Examples of Practice: Using iPads to Document Student Work

I just finished reading aloud The One and Only Ivan to 4th graders. We participated in the Global Read Aloud, where schools from all over the country and world heard the same story. Classrooms connected through Edmodo. It was a very innovative way to communicate with other learners about topics related to the story, such as gorillas, the author, and special projects classrooms were doing. One project that caught my classroom teacher's eye was a writing project posted by another teacher on Edmodo.

She took this unique idea and made it her own with her students. Students picked an object that Ruby might have wondered about, and then answered her hypothetical question with an answer as if they were Ivan responding.

All of their responses were posted on a bulletin board in the hallway. So where does an iPad come in? I took photos of some of their writing. After cropping them with Snapseed, I pulled some of these photos into another app called Frame Magic. You can choose several different frames to create a collage of all of the students' work in a matter of minutes.

What's great about Frame Magic is I can share this collage through a variety of online tools, such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. As well, I can embed the photo onto a blog post like I did here. Parents and educators in other schools and districts can now see what excellent writers our students are!