teachers

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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.

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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

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #15: Penultimate

Penultimate is a powerful note-taking app for the iPad, enabling users to create an infinite number of beautiful electronic notebooks using different paper formats.

You can hand-write notes with your finger or stylus (recommended), use different coloured pens, and import photos (from your camera / camera roll). Coming with advanced editing options, this app is ideal for sketching pictures & brainstorming ideas.

Better yet, you can back-up or share your Penultimate notebooks via Dropbox, Evernote, or Email; and project your work on an IWB using an iPad VGA connection cable.

For: Teachers, (Older) Students, Administrators

Cost: $2.99. Some paper formats require an in-app purchase

Download: iTunes Link

Requires WiFi?: No

Educational applications

  • Notetaking
  • Story writing
  • Working out maths problems
  • Record observations in science
  • Storyboarding / scripting movies (using storyboard template)
  • Write music (paid template)

Further Reading

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #14: TED Talks

The official TED Talk app puts talks from the world’s leading thinkers, education radicals, tech geniuses, business gurus and music legends … at your fingertips.

TED presents ideas to inspire, educate, and inform … in 5-20 minute videos – which you can watch, or save, on your iPad. Click here for a sample of Education themed talks.

For: Teachers, Secondary Students, Administrators

Cost: Free (Download)

Requires WiFi?: Yes

Educational Applications

  • Use as springboards for classroom discussion
  • Teacher Professional Learning
  • Great models of presentation skills.

Further Reading

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Tips2012 iPad research in beautiful Cape Town

 

I am in beautiful Cape Town meeting amazing educators from not-for-profit organizations, schools, and universities discussing my research project TPACK iPads in Schools – “tips” and opportunities for further learning and research in this area.

I had great discussions with Karen aka @ICT_Integrator on the importance of professional learning and support for teachers.

This is the core of the “tips” project to empower teachers to use technology effectively for teaching and learning. I am looking forward to doing some exciting work in schools this week, discussing iPads and learning opportunities for further study for teachers at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia.

I welcome South African educators to participate in my research and share their learning with us on this blog.

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #13: Keynote

Keynote for iPad, part of the iWork app suite, is a beautiful and powerful presentation tool, which is almost as good as the Mac desktop version. Users can create slideshows for projects, professional presentations, etc using the built-in templates, graphics, and animations.

Presentations can be shared on external displays or projectors using a VGA adaptor and Keynote Remote ($0.99). Presentation files can be synced to your computer via iTunes, or sent via Email.

For: Teachers, Students, Administrators

Cost: $10.49 AUD (Download)

Requires Wifi?: No

Educational Applications

  • Presentations for projects, school assemblies, PD workshops
  • Animate slides to share thinking, research, science experiment results, and persuasive writing presentations (@MsMagiera)

Recommended Reading

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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.

 

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #12: GarageBand

GarageBand turns your iPad (iPhone, iPod) into a full-featured (touch-screen) recording studio, where you can play instruments, record music, and share songs / podcasts via iTunes or email. It includes a music library (including sound effects, instrumental loops); and was recently updated to allow up to four players play or jam together.

With the iPad Camera Connection Kit (around $10 on eBay) you can even connect and play your own instruments (guitar, keyboard) through USB in GarageBand, or record audio using a USB microphone headset. Garageband is suitable for beginning to advanced users, although it takes time to learn its full potential.

GarageBand for iPad is ideal for music, songwriting, podcasting, or simply jamming with your own (virtual) band! It truly is a must-have app!

For: Teachers, Students

Cost: $4.99 (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: No

 Educational Applications

  • Create alternative movie soundtracks
  • Broadcast radio “news reports”
  • Create educational raps & play music
  • Click here for more great ideas & lessons
BHS iPad Band

Further Reading


Excellent GarageBand Video Tutorial (40 mins)

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Jenny’s Most Useful App Today- A Document-Scanner

Today high in the Japanese Alps, my partner had a skiing injury. The medical insurance wanted copies of airline tickets, passports, receipts and contracts sent through immediately. Fortunately I have a portable document scanner on my iPad. Making it my most useful app of the day!

This is a really useful tool in the classroom, office or when you are traveling. There are a number of scanning applications. Some use OCR optical character recognition, that turn the text or image into digital characters. You can edit these, adjust shades and contrasts to create the text or image that you need. These images can be saved as pdf’s or jpg’s and can be used creatively to create artworks.

My current favorites are Doc Scan HD and Perfect OCR. Doc Scan Hd claims to be able to scan curled or folded documents. You can scan diagrams on the white board,receipts and business cards and pictures from your photo collection. What I like is that you can edit and annotate the scanned images. This is very useful as a teaching tool.

You can save the image as a PDF and email it or place it in ibooks, drop box, evernote or google docs and send the link to share it with a colleague or your students. The free version of Doc Scan Hd allows you to scan a three page document for longer documents upgrade to the paid pro version for $4.49

Perfect OCR works well with high quality script recognition for text in different languages and typefaces.I would like to hear your comments on how you are using these scanning apps in your teaching.

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #10: Socrative

Socrative is marketed as a “student engagment” and “instant assessment” e-clicker device which runs off ANY web browser (on your laptop, smartphone, iPod, iPad, etc).

It enables teachers to quickly and easily set up short multiple choice / short-answer / quiz assessment activities, which students respond to using their own devices. Student responses are collated, and displayed on the classroom screen or emailed to the teacher.

According to educational research by deJong and Lane et.al (2009), many students and teachers find “clickers” extremely engaging, so Socrative may well be worth experimenting with (depending on your preferred teaching approach). It is a cheaper alternative to traditional (hardware) clicker response systems.

For: Students, Teachers (in 1:1 or BYOD classrooms), University Lecturers

Cost: Currently Free (Requires Teacher Registration)

Download: Teacher Version    Student Version

Requires Wi-Fi: Yes

Socrative introduction video  from Socrative Inc. on Vimeo.

Educational Applications

  • Instant assessment / feedback
  • Polling in Class, Lectures, Conference presentations

Recommended Reading

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #9: Diigo

Diigo is a connected teacher’s best friend!

Diigo provides a simple way to bookmark, annotate, and search the hundreds, if not thousands of websites that we bookmark from our Twitter feeds, web searches, and collegial recommendations. It allows users to tag, highlight, and add sticky notes to ANY webpage, and because they are stored in the cloud, they can be accessed on almost any device. And it’s available as an iPad app!

We highly recommend the Diigo for Educators account (free, but requires a school email address), which provides teachers, and their students, with a powerful research tool at their fingertips. To find out how you can use Diigo in the classroom, please review the links below.

Don’t forget to install the web highlighter / toolbar for your browser!

For: Teachers, Students, Administrators

Cost: Free (Download)

Requires WiFi?: Yes

Diigo V5: Collect and Highlight, Then Remember! from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

Educational Applications

  • Research / Inquiry – share useful links
  • Collate favourite classroom games
  • Professional Development (Curate favourite websites)
  • Join Diigo education groups (examples)

Examples of Diigo Libraries

Further Reading

How do you use Diigo? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

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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.

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #7: Dragon Dictation

Dragon Dictation is an speech-recognition app that allows users to instantly dictate text, emails, tweets, etc on their iPad, up to five times faster than typing on a keyboard.

While it takes time to ‘train’ Dragon Dictation to recognise your voice, this app can be very helpful for students with dyslexia, and struggling writers. It’s worth experimenting with.

For: Students, Students with Diverse Needs, Teachers, Administrators

Cost: Free (Download Link)

Requires WiFi?: Yes

Tutorial: Dragon Dictation from Jessica Pack on Vimeo.

Educational Applications

  • Practicing fluency and pronunciation in LOTE, or English as Second Language classes
  • Supporting struggling writers – note-taking, brainstorming
  • Dictate memos, short documents, etc (productivity)

Recommended Viewing

Dragon Education Case Study
Dragon Dictate on iPad – Video Tutorial

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #6: iMovie

iMovie is an easy to use, touch based, video editing app for iPad. It enables students and teachers to create professional looking movies, incorporating video, photos, music, and sound effects. It was recently updated to enable users to create incredibly realistic movie trailers!

To get started, we highly recommend iMovie Basics, which gives teachers a great starting point for learning how to use iMovie in class.

For: Teachers and Students

Price: $4.99    Download Link

Requires WiFi?: No

Educational Applications

  • Digital Storytelling (Scriptwriting, storyboarding)
  • Recording special educational events
  • Greenscreen presentations (advanced users)
  • Create short documentaries / tutorials (e.g. in Science)
  • The possibilities are endless!

Classroom Examples

Further Reading

How do YOU use iMovie in the classroom?

We’d love to hear your thoughts! 

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Tips2012 iPad App Guide #5: Edmodo

 

Edmodo is a private social networking site where teachers, students, and parents can connect, engage and learn; taking learning beyond the classroom walls.

Edmodo has advanced privacy settings built in, making it a very safe, secure, (and free) platform for schools. Its’ visual similarity to Facebook makes it extremely user-friendly for teachers and students of all ages; and isn’t blocked in most school systems.

For: Teachers, Students, Parents

Cost: Free, but requires a web account (iTunes Download)

Requires WiFi?: Yes

Using Edmodo in a K-12 School on Prezi

Educational Applications

  • Easily manage grades, projects, surveys, and student discussion topics
  • Share worksamples, videos, pictures of classroom activities with parents (through their child’s profile)
  • Help (absent) students keep up-to-date with what’s happening in school
  • Create collaborative stories, literature circles, book clubs, participate in global projects (example)
  • Provide stimulus for improving writing skills
  • Create virtual exhibitions, museum scavenger hunts
  • Teachers can join professional learning communities in areas of interest (e.g. education technology, school administration)
  • And MUCH more!

Further Reading

Recommended Twitter Follows

How do YOU use Edmodo & the iPad App in the Classroom?

We’d love to hear your thoughts!