Techsperts!

BYOD has been a great experience as we learn together during this trial period. The students have been excited and engaged in learning while doing the tech assignments. We use devices daily at various points in the day. 

Some days it may be as simple as using our magnet letters to practice new letter land words, or math pieces as manipulatives to add two digit numbers using tens and ones. Other days, we may be working on a week long project that we are creating for a specific subject area standard. For example, we are currently using chatter pix kids to make books come to life. After we read aloud a non fiction book they each get to take a picture of an animal in the story and make it talk using the app to retell key details from the text. We've used kahoot to play review games in groups to prepare for assessments and observe if they are really grasping material being taught in an informal, energetic way! 

Students were taught how to safely search the Internet on their devices to do research. They are only allowed to use the lake Myra kid approved search engine sites on the school website. While writing their science investigation books they did research to test their hypothesis on a specific organism. For example a student may have asked, "what is the life cycle of a frog" or "how do bees make honey?" They then had to do research both at the library gathering books and online to find the answer to their questions. 

We had a wonderful opportunity to mystery Skype (video chat) with another first grade class to guess a number using number sense and math vocabulary. We will be using it again to possibly speak with and author or have a virtual field trip. I'm looking into a few ideas. 

I'm very encouraged with how BYOD has gone. Other than a few bumps in the road with downloading universal apps. Next year our tech specialist will be creating a BYOD website that has everything needed for each grade level to access. This will help eliminate the downloading of apps on a regular basis and all devices having access. We will also be using QR codes so the kids can scan the imagine and be brought directly to a page I need them on. I encourage any constructive feedback on the use of tech and bringing devices to improve for next year!