Science_Katey

Goal: Improving student engagement so as to foster better learning

Getting started:
I had about 8 months to play with the iPad before introducing it in class and was really excited to get started with student iPads. Last summer I had an iPad at my summer camp job and used it for quick video analysis and video capture, so I was excited to see what students could do with it.

Evidence of student engagement: time on task, attendance, tardies, completion of assignments, attentiveness, requests for the use of the iPad


 * Link to iPad Pre/Post data: HERE**

Successes:

 * **Routines**--use the iPad to complete the question of the day right away. Look at immediate feedback in google forms, respond to student feedback and use whole class to reply.
 * **Submissions**--student groups used school web lockers dav to turn in group contracts and need-to-knows on a daily or weekly basis. Once they got the hang of it it was really smooth.
 * **Levels the playing field**--almost all students know how to use the iPad even inf they haven't practiced a lot with it. It gives everyone a browser, calculator, and homework paper. No more leaving stuff at home.
 * **Taking notes on my notes and following along in lecture**--Students were able to pull up the documents we were using and follow along on their iPads, even annotating if they opened in iPDF. However, the annotated notes rarely made it off the iPads, so that may have not been so great. Students followed complex instructions for building models by looking at a series of pictures in color and with zoom-ability on the iPads instead of on the SmartBoard or on paper. This allowed them to go at their own pace and see the level of detail that they individually needed. We played around with Join Me too but I didn't heard more feedback that it was "cool" rather than "helpful".

**Problems I ran in to**:

 * Changing my routine/expectations. It was easy for me to say, this works better my old way.
 * Distraction-- the iPad was a big distraction for most of my students.

Apps:
-Safari. I used Safari every day for students to access my website: []. On the left-hand menu are expansion + signs that will get you to the Questions of the Day, "QOD"s. I used Google forms every day for data collection with great success. -Camera and video--for making video analysis movies -Turning Response--for TurningPoint type reviews. Similar to regular TurningPoint but better for students to track their success -JoinMe--got good response from students on this one. -VideoPhysics--meh. I wish it would have done graphical analysis on the data. Showing a graph is not significant enough.

Recommendations:
I would recommend a tablet that can support flash and java. So many things the students and teachers want to use include flash and java.