1:1 iPad organization

This is definitely not going to be the most glamorous post (information or pictures), but I often have other educators ask how I organize and store my class set of iPads so I thought I'd put together a quick post.

There are a lot of options out their for storing and charging iPads but many of them are too pricey for school districts/classrooms. I would love to have a cart, but it just wasn't in the budget so we had to get creative and to be honest, what I have works just as well. 

We simply bought a paper organizer (literature organizer). You can get these in a variety of sizes depending on your needs. I think mine is a 72 slot organizer. I only used every 3rd spot however which makes each space a bit larger not to mention I only needed 3 of the 4 vertical rows. I use the fourth row for storage of my styluses, wired keyboard, and any other extras.

Once I got the shelves placed how I wanted them, we drilled holes through the cardboard backing so we could feed the power cords through. You can see that on the picture below if you look carefully (sorry the picture quality isn't very good). We also put self stick cable clips in each spot. As you can see they ended up not being all that useful- maybe it's just first graders. Not sure if I would spend the money to get these again or not- probably leaning towards not. Each of my iPads is numbered so I needed a way for my students to know which slot to put their iPad in. Again, I wanted to find a cost effective solution so I bought black binder clips, put colored electrical tape on the end and then simply used a Sharpie to write my numbers. I then clipped them onto the edge and flipped the handles over. Viola- easy and only cost about $2.00.

Last but not least, I needed to be able to plug the iPads in to charge. Again, we wanted to be as cost-effective as possible but also keep things organized. Our solution to this was the Belkin 12 Outlet Pivot Plug Surge Protector with 8 foot cord. We bought two of these and mounted them to the back of the paper sorter. What I love most is that the outside outlets swivel out flat which meant that I could still get this pretty close to the wall. 

So, that's it. Our economical way around buying an expensive charging cart. I have now had this set up for 2 years and have had no issues with it at all. If you're looking for a cost-effective way to store and charge a class set of iPads I would highly recommend this method.

Daily 5 Check-in management

Last year I tried many different ways of having my kiddos check-in for Daily 5. Although many of the ways worked, none of them helped with the management issue nightmare of having only 2 iPads in the room and who got them. After many tweaks I finally found a system that worked for my class. 
Below you will see the SMARTboard document that I created.

I really like the way this document worked and how it gave my kiddoss more ownership of their choices versus me calling their name and them telling me what they were going to do. I also found that having the visual made it easier for them and me, especially when they had multiple options within an area. For example, when they would say they wanted to do Listen to Reading, I would then have to ask them if they planned to use the tape player, CD players or the computer... now, I don't have to waste precious time asking and they can just sign up for their choice. 
Each of the * that you see is for one name. I don't have a limit on the number of kiddos that can choose read to self at any one break-out time so that's why there are no asterisks there.
We do 3 rounds each day. To make our sign up time more efficient, the kids only sign up for round 2 when they come in in the morning. When we come back from recess, they sign up for round 3 as they come into the room and before we head down for lunch. Round 1 is always Read to Self for all as I find many of my highly distracted kiddos need at least 1 round that does not have 5 million different things going on around them.