students

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Tips2012:iPad App Guide #35: Educreations

Educreations is an incredible FREE interactive whiteboard tool available as an iPad app and online web tool. Once you create a (free) account, it is easy to add images, draw pictures, and write on the whiteboard slides as you explain your ideas.

When you’re happy with your video, you can watch it on the iPad, or upload to the Educreations website. You can share your videos publicly or privately, via email, Facebook, Twitter, or the Educreations Tutorial Gallery (under development). Public screencasts can be embedded into blogs, websites, etc.

Educreations is a more advanced app than ShowMe, and it was specifically designed with educators in mind (see the video tutorial below). Like ShowMe, teachers recommend the use of  teacher / class accounts to save and share student videos (tip via blog post by @nate_kremer)

For: Teachers, Students (Primary to Secondary)

Cost: Free! (Download Link)

Requires WiFi: Yes, to upload completed work

Educational Applications

  • Create a repository of video tutorials for your class / school wiki / website
  • Explain mathematical thinking, written work
  • Present an argument, or explanation of a topic (literacy)
  • Enable students to demonstrate their learning, comprehension skills, and understanding of topics across a wide range of learning areas.

Recommended Reading

Please contribute to our iPad research by completing a short survey, and entering our draw to win an ITunes voucher!

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Tips2012:iPad App Guide #33: ShowMe


Screen-casting is capturing what is on the screen of your iPad and adding a narration or music sound track. You can capture a drawing showing how the picture develops. This works well in teaching mathematics where the teacher can demonstrate the calculation as if they are working on an interactive whiteboard. The whole process gets recorded and can then be shared and replayed.

Show Me is a simple screen-casting app suitable for early childhood through to early secondary students. It provides a whiteboard, pens, eraser, and support for importing images.This app is extremely user-friendly; simply “Tap to record, and start talking”.

Completed screencasts are uploaded to the ShowMe website, where they can be shared (for free) with a unique weblink, and embedded into class blogs or webpages. The ShowMe website features a community collection of screencasts for all learning areas, which teachers can use in their classes for free.

More advanced screen-casting apps include Educreations, Screen Chomp, and Explain Everything.

For: Students (Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary)

Cost: Free (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: Yes, to upload finished products. It is not possible to save completed work to the iPad.

Management Tip

To use this app in class, teachers recommend creating a shared class / teacher ShowMe account, and establishing a standard naming convention (using students’ names) to identify student work. (Tip via EdTechTeacher Tip & @nate_kremer)

Educational Applications

  • Create a repository of video lessons for your class / school wiki / website
  • Explain mathematical thinking, written work
  • Present an argument, or explanation of a topic (literacy)
  • Enable students to demonstrate their learning, comprehension skills, and understanding of topics across a wide range of learning areas.
  • Click here for more ideas

Further Reading

Have you taken part in our survey? Click here and enter the draw to win a $ 50 iTunes voucher!

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Tips2012:iPad App Guide #30: Instapaper

Instapaper is a must-have iPad app which enables users to bookmark and save web articles, blog posts, tweets, other app content, news, etc for offline viewing later; in class, on the train, … literally anywhere.

Installed as a Safari bookmarklet, Instapaper is simple to use, and allows users to easily sync articles across their mobile devices and web browsers (on their home computers) via their Instapaper account (requires an email address). You can also share articles to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Evernote.

For: Teachers, Students (Primary, Secondary), Administrators

Cost: $5.49 (Download Link)

Requires WiFi: No for reading , yes for bookmarking and syncing

Educational Applications

  • Professional reading
  • Store research articles for easy access
  • Present web articles in a clean, easy-to-read format for focused reading.

 
Feeling lucky, click on this link and help in this research by completing a short survey you could be the winner of an I- tunes voucher.

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Tips2012:iPad App Guide #29: Dictionary.com HD

The Dictionary.com HD app brings a trusted (ad-free) dictionary and thesaurus, containing nearly 2 million words, definitions, synonyms, and antonymns, to the iPad. This invaluable reference resource is available offline, with some additional features, such as voice-to-text search and audio pronunciation, available with a Wi-Fi connection.

This paid version of the app is ad-free, and is highly recommended for educational use. There are separate versions for iTouch and iPhone.

For: Administrators. Teachers, Students, Students with Special Needs

Cost: $4.99 (Download Link).

Requires WiFi: Only for additional features.

  • Support students in literacy activities, particularly for finding the spelling and meaning of words
  • Learn the pronunciation of words – valuable for special needs students
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Tips2012:iPad App Guide #27: Tools 4 Students

Tools 4 Students is an incredibly useful iPod Touch / iPad app, providing teachers and students with 25 editable graphic organisers to organise their thinking and comprehend new information.

Students can save their work on their iPad, export to Dropbox, or email completed organisers to their teacher, who can share them via Google Docs or print them off. The app can also be projected onto an whiteboard for whole-class demonstrations and activities.

For: Teachers, Students

Cost: $0.99 – Worth every cent! (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: No.

Screenshots

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Tips2012:iPad App Guide #26: Science 360

The Science 360 app brings a world of science news, information, images, and videos to the iPad. Featuring a unique 360 degree view, users can find content through touch gestures, or via keyword search using the keyboard.

The app makes it easy to save and share favourite images and videos, and offers an option to download full-resolution images for offline use. It is recommended for casual browsing, rather than for specific research.

This app is very data intensive, and requires a strong WiFi internet connection to be useful.

For: Teachers, Students

Cost: Free (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: Yes (see above)

 

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #25: Strip Designer

Strip Designer is a comic-strip creation app for the iPad which transforms your own photos (or Creative Commons Internet images) into comic-book style images through the use of strip styles, speech bubbles, stickers, and frames. Finished products can be saved to the iPad photo library, emailed, or shared on Flickr and other social networks.

For: Teachers, Students (Grades 6-12)

Cost: $2.99 (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: No

Digital Storytelling with Strip Design for iPad/iPod

Educational Applications

  • Create time-lines for historical events
  • Multimedia storytelling, novel study
  • Present research findings, or ideas  in comic-strip format
  • Showcase student photography
  • For more ideas and resources, please see the links at the end of our Comic Life post.

Further Reading

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #24: iBooks

The iBooks iPad app is so much more than a glossy bookcase. It is a place where you can share ePub e-books, PDF files, and student (and teacher) created resources; enabling users to curate & create a library of digital reading material on their iPad.

For: Teachers, Students, Administrators

Cost: Free

Requires WiFi?: No for reading. Yes for uploading and sharing content

Educational Applications

  • Share student work (in PDF or ePub format) with parents and classmates as digital portfolios or yearbooks
  • Use the Book Creator app, or iBooks Author (Mac), to create collaborative class books and teaching resources
  • Store levelled readers (e.g. www.readinga-z.com) for use in reading centres
  • Use the built-in highlighter and sticknotes to practice reading comprehension skills
  • Share digital textbooks (requires iTunes 10.5.3 or later)

Teacher Tips: How do I add material to iBooks?

To add PDF and ePub materials to iBooks on your iPad, you can import files via iTunes, import from Dropbox or GoodReader, or save files directly from Safari. It is possible to save and share students’ work in ePub format from other applications, such as Pages for Mac.

You can purchase quality eBooks from the Apple iBooks Store, or find free eBooks on Google, which may be a better option for educators.

Teachers may also like the dotePUB browser bookmarklet (available for Safari), which enables users to save ANY website as an ePub file, which can be added to iBooks via iTunes. (Tip via iPads@Burley).

Recommended Reading

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #23: Our Choice

Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis is presented as the future of digital textbooks, and is a truly innovative, visually stunning text. Written by Al Gore, Our Choice is the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, and is a rich multimedia exploration of the science of climate change and climate action.

Using a ground-breaking touch interface*, this app is highly recommended for secondary science students, and anyone interested in taking action on climate change.

For: Teachers, Secondary Science Students

Cost: $4.99 (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: Yes

*Please note: This app downloads multimedia & chapter content in the background when opened for the first time, and it is recommended you wait for the lengthy (1GB+) download to complete before trying to interact with it.

Al Gore’s Our Choice Guided Tour from Push Pop Press on Vimeo.

Further Reading

Our Choice: Changing Books Forever (iApp.Storm)

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #22: “Toddler Sandbox”

Toddler Sandbox, formerly  known as “Wipe and Learn”, is an early-learning iPad app for K-2 children, which is also highly recommended for children with special needs.

“Sandbox” involves children swiping their finger across the screen to reveal a hidden picture. The word for the background picture is then spoken aloud. It requires close attention, accuracy and fine motor skills to complete successfully, making it a useful app for developing fine motor skills and word recognition.

For: Early Childhood Students, Students with Special Needs

Cost: $0.99 (Download)

Requires WiFi?: No.

Further Reading

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Tips2012 iPad apps to help modify behaviour

In my many years of teaching in schools, and in Teacher Education at University, the biggest challenge faced by many teachers is moderating the behaviour of students in their classes. There are a range of strategies that can be used, but keeping a clear record of the behaviours is a good starting point.

The specialist app, Behaviour Lens ($32),  for teachers and therapists was recommended by my colleague Priscilla, who is is a Consultant – Intensive Support Needs. Designed by school psychologists, it records timed intervals of behaviours and generates professional standard reports.

Another useful (free app), called Autism Apps gives a comprehensive overview of apps that can be used to modify behaviour, support social interactions and promote communication with students with Autism Spectrum Disorder & Down Syndrome.

If you are working with students with behaviour and communication difficulties please share the apps that you find useful in the comments below!

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Tips2012: Using iPads to support students with diverse learning needs

iPads are an excellent way to provide individualized learning materials and re-inforcement for students with a wide range of learning abilities.

Differentiating Instruction

  • The iPads provide a way for teachers to provide each learner with activities suited to their learning needs.Teachers can use Dropbox to send documents and links to individual students’ folders, which contain their individualized learning materials.
  • They can also be used to provide extension activities for students who need higher-order thinking challenges. These can take the form of webquests, quizzes and polling (Socrative), treasure hunts with QR Codes (QRafter), and geocaching.
Scaffolding Learning
  • iPads can be used to scaffold learning for students who need additional support. The screen-casting apps (ShowMe, Explain Everything, Educreations) and video creation apps (iMovie, Reel Director, Camera) allow teachers and students to produce screencasts and short instructional videos to provide “just in time” support for students.
  • The use of instructional video for learning provides support that is emotionally neutral, and can be viewed repeatedly until the student feels the concepts have been clearly demonstrated and understood.
Sensory Learning
  • The use of the iPad touch surface reinforces learning using the sense of touch, which is a very powerful way of learning for many students (Toddler Sandbox, Skitch)
  • The audio feedback included in many apps is another way to support learning. Many eBooks and iBooks include an audio track which reads the print while highlighting the words. This multi-sensory mode uses the senses to provide stimulus and feedback for the learner.
Supporting Learning
  • Students who need support taking notes will find “AudioNote” useful. AudioNote will record the speaker while the student types notes, creating an audio recording of the lesson to review learning.

Supporting Communication

  • There are a wide selection of apps, eg. SOSH, to support students who have difficulty communicating. The Special Needs links in the TIPS 2012 sidebar contain lots of excellent examples of apps designed to support learners with diverse needs.
Do you have a favourite app for supporting students with diverse learning needs? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below! 
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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #20: Comic Life

Comics and cartoons have a HUGE range of educational applications across the primary and secondary curriculum, and can be easily integrated into a range of subject or topic areas.

Comic Life for iPad is an easy-to-use comic / cartoon creation app for students from Grades 1-12. It provides a range of templates, and enables users to import pictures (from their Camera Roll, or Creative Commons sources on the Internet), captions, and special effects (thought balloons, onomatopoeia).

This app mirrors the Windows / Mac version of Comic LIfe, and allows users to print, email, or share their comics on Facebook. Comic Life for iPad also features an “in-tray” option, which allows users to share comics with other iPad users nearby).

For: Teachers, Students (Grades 1-12)

Cost: $5.49 (Download Link)

Requires WiFi: No (only for sharing comics)

Comic Life Tutorial for iPad from Jessica Pack on Vimeo.

Educational Applications

  • Social Studies – Timelines, history retells
  • Literacy – instructions, grammar practices, story retells, information brochures
  • Science- instructions, reports on learning, explanations of concepts
  • Cartoon Tutorials for students and teachers (e.g. The Daring Librarian)
  • Food Technology – illustrated cookbooks
  • Inspiring Examples from Porchester Junior School (UK)
  • Click here for more ideas, or check out the links below!

Tutorials and Lesson Ideas

Recommended Reading

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #19: The Elements

The Elements: A Visual Exploration, by Theodore Gray, is a simply stunning iPad app with mesmerising high-definition graphics, videos, and detailed information for every element in the Periodic Table. While users can’t copy information out of the app, it is possible to save screenshots.

This app is available in American and British English versions, and is translated into French, German, and Japanese (check the description).

For: Secondary Science Teachers and Students, invaluable in Chemistry

Cost: $16 (Worth every cent, but be warned – it’s a 1.7GB download)  (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: Yes , but only to access online features)

Further Reading

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #16: Popplet

Popplet is a hugely popular mind-mapping tool which enables teachers and students to visually represent and organise information using text, hyperlinks, images, and sticky notes (popples). Available as a web application (beta, via subscription) and iPad app, Popplet is remarkably simple to use, and is suitable for all ages.

Popplet requires a free account (we’d suggest creating class / group accounts for students), and completed ‘popplets’ can be saved as JPG or PDF files, embedded into web pages, or shared via Twitter, Facebook, and Email. Printed popplets make great classroom displays.

If using as a web app, teachers may be interested in the Popplet Education Licensing scheme.

For: Teachers, Students (Early Childhood through to Secondary)

Cost:  Popplet Lite is free, but we highly recommend the full featured Popplet app, which is available for $5.49AUD (Download Link). The full app allows users to sync Popplets across devices and the web. 

Requires WiFi: No, but required to obtain images from online sources.

Educational Applications

  • Create curriculum plans, mind maps, shared bulletin boards, scrapbooks, photo galleries,
  • Remember, organise and comprehend new information
  • Map concepts and create timelines
  • Use to assist note-taking and planning for writing
  • Enable real-time student collaboration via shared ‘popples’ – on iPads / iPad and web.
  • Use Popplet as a presentation tool (Click here for details)
  • Click here for more creative ideas 

Recommended Reading