Tips 2012 Professional Learning #10: Explore ECU with iPads

Welcome to the Clontarf Girls

For the Explore ECU Program today we welcomed the year 10 & 11 Clontarf Girls to spend a day experiencing University life with us on campus. We are going to be using technology in a fun way in to support learning.

Clontarf was one of the schools in Perth that the Queen visited when she was in Australia see the pictures on their website. Clontarf is a unique sporting academy with a specialist curriculum to develop the leadership skills of Aboriginal girls.

We had lots of fun – watch this space …

Clontarf girls become movie producers at ECU

I was very fortunate to work with this delightful group of enthusiastic fun loving students. For many of the group it was the first time they experienced using an iPad. There was much laughter and excitement as they became movie directors for the day. We discussed creative ways of using mobile learning tools like phones and tablet computers for learning.

“Focus, action, shoot, let the camera roll”

For some more details on this event, click here.

We are celebrating NAIDOC Week at our university. NAIDOC Week celebrations are held in Australia in July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by all Australians. At Edith Cowan University we participated in a range of activities and to support our local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.

NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’. This committee was once responsible for organising national activities during NAIDOC Week and its acronym has since become the name of the week itself.

Tips 2012 Professional Learning #7: Twilight Seminars

Keep calm and grab an iPad- Dr. Jenny Lane

M-Learning in Education@ECU

We had a great evening tonight in the first two session of our Twiilght Seminars@ECU, attended by over 350 teachers and school leaders.

Click here for a report on the M-Learning@ECU Events  Teaching with technology

The topic was M-Learning, “Learning using Mobile Devices”. We discussed the research findings in Phase 1 of the TPACK iPads in Schools Project. This research project investigates teachers’ needs as they work in new ways with iPads. This research is funded through my research fellowship and research grants and awards that I have received from Edith Cowan University. I discussed the rationale and theoretical background supporting the use of ICT in classrooms and gave examples of how school students embrace new technologies fearlessly.

Specialist consultants from from AISWA, Catholic Education and the Department of Education gave valuable insights on exciting projects and the teaching and learning strategies used in their schools.

Louise Cimetta and Caroline Mullins from Catholic Education enjoying M- Learning@ECU

Some of our fabulous teachers and industry colleagues shared their experiences introducing iPads and BYOD in schools, and told us about their favourite apps.
Tricky Tips on managing work flows, transferring documents to other devices, and how to select apps provided much needed technical information for all iPad users.

Thanks to Sarah, Ian, Doug, Jamie,Shaloni, Michelle, Louise and Jan for inspiring snapshots of their work.

Thanks to Madlen and the prac team helping organizing the event.

Tips2012: i-Kids make a difference:#1:Jude`s i-Story

 

Jude the “Living Statue”:  A boy who makes a difference…. 

      

This inspiring i-Story started with some emails in response to the TIPS2012 blog. Jude and his mum Tania asked questions about using iPads in schools in India and how to cope in settings with no WiFi network.

I directed them to the resources on the blog, and a while later received this email…

Dear Jenny, …

Thank you all so much for supporting Jude “The Living Statue” in raising money for an iPad for an Indian school. He raised a total £220 – which is quite amazing and inspiring, especially as it was all his own idea to do this.

The iPad caused huge amount of excitement and the children kept looking at their fingers  when they were drawing/writing on the iPad, as they couldn’t understand why there wasn’t ink on them!  

Here are some photos of Jude showing the kids at the school how an iPad works.

Jude showing the children in India how to use the iPad

We spent hours at a rather nice hotel in the local town, using their free wifi to download some educational apps.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, and Australian Dr Jenny Lane of iPad project in schools, we found some fantastic apps that can be used without wifi.  Especially good were the animations and puppet shows with self recorded narration, which are great for story telling, imagination and those not confident in speaking English – plus they are lots of fun.

Thank you all again for your support…

Tania & Jude

Tania, Jude`s mother comments “I am amazed he had so much courage to stand on Ledbury Road, which is quite a busy street in Notting Hill.  I am very proud of him and very happy for you to include on your blog – which was so helpful for us.”

Living Statutes

“Living Statues” are people who dress up like a statue and stand motionless on the street, usually on a pedestal.  They are usually painted from head to toe – white, bronze or gold, etc. and will only move, or shake your hand etc when you give them some money.
Jude (Millais) is the great-great-great grandson of the painter John Everett Millais (http://www2.tate.org.uk/ophelia/)

 

Tips2012: Teachers’ Voices #1: Richard’s iStory

An exciting new feature on the TPACK iPad Project is “Teachers’ Voices”, featuring teachers` stories and experiences with iPads in education.

Teachers` VoicesPlease send me your stories we can all learn from your experiences. If you would like to share your story and be featured on this blog, please email: Jenny Lane (j.lane@ecu.edu.au), and include “Tips2012: Teachers’ Voices” in the title.

Please indicate if I have permission to include your name, and the name of your school. If you would prefer to be anonymous, let me know. Your story will become part of the data collected in the research collection and will inform our work with teachers.

An iStory from Richard  (@rhp123)

We are a small, independent primary school in NSW. Our school has been pursuing the idea of  achieving 1:1 for several years. Our stance has been around the idea of making technology accessible to students and teachers as required. Our motivation for doing this was an evolving one, but at the core was the idea that Technology could enhance learning and create new learning opportunities.

In the dim past we had a computer room. Which consisted of fourteen Apple machines networked and connected precariously to a 28K modem. It was the late nineties and Apple was floundering so we transitioned to PC and escaped from the confines of a computer room moving into a network which threaded it’s way through the school. Small groups of PCs scattered conveniently in shared spaces. Over time the mobile banks of laptops (Windows based) have evolved into our main technological delivery system along with interactive Smartboard equipped classrooms. In 2010 we achieved 1:1 with our Year 6 classes and in 2011 we added 1:2 committed resources to our Year 5 students.

Reading and discussions with various educators had drawn us toward the idea of tablets. I had an Android phone so our first investigation was into Android tablets, which we trialled and tested. The iPad also seemed to be getting rave reviews and many educational institutions were adopting them in the US (not that that was really a compelling reason).

The iPad was by far the best device we tried.

  • It offered a wealth of apps for education (which catered for various needs)
  • A number of State Education Departments /sectors had committed to trials e.g. Victorian Dept of Education http://ipad.ipadsforeducation.vic.edu.au/
  • A large number of schools internationally were adopting iPads e.g. http://ow.ly/1KTzfO (New York Times article)
  • iPads were robust and well supported (this was particularly compelling in our small school setting as we don’t have substantial technical support services)
  • iPads had no boot time issues (this had always been an annoyance with laptops) and their battery life meant they could be used continuously all day without charging
  • iPads were easy to navigate and were slick in operation
  • They offered versatility for both students and teachers
  • iPads were competitive in price (especially against our traditional laptop delivery system)

So we committed to the idea of the iPad as a technological vehicle to help drive change and improve the learning opportunities of our students. This involved changing from a Windows environment to an Apple environment. It involved exploring management issues. It involved investigating iTunes and trialling apps. It involved the idea of moving into the cloud and away from traditional networks. It involved raising funds to achieve implementation. It involved upgrading aspects of our network. It involved extensive discussion, collaboration and research.

We launched our iPad initiative with 45 iPads which we distributed both for staff and students. A key part of our launch was to engage staff and familiarize them with the iPads. One of the greatest challenges faced is to involve teachers in change. Especially change which isn’t in the traditional repertoire.

Providing many teachers with iPads certainly moved the swing of the pendulum towards technology. The other positive about iPads from the teacher perspective was that it wasn’t too alien as many teachers were already using iPhones. At any rate teachers found the operating system easy to use and in no way daunting. This provided impetuous to our effort. We had been unable to equip all teachers with individual iPads and they all wanted them.

Students were equally eager and familiar with the iPads as many had iPod Touch, iPhones, or iPads already. They are also the most desired device in the “Must Have” category at the moment.

Our initial roll out was primitive because we didn’t commit to a management system as we were waiting to see what iOS 5 had to offer. A single profile was created and this proved to be satisfactory for our trial. Our lack of a management system created problems in terms of updating our operating system. We had to update all 45 individually. It also meant that we couldn’t manage individual devices or individualize devices to any extent.

We realized fairly early that iPads particularly for older students (upper primary) and for teachers needed to be set up as individual devices. We have now invested in a management system “Casper” which provides a reasonable degree of control at a reasonable cost.

The engagement of students and of teachers with the iPads and the possibilities that the iPad offers for the integration of technology into programs across the school provided a compelling argument for the expansion of the iPad initiative. As already observed we recognized that the needs of some students and their use of iPads would be different.

Our next faze (which is currently underway) will see the implementation of a 1:1 iPad roll out for Year 5 & 6 students. This will enable individualization of iPads for this group and this will particularly enable the integration of devices with “The Cloud”. Services such as Dropbox, Otixo, Evernote, Google Docs, and email require individualization and need to be set up for each student in order to be really effective on the iPad. We will also accommodate all full time teaching staff and provide a versatile supply for various other student user groups from Preschool to Year 4.

One of the negatives of the iPads has been that there isn’t volume licensing available to schools in Australia yet. This means that under the current Apple Licensing Agreement each device needs to purchase its own apps. We will provide the essential Apple apps to our students Pages, Keynote, Numbers, GarageBand and iMovie. The cost of these alone per device is around $40.00AUD.

We consider that if we are investing in an Apple product we should provide an understanding of the Apple platform to our students as we have done with Microsoft. Clearly we are grateful that many excellent apps are free or relatively cheap.

iPads are great, but they are just a new tool in our technological arsenal. We remain committed to providing access to a robust Windows network of laptops and peripherals for use across the school. To this end we are considering options around our mobile Windows devices. We have a good supply of Dell Netbooks which we have been using for the last two years, however new possibilities in terms of hardware are appearing. One of the great appeals of the iPad is its portability and interactivity. We are taking a look at some Windows based tablets.

I must stress that our school isn’t fixated on technology. We are fixated on our students. We are evaluating our learning environments, exploring best practice and implementing change where we perceive benefit. iPads are just an element in our journey towards achieving “success” for our students.

 Thanks to Richard Prowse for sharing his inspiring i-Story.

Tips2012:iPad App Guide #38: iSwifter & Rover

View flash files on an iPad!!

iSwifter is a browser app that allows you to view flash files on your iPad. You open the app and enter the URL of the site you want to view. This allows you to view flash video content and play some flash based games.

It is not perfect and initially tages take a while to load but mostly it does the job. The company also makes a (Free) browser app for education called Rover.

For: Teachers, Students (Primary to Secondary)

Cost: Free for 7 days (link) but then upgrade to paid version. Alternatively, download the Rover education browser for free.

Requires WiFi?: Yes

Management Tip
Streaming can flow more smoothly than browsing.

Educational Applications

  • View flash videos
  • Play interactive flash based games
  • View web pages with flash animations

Recommended Reading

Please help us to build these resources for teachers by supporting the research. Click here to complete a short survey and enter the draw to win an iTunes voucher.

Tips2012 Have iPad trolleys can travel!!

I have just unpacked the long awaited IQ Traveller Light trolley cases. These are perfect for our iPad rollout of 70 iPads for my new module “Teaching and learning with touch technologies” at the university. Each case takes 16 iPads and all accessories.

The cases have foam padding with slots for each iPad, and a hard shell to protect the iPads from knocks. You can charge and sync all the iPads in the case at the same time. Each case has two wheels and a long handle for easy travelling. These cases will be great for schools that have shared sets of iPads that need to move easily between classes. You can padlock the case to keep the contents secure. We have set up an online booking system so staff can book the equipment they need for their classes.

Jenny’s iPad Tip: User Guide #4 iPad = document camera+

A while ago I bought a document camera costing about $700, a really useful device to replace the overhead projector. A document camera can be used to capture an image and project the image onto a large screen.

Then I bought a VGA connector to connect my iPad to a data projector or any other screen or monitor, and for just $30 my iPad became a portable document camera with a heap of extra functions.

How To:

Secure the iPad to a small tripod / retort stand to keep it stable. Then select the camera icon to use the the camera function to project and share any image.

There are fantastic ways to use this in education, for example if you are doing a dissection, you can capture the image and project it for the class to view. You can capture images of objects and plants for science experiments. You can even demonstrate mathematical concepts using concrete manipulative.

I would love to hear how you are using this function in your teaching.

 

Let your fingers do the talking on your iPad

The iPad touch screen allows you to use your fingers to interact in multiple ways.You can single tap, double tap, flick, swipe, drag, press and hold. I will give a brief description of the basic finger movements on the touch screen.

TAP: This is a simple soft touch with the tip of your finger.

DRAG: Keep your fingertip pressed on the screen and slide it to move to different sections of the screen. A two finger drag allows you to scroll down in a smaller window within the main window, for example in any floating pop up screens.

SLIDE: The slide action is similar to the drag except that it is usually a horizontal movement from left to right used to unlock the iPad or to wake it from a sleep state.

FLICK: Lightly move your finger across the screen to scroll a page in that direction. The faster you flick your finger the faster the page will move. When you are reading an e- book you can flick you finger across the page to turn the pages.

SPREAD AND PINCH: To zoom in on a picture place three fingers on the item and spread the fingers to expand the item. To reduce an item pull the fingers close together.

DOUBLE TAP: This is a quick way to enlarge or reduce a picture or a piece of text.

SINGLE TAP ON THE ON/ OFF BUTTON: This takes you back to the home screen.
Have fun experiment and experience the power of touch.
Four- or Five-Finger Vertical Swipe Like a double-press on the Home button, a four- or five-finger upward swipe will pull up the multitasking bar along the bottom of the screen. To return it, swipe downward to hide the bar (or single-tap anywhere above it).

FOUR OR FIVE FINGER HORIZONTAL SWIPE:

With a four- or five-finger horizontal swipe, you can quickly move between your most recently used apps. For example, if you’re in Safari and want to switch to another open app, you can perform a four- or five-finger horizontal swipe to move from one app to another; like the the one-finger swipe you use to move between home screens. You can pull up the multitasking bar by double-pressing the Home button or by performing the four- or five-finger vertical swipe.

Tips2012: Say Hello to your new iPad

If you are a new iPad user, this post will guide you through the basics and help you to get started.

You initially need to use the USB cable (provided) to connect your iPad to a computer, it can be a Mac or a PC. iTunes will automatically load and prompt you to set up and register the iPad and create a unique Apple ID. The Apple ID has a user name and a password, which you will use to access the iTunes Store.

The iTunes Store has a range of books, applications, and music which you can download onto your iPad. Some of the applications, commonly known as “apps” are free, while others are paid. You pay for these apps using a credit card, or a purchased iTunes voucher.

When you set up your iPad for the first time, you will be prompted to set up iCloud. This is an online data storage facility which enables you to back up your iPad data (contacts, apps, photos, songs), and sync them across a number of devices (e.g. your iPhone, iPod Touch), providing they all use the same Apple ID.

On this blog we will be discussing teaching and learning strategies to maximise the effective use of iPads as teaching and learning tools.

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