Plant Parts on the iPads

We are fortunate enough to have an iPad cart which is shared between our K4 though eighth grade classes.  Each student gets their own iPad for an activity and we use these tools for research and demonstration of knowledge and skills.  I don’t like giving paper and pencil tests because I don’t like the way kids cram for tests then forget most of what they learned within a week or two of the test.  I like doing projects, especially in social studies and science, because they require students to work with the content or skill and show it in a variety of ways.  During our plant unit, students learned the parts of a plant.  It would’ve been simple to do a paper and pencil test – it certainly would’ve made correcting the work easier.  However, I opted to have students use three different apps on the iPads to complete a plant part project.  First students had to complete a worksheet listing all the required plant parts.  They needed to read through their textbook, including infographics such as diagrams and charts.  When they had their plant parts researched and defined, they needed to color their hybrid fruit-bearing flower picture.  They used the camera app to photograph their colored picture and save it to their camera roll.  They opened the free PicCollage app and imported their saved image.  Using the add textbox feature, students added all the plant parts, coloring the female parts pink, the male parts blue, and the rest of the plant parts any color they wanted.  After saving the enhanced image to their camera roll, students opened the free ShowMe app.  There they again imported their enhanced image and used the drawing feature to connect the words to the appropriate plant part while they recorded their research for each plant part.  ShowMe automatically emailed me the embeddable link so I could post my students’ work on our class blog.  Our library/media specialist aided me in the recording portion of this assignment and she called in our principal so she could witness my students’ learning.  Some parents had voiced concerns over me not having paper and pencil tests for science and social studies.  Watching this project in action demonstrated for my principal how project-based assessment, while hugely detailed and time consuming for me, benefits my students because they have to work with the content and produce a finished product they will remember long after our unit is finished.  They also gain the skills needed to manipulate the iPad and the features of whatever app we’re using.  This was the third time my students used these apps for a project and my principal was impressed with how the kids were helping each other when a problem arose.  Their learning during this project wasn’t just plant parts.  Technology and cooperation skills were fostered just as much as the content knowledge.  As I learn more about how the iPads can be incorporated into our classroom, my students gain additional outlets for them to show me what they know.