What's on your iPad home screen?

While reading through my RSS feeds the other day, I came across an interesting blog post by Justin Reich at EdTechTeacher called All the Good Apps Fit on One Screen. One of his focal points was that teachers have a core set of apps that we use the most. All of these core apps should fit on just your iPad's home screen.

Justin (@bjfr) took a screen shot of his home screen and shared this image on Twitter. He then encouraged others to do the same, using the hast tag #onescreen. For those of you who know Derek and I, you know that neither of us like Twitter. However, this was the first time I found a reason to actually engage in a Twitter feed. I began by clicking on the hash tag link above and lurked around for a while, looking at all of the images other teachers have shared of their home screens. I then took the plunge and tweeted out a pic of my own home screen and added to the conversation. A short time later, Justin Reich retweeted my comment on his own feed. I gotta say, I'm not quire ready to embrace Twitter just yet, but this did give me a snapshot into how it could be a valuable tool for collaboration.

This experience inspired me to initiate similar collaboration here in Shrewsbury. Since very few of us use Twitter, I created a Google Presentation that is public and can be edited by anyone. I am asking as many teachers as possible to take a screen shot of your iPad home screen, then share that image onto the Google Presentation for others to see. There are directions in the presentation itself, but I would also like for you to add your name, grade, and subject taught. Access the Google presentation here. Please remember that anyone can edit this slideshow so please only edit one slide. Do not edit another slide that was already created. 

Now, this isn't just for teachers. Even though some apps will vary based on grade and subject, there are many apps that can be useful to everyone. Therefore, I encourage everyone who sees this to participate: teachers, aides, curriculum coordinators, principals, and other administration. Even if you happen to be reading this and are not affiliated with Shrewsbury Public Schools, we would love your participation. If a lot of people get involved, this could be a great starting point to finding out about some new apps.

The images shared can be viewed in the embedded slideshow below. Click on the "full screen" button at the bottom to view the presentation in full screen mode.