Disappointing Apps!

I have to say, I was disappointed in my first iPad app that I used with my first grade babies.  I was planning on using an app to practice syllable recognition with a student who was in need of intervention due to failure of his DIBELS test.  I found a syllable app on my iPad called Syllable Counter and was really excited to practice this skill with my students, but when I played with it myself before bringing it to them, I was highly disappointed.  I guess this is a perfect case for the saying "you get what you pay for".  The ratings and reviews for it seemed like it would be a great game, however, I felt it was terrible.  I saw it being of no benefit to my students and decided against using this app at all.

Instead of giving a word for you to count the syllables, it tells you how many syllables there should be and you create the word.  I am disappointed in this because it is much more complex than it lets on and definitely isn't first grade level.

Instead, I used Doodle Buddy where I wrote a word on my own, and then the student would break the word into parts and tell me how many syllables were in the word.  As you can see below, this was a much more fun way to practice syllables using our touch-screen white board.

I also used Doodle Buddy this week to practice blends with other students.  We have been working on PR, TR, DR, and FR blends, so I would tell them a blend, and they would either write a word or draw/stamp a picture of a word with the designated blend.  We made it into a fun game and really enjoyed it!

To extend our work on blends and diagraphs, I found a really neat app called Artikpix.  It is an app that shows flash-cards with a word that has a specific diagraph, blend, or sound and a picture to match.  If you tap the flash-card, it will read you the word.

We turned this into a game where the students had to say which diagraph or sound was heard in the word.  If they were right, they got a point and the student with the most points in the end won!  This app is a little disappointing as well because most of the sounds are locked, and all we could access was the TH cards because you must pay for the rest.

Voki and Quia

Voki is an AWESOME tool that teachers can use in the classroom.  It allows you to record your own voice for one minute, or use a computer generated voice for 30 seconds and have it displayed with a customized character that will read it to the students.  It is a fun and exciting way that students can listen to something on the computer.

Here, I used Voki as if it were on my classroom homepage and greeted students as they visited.  The really neat thing is that you could also create Vokis to say the same thing, but in a different language, so in a school with many ELLs, it would be a great resource to use for parent communication!



Quia is also a great tool that teachers can use to enhance student learning.  On Quia, you can create activities, quizzes or surveys for students (or other teachers!) to log in and take.  You can personalize the whole thing to be exactly what you want.  It is so much fun to create and for students to take, rather than a typical pen-and-paper assessment.

I used Quia to create a survey about teacher leadership in schools.

You can even use Voki to enhance a quiz created on Quia.  I did this with a quiz about the Main Idea of a story.  To ensure that students are being assessed on their knowledge of Main Idea and not their reading ability, the students can have the Voki character read the passage to them.

Here are the Vokis that were embedded into the Main Idea Quiz on Quia...

"Can't we use that touchy thing instead?"

First graders are always funny to me.  The way they can't pronounce things is something that always makes me giggle, and even better, when they make up their own name for something.  After working with my "new" student for a few days on the iPad, we had to take a break for a few days.  There were several things that needed to be worked on and assessed that we couldn't use the iPad for this time.  What was so funny to me, was every time I came to pull him out for something, he would look at me with puppy-dog-eyes and say "can't we use that touchy thing instead?" Unfortunately for those days, I had to say no, but I was still eager to try using the Doodle Buddy app with this student, and I knew just what to use it for.


We were working on addition and subtraction word problems, where the students would read the problem, then have to write a corresponding number sentence, then draw a picture to help them solve the number sentence.

Knowing that Doodle Buddy was well equipped with "pen" colors, stamps (pictures of different things), and interesting backgrounds, we took to using the iPad and Doodle Buddy to practice writing number sentences and using pictures to find the answer.

I would write a number sentence on the touchscreen whiteboard of Doodle Buddy, then the student would use a picture chosen from the stamps to find the answer.  He enjoyed this so much more than drawing dots under the numbers to add or subtract.  Instead he used frogs and fish!! It was fun for him to practice his addition and subtraction, and it was fun for me to see him so excited about not only learning, but about getting the correct answers.


We also played a game this week called Under Sea Math.  This is a game where the student is given a grid of squares.  Each square with have a math fact pop up.  Along the right side of the board, there are several tiles containing numbers that could be the answer.  The student has to choose the correct answer and drag it on top of the number sentence.



 After the student completes one, a portion of a picture is revealed.  After they solve all of the math problems, the whole picture is revealed.  It is a fun and exciting way to practice math.






Next week, I am going to use the iPad with a different student to help them practice identifying how many syllables are in a given word because he is struggling with that portion of his DIBELS assessment!  I can't wait to find fun apps for this!