Haiku Deck (An App Review)

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Using technology in the primary classroom is such an important skill to begin teaching.  Whether we love or hate technology, it’s not going away.  I am going to start off by saying I am no expert on apps and there may be other great presentation apps out there for kids, but I recently discovered a free app called Haiku Deck and our class had so much fun with it.
So here is what we did.  Each student picked a rain forest animal to research.  We had various projects I had them do with their research, and one of them was to create a slideshow using Haiku Deck.  These slideshows can also be made on the computer through their website.  After the students completed their research using close reads on rain forest animals, they were ready to begin their presentation.  I had a check-off list for each student that showed what slides needed to be included in their presentation (along with the projects we did).

I pulled the kids in small groups during Daily 5 time to work on this.  I have 7 iPads in my class, so it worked out great to work in small groups.  We made the first few slides together so they could get a feel for how the app works.  One of my favorite things about this app is when they want to insert a picture (of their animal), they could search for it by name.  The app has so many great pictures to choose from.  Some of the pictures had a $ sign, but most were free to use.

After a few slides together, most of my kids were able to complete the rest of their presentation without much guidance.  They were all so excited.  Many of my students had their parents download the app at home and they have made more slideshows at home (including my son).

When my students finished their slideshows, I attached a QR code to them.  The Haiku Deck website will host the slideshows, so you can attach the link to each slideshow to a QR code.  I printed the QR codes out, two for each slide show.

One of them went into their interactive notebook.

They other one was mounted onto construction paper and I hung them around the classroom, so they can discover other rain forest animals.

We have our open house this next week.  The parents are going to be WOW’ed!  Do you have your students use a presentation app?  Which ones have you tried?