Guest Post: AirSketch & iPads in the Elementary Classroom

Today's guest post is written by Elementary ELL Instructor, Christi Gilbert, and 5th Grade Teacher, Olivia Alkema.  Olivia & Christi wanted to share how they were using iPads in the 5th Grade classroom as part of their co-teaching, student-centered learning environment.  Below is their guest blog post.  You can Christi online here and Olivia here.

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AirSketch Free is an incredible iPad app that is easy to use in your classroom. What is it? AirSketch Free is basically a whiteboard that your students can use to share their work with the rest of the class.

 

My co-teacher, Olivia, and I use AirSketch in our math class for students to share their thinking. We have 8 iPads and so we divide our students in to 8 groups. Then we give the students a math problem to solve. Sometimes this takes the place of the monotonous "write your problem up on the board and share with the class" instruction, or is a new way to have students work out a math word problem.

 

The students work as a group to not only come up with an answer, but also to explain their thinking and HOW they solve the problem. They record their thinking through words and drawings on the AirSketch screen.

 

Now for the fun part. At the bottom left-hand side of the AirSketch screen, there is a little button that looks like a wireless icon (upside down triangle). When you click on that icon, you will see an IP address. It looks something like this: 10.10.10.5.11. Ok, so I made that up. But you get the idea.

Take that IP address and type it into the address bar on your computer. Make sure your computer is connected to your projector, and your projector is turned on. (Simple, yes. Often forgotten? Yes.) Wha-la! Your student's work is now on your screen for the whole class to see! Each group then takes a turn explaining their work and reasoning to the rest of the class.  The best part of this is that the students's work is shown in real time.  Anything they write down on the iPad will be displayed in real time on the computer screen.  Students absolutely love to write something down on the tablet and watch it "magically" appear on the screen.

 

This instruction can work with multiple iPads, or just one.  For multiple groups using multiple iPads, we create a new tab on the teacher computer for each group. Then we gather the IP addresses from each iPad and type them in to each tab. This way, when the students are ready to present, we just click on a tab and the students' work is there. This saves a lot of time and makes the class discussion run smoothly.

If you only have 1 iPad, you can still put your students in groups. Have them record their thinking on a piece of paper or a "real" whiteboard. Then, when it comes time to share, you will simply play "pass the iPad". One group will record their work on the AirSketch screen and share it with the class. Then, they will pass the IPad to the next group who will do the same.

 

If you have an AppleTV this process becomes even easier.  You can teach students how to connect to the AppleTV and they do the "dirty work" of the connection process for the class to have a view of that groups' work.