Being a 1:1 iPad teacher, I am constantly thinking of taking what I currently do and completing it using the iPad instead. I try to reframe my thinking while still making sure our iPads just do not turn into an interactive worksheet. With that being said, my students love using their iPads during our Daily Five time block. During Listen to Reading my students use their iPad in a variety of ways. Some of the ways include:
- Online reading apps such as Epic! and Raz Kids (will read to students)
- Online newspaper app News O Matic (will read to students)
- Old Scholastic Books CDs on a music playlist – Check out how I did that here!
- Reading iBooks that their friends have airdropped to them. My students create books in book creator and add voice.
- Listening to students read aloud their work via QR codes (hope to post about that soon!)
I could go on and on. Today though I am going to tell you about a fun project I did that resulted in yet another way my students could use their iPad to Listen to Reading!
Teachers are superstars. I do not think we realize just how big of role models we are to all of our students at our schools. They look up to us. I thought it would be fun to take advantage of this stardom and record teachers reading aloud books for students to listen to!
To began I waited patiently until Scholastic had their dollar days sale. I wanted to complete this project for the four classrooms in my school that were 1:1. Therefore, I needed to buy a lot of books. When the sale finally came around I was able to buy four sets of 18 different picture books for an awesome price!
The next step was to record the teachers. It was tricky getting everyone to complete this part because of scheduling. I made a handout though so that they could easily complete it without me. I left my iPad out (on airplane mode so they didn’t get random text messages…) and let them pick the book they would like to read. Click the picture below to be taken to a PDF with my GarageBand directions.
After all of the teachers had recorded themselves, I was at a stand still as to where to go. If you took a peak at my previous post, putting all of the songs into a playlist is time consuming. I did not have time to complete this for all of the student iPads in four classes and our year was coming to an end. I hated to put a playlist on the students iPads only for some of them to be wiped out. That is when it came to me…I would create QR codes to scan instead!
I uploaded all of the songs to Sound Cloud. You can do this straight from the GarageBand app. You can create an account for free!
Once I had the songs uploaded, I connected them to QR codes. I just used the web URL and plugged them into my favorite site – qrstuff.com.
Voila! That’s it! The last thing I needed to do was to tape on all of the QR Codes so that they could be scanned. I decided to print them out large and put them on the front. I also added a label so that the students knew who was reading the book. Now, to listen to the book you just need to scan the QR code!
You can do this project on a much smaller scale. You could just use a few books you already have in your own classroom library or spin it a different direction and record your parents! I did this also during parent teacher conference time. Hopefully I can find some time to blog about that… Please e-mail me if I can help answer any questions or talk you through a step!
PSST!! Want to learn EVEN MORE ways to easily implement iPads in your classroom?! Just click here (or the picture below) to sign up for my FREE five day email course! I will walk you through everything I’ve done to easily implement iPads in my own classroom!
Is the garage band app free? Also, do you have to have wifi connected to be able to listen to the story after you scan the QR code? Thanks
Hi! There was a point where Garage Band was free, but I am not sure if that is still going on. If not, I think it is $4.99. I think you might be able to download a different voice recording app for free though and do the same thing. Yes, you do need wifi because the QR code is an avenue for opening up the Sound Cloud website with the recording on it. Hope this helps!
Sarah
Ok, that sounds great! Thank you! I am going to try to do this with my first graders. How do I put the stories on each Ipad? Do I do each one individually? I have a total of 6 Ipads. Sorry for all of the questions. This technology is new to me 🙂
All you would need on each iPad is a QR reader app. I like QR Reader by Tap Media the best. Then, the kids would scan the codes you attach and go straight to the recording. With the app they can scan any type of QR code!
Thank you so much! I am going to try to do this if I can figure it out. I was talking to my principal about it and she offered to read some for me. She really liked the idea. Thanks 🙂