Popplet is the simplest tool to capture and organize your ideas. With Popplet you can quick jot down your ideas and sort them visually.
First, we used our ipads to find out information/facts about pumpkins. We used two familiar sources - Epic and Kidrex (a child friendly search engine). After recording our information on paper, we learned how to either type it into 'popples' or dictate our information so it would appear in a popple. Students had fun experimenting with this new app for the first time and were able to share many interesting facts about pumpkins using this tool.
Later, we used the same app to show our understanding of 3 digit numbers. Students put their number in a popple and then surrounded their number with other popples that showed the number in other ways (ie. words, base ten blocks, expanded form, addition/subtraction sentences). For this task, we learned how to take a photo and insert it into a popple.
It was great learning all around - literacy, numeracy and technolgy! Students are gaining a lot of confidence using this learning tool to show their understanding of topics in a new way. I can't wait to see what we can do with the ipads as the year progresses.
