CKA Board Member and Kindergarten teacher, Kimberly DeMille shares her secrets for a tech savvy classroom. From organizing her classroom to documenting her students’ work and communicating with parents – here are her tips for revamping your teaching life with your iPod/iPhone.
My iPod/iPhone has changed my life as a teacher! You too can experience this amazing transformation if you:
Take pictures of documents (such as volunteer schedule, class list, seating chart, star of the week sign up ) and place them in a separate folder in your photo files. I label my folder documents, so I can find them easily.
Transfer all your cd’s to iTunes, then create playlists for different times of the day. I have playlists titled “good morning songs”, ” calendar songs”, “transition songs” in addition to sorting my songs by months. Buy a docking station and viola! We’ve come a LONG way from cassette tapes and CD players! Even better, get a Bluetooth speaker and you can control your music without ever turning your back on your class!
Purchase the app called Red Stamp (free) to create awesome thank you cards to send to your students if they donate items to the classroom. Make a generic thank you card that you can file in your “documents” file and send whenever necessary. Here’s what it looks like:
And here’s an example of a thank you card:
Who needs a camera??? The only camera I use anymore is my iPhone camera- because of this I can:
*quickly take pictures of a student’s fabulous block creation before s/he has to knock it down to clean it up.
*send pictures to parents after fun events in class in an instant.
*take pictures of projects and materials as reminders for next year.
Send quick reminders to your parents via TEXT (you know they won’t be ignored- now-a-days almost everyone texts) using the free app “Remind 101”.
Are you tech savvy or a techno-phobe? How has technology helped make your teaching life easier/better? Please share your tips! We’d love to hear them!!
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