First day of class

Our initial task today was to explore and learn an App, and use that App to introduce our partner. My partner Chelsea and I were to use the App, Tellagami. If you have read my first Blog, you will know that I am not an iPad user; therefore, the idea of learning an App and producing a product using that App right away, was daunting to me. Chelsea and I immediately went to the tutorial for the App and found that it wasn't as complex as we may have originally thought. I have attempted to insert the video or Gami that I created for this assignment. I hope that it works!

I see so much potential for this App in the classroom, primarily to enhance motivation and engagement. I currently teach French Immersion Early Literacy and Resource and I see this App as being particularly enticing to my struggling readers and French speakers. One idea that I had was that students could create their own Gami and then using different backgrounds, write about the various adventures that their Gami goes on. I liked the feature that you can take photos of different backgrounds as this increases individuality and creativity to the Gamis. I also liked the idea of using several of the Gamis together to create an iMovie. Another idea would be that students could record themselves reading in order to practice fluency and expression. I think that they would really enjoy seeing the Gami's mouth moving with their voice coming out. One of the great features of this App is that you have the choice to either type in the text that your Gami will then say, or you can record your voice and the Gami will then say what you have recorded. This would be appealing to my students who have a lot of really good stories to tell but are limited by their challenges with physically typing the words. Check out Tellagami here.
Showbie - This content management system is fantastic! For someone like me, who is not very tech. savvy, it is very non-threatening. As we were discussing all of the benefits of a management system like Showbie, I kept thinking about my son. He struggled so much throughout his high school years with not losing papers, handing things in on time, forgetting passwords, remembering due dates etc... This could have really helped him out. I would absolutely use this as my management system if I had a classroom.
I have to admit that I have never really got the whole "hoopla" about the iPad. I have a tablet from another company...and I quite like my tablet. It does everything that I need it to do for me, or so I thought. When we began to discuss the built in accessibility options that are on the iPad, I started to see that perhaps there is a legitimate reason for the "hoopla". We shall see. I look forward to learning more about assistive technology and the different possibilities that are out there.