Go forth, be fruitful and multiply: Our pilot was so successful that every student in the school received an iPad this school year. The three of us in the initial pilot held training sessions for the rest of the staff.
Student engagement is the key. iPads are highly motivating tools. The sheer simplicity of opening a whiteboard app to work on addition or subtraction number stories is bliss. No more white boards and dry erase markers. Need to work on word families? Open your whiteboard app and write words in the -at family. Hold up your iPad to reveal your answers. Need to practice your spelling words? Open up your Magnetic Letters App, make your spelling words and email them to your teacher. All of these are possible in a kindergarten classroom with iPads. Everyday Math lesson using calculators? No need to pass out 15 and have students share. Open up your calculator app and let’s get to work.
Discipline problems? All but gone. Kids do not like to have their iPads taken away for any length of time.
Our iPads are now an essential part of our daily curriculum.
iTeach with iPads 
You guys are my heros and inspiration to keep at it day after day!
Thank you Kristen. We truly love what we do and can’t imagine teaching without them!
Wow! I don’t even have an iPad (yet).
Was this iPad gift to the school or to the students? I was thinking if the iPads were given to the students to keep, they wouldn’t be useful later with future students, and what happens when the novelty wears off?
I have a question. If these iPads are linked to the Internet, what stops a student from using Google to check the proper spelling of a word or finding an answer on a quiz? Google search is the best spell check I’ve ever used. Even Microsoft Word’s spell check cannot compare.
Lloyd,
The ipads were purchased for the school but students do not take them home. They remain in the classroom. I have had my personal iPad for 2 years and I can tell you the novelty doesn’t wear off. The convenience of use makes it an essential tool in the classroom.
The iPads are wireless and they do connect to the internet. My students are 5 years old and they don’t know how to look up words on the internet, but older students surely would. The best part of the iPad is its versatility. I can go into the restrictions portion of the settings (with a password) and turn the internet off. Teachers can also keep the iPads contained in the storage cart if they do not want students to have access to them during tests.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you for the reply. I now better understand how the iPad can be a great tool for teachers.
I’m sure that reading from the iPad will help your five-year-old students learn to love reading. A few months back, I bought a Kindle and have discovered that I enjoy reading books more on that device than from an old fashioned paper book. For one thing, it helps me keep my place when I pick it up the next day to continue reading.