1:1 iPad Immersion For K-2

I just finished my first training for my school district on Thursday.  Marianna Husain and I tried to create a starting point for our teachers going 1:1 iPads this year.  It can be very overwhelming for teachers to start the year, and know that by September 30 that their students will all have an iPad.  We tried to ease them in gently.  Below are the links to the apps we introduced and had them create with.  I would appreciate any feedback on the list, or suggestions on other items we could have introduced.

We tried to be very transparent with what we were doing.  An introduction video of what a 1:1 iPad class looked like in our district last year was viewed.  We then shared our philosophy of keeping it simple, letting students explore, and slowly building a repertoire of apps over the first part of the year.  The final step was sharing the apps over the rest of the day.  We would share a student sample, demo the app features on the screen for all to see, then give them an assignment to create their own project.  We ended with an appy hour where all groups came up and shared an app.

List of Apps Shared for K-2 iPad Immersion

iMovie Trailers:  We started with iMovie trailers because they work for both students and teachers.  They are also incredibly fun to create, and look polished when you are finished.  Marianna had a great sample of a trailer second graders had made to sell friendship bracelets at her school.

Skitch:  Skitch is easily one of my favorite apps to use with students.  I have so many samples to choose from.  I also used samples that I got from @matt_gomez.  He left some nice slides on my iPad from when we presented together at iPadpalooza in June. A simple annotating app from Evernote, click the link and get Skitch…you can thank me later.

Snapguide:  Snapguide is a very simple app to use.  Create how to guides/books that are simple to export and share. You can add pictures/video and put 200 characters underneath per page.  My fourth graders created one on how to do lattice multiplication last year.  But you can check out the full span of our Snapguides right here.

Audioboo:  Marianna and I thought that we had featured some apps that highlighted the features of the iPad camera.  We also wanted to feature the iPad as a voice recorder.  I find Audioboo works very nicely for what students need in the classroom.  I also like to take advice from professionals, and Wes Fryer likes Audioboo.  That is all the recommendation I need.  We had teachers record an introduction of themselves and then used QR Stuff to create a QR code that linked to their recording to put outside their classroom.

i-nigma and Qrafter:  The last item was QR codes.  I get asked all the time which QR code reader is my favorite.  I think i-nigma is simple, quick, and free.  A bonus is that Tony Vincent has told me that he likes that reader.  Similar to the Wes Fryer comment above, always defer to the experts.  Tony is THE expert on mobile devices.

We then finished with our appy hour.  Our teachers are good, they found a few that I hadn’t heard of.  Here are their finds:

Word Wizard

Handwriting Without Tears

Spelling: Squeebles Words

Addition + Multiplication Number Bubbles

Arithmetic Invaders Express

I would appreciate any comments and/or feedback.  There are many of us going into the great unknown of having iPads in the classroom this year.  We need to stick together and share as many resources, successes, and failures as possible.  I know that I will.  Please follow me on Twitter if you don’t already.  Here is my online resume if you would like me to present to your school district or at a local conference:

iPadsammy –  Jon Samuelson   Page 9 has recent conferences presented at, and page 11 has many great resources and links that I curate.  Have a very APPY school year!!!

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