Drumroll please! My favorite app is the CAMERA. Some don’t even think of this as an app because it is embedded in your iPad, but it has the power to unlock student thinking and creating. Just this one APP and its ability to integrate with every other app makes it invaluable.

Just the other day, I saw a classroom grappling deeply with a math concept. Students were discussing in pairs, manipulative were out, papers were recording information and WHAT did I think about? If only students had their iPads out!!

Students were making their THINKING VISIBLE and we weren’t capturing it.

How easy would it be to capture this deep student thinking, share this thinking with others, and FACILITATE NEW LEARNING? How would this demonstrate we VALUE student thinking and ACTIVELY PROMOTE thinking vs. products?

Sometimes the simplest things are overlooked as we try to find just the right APP or “integrate technology”. At the end of the day we have to stay focused on our goal of facilitating student thinking, valuing students’ process, and building on student understanding. 

As we move to the Next Generation Science Standards, the Engineering components scream for video. It doesn’t have to end up as a finished, polished iMovie with music, transitions and all the bells and whistles. Students build something, capture trials, replay the video to identify strengths and weaknesses of the design, and then rebuild and try again.  This brings real world solutions into the classrooms.

Regardless of YOUR favorite App, shifting our focus on technology as the finished product to technology enhancing the learning process is critical to technology integration. So ask yourself, how can I capture more student thinking to push learning forward?