What's their picture really about?

Today my aim was to teach children the basics of using iPads while also showing their teachers the potential for the device in their literacy programme. I not only wanted to show them that they were engaging (that's a given!) but I wanted to clearly show them how they can support the learning.

With one Junior group as a quick 'starter' I introduced the App Drawing Pad because we can save our finished product to the 'Camera Roll' it means we can do something more with it. We then opened the App Sonic Pics and added our voice to explain our picture. Some learners chose to share elaborate imaginative adventures, some choose to 'retell' the process they had taken to create the picture.

I see Sonic pics would be useful in the classroom for

• Supporting Oral language (Flash cards, Who am I, What am I - ask the question for your viewers?, Where am I?)
• Using for procedural text (eg photographs of a process then retell either with words and/or voice)
• Recording and sharing a class trip or experience
• Retelling a storybook but with the children's own drawn artwork as each page
• Poetry - with photographs and the children's poems
• Book Reviews or 'hooks'

So many possibilities!