Play First, Work Later

When you bring out math manipulatives you let the kids play with them a bit so that later they can focus on the work of learning with the tool. That was my intent with our new iPads and netbooks. I have lots of ideas I want my students to try out but first I thought I'd let them play. They did ask nicely, after all. :)

I was also curious as to the apps they would gravitate to on their own. At first I was a bit surprised to see kids going to YouTube and Safari. I mean, they could do that on my iMacs. Many were content with YouTube in all of my five classes. Most did try out some apps. Doodle Buddy was a huge hit (Draw Free was popular but I saw more kids use Doodle Buddy). Rush Hour as well. I even got hooked! The chess app was quite popular. Meanderthal made kids curious but the iPads can't take pictures so they couldn't try it out. A few kids checked out Animals HD and the HD Marine Life App. I even had a few kids write a blog! Two were blogs about the iPads and one was actually the current assignment! Here are some of the kids' blogs on the iPads: iPads and Netbooks, The iPads, New iPads, and here's a blog with a Poll Daddy poll and a second student tried it too (it was extremely easy!).

What an awesome play experience! Here are the results of a Google Form asking kids which apps they liked the best.

Here's a video of their first day of play: