4th Grade Keynotes

Prior to leaving to IslandWood, I had the 4th Graders learn how to use the app Keynote. Keynote is an Apple presentation tool and a great Presentation making app on the iPad. Keynote is used heavily in our Middle School grades and it was my idea to expose the 4th graders to some Keynote making skills prior to entering 5th grade. I had students make Keynote presentations about their excitements, wonders, and fear's about being at IslandWood for four days and three nights.

Students learned to add photos, edit and add text, and animate. My approach to teaching a brand new app is to allow the students to explore and investigate the app on their own. I gave them the goal, learn how to use Keynote and make a presentation of your feelings about leaving to IslandWood. From there, students saved photo's from Safari, added animations, added slides, and edited fonts. When student's learned a cool skill or something I didn't know about yet, I would stop the class and share the idea. If the same question was being asked by a number of students, I would stop the class, address the issue as a whole class, and then allow the students to continue working on their own pace. I found this to be a much better method than having a 30 minute session of me explaining all the aspects of the app.