I introduced the Videos app to the kids this week by preparing and loading 8 videos I made with Screen Chomp in preparation for their first math test. Key terms such as "Factorization" were reviewed and demonstrated which I felt made a difference in their final grade and overall class performance. I saw a 4 percentage point gain from last year's class and I could correlate directly the skills that showed mastery with the number of times the movies were watched. Not completely scientific yet but an interesting thing to note. The same results seem to prove themselves with the 5 videos they had access to online which they were able to view from home. Will have to keep working away at this one as we begin moving through Unit 2.
We also had the chance to dissection a moose heart this week ... something fairly unique to Alaska but not so uncommon as many of the kids have hunted, have parents that hunt, or simply see moose as a source of food in the fall. Our dissection was unique, however, in that we had one iPad using Facetime to broadcast the dissection to a university class that my daughter was in, we had another iPad filming the dissection and I encouraged the kids to take their own pictures and movies with any devices they had in the room. I was a bit surprised when 13 different devices appeared and also had a chance to explain the difference between acceptable use and unacceptable use as defined by our school board. And last, but not least, I only used an iPad to put together a short video of the dissection using iMovie and the iPads normal filming/picture capabilities.
Other apps used this week included Notes, Adobe Ideas, Neu.Annotate, Photos, Math Facts, Word Abacus, and Word Warp.