Mistake #1... I thought that I reserved the iPads for Wednesday morning because I added it to the Google calendar. It was a rookie mistake as I only added it to MY calendar and not the shared iPad cart calendar. Therefore when Mrs. Lowerre went to use the iPads, they were taken! Lesson learned, and even though I am sure my colleagues wouldn't make this same mistake, it is good to know this early in the game. I promise to always check the iPad cart sign out. See snapshot below:
Mistake #2 using Explain Everything without asking Mr. Sonnenberg and/or Mrs. Fromen to help (I guess this was really mistake #3 because #2 really is planning a lesson without thinking it through first). My rationale was that in studying geometry, why not have students make a geometry vocabulary dictionary using Explain Everything... without a lot of guidance at first just to see what they could do?
I was so impressed with how diligent the students were in initiating the task! They each had 3 vocabulary words that I assigned them. I also gave them a very basic tutorial of the app and some of the features. The students figured out what I knew and more within 40 minutes. The slides they came up with were amazing, and I can honestly say that students absorbed the meaning of their vocabulary words with more depth than anything I've seen before. They were adding pictures, graphics, video clips, drawings, words... anything and everything that illuminated the word.
You are probably wondering where the mistake is... Well, once the students had amazing slides, I quickly started hearing them say that information/ slides/ etc... was missing or deleted-- even after they typed or added it in. Although it was a mild panic in comparison to what it could have been, controlled chaos escalated pretty quickly...once I had a line of 5 students in front of me waiting for help, I knew it was time to switch gears.
I asked them to help me critique this lesson in order to assess the following questions:
In order to best answer these questions, they kept their iPads and dove back in to come up with this mind blowing list:
Basically, through the research, many students discovered how to fix the issues, and then teach other students how to resolve it. It was another critical thinking lesson that I couldn't have planned better even if I had tried! They persevered, did not get frustrated, and were able to teach others... including me! I've been joking that my lesson was a "flop" to other colleagues; however, I believe that the skills my students learned and took away from Wednesday's lesson are the perfect example of how iPads can enhance our instruction as educators. The same situation never would have happened the same way if one of my math lessons went wrong while using a textbook.
Now I'm off to try and learn more about Explain Everything. Maybe my 5 year old will show me...
~Mrs. Cowell
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