InterwritePad

Exploring new technologies
Please share your ideas and suggestions on how you can integrate the Interwrite Pad into instruction. Seriously, I am going to try to solicit the company to get a free pad and will use all the posted suggestions as my bargaining chip. I will even offer to create a little video for them.

I started out with a few things I have either seen others do or that were previously shared with me.

Jennifer Waltemire: I used it for a __**writing**__ lesson. I modeled a writing activity and then we wrote expectations for the activity. I also used it in __**math**.__ I played a movie on united streaming about fractions. I then paused the movie and had them draw lines to show how they would divide the food in the movie with their friends. Then I had another child write the fraction. It was great at the end of the movie because they had a game show where you had to name the fraction shown and I could pause the movie, color in the part they were asking about and have a student write the fraction. Then we could check our answer. The kids loved it and I think they are getting the concept of fractions faster than my kids last year.

Kristen Lorch: Used the spotlight feature to have kids search for and identify different shapes. She had 2 dimensional and 3D shapes on a screen and kids had to search for different shapes based on the clues she provided. They were very motivated to participate and were doing very well with the lesson.

Kristina John-Gabriel: Have kids model their thinking by recording their thought process as they solve a math problem. - Import an news article or other piece of text and take notes directly on the text. Great idea to use when discussing text features. You can also use this idea to have kids highlight the main idea.

Kelly McKim- I love the interwrite pad. I use it all day long. I use it in reading to underline, highlight, and point out text features. Maria and I used the pad in writing to discuss setting. We used the spotlight feature to help students discover a picture and pointed out things they might see, hear, taste, touch, and feel. We then used the board to web out some ideas about using the 5 senses to set-up setting in writing. I also have used the board in math. Its great because the students can come up and show how they solved the problems using the board. The shapes feature is great for making patterns in math, or geometry. For Fun- Instead of speaking the directions to the class, have the students read as you write them up on the board. It seems silly but the kids are engaged in the directions and you only have to write them once! Another cool thing you can do is vocabulary pictionary. You, or the students can draw a picture of a vocabulary word and the students have to guess the word. It is very fun!