We’ve been working on some new features for Teaching Table based on your  feedback!

Here is a quick peek at the upcoming writing functionality that we have added to the app .

We hope you like it! If you have other features you want to see added to the app, feel free to reach out to Arie (arie@openset.co) or Paul (paul@openset.co) with your thoughts.

The key to how easy the app is to use is in its simplicity. I love the intuitive design of the user interface; it’s much easier for my students to use than Microsoft PowerPoint or other presentation software I’ve used in the past. Students can focus on the content (a mere two power packed lines) and the photo.

There are just a few key options:

1. Choose a theme.

2. Tap to type in the text.

3. Select an image to be the background. This is my favorite part. After typing in the text, a list of the words from the text will appear. All students have to do is tap on the word they want a picture of. They can also type in a search for images, or they can import images from the iPad camera roll.

4. Choose a layout.

5. Add a new slide and repeat!

How I’m using Haiku Deck App in the Classroom

As a third grade teacher, one of my favorite things to teach my students is how to take their learning into their own hands. While it is important to me to teach quality lessons, it is even more important to me that my students leave my class knowing how to teach themselves. I want my students to learn how to ask questions, know what resources are available for them to research the answers, and then have various ways to share their learning with others.

To practice these skills, my class decided to focus on researching countries around the World. We’re spending six weeks on each continent; this round we’ve been working on researching countries in Asia. Each group chose their own country, each with a slightly different focus. Some are fascinated by the food, clothing, and religious aspects of their country, while others are interested in learning more about the native animals, the famous people, or the history of their country.

Currently, I’m working with groups on ways for them to share their research. I have 4 netbooks in my classroom and my iPad–all of which are being fully utilized. I have students typing letters from their created over-seas “Pen Pal,” some using Microsoft Publisher to create a newsletter, others typing scripts for their puppet show or skit, and several posters being made.

One group in particular did an incredible job researching Turkey. They came to me last week wondering how they could create a presentation with pictures to be the backdrop to their News Report. All my computers were in use at the moment, but I had just downloaded Haiku Deck to my iPad a couple nights before. After easily creating a presentation to introduce a new concept in science, I thought it would be a great app for student-created presentations as well.

I intended on sitting down with these two students to teach them how to use Haiku Deck. However, as soon as I opened the app with them, another teacher came into my class with some questions. I instructed them to go ahead and experiment with the app and that I would help them in a little bit. I figured they would figure out how to enter text, maybe create a new slide, and then wait for help. When I returned to their group after ten minutes to see what questions they had, I was astounded to find their presentation almost done: text typed in, appropriate photos selected, and an impressive looking presentation almost ready to go. All 9 slides!

Whether I’m creating presentations to teach lessons to my students or having my students create presentations to teach me, Haiku Deck is now my favorite presentation tool.

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use the Teaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on the App Store.

Educators have a double job; we are not only required to be good teachers but good employees as well. As such, we must be great at multi-tasking to survive. After several years of teaching I’m starting to feel confident in my instruction, but still find it difficult to balance both of these roles.

When I received an iPad from my district, I decided to find apps that would help me be a better employee. Jobs like checking my email, replying to the emails in a timely manner, and checking attendance on time were on my list of ways to improve. The iPad makes it easier for me to do these things, even while walking to the office, taking my students to electives, or waiting for students at the bathroom. I am now an email checking-attendance taking-multi-tasking machine!

With the iPad, I can access all the information I need to be a great educator, including my district’s curriculum site, class attendance, classroom behavior management site, online grade book, math textbook site, reading textbook site, my class website, and other websites I have subscriptions to for my classroom. I carry them all around with me on one device–the joys of having an iPad!

However, just as with my laptop, there are different usernames and passwords associated with each one of these sites (some of which frequently change). I thought I had mastered this problem by keeping a list of them on my iPhone (a step up from the piece of paper my dad keeps in his wallet). However, I found that while using my amazing, time-saving iPad, I was constantly having to pause, pull out my phone, look up the correct username/password combo, and then type them in. Such a cumbersome way to access the information I need, especially with a full class watching and waiting.

It didn’t take me long to seek out a solution; I found Keeper. After reading the reviews and doing some research online, I gave it a try. This app has radically changed how I use my iPad. I simply entered my usernames and passwords for all the different websites I use in my classroom (thank you iPhone list!) All I have to type in is the one master password and I have easy access to every single website I use all day long-the usernames and passwords are already generated.

I’m sure I must look pretty funny walking my students down the hall to electives in the mornings: I have my iPad in hand and my eyes on my students as I open Keeper, type my one password for the day, open my attendance site, tap, tap, submit. All without missing a beat. My secretary wants to know what’s changed this year, why I’m not on her “Please submit your attendance” call list any more. I just smile, walk through the front office, check my mailbox, and return to my classroom. Maybe I can sit down and breathe for a moment; I already checked my email while walking back.

The Bottom Line : Download it! The app is free and lets you store passwords locally on one device. If you want to sync multiple devices, it costs $9.99 per device.

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use the Teaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on the App Store.

Here are 3 lists we love and why :

1. iPad App Recommendations (K-6) by Sam Glicksman – Sam is an experienced educational technology consultant with an eye for applications that have great potential for your classroom. He is also the founder of the blog iPads in Education and has curated a well thought out list of applications that are flexible enough to  let you be creative with the ways you can use your iPad in your classroom.
2. Apps and Web 2.0 for the Elementary Toolbox by Angela Naumann – We like Angela’s list because she curates apps that she has actually used in her 4th grade classroom and found useful. Much like the apps in  Sam Glicksman’s list, the apps she selects tend to be flexible enough to allow teachers to modify lessons to the point
3. Educator’s Essential iPad Toolkit by Sam Glicksman – Another well curated list by Glicksman, this selection of apps focuses on helping teachers use their iPads for  productivity. This list is a great place to start for any teacher who just received a new iPad!

If you don’t have a List.ly account, you should think about getting one — it is an easy way to find well thought out lists of educational apps and can save you time when trying to find ways to take using iPads in your classroom to the next level.

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use the Teaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on theApp Store.

The game itself  is really well developed – the superheroes are original and the developers did not skimp on the design and graphics. Gameplay is pretty catchy – kids start off by creating “randomly generated” superheroes by spinning 3 “slot machine” reels. Each reel influences either the head, torso or legs of the hero. So for example, your child or student would spin the reel that is associated with the head and get a number 2, spin the reel for the torso and get a 3 and spin the reel for the legs and get a 1. Your “randomly” generated hero would now have a value of  6, the sum of all the body parts. The actual sum of the body parts is not shown — your kids will have to do the math on that one. Once the hero has been generated, kids can challenge villans who have the same value as their hero. Unlike the heroes, villans only have 1 number — the “total”. Based on the example hero from the previous step, we would be able to fight any villan with the number “6″.

To add additional complexity, kids can “gear up” and raise the value of their heroes. Giving your hero a +5 gear card will raise the total value of your hero by that much. Going back to our previous example, the hero would now be valued at 11 (up 5 from it’s original value of 6).

Once a player gets in the swing of the app, it moves quickly — the randomly generated heroes help turf up new problems quickly and the additional ways to augment hero values help keep your kids entertained.

Bottom Line — It’s pretty cool math app to break the monotony of practicing basic mental math skills..

Pick this math app up in the app store for $3.99.

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use the Teaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on the App Store.

The game-play in this math app is pretty simple  – kids use interactive fruit pieces and tiles to come up with solutions for addition and subtraction questions. Problems are set up with pieces of fruit in boxes on screen. As kids tap each piece of fruit an incremental count is kept. Once kids are ready to solve the math problem, they can drag number tiles to complete the equation.

A great touch that the developers of this math app have added is a dynamic progress tracker for parents, allowing you to monitor how your kid is using the app and how they are doing.

Juicy Math’s game-play encourages kids to strengthen the association of how counting objects is related to subtraction and addition. It also reinforces the association of abstract numerical concepts with counting, giving children a chance to practice associating numbers with groups of items.

The bottom line? Its a good math app for keeping your kids interested in practicing addition and subtraction and the progress tracker is a fantastic way for parents to stay involved in their child’s learning process.

For the iPod, iPad and iPhone. Pick this math app up in the app store for $1.99

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use the Teaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on the App Store.

Gameplay is simple and catchy – kids use floating counters that they feed to the Guppy based on the number of dots that the guppy must eat to complete the level. After each level, the guppy gets larger. The difficulty of game play increases slightly based on how comfortable the player is with each concept. At its simplest, it calls back memories of an educational version of Hungry Hungry Hippos — simply feed the correct number of dots to the guppy and advance to the next level. As the child’s understanding of counting increases, they replace the dots with numbers and then dots and numbers.

Bottom Line — We love it! It’s a great way to encourage your child to adopt basic math concepts early and it blends a tactile experience with an engaging digital one.

Pick this math app up in the app store for $2.99

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use the Teaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on the App Store.

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The app itself follows a rote approach to problem solving (think Kumon ), where users can set a timer to solve as many problems as they can. This type of practice routine will appeal to some — I know I used to love this when I was growing up. The app is not for children looking for a game-like experience (see Rocket Math for that) or for introducing new math concepts (shameless plug for Teaching Table), but it is a great way to encourage practicing new concepts.

All of this being said, I can honestly say that for parents trying to encourage their kid to memorize math facts on the road or even at home, My Math Flash Cards App  is the way to go. It’s simple, consistent and drives the concepts home.

About Teaching Table

Teaching Table is a set of digital manipulatives for the iPad. Educators can use theTeaching Table math app to create interactive math lessons to share with their students, parents and fellow educators. To learn more about our application, click here. You can also find us on the App Store.