I think there are great resources and activities to balance this act. One small example is art "step by step" videos. Are the students stuck to a screen? No... they're practicing their fine motor skills and potentially, highly engaged!
Check out this art for kids website:
http://artforkidshub.com/
Another activity example is a Alaphabetic Nature iBook kids!
If you're doing "letter of the week", take a walk with a camera or your cell phone camera and have the kids find that letter. Add the letter to an iBook page, students can create a sentence (or multiple) and at the end of the year you can publish the kids book!
Students that are older and higher functioning:
Blog making with an active component!
What is your student into?
Maker stuff, sports, music, art, journalism, eating food, video games???
Have them select a topic THEY LOVE and chronicle or share it in a blog. They would need to be active in their subject in order to share what they have. Then there's the English and writing component. Students are often HIGHLY motivated to have "better writing" when they're publishing it!!
Blogs are FREE
They're becoming a huge vocational force (people make money off of them or get paid to write them)
Some great BLOG websites (I am sure there's more):
www.edublog.com
weebly.com
blogger (through gmail)
wordpress.com
wix.com
Some important things to consider:
- Teach online safety skills
- Set high boundaries (we are at school)
- Monitor Blogs for content
- Use incentives to motivate
- Connect with another class to get comment exchanges
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