Wednesday, February 8, 2017

App-Master Challenge

What student doesn't love a good challenge? Sometimes we find that students struggle with some of the basic quick tools that can be extremely resourceful on the iPad. So, how do we solve that without strictly doing direct instruction?

Introducing....the App-Master Challenge!



My teaching partner and I have a goal to create student leaders, to encourage students to be the problem solvers and coach others to troubleshoot together. The fun part about this challenge, for every challenge completed, students will earn a badge. What I absolutely love about it, is that students can work at their own pace and challenge their creativity. We plan to cover commonly used apps such as: Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Docs, Slides and Sheets. Hoping students can make the decision on which app may be best for their project in mind.

The first challenge we decided to introduce to the students was in Pages. One of the quickest and very creative editing tools that is often looked over as a 4th and 5th grader is Instant Alpha, or removing the background from around a certain image. This leads into a lot of great discussion points about digital citizenship, copyrights and how they can utilize this tool outside of our lab.



I am only 3 days into this particular challenge and I am blown away by the creativity. The students have had so much fun using the green screen to transport themselves to a favorite destination or setting of their book. Once the challenge is introduced, the creativity is in their hands as they are encouraged to communicate and collaborate with others.

What would make my heart happy is seeing the students begin to coach others, including the teachers, to utilize these tools in their daily/weekly practice. We assume the students always know the ins and outs of their device, but this is one extra step in helping their creativity and leadership expand.



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