Reception Ipad Reflection..

It’s not easy to know where to start with our Ipad journey. Just like Miss Hayden I was super excited to receive what felt like a very early Christmas present- A shiny new Ipad! But I was a bit nervous of letting the children anywhere near it!

   In Reception our first term is massively focussed on learning to share, so I thought I had better show a good example.  So as soon as our snazzy green IGuy protective case arrived I took a deep breath and let go…

 

 I gave the children a super quick demonstration of how to take a picture. Then during a whole class circle time, we created our own class twitter profile picture using ‘Lets Collage’.  Each child had a go at taking their own picture and then dragged it onto the screen and finally passed it on to the next person for their turn. It’s amazing how quickly you can create professional looking images. With a bit more practise we can hopefully get a few more whole faces and less one eyed children. It will be exciting to try it again to show how quickly the children’s skills have improved.The program is so simple to use it wouldn’t take much more modelling to allow the children to create their own collages for all sorts of projects. I made another one as we were learning the sound ‘s’ to show the children as a quick plenary at the end of the day.

 

 

  Every day we use ‘reflectionapp’ to listen to music and audio stories through the speakers at ‘Calm Time’. We use the ipad’s camera to record our achievements thoughout the day and then review our learning at the end of the session or day. I am yet to find the perfect smooth picture to allow us to mirror the screen onto the whiteboard, but we are on the the case.

 

  Reassured by the children’s careful but confident handling of the precious Ipad I am now on a mission to find out what app’s are out there and how we can fit them into our learning. So far the ones I have shown the children have immediately engaged them and as you can see bring out lots of interaction and shared learning. 

 The app store is an endless source and I have spent hours, maybe even days, trying out all sorts. But some great recommendations have also been passed on to me via twitter, subscribing to ICT guru timrylands emails, from the great team at the local apple training centre we are very lucky to have at Hastings Academy and of course though sharing our experiences at our weekly meets or ‘Ipad Club’. Meetings are getting longer as we have so much we want to share and new members are quickly joining as the buzz is spreading…  
 

Miss Gibson-Reception, Hepworth Class