What I learned at school today

Using images as writing prompts is nothing new and some would argue that it is an old way of teaching that stunt student creativity and growth when writing. In my experience though a well used writing prompt activity can help students feel successful and give you some important assessment information that isn't tainted by wondering - is my student struggling with ideas, vocabulary or with writing in general? One activity my students and I love to do together is an oral tell me more activity. I will show them a picture on the smartboard. With this image I would tell students to tell their partners what they see. In the beginning students will always say "I see a dog" or "C'est un chien."  I then challenge the students to tell each other more. After a few minutes I stop students and we discuss our ideas. Slowly we build from "It's a dog" to "It's a little brown dog with big ears sitting on a blue boat. He is waiting for someone.&qu

So the Ipads are gone from my classroom and have been replaced with 12 shiny new Samsung Galaxy tablets.  First order of business was to see which of the things that I was able to so with my students on the Ipad, I could still do on the tablet. Figuring out how to do listen to reading was top of my list. There are many individual books available in the Google Play store. Most of the free books do contain advertising or have limited features. I did find a few free apps that are worth checking out. Pierro Pierrette Le secret de la lune Lisbon labs has a large selection of  french book apps however the apps includes advertising. Playtales Gold Although free options do exist I decided that for simplicity and to save time and money it was best to pay for a subscription service instead. I settled on Playtales Gold  . This service costs $25 a year. They have a free version but the advertising is so frequent that it isn't worth looking at. We chose Playtales G

First things first.... How do I turn this thing on?! I can use an Ipad, I can use this thing right? The reality however is that you can't expect this device to behave like an Ipad there are some differences and they have tripped me up as I am trying to learn this device. I admit the setup for my teacher tablet was fairly easy. The tablet talks you through most of it.  It helps if you already have a google account you are using. If you don't already have one you can set one up  here  or follow the directions on your new tablet.  Learning to use it however was a little trickier. Here is one video I used to help learn how to use the device: Some tips. 1) If there is no back button on an app to get you back to the last screen us the return arrow on the bottom of your tablet. 2) Double clicking the home screen 3) The google search box is always on the bottom right  side of the home screens. You can use it to search the web but you can also use it to find app