The ipad has been useful in helping my students learn and keeps them engaged in the lesson. There are plenty of free apps that are interactive, educational and fun for all ages. I have listed a few ways how I use the ipad in my OG lessons to keep my students engaged:
* I use the whiteboard app a lot for spelling practice, creating outlines and penmanship instead of having them write on paper. It's just a different medium to have handy instead of always doing their spelling on paper.
* We read stories together where I can zoom into sentences and isolate them for easier reading. There are interactive stories where children can choose the events in the story and alternate endings. They also have stories where there is a read along option where words are highlighted as it is read aloud. This promotes phonemic awareness for students that have a hard time with blending sounds.
* Having wireless access also allows me to play educational videos from youtube where we can either do video reviews or see actual demonstrations on experiments. Sometimes we create stories where I type it into my ipad and send it to their email for their record. Students can take it home to proofread it and print it out.
* I have also used the ipad as a reward tool- if they complete 2 tasks, they'll be able to play a game of their choice. Also, ipad has a flash card app which is great for our visual drills and I can change it up instead of making new cue cards.