Kindergarten teacher Paula Olson

Paula Olson

School: Fairmeadows Elementary

Grade:  Kindergarten

Email: Olsonp@wdmcs.org

Twitter: @luv2teachk

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How many iPads do you have in your classroom?
I have four iPads in my room.

With more kids than iPads, how do you make this work?
During literacy and math time, students rotate through a number of centers and the iPads are used as one of many stations.  Each iPad is uniquely numbered: 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Although each iPad has the same 5 folders on the home page, each iPad actually has different apps.

What are the five folders that you have on each iPad?
Books, Sight Words, Spelling, Working with Words, and Math

If each iPad has the same five categories… why do they have different apps on each iPad?
Placing different apps on each iPad enables differentiation.  Some students are working on letter recognition, others are working on sight words, while others are reading. For example, iPad number 2 has apps that are at an appropriate level for the students that I assign to use this iPad during literacy rotations.

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How do you structure your literacy groups and rotations? and how do the iPads fit into this?

In the following video, Paula Olson shows the details of how her class rotations are set up…

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What are some of your favorite apps?

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What has been some of the challenges with iPads…. are there features you wish you had? what problems along the way? 
My biggest concerns are related to headphones – as we’ve had headphones break off in the iPads.  We also don’t have enough quality headphones.

What’s the best example you can provide for how the iPad is making a difference in your classroom?
We frequently monitor the number of sight words that students have mastered.  We’ve consistently been able to get our students to exceed these expectations and I believe its because of Break Through to Literacy and the additional practice time they have on the iPads.