The most important question sponsors want to know is "how" will we use the technology earned. I would like to give some digital examples to represent what my students in grades 5-8 at Cornwall Middle School can do.
The students create a cyber safety interactive posters on GlogsterEDU. Each infographic created by the student has a hyperlink embedded, so when you click on the image it directly takes you to a useful website on the given topic. Please view the following example by going to the following link.
http://pbuononato.edu.glogster.com/pbuononato/
(This format would not allow me to hyperlink the site into this document. I apologize for the extra step needed to view the example)
One of the students favorite activities is creating a historical avatar that speaks his/her famous words on www.voki.com The students create an avatar (digital image) of a famous historical figure. Using either their cell phone, keyboard, or microphone, the student records their voice disguised as their historical figure making a speak, reading a famous quote or simply telling a special fact about his/herself. We then share and make a house of our voki's for the students to get to know these historical famous people. We also create voki avatars of ourselves to introduce ourselves to the class at the beginning of the year. It is a great ice breaker. Here is the link to my voki that I use to introduce myself.
http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=2618746&height=267&width=200
Ithen put all the students voki's on symbaloo so the students can see the entire class and listen to each others messages.
A wonderful cross curricular activity is when the students create a beautiful digital family tree including any pictures, documents, audio clips about the entire family. This unit works nicely with the social studies curriculum and since the project is digital we can send the tree to all family members via email and print a version as a gift to their parents.
The greatest benefit of the tablet is it's portability. The class can communicate and collaborate easily on a tablet anytime, anywhere. I can bring the class outside to take pictures then digitally collaborate writing pieces on a collaborate online workspace and the groups can use the tablet to present their work.
All of our classes textbooks are also digital, but many students do not have the funding or access to the content. With the tablets and the school's wifi the student can access his/textbook easily.
My ultimate goal would be to create a take-home system with these tablet to give opportunities to the underprivileged children to experience the joy and wonder of technology at home using these tablets. .
