While teaching the new Common Core, I was looking for resources that would provide meaningful individual practice that increases student achievement while using technology. During my research with websites, independent programs, and collaborating with fellow kindergarten and first grade teachers, I found many resources that provided practices, but did not allow for differentiating learning. Then, I discovered ScootPad.

When I first implemented ScootPad, I allowed my students to do practices during our computer lab time. Later on, I started to individualize the practices by assigning the current learning path to fit the students' academic level. I assigned assignments weekly that focused on the standards learned the previous and current week along with writing and spelling assignments as homework. I use ScootPad as common assessments to drive my weekly instruction along with using the data to conference with parents. My students are engaged in ScootPad because of it's nontraditional format (paper and pencil) and because I fully integrate technology in my classroom. My students are excited to complete ScootPad on the computer or iPad along with collecting ScootPad coins. The feature that I like the most is the ability to assign standards to a particular child or the whole class when creating assignments.

My students have shown substantial academic achievement while utilizing ScootPad. I am currently teaching the same students in first grade that I had in kindergarten. I started ScootPad with them as kindergarteners; I have seen great improvement from my lowest students (first grade level) to substantial gains from my higher students (third grade level). ScootPad has definitely saved me time on providing practices, gathering data, and scoring assignments.