Reflections of an iPad classroom 3/12/13

Today was a spur of the moment iPad lesson with my AS Spanish class which proved very beneficial and produced the comment "Miss, you've made me love iPads" from a former paper-and-pencil declaree. 

I wanted to conclude the topic of technology by looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the internet, social networks and mobile phones. I set up 3 separate Linoit pages, posting the link each time onto the Lower 6 class page on Edmodo. The pupils each had an iPad and jumped on to the sites, posting advantages on yellow post-its and disadvantages on red post-its. They moved between the three separate pages. I took screen shots of the pages and dropped them into a PowerPoint which I then uploaded onto Edmodo; some pupils are happy with the Linoit links whereas others will want to print the PowerPoint off. 

We then took a past paper essay with its 3 bullet points. Again, I set up three Linoit pages and put the links on Edmodo. They typed up ideas for each bullet point and we then went through the points, correcting the grammar as we went (they told me the mistakes and/or how to fix them) Again the pupils were fully engaged, the level of the language was high and there were many more contributions than if we had planned at the board as a class. I am moving the class from high dependency for essay planning towards the ultimate goal of planning the essay themselves under pressure during the exam. This was an excellent halfway step and the pupils felt it really helped them. 

This lesson required no preparation in advance and yet it was one of the best lessons we have had this year in AS Spanish. The pupils were fully engaged and the quality of ideas and language was much better than in previous essay planning lessons.