Saturday 28 January 2012

An Afternoon with iPads and New Friends

This past Thursday we were lucky enough to have six children from Cindrich Elementary (a nearby school) come and visit us.  But they didn't come alone, they came with 16 iPads from their school.  As you probably already know we LOVE the one iPad we have in the class so you can only imagine how excited we were to have 16 plus our 1 iPad in our classroom.


Our Wonderful Cindrich Visitors

At first we were a little nervous because we didn't know these children, or their teachers, but we quickly realized that they were just like us - kids wanting to learn and share.

For the first part of the visit Ms. Lirenman and Mrs. Walia (their teacher) had us working either with a partner, or on our own exploring the many cool apps they had on their iPads.  The students from Mrs. Walia's class were so patient  sharing their favourite apps with us.  We discovered some that we really liked and quickly told Ms. Lirenman so that she could add them to our class iPad.  Time went by really quickly because all of a sudden it was lunch time.



We took our new friends outside to play during lunch time, and then made sure they came back safely with us to eat our lunches.  Already we were feeling very comfortable with our new friends.  They were super friendly children just like us!

After lunch Ms. Lirenman and Mrs. Walia gave us a job to do with the iPads.  They demonstrated the app Scribble Press which was new to all of us.  Scribble Press is a pretty cool app.  It allows you to either fill in a pre-written story, then edit it, and illustrate it or you can make your own story.  The app allows you to add photos and text, change backgrounds, add stickers, and draw.  It's a really easy app for kids, and even kids in Grade One! So our job was to work together (we ended up in groups of three because we really wanted to share the kids from Cindrich) and create a book about the experience we were having - sharing iPads between two classes from two  different school.



It was while working on the iPads together that our friendships really started to blossom.  Ms. Lirenman and Mrs. Walia walked around and helped us out as we tried our best to create collaborative stories about our experience.  It was a lot of fun working with one another and we all got along so well.  Some of us were better at one thing, while others were better at other things but together we could do it all.  We think Ms. Lirenman and Mrs. Walia were really impressed by how well we worked together and how well we were getting along.  It was a really positive experience for us and for Ms. Lirenman and Mrs. Walia too.



Time passed way too quickly because all of a sudden it was time for us to share what we had been working on.  A few of the groups shared their work using the projection device so we could all see what they had done.  Ms. Lirenman also shared our class blog with Mrs. Walia's class and she showed them some of our individual blogs too. It was a really fantastic opportunity.


This opportunity would never have happened if Mr. Chila, the vice principal at Cindrich, hadn't taken the time to organize this meeting between two like minded teachers with like minded students.  He saw the power in his schools iPads and the power in collaborating with other schools.  We can't thank him enough and hopefully we can do it again soon.  Thank you Mrs. Walia for bringing your awesome students and wonderful iPads to share with us.  Maybe next time we can visit you!

Here is a little video of our time together.

19 comments:

  1. Dear Ms. L and Division 16,
    I really appreciate receiving your blog updates. Your class sure looks like a fabulous place to learn. Sharing your learning with other students from a different school is such a wonderful idea. My class has been lucky enough to have been able to work with the borrowed iPads and iPod Touches a few times this year and we have really come to appreciate them as a learning tool and will be very disappointed when they have to leave us next week. We have used them to create awesome plays with the Puppet Pals app,I know you will love it just as much as we do!
    What was the hardest part of working with new friends on a project?
    Would you recommend this idea to other classes? Why?

    Mrs. T and my grade 3's

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the comment Mrs. Thiessen. I will wait for my student to officially respond to your questions. As their teacher I think it's great to hear that your class has been enjoying the district iPods and iPads. We used the iPods at the beginning of the new year, but I have learned so much since them that I'm eager to get them back into my school before Spring Break. We are also getting the iPads into our school, but not until some time in May. We can't wait. In the mean time we hope we can spend some more time with our new friends at Cindrich. We really did have a wonderful time with them. Thank you for following our blog. It's been a lot of fun to maintain and we love all of our visitors too. Ms. Lirenman

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    2. Claudine says, when we were typing it was hard to wait our turn to type. Lawrence says it was hard to wait our turn to use the iPad. We think all classes should work together with other classes at other schools. It was so much fun! From Division 16

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    3. Tanvir From Cindrich3 February 2012 at 13:38

      From Tanvir to ms Lirenman it was a blast going to your school and meeting your class I really had fun making new fiends.

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  2. Sukhpreet says I wish I could have gone to bad I was in India but I hope everyone had a great time

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  3. These are really great pictures.

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  4. Sukreet from cindrich div 183 February 2012 at 13:33

    Maybe if u guys could come over to cindrich sometime I could experience the same thing like my classmates did

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  5. It was fun time playing with u on the I pads from Sonum, Cindrich Elementary

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  6. Harjas from Cindrich3 February 2012 at 13:35

    This blog is cool this comment is from jasnoor harjas cindrich

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  7. Sukreet from cindrich div 183 February 2012 at 13:36

    I wish I was there but I did get an opportunity Togo to India but I hope everyone had fun

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  8. You have a wonderfull class with new adventures each day.
    From Phillip

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  9. Mrs. Walia (Cindrich)3 February 2012 at 13:39

    Ms. Lirenman, we all had such a great time visiting and learning together in your class. We all had a great time and we are lucky to have new friends! Now we are looking forward to your class visiting our school!

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  10. It was fun learning all the cool things your class does I never came to your class but my classmates told me what they did I really want to visit your class . But maybe next time .

    Love, Khushi

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  11. Ishaan from cindrich div 183 February 2012 at 13:40

    I wish I was there

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  12. Pahul from Cindrich3 February 2012 at 13:41

    We really enjoyed your website and especially the pictures.

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  13. Aksh, Benedict, and Karan from Cindrich3 February 2012 at 13:44

    Hi my name is Aksh and me and my friends Karan and Benedict would like to get better at mathematics. Your tips are really helpful.

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  14. Jai erik and adil from cindrich3 February 2012 at 13:46

    We are very happy to see that you set up your own website to share that what your class is doing and what their goals are.thank you for sharing what your class is doing so thank you I hope we get to do something like this because you inspired us.



    From: Jai,Erik and Adil

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  15. Big buddies from3 February 2012 at 13:50

    Hello class! Avi, vishal and Jagdeep from Cindrich think your website is amazing and helpful for mental math we love the pictures of them doing math.

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  16. Wow! So many comments from our new friends at Cindrich. It is great to read all your positive feedback. We had a lot of fun working with you. We hope we can come and visit your school too but we need to see if our principal will let us. Thanks again for writing on our blog and visiting our class. We also want to thank you for bringing all the iPads. We LOVE learning on iPads. Love Division 16

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