McLoughlin High School iPad Training - Creating Lock Screen Photo

Objective: To use a photo editing app and create a lock screen wallpaper

Apps to use - Phonto




Question to ponder: How can you incorporate text on photos in your lessons?





Steps to take

Sharing button

• Obtain an image into your photo library
• Import image into Phonto
• Add text, format text
• Save the image to your camera roll by using the Share Button
• Inside camera roll, find saved photo, share it as wallpaper

Code Squad : A Multiplayer Math App for Basic Skills Review

iPad's are becoming a great tool for the classroom though very few classrooms have the luxury of being able to sustain a 1-1 program.  Thus teachers are often asking if there are multiplayer apps available.


Code Squad ($0.99) is a great multiplayer app available to practice math computational facts.  The app focuses on the team's success to move from level to level, while keeping track of individual progress.



When you begin playing the game, you are asked what operations to practice; addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or a combination of the four.  The next question is to select the level; easy, medium, or difficult. Then the practice begins.  Below is an example of the easy level for mixed multiplication and division.

 

If a player knows the answer, they key it in and hit enter.  As you can see Agent 4 has 3 errors in the image, thus once agent 4 makes his 5th error the keyboard will be disabled and no longer can they answer any more questions.  As a team all the problems must be answered correctly in a given time limit to move on.  Currently this group has many more red problems to answer.

When complete, the app will reveal how many each agent answered correctly, and if you are successful you will move onto the next level.

Math Manga High is now iPad Compatible

Often times teachers comment, "iPads are wonderful, but they can't do ..." and usually referring to a flash based online resource.  Math Manga High, an online math teaching resource, recently completed an overhaul so that their entire website can now be viewed on an iPad.

If you have not peered into Math Manga High, you need to check it out and give it a try.  This is a math resource offering practice to students in a gaming environment, thus students are highly motivated to continue playing.


There are two types of games available from Math Manga High. The first type are called Prodigi's, which allow students to work through a series of questions aligned with a particular selected Common Core Standard.  Math Manga High has started adding curriculum aligned to High School CCSS.

 

 

These questions are adaptive and progress through the material based on how a student answers.

 

Once the game is completed, points are awarded.  Teachers can set a goal for students to achieve Bronze, Silver, or Gold medal status. Students keep playing the game (answering additional questions) to earn more points.  Also,  as the student plays a second, third, ..., tenth time the questions continue to adapt, with the objective to reach Hard and Extreme level of questions.

There are also several themed games available for practice.  Such as Ice Ice Maybe, where a student practices estimation skills with the objective to get Penguins from one island to another.

Teachers should assign student logins for all their kids, so Math Manga High can assist in data collection for the teacher.  Individual game stats are recorded, as well as student growth data.

Try Math Manga High, your students will be so motivated that they will continue playing math games at home.

Educreations Update

Educreations, a great screen casting app, came out with an update earlier this week.  This update includes an eraser, with the nice option of erasing various items.  For instance, you can use the eraser for annotations, clear the page, clear all annotations, and even clear recording.

In the past, a person would set their pages the way they wanted for the screencast with images and annotations.  If the recording contained too many glitches, the entire project had to be a re-do, including all the graphics. 

Now the question, when will educreations allow us to work on multiple screen casts at the same time?

McLoughlin High School iPad Training

Objective: To explore various categories of implementing an iPad into a High School Classroom/Curriculum.


URL:  http://ideviceinthemtns.blogspot.com/
After you get to the website, click the Share It button and "Add to Homescreen"

Screen Casting / Video Libraries

• Baiboard - A screen casting app that allows you to share via IP address with browser
• Educreations - A screen casting app that allows you to record a lesson as a video
• Khan  Academy - A video resource using screen casting as the medium for videos.  Note there is an app
• MathTV - A video resource on people showing how to solve particular math problems
• Hippocampus - A video resource supporting Math, Science, and Social Science
• Knowmia - A collection of screen casting videos by teachers.  Note there is an app.

 Finding More Information

• iDeviceinthemtns  - Our blog covering iPad resources
• Flipboard - A social media magazine, you can create your own
• Twitter Feeds #ipaded, #edtech 

 Apps as tools - these apps do not include feedback

• My Script Calculator - A calculator that interprets your handwritten expressions
• GeometryPad - A Geometry exploration tool
• Edmodo - A classroom management tool
• Total Recall - A concept mapping tool
• Class DoJo - A classroom behavior management tool
• Chrome - An alternative browser to Safari

Apps as practice/intervention activities - these apps do provide feedback

• 5 Dice - Roll 5 dice and use operations to equal a target numbers
• Adventure Ball - Different physics based games, level based
• Quizlet  - Create your own flashcards

 Story Telling

• 30 Hands - Use pictures and annotate to create your story
• Loopster - A high end movie making app, free
• HaikuDeck - Create a slide show like powerpoint, and encourages images versus words

Annotating Online Articles Using Noteability

I happened to be in a third grade classroom observing students reading an online article from Tween Tribune, a very worthwhile resource for reading. The engaging piece was they were annotating key words, questions, and phrases using an iPad app called Noteability ($1.99).

Students scan the article using a QR code reader, then copy/paste URL into printfriendly.com to download the article as a PDF which opens directly into Noteability. 

Since this classroom is not 1-1 iPads, there are a few hardcopies of the article for those that don't have an iPad for the lesson, and associated QR codes for those students that do have an iPad for the lesson.

iPads versus Google : A Staff Development Observation

Approximately a week ago we hosted a Google/iPad Friday training in our region.  The reason we chose Friday was because so many schools in our area are on a 4-day week, thus teachers would not need to create sub plans for the day.

During this day, we offered 4 concurrent 90 minute sessions, followed by 4 more concurrent 90 minutes sessions.  In each set of 4, there was one iPad centered session and 3 Google centered sessions.

Here were the observed attendance figures.

• Approximately 45 participants in total
• There were 22 and 23 participants in the two iPad sessions, just over 50%
• Of the rest attending the 3 Google session, at least 70% were using an iPad

What might this mean?  Educators are motivated to implementing an iPad into their curriculum.   

Burgers, Brew, and an iPad

As Instructional Technology Specialists, we are often doing trainings with teachers in various schools throughout Oregon.  And it is out in rural Oregon we experienced tech integrated with burgers and a beer.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to facilitate an iPad integrated into curriculum training in Burns, OR.  We came down the night before because of it's location.  Let's just say the nearest Walmart from Burns is a 2 hour drive away, thus in a very rural part of Oregon.

Yet technology is available.  While eating dinner at Big Bear Lodge, paying with a credit card, this was the first business establishment that used an iPad to collect the Mastercard information.  Yep, I've seen it used at farmer's markets and such by individuals, but not in an established business. 

Our comment to the waitress was "The teachers can come on up here in the evenings to get additional iPad training, we'll send them up".