I love my single-purpose Kindle for distraction-free novel reading, but for educational uses, a multi-function device can be a real time and space-saver. Take as a case study the afternoon I had with my iPad today!
LUNCHTIME: NEWS, BOOKS AND MORE
I had a lunchroom duty for the first half of lunch, so I didn’t have much time to get any work done. 
Following a quick bite with a co-worker, I had ten minutes between classes to squeeze in a to-do item. I spent it using the Gwizz app to check my Google news feeds, then popping into the Kobo app for a bit of mid-day motivation. I purchased a book recently which has an inspiring story for every day of the year, and I wanted to read today’s essay while I had the break to do so.
PERIOD 5: GRADE 2 FRENCH
The kids are learning a play which we will be performing for the parents at the end of the year. I recently assigned the parts, and now we have to start learning them. I have, as I do with all my units, a PDF version which I’ve sent to Goodreader. I used their Annotate feature to mark which kids have which lines so that I can prompt them, especially at this early stage in the workshop process. I used to have to carry around folders with all the paper copies—I have TWO classes doing this particular play, and another class doing a different one, so having it all on the iPad makes life much simpler! Come class time, I just open the relevant script, and there it is, labelled with the part that every person has.
PERIOD 6: CULTURE STUDIES ON THE FLY
We have a French-speaking parent in the JK class who just came back from France with little Eiffel Tower keychains for all the kids, which he surprised me with this morning. They were fascinated by this new-to-them landmark and were full of questions, as all four-year-olds are. When was it built? Why is it called the Eiffel Tower? How tall is it? What does it look like from space?
I sat there for a second a little stunned by the deluge, before I remembered that I have wifi on the iPad now, thanks to a more permissive IT team this year. I popped open Google Earth, and there it was from space. Then I headed over to Wikipanion for a quick little overview that took care of the name, how tall and other basic facts. And finally, Safari for some pictures. Yes, I could have just given them the keychains and been done. But wasn’t it cooler this way? And just so, so easy to make this impromptu lesson better?
PERIOD 7: PREP TIME
I’m running a club after school, so I trolled the net for some craft ideas. And then I chose a story to read while they have their snack. We have a picture book ebook series I got a few years ago via a subscription, and it was simple enough to browse for the one I wanted, then use Dropbox to throw it into Bookman for later.
I have some other chores to attend to this afternoon (report cards, ugh) but there is a new issue of one of my Zinio mags available, so I may download it and have a quick look if there’s time before my club.
All in all, a productive and interesting afternoon!
Maybe I’m missing something. The first sentence has to do with e-reading. What does the rest of the article have to do with it? Just asking, since I had the impression this was a website devoted to e-reading.
I guess since there’s absolutely nothing anywhere else about iPad on the web, however, it does make sense to have articles here about its wonderfulness every single day.
in every example, there was an ebook, Sax—the play, the subscription ebooks etc. It’s not about its ‘wonderfulness’ it’s about traditional and non-traditional uses for the tools we have.
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