How are tablets useful for homeschooling?

Here are the things we do with our tablets (we have Blackberry Playbooks) so far.

eBooks.  I have the Yesterday’s Classics and Heritage-History collections, so I’m designing a huge chunk of our curriculum around ebooks.

Internet – Almost anything you can do on a desktop, we can do our Playbooks.  So far we’ve used things like IXL, Starfall, Salsa Spanish, ClicknKids, Khan academy, and Youtube (carefully selected and controlled!).

Music – we can create playlists for our composers and hymns, either by downloading the music, or else on a site like GrooveShark. 

My DD7 sometimes dictates her narrations on the voice memo feature.  I expect we’ll use this more in years to come as I have more kids narrating.

Cameras – my kids can each take pictures as we go on nature study walks, or as they see anything else they want to remember.  The Playbooks are only 7inch size (many tablets are 10 inches), so they fit easily into my purse or a small child’s backpack.

Videos – we haven’t done this yet, but I plan to use the tablet to video narrations (such as a puppet show, etc, or just a plain oral narration.  Then we can talk about presentation skills (looking toward the camera, standing straight, etc.)

Timers – we use the timer feature to help control our lesson length.

Calculators – the cost of a scientific calculator these days can be almost as much as we paid for our tablets!  This is one of my DS5’s favourite functions!

Maps – online or downloadable, to use during history or geography lessons

Timelines – haven’t done this yet, but I know there are sites where you can make online timelines.  I want to explore this.

Handicrafts – we can download a pattern or watch a youtube video giving instructions for handicrafts, and watch it anywhere in the house that we might be crafting.

I use mine for reading recipes.  I prop it up inside the cupboard right above my main countertop, so it’s right in front of my face, but not wasting counter space.!  LOL

I want to explore the apps available for flashcards, to use for our memorization work.

I’m sure there are other things I haven’t thought of yet.  I’m looking forward to reading other ideas!

Joanne

We love our iPads. Dh and I each have one, but we share with the kids when they ask. Ours love to look random stuff up on Google and YouTube. Lately, they’ve enjoyed looking up info on tornadoes, then going to YouTube to watch tornado videos. Of course, we keep a watchful eye on the content they look up, but dh has also installed a customized filter/blocker thing on our entire home network (iPhones, iPads, PC, etc.). We also use the Kindle app from Amazon for downloadable books as well as iBooks for lots of great freebies. Like Chrisite, we utilize several educational apps too.

I should have said that my iPad is also my favorite cookbook! I can pull up a recipe online, on a blog, or in a PDF, prop my iPad open, and cook away. It’s so easy!

***And I really like how we can take recipes on the iPad or one of our Macs and add the ingredients to a shopping list. Then that shopping list is automatically and wirelessly synced to my iPhone for use while shopping at the store***

I use an app called Cozi for that on my Android devices. It also has a really nice calendar that syncs for all family members across multiple devices and can be set up to send automatic grocery list texts or reminder texts to certain familiy members as needed.

I would be interested in this timeline thing as well.  I did it.  After promising myself I would NEVER, EVER, AT, ALL, PERIOD own an iPad, I bought one.  The 32GB newer one.  The reason?  To read all the CM materials on the AO site.  I was trying to read her Programmes, In Memoriam, etc, etc. there and just couldn’t do it on my phone and I hate being tied down to a computer.  I’m legally blind in one eye and wear trifocals so I’m loving this.  We have Wi-fi in the house so I can do this.

Also after reading on here about watching your iPad on your tv, I am videoing portions of my sons’ violin lessons and playing it on the tv so they can practice with their teacher.  My 9yo espcially will benefit from this.  He’s in Suzuki Book 4 working on a Vivaldi concerto and has left me in the dust.    I think it will be worth the price just for this.

There’s a lot I need to learn because I have a total aversion to technology.  Is there a book (HA!) you would recommend that teaches you the possibilities of an iPad?

  There is this timeline app:  http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/KQ-TimelineBuilder.html  I haven’t used it since I have no iPad, but it looks uber cool.

I really dont know where to start but we use our iPad2 in so many ways, besides as an e reader. Some of the children ( 8 and 6) most favorite apps are geography apps and language (Englidh and foreign language). It has been really a great help for us. Our current favorites are “Adj&Opposites” which teaches how to spell adjectives /opposites in 4 different languages, we use English and German. For German it is also “Kinder…Xmas” teaches objects around Christmas in English, german and Hungarian. Also my children play daily the “Stack the States” app. They know most of the 50 States facts by now through this game.