ipad2, what would I do without you?

Sorry for the lame poem, but I'm finding that I don't know how I ever taught or lived without my ipad2. My school has bought several for teachers to use and after filling out an application I got one to use for the year! It even came with a pretty pink case!

I promptly brought it home, charged it, and began buying apps. What a dangerous thing that app store is! One of my coworkers and I joke that our lunches are
getting too expensive as we like to share apps with each other and then go buy them. Thankfully I have some AMAZING parents this year that donated i-tunes gift cards so that we could buy apps. My mentor also gave me a gift card as well. I am one spoiled teacher!

My kids love the ipad and I love that they love it! It combines learning with interactive fun. We use it in small groups, during conferring or strategy groups in Daily 5, to show the weather in the morning, for our vocabulary word of the day, to tweet, and as a reward. As soon as I pull out that thing I become extremely popular! Kids now BEG to meet with me during Daily 5 or be in a strategy group because they know they might get to use the ipad.

I recently put together a list of our favorite apps to share with parents and other teachers. I thought I would share it here as well. If you have a question about an app feel free to ask me!

Favorite ipad Apps (opens in google docs)

I have to note that one of MY favorite apps is teuxdeux. It's a productivity app that lets you make a web based to-do list that you can access from any compu
ter, smartphone, ipad, etc. I love it! Gone are the days of writing lists in notebooks that I can't find or putting stickies all over my desk.

The other day during parent conference the parent asked me if I would do something. I started to write a post-it but then pulled out the ipad and put it into teuxdeux. They immediately asked me what the app is! I love checking things off of my list. I even put simple things like attendance in it so that I get that feeling of accomplishment when it's done!

Happy app finding!