windows only), Moviemaker (Windows) or iMovie (Mac) Insert photos, record voices or add a music track to create movie.
Inspiration or Kidspiration could be used for the mindmapping of the ideas and publishing as well. Both Kidspiration and Inspiration can be hyperlinked to websites, Inspiration can also have movies embedded on the page.
ComicLife is also another easy way to publish students work. Use their drawings or photograph artwork and add it to the comic.(If you are using images from online don't forget to reference!)
If you don't have ComicLife then use the Autoshapes in Word
A simple but fun activity for all ages is building a picture in Kerpoof and adding text, you can search for graphics and make it as unusual as you like. Print it orscreen capture it when finished.
Of course the ever popular Wordle should not be left out. Adding a Tilde ~ in between each word will allow phrases to appear. This is when children need to learn how to copy and paste as there is a lot of repetition going on.
Themes
Different themes could be decided on. There are different schools of thought on the original meaning of the song. Here are some ideas for themes that could be used
characters and settings from a fairy tale or favourite book
indigenous items from the child's country of origin
favourite sports (teams)
international themes such as Global Warming, Third World countries, Disasters
based on a Social Studies/Science topic studied that year
presents they would like for Christmas
presents they would like to give for Christmas
based on people in the school/classroom
based on a favourite movie (See the youtube movies below)
look through a current magazine or newspaper
write about noteable school or personal events
How about a non-Christmas theme?
There maybe some students in your class who do not celebrate Christmas so they could have a theme about the holidays. I saw a great book in a classroom a few days ago called 'The Twelve Days of Holidays'. This is written from the mother's perspective as she is increasingly getting 'fed up' with her children at home during the holidays. Students could write about
the holiday they are going to have
their best holiday
their worst holiday
their dream holiday
or from the perspective of a member of their family
Other versions of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' that can be viewed that could motivate students are the following
this one is a slideshow with pictures (paintings) of each day
This next Youtube movie is a good example of how you can create your own Twelve days of Christmas on a particular theme, in this case on Disney stories.
This version will appeal to Shrek fans. This is a great theme to use picking out characters in the movie.
And if you want to see the lyrics have a look at this Youtube movie
For more advanced ideas of presenting the twelve days of Christmas which could be embedded into Blogs and wikis...
Wallwisher: Add posts to the wall, could be an individual wall or a collaborative wall
Glogster a poster yourself application enables you to embed graphics, movies and link to websites.
Create an online book
Mixbook has some great Christmassy templates. Students can publish their Twelve Days of Christmas in Mixbook and then embed into their wiki or blog (for free). They can also be purchased from $6.99 US and sent to you.
There are a lot more online ways of presenting 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', for more ideas look at
When I was a full time teacher (my day job for the last 12 years has been working with teachers), music was a big part of my day. With guitar and ukulele I would travel. I would be that teacher leading the school or syndicate group assembly in song, or supporting the school 'Kapa Haka' group. I am responsible for introducing many generations of children to The Beatles, Chubby Checker, Elvis, Simon and Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac, Creedence Clearwater, The Beach Boys and many other classic bands. Back then I always found that music was important to children and they really enjoyed a sing-a-long. One of my most popular reading activity choices was our blown up music chart books where I had typed the songs and photocopied them up to A3 and made them into a book. Children would take those books outside with a metre ruler (for pointing) and sing their hearts out.
I haven't had the opportunity to sing like that with children for several years, and I did not build it into the two week teaching block I have just finished, but what did happen that I did not expect was how the students wanted to use the iPods. I knew they would be interested or curious especially if they haven't had much exposure to them before, but I was not prepared for their overwhelming interest in the music side of the iPod. They loved using them for the Audiobooks. The Belkin Rockstar 5 way splitter ($20) and headsets for $2.99 were a great addition to the reading programme. One group while they were working on their Stormbreaker activity listened to the Audiobook story on the iTouch (this was the students' choice as they had free reign over their decisions of what to do in Reading Choice time).
By the second day students were asking me if they could play music before school using the battery operated (or power) speaker system. So every morning they would set up the iPod touch on the speaker system and play music until the bell went, and then it was like automatic pilot, they would switch off the music and start their day's work. On the third day I noticed one of the students had a particularly great singing voice, so I showed her the iKaraoke (NZ$110). We hooked it up to the speaker system and she was away, so every morning as well as the music we were serenaded by this young lady.
But one particular use I noticed that sneaked in was students listening to music while they worked. In this photo, the student has just removed the head set to talk to me but he had been working away quietly listening to music.
The most interesting factor I noticed were the type of children who voluntarily used the iPods for music were the most, for a better word, 'rambunctious' lot who had the loudest voices in the class and the 'ones' that you noticed the most in the class. But when they were listening to the iPods, there was a noticeable silence. These students were on task, doing their work and not bothering anybody else. I had no problem with them listening to music as they worked as that is something I like to do. It just goes to prove that old adage 'Music does soothe the savage beast [sic]!'
By the second day students were asking me if they could play music before school using the battery operated (or power) speaker system. So every morning they would set up the iPod touch on the speaker system and play music until the bell went, and then they would switch off the music and start their day's work.
