IPad Fridays have morphed into iPads whenever I can snag them from the library! 

The iPad cart doesn’t get much use around here this early in the school year so I have been able to use them throughout the week, not just on Fridays. I can see how positive a classroom set of iPads would be; the curriculum and classroom implications blow my mind!

Anyways….until that mysterious donor decides to grant me a classroom set, I will be very happy to have almost unlimited access, at least for the time being, to the school’s iPad cart.

Yesterday in Art III we worked in Google Docs, on a shared spreadsheet document. The class was developing a rubric for grading their idiom linoleum block prints. They split into 4 groups and each group had a category: print quality, composition, idiom or value, to work with. They were to write the descriptors for the various levels of competency.

There were drawbacks and benefits to working this way.

Benefits

• All groups can see changes instantaneously.
• Encourages feedback across the groups.
• Student monitoring is very easy, I watched the changes to the document occur on my own iPad as I walked around the room.
• Allows for collaboration across class periods. I have a singleton student in another class who, because we are using Google Docs, can collaborate with the other students even though she is in a different class period.

Drawbacks

• Changes are very easy to make – on the whole document. We had a few instances where someone in another group mistakenly deleted some information.
• Typing on iPads is difficult for many students. I am increasingly finding this to be a drawback to this type of technology.

The last technology integration for this project will be for each student to upload a picture of his or her print into our Google+ Community. I am going to have them comment on each other’s work from home as a homework assignment. I will post screenshots once that gets underway!

Google+ Community Update – AP ART

Teachers – Beware! If you use Google+ Communities with your upper level students be sure to comment yourself, often and frequently! My AP Art kids are beginning to use their community to share with each other ideas, images, comments about concentration ideas, but woe to the teacher who does not respond equally and in a timely manner to each and every student’s post! Students really do love feedback, art kids love to talk about their ideas and their work, and this is a great way to encourage discussions outside of the 7-2 school day, but as a teacher you also have to be committed to sharing throughout the day and weekends.

Life got a bit complicated for me this past week or so, and I slacked a bit on my comments. I made my amends though, and I think my high maintenance AP students forgave me!