Tuesday, October 30, 2012

iPad for Admin Agenda

Agenda:
  • GTKY - Infuse Learning
    • Circle the 4 Cs 
      • Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Collaboration 
  • Break
  • 5 Minute Reads with Flipboard
    • What are you following? 
      • Infographic of Education Hashtags (no twitter acct required)
  • Productivity Apps
  • Give One Get One
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Monday, October 29, 2012

Infuse Learning

Many of us are familiar with some type of learning response system, aka clickers.  For example there are the Active Expressions by Promethean, or the CPS system by eInstruction.  There are a couple of online choices as well like Polleverywhere and Socrative.


Infuse Learning caught our attention as a new online system to try out.  The reason we like it is because you have the ability to obtain drawings from participants.  You can also push images to participants.

The teacher must use a computer to facilitate an Infuse Learning session, while participants can be on any device connected to the Internet.  Using iPods and iPads allows for the easy to draw capability.

How engaging is it to have all students work through a math problem, then have them submit their work and share the responses.  Possibly as a quick check have students label the parts of an image, say cell structure, and send in their results.

Infuse Learning also allows you to download and save responded entries from participants.  Each drawing response is a separate page in a pdf file.  Thinking outside the box, you could have a class of elementary students create a quick picture book by submitting their drawing, then the saved responses are collected in one pdf file.

There are many other features with this online tool, as these are a couple of ideas that seem well suited for iDevices.  It's a resource well worth checking out.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Writing Activities for iDevice Centers

Agenda and App List for October 24, 2012 
Writing with iDevice Centers Workshop

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Monday, October 22, 2012

Let Students Explore

Often times society thrusts us into a frenzied pace of getting so much accomplished in such a short time, we forget to allow time for exploration.  I know I find myself feeling that way too often.   Many great ideas come from exploration time, just see what Google has produced.

I start off this way because when we roll out new apps for students, or even iPad's for the first time with a class, it's so important to allow students the time to explore and figure out possibilities. 

One teacher from Cove, OR has recently scheduled in her first 10 minutes of the day as free iPad exploration time. Here is her blog post recapping her start of the day and what she has learned.

Let's Go Exploring!


Last year I decided to take a chance and do something a little bit out of my comfort zone...I relinquished some of my structured teaching time to my students so they could go exploring.  From 8:00-8:10 students are encouraged to explore something in the classroom.  Sometimes it is the materials for a science experiment, sometimes it is objects related to an upcoming lesson and sometimes it is technology.


This morning it was our classroom ipads...


As students arrived this morning I let them know they could explore their ipad.  I only gave one direction, "Explore the apps you have on your ipad and see what you can see?"

When Explore Time was over we gathered for our morning meeting.  I asked students to share something they had learned this morning while exploring their ipad.  This is what they shared:

"I learned how to scroll down and get stamps on Doodle Buddies."
"I learned there were a lot of different apps on my ipad."
"I learned how to scroll in on Google Earth."
"I learned how to take pictures and videos using Photo Booth."
"I learned some new countries."
"I learned how to search for different places on Google Earth."
"I learned how to do stamping on Doodle Buddies."
"I learned how to make a slide show with video and pictures on Photo Booth."

Students were teaching each other and me how to do all of this things.  We were learning and discovering together.  I know we will be able to go further with our learning because I give my students this time.  Don't be afraid...try it!  You won't be disappointed.





Please spend time reading more exciting happenings from Cove second grade at Mrs Williams Second Grade Class Blog.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

FaceTime with Washington DC

Four amazing Weston Middle School students spent their morning Facetiming with Carla Wade from Oregon Department of Education and sharing with State Ed Tech Leaders in Washington DC about their experience learning in a true one to one iPad classroom.

At times the connection was sketchy but they made their point. Ryan, Michael, Emmaline, and Ali shared about how the iPad is making their learning more personalized, from updated instant news and facts at their fingertips to taking notes and having all their tools in one place (the iPad). They shared apps like iMovie, Pages, and Classnotes and shared how their teacher is organizing resources about the presidential election in modules using Livebinders. The group shared about the temptation to do other things with the iPad while in class but were quick to note that they would have it taken away if they weren't using it appropriately, which means expectations and management of the iPads are consistent and understood. One student explained that they are given time to explore with an app or new feature as well as taught by their teacher. The exploring time was important to them in learning how to use the iPad last year.

Check out more about their project in this video created last spring to showcase what the teachers and students accomplished in their first year.  


Of course, 15 minutes of Facetiming isn't enough time to share all the great things that are happening at their school but they sure were able to fit a lot in a short amount of time. As one stated, the iPad does everything they could ever imagine a piece of technology could do and then some. They were all surprised at all the different ways the iPad could be used in their classes, from writing to science. Their hopes for the future? They would like to be able to take them home and wish all their textbooks were in ebook format!

Video:  http://wms.athwest.k12.or.us/video
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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

No Sound? Not Rotating?

This is actually a confusing thing about iPads, especially when someone is just starting out.

The little side switch on the upper right hand side of the iPad can be adapted for two uses:  mute and lock screen.

By default the side switch is set to mute.  Some prefer lock screen.  To change:  Settings > General  and you will find the side switch options.




As you can see in the highlighted area on the image, the other option then becomes accessible in the multitasking bar.  Users can find the multitasking bar by double clicking the home button twice and swiping the bar along the bottom to the right or by the 4 finger swipe up and then swiping the bar at the bottom to the right.

This is often where the mute confusion comes into play.
A user may change their side switch to lock screen, forgetting then that they may have the mute turned on in the multitasking bar.  Music works fine, videos play with sound but the games have no sound.

It's important to remember:  the mute only mutes: notifications, game sounds, alerts, sound effects..... not video, music, movies.

No rotation?  Same situation - user has the side switch for mute, forgetting that they locked the screen in the multitasking bar.

Apple support on this topic:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4085





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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

iDevice Center Activities for Reading

AGENDA:
Resources and Example Lessons:
EPUB Resources:
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