“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Chinese proverb
At this point in the year, my students are so comfortable with the use of technology that they have the skills to use the iPad as effortlessly as they use pencil and paper. Â Now the fun begins, because 1:1 iPads are perfect for the assignment: show what you know! 1:1 iPads: Putting It All Together. How did we get to this point?
1:1 iPads: Putting It All Together at the Navigation Board
Here is a look at one of the bulletin boards in my classroom. We keep adding to this instructional hub as we learn new features of our iPads. Having this point of reference serves the students well as it reminds them of what they already know but may have forgotten, and as far as the flow of the learning goes, during class, the iPad Navigation board is essential.
Anytime I am introducing a new “Show What You Know” task on the iPad, the students meet me at the iPad board. Moving away from the SMARTBoard is a nice break and somehow gets our brains re-focused on the upcoming task. (I love this next part!) While we are moving, the children get so excited because they know we are going to do something new; the energy is so electric in the room and I don’t mind it a bit! At the iPad Navigation board, we talk through everything; it’s whole-group instruction in a cozy setting, all within reach of my helping hand.
Once I explain our challenge, practice it, and work though questions using the Navigation Board as a point of reference, I can turn the students loose in the room and they work independently or in a small group to “Show what you know.” The iPad Navigation board is a result of many, many weeks of little lessons and challenges. . . inch by inch, step by step.
Worksheets on the iPad?
When I was young, I had one piano teacher who fed me book after book of theory; I know I worked through every level of every theory book in every series. I was a good student and did what I was told, but those workbooks were just facts. Looking back, if I had just had a way to do something with that knowledge, it would have been much more authentic learning. The iPad can fill that void and give students a way to share, in a creative way, what has been learned.
1:1 iPads: Putting It All Together Earns a Badge
“MASTERÂ of the Beat” Badge
I’m learning right along with the students that the iPad can be used for much more than just making a movie about facts. 
At first, that seemed like such a cool thing, but really, that’s just substitution: replacing paper with electronics.To take advantage of the iPad as a creative tool, I challenge my students to earn Musical Badges as we move through each unit of study or learn about a new composer. I’ll explain more about Musical Badges in a later post. To illustrate the significance of “Show what you know,” I want to tell you the steps my students took when trying to earn the “MASTER of the Beat” badge, with the requirement of explaining how music is like math.
Play-doh = Music + Math
- To start, I gave each child a container of Play-doh. It doesn’t take much to excite children, but using a new glob of Play-doh might be THE most exciting thing we’ve ever done in music class!
- We started with the whole note and then divided the Play-doh to make the smaller note values. Of course, I made a BIG deal out of dividing the doh and made up some crazy story about splitting food with my brother, my friends, and having a sleepover. Whatever it takes! Right?!
- At each division, we played the note values using hand bells. (I used hand bells because the sound lasts.)
- Students took photos of each step and saved the images to their camera roll or directly into the app
- The discussion during this class time was about how music is like math. Students took turns drawing on the SMARTBoard all of the different musical math sentences we could use for the note values. This turned out to be a hit with the children.
- Once the discussion was started, the children were quick to discover musical note values are similar to fractions in math. Some children went so far as to divide the whole note into 64 pieces and even 128 pieces.
- Sharing examples of splitting something in order to SHARE it with others (pizza, cake, cookies, cow tails) was very entertaining and the point was well-taken by all! Some students wanted to be filmed explaining “splitting” on the SMARTBoard. It became quite an interesting activity as each child planned his/her presentation.
- With the use of Play-doh, the children could feel the division of the beat and it gave us quality time to work through each step. Every students was totally engaged!
1:1 iPads: Putting It All Together and Sharing It With Others
- Using either the Book Creator or Explain Everything app, students imported their Play-doh images and explained the musical math shown in the Play-doh picture on each page.  I introduced the Explain Everything laser presentation tool and the kids were hooked. As students finished their project, I sent them off in pairs for peer review.
- In both Book Creator and Explain Everything, students can export the project as a movie, save it either to their camera roll or directly to their DropBox account.
- From either their DropBox account or their Camera Roll, students email the link to me so that I can grade the project.
- The “Master of the Beat” Badge is earned for completing this project correctly.
I must say that not all students have earned the badge yet. Some have to redo the explanations; they understand the concept but got mixed up in the wording, or they didn’t put enough effort into it.  Some students went on and on and have to re-record to get directly to the point. etc. Because the links were mailed to me, I am able to grade them and give individual suggestions for improvement.
Watch the video below.
1:1 iPads: Putting It All Together is Multidimensional
It is exciting to teach and then give students a choice for demonstrating their understanding. It intrigues me that students who rarely complete tasks in the classroom, are now creating  insightful demonstrations of their understanding. When they can go into a corner and work independently , they have a say in how they express the knowledge. The wheels are turning… I can see it in their eyes; they want to finish, and finish well.  Finally, each of my students has a voice that I can hear AND see. Interestingly, the process of creating these projects on the iPad creates new questions and my students are not coming to me for the answers as often; they are figuring it out by themselves.
Worksheets?
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” – Chinese proverb
I doubt the video you just watched would have ever come from a worksheet!
I would love to hear your comments!!
Cherie Herring
Latest posts by Cherie Herring (see all)
- Stop Motion Lip Sync and the County Song - February 4, 2024
- Stop Motion Animation and the Musical Staff - January 28, 2024
- 1st Grade CHARACTER Musical Program - January 26, 2024
Share this:
11 thoughts on “1:1 iPads: Putting It All Together”
Thank you, Cherie for a new post. I have missed reading about your new experiences in your technology driven classroom.
I have to sit down and read it thoroughly.
Thank you!
Hi Cherie,
I absolutely love your ideas and the fact that you are always striving for new ways to teach and thinking outside the box. I love the playdough activities and will plan to use these with my choir here at church! Keep the ideas coming. You continue to inspire me and stretch my concept of what teaching can be!
I am amazed at what your students can accomplish with the iPads. My school just went 1:1 as well, but I’m in the K-2 building and still wondering how I will effectively use the iPads in 25 min class periods. I’m curious what grade levels you teach and how long are your class periods? I imagine the video above was made by an older student; what do you do with the K-2 students?
Thank You 🙂
Jenny
Oh, Thank you, Lee Ann!! I miss seeing you, but I hear wonderful things about you all the time!! The Play doh activity would be perfect for children’s choir time. – cherie
Hi Jenny, thanks for the comment. I teach PreK – 4th grade. The video was created by a 3rd grader. My students come once every 6 school days for private class and 1 chorus time. 3rd and 4th grades are 40 minutes long and the rest of the grades are just 30 minutes. 25 minutes? Yikes!! I usually use Book Creator and PicCollage with the younger grades, although we are learning to use Explain Everything. I’ll pull together some examples from the younger grades and post a few ideas that are working for me.
With younger grades, it really helps to have the classroom teachers working with the same app at the same time, because it’s too difficult to teach the app AND the musical concept during the limited class time. I have to constantly encourage and support the classroom teachers; the students often know more about the app then the classroom teachers do. I try to focus on one step at the time. For example, My K5 students started with PicCollage taking pictures of different rhythm instruments and sorting them by scrape, shake, or strike. Another time, they sorted by loud or soft/ forte or Piano. That activity got them used to taking pictures within an app and moving images around. We have a Music Book created in Book Creator, and we are constantly adding pages of “Secret Codes” that we learn: F – forte, Largo turtle, etc. I have them record their verbal explanation on each page.That activity gets them used to recording (+ to add an image or sound) and (i – for make it interesting) changing the background, font, etc. Doodle Buddy is another terrific app to use for drawing while listening. Within that app, the image can be saved to the camera roll. We take that image to Book Creator and record an explanation.
If you start with little steps and run a tight ship, 25 minutes will work just fine. Reinforcement from the classroom teacher will really make a difference, though!
Answering this question makes me realize …. I need to post these examples!! I’ll get busy and send you ideas!
Cherie
Hi Nona, Thanks for the sweet comment. I’ve missed writing everything down and find myself just about to pop with stories to tell. Sleeping and eating get in the way!!!!
I LOVE this so much!!! I can’t wait to try this in my classroom and I hope to be able to make a bulletin board like this!! 🙂 I am amazed by what you have been able to teach the kids- did it take a long time or did they pick it up quickly??
Hi Molly, Thanks for the comment. Yes! Try this in your classroom! The bulletin board didn’t start out like this… I just kept adding pictures of the navigation buttons and it became “the iPad spot!” This is December of the 3rd year with iPads. Yes, it has taken a while, but the exciting thing is finally being able to successfully complete a project like this – we haven’t been ready for it before now. The kids “get” the ipad quickly. The trick is laying the foundation for quality work. It’s easy to just send the kids off to make a recording, but if you rush it and try a big project like this too soon, the kids just play around and don’t produce quality work. Some children are ready to bring all the parts back together, while other children are doing well just to remember what the note values are. But that’s okay! The beauty of the iPad is that I can check for understanding individually and teach to the student’s ability. For me, the iPad is just a means to the end; I don’t know what that “end” is, because it usually turns out much better and goes deeper than I ever imagined. That’s what is so cool about blogging! We are all in this new wave together and we have to share what is working. ask questions and swap ideas. Iron sharpens iron! I hope you’ll share what you are doing with iPads too! 🙂 – Cherie
Hi again! I have started using GarageBand and Aurasma with my students. I really want to find a spot for the iPad bulletin board that you have- might have to be a work in progress though. Aurasma is a new favorite of mine and if you haven’t used it, you should definitely look into it! It’s so cool- for teachers and students alike! ~Molly
Thank you for Sharing,
I love this
Hi Molly, Check out the way I used Aurasma in my music room last year. Go to this post and look around. Here is another post. and another. I would love to see how you are using Aurasma in your classroom. Please send a link and share the ideas!! – Cherie 🙂