New Kindle Fires!!!!

After a pretty horrible weekend, I went into school Monday to discover that my class set of Kindles had arrived! We were so excited to receive them! My class, along with one at a neighboring school, was fortunate enough to be chosen to pilot the Kindles as part of a grant that was written at our Central Office. I had made lots of great plans when preparing for them, but really couldn't anticipate just how much they'd change the landscape of learning in my classroom. (More about that in a future post). In the mean time, here are just a few things we've been doing since we got them:

• Taking AR tests ( I had to install flash and the dolphin browser using this tutorial for this to work). No more waiting for computers to test! Having the kindles in hand has really encouraged the kiddos to take those AR tests. 
• Playing spelling and vocabulary games on Spelling City.
• Researching things we're learning about in history. Yesterday the students researched the Bankhead Tunnel in Mobile, AL, and realized through their research that many of them had actually been through it! 
• Bookmarking favorite sites. My kiddos are now proficient at bookmarking their favorite sites, starting with KidBlog, Voki, PearsonSuccessnet, and more.

• Creating blog posts on KidBlog. (You can see our blog here). 
• Creating Vokis and Toondoos. 
• Using Evernote to create thank you notes (complete with pictures and audio files) and emailing them to Mr. Dixon, the person responsible for this great opportunity. 

I can't wait to learn more about them and use them even more in class. I'll be posting my ideas and the things I'm learning along the way, and I'd love to hear any suggestions from you veteran tablet users out there.