Google Classroom Releases Their iPad App

Google Classroom released an iDevice app, available for both the iPad and iPhone. Requires IOS 7 or higher.

 

The app interface to Google Classroom is very similar to the online interface.  This should be an easy transition. One difference is when posting, find and use the plus down in the lower right hand corner.

What I like about the app is you can add photos from your camera roll to include on any post.

 

I also like the ability to switch classroom accounts by clicking an icon.  This will come in useful in scenarios where there are multiple students sharing an iPad in a classroom.

GroupMaker - a Great Teacher Tool

GroupMaker is a free iPad and iPhone app that allows teachers to upload class lists and organize them into groups quickly based on various characteristics, such as gender or academic level (based on a 1,2, or 3 rating). 

Once your students are uploaded, adjust and regroup as needed.  The ability to add photos for quick reference is great and by using the PICK! feature let the app choose a group or student to answer, discuss, or present first!     

Group sizes can be one to twenty.  Create as many Group configurations as you would like and save them within the class for quick access! 

GroupMaker is an easy app to add to your teacher toolbox.  

Evernote for Eportfolios - NCCE 2013

Agenda

February 26, 2013 

Joe Buglione and Heidi Paullus
from Intermountain ESD in Pendleton OR

GTKY : Skitch n share

• Photo of you, include text about where/what you do
• Explore skitch
• Pair up n share about you, 5 sec recap of evernote experience
• Groups of 4, introduce partner to other two
• Repeat with new groups of 4, new partners
• email to portfolio

 Activity : ePortfolio Wordsift

• create list of words you think of describing eportfolios, Click to enter those words here
• Google Form then Wordsift those words
• what is your reflection?  what do you want to contain in student portfolios?
• email to portfolio

Post a Pic:

• Walk about and take a picture of some identifiable with NCCE
• Post this picture in your evernote
• Post the picture with text which reads why it is identifiable for you to your portfolio

Using Your Evernote:

Work in with a partner to help each other out through the following topics:

1. Can you post different types of items; prompt "information about NCCE"? text, picture, voice, webpage, combination
2. Can you view your notes using web interface, app, software?
3. Interfacing with Evernote, do you know how to use the following: evernote website, web clipper, software on computer, with mobile device, via an app paired with evernote)
4. Limitations using Free Account
5. Sharing notebooks and privacy settings: Can you share a notebook with another evernote user, with the public?  Can you view a notebook being shared with you from someone else?
6. Searching Evernote:  Can you search evernote and obtain what you want?  Did you realize you can search for text within pictures?
7. Organization of posts: Can you create a Stack?  Can you modify stacks and move notebooks?  Can you move notes?  Can you work with Tags?
8. Create a quick video using Tellagami describing what you learned about Evernote, Save to Camera Roll, then email to your portfolio.

Ways to Organization your ePortfolios

• Under your account
• Create Stacks and Notebooks
• Students email using correct syntax
• Limitations on total Evernote uploads
• Teacher has total control over content
• Can share notebook as necessary
•  Student creates their own account
• They share notebook with you
• If free, you can not edit notebook
• Students can upload easier with mobile devices and such
• Students can upload more, with higher limits per student
• Teachers organization still the same
• Teacher has little or no control, just observing
• Post a reflection of how you want to implement an eportfolio design with Evernote; email your reflection to your portfolio.

Evernote Trunk and other apps

• Skitch
• Penultimate
• Evernote Peek
• vJournal
• Everclipper
• Evernote Food

Posting from Explain Everything  (the app ExplainEverything)
Posting from BaiBoard (the collaborative screen casting app BaiBoard)

Evernote articles and resources

• True Learning - A teachers journey as she implements eportfolios during 2012-13.
• Group vs Individual Accounts with Evernote Portfolios - One post from a blog reflecting on the use of Evernote in the classroom. Be sure to read through other posts on the blog.
• 3 Keys for Successful eportfolio Implementation

 Other eportfolio options

• Google Blogger
• Google Website
• Three Ring

BaiBoard - A Collaborative Interactive Whiteboard App

BaiBoard is a free multi-page collaborative virtual whiteboard available for the iPad.  Like many apps designed for businesses, educators have thought outside the box and are using it as a viable resource for their classrooms.

One high school teacher uses BaiBoard and his iPad as his slate.  BaiBoard gives you the ability to share the virtual whiteboard with an IP address.  He opens a browser on his computer connected to a projector and is able to present material to students while using a stylus on the iPad, walking around the room as you would a slate. 

BaiBoard tools consist of several pens, up to four pages, and the ability to bring in images or documents.  For instance teaching math you could bring in a xy coordinate plane and for creating graphs, or take a picture of a students solution and annotate over the top.  The board contents remained saved associated to the board number for future reference until the board owner clears it.

A second pair of elementary teachers use BaiBoard's collaboration piece to have students work together to solve math problems.  Once you create a new board, you can return to that board providing you remember the board number.  You can also have multiple authors joining one board.  Thus, students in two different schools join the same board on iPad's at each school, and collaboratively work on math problems.

Here is a video of one 3rd grade classroom using BaiBoard.  Students would post problems from classroom A, and students in classroom B would solve them.


In rolling out the app to this 3rd grade class, the two teachers agreed to have their students join specific board numbers at the same time, with some students in each class on the same board.  It took under 5 minutes for students to find the chat feature inside BaiBoard and thus communicate with each other.

 BaiBoard is a nice collaborative virtual whiteboard available free for the iPad.  Give it a try. 

Subtext Will Read To You

We're often visiting with teachers that need to have accommodations allowing a device to read text to students.  They ask, "Is it possible to have the iPad read something like a Tween Tribune article"?

Subtext, the collaborative reading app, free at the time of this post, has an option that does just that.  Inside the app you find the article on the Internet, add it to your Subtext bookshelf, and use the "play" button when reading the article.  The voice reading the article provides good articulation with voice inflection for a computerized reader, and the app  highlights which sentence is being read.



Let us describe the steps here.
A. Open the subtext app and find Add Books and Docs button
 

B.  Choose to add "Read web pages in Subtext"

C.  Find your webpage/online article, use the google search tool from subtext if needed, and then click Add to Subtext bookshelf button.  Close this window when finished.

D.  On your book shelf click Read It button

E.  Find the Play button when reading an article

F.  Click settings (gear in upper left) to turn on this feature and set the reader speed.

Subtext has much more to offer, which we will cover in a future blog post.  However, this feature can be a great addition for your reading resources.

Just Books Read Aloud

Here is a great website you can use with an iPad or iPod, called Just Books Read Aloud.  There are over 100 books, a small sample shown below, available for read aloud.  All free and easily accessible, with great stories.

This would make for a great link on your iPads or iPods if you are using them as learning centers in a classroom. And with an audio splitter, you can have two students sharing one iDevice.

Another online resource for beginning readers that can  be used on an iPad or iPod is called Tar Heel Reader.  Books are designed with one sentence per page accompanied by some image. You can filter your search by topics to find books of a particular interest.  Below is an example choices from the category "Books from Alphabet". 

This website offers a collection of a few thousand books with options to have books read to the student, where you choose the voice.  Since the books at Tar Heel Reader are written for all beginning readers, most of the content is perfect for younger readers, though some of the books might be more appropriate for older students. Find the most appropriate category for your students and save a direct link to those books on your iPad or iPod.

Kindergarten and StoryKit

It's always great to see the fun things that our teachers in the region are doing with their iDevices.  Even better, when we get feedback at how the iDevices have changed the way students learn and how we teach in positive ways!  Here is a video recap of a kindergarten class that used the app StoryKit to practice identifying the beginning, middle, and end of the story The Grumpy Bird .   

Students identified the three parts on paper.  Then in partners they took turns taking the photo, typing the sentence, and recording their voice in StoryKit.  Ms. Evans explained that the students were engaged, excited, and worked very well together on their project.  

And to think these were kinders only three months into the school year!  

Augmented Reality: an Alternative to QR Codes?

Over the past year we have seen QR Codes make a mark in the classroom as an easy way to send students to a site, make interactive book talks, share information with parents at Open House, among many other uses.  But what is augmented reality (AR) and how does it match up for classroom use?


From dictionary.com:
augmented reality - noun - an artificial environment created through the combination of real-world and computer-generated data.

String - Free for iPhone and iPad 

Proto - example from String 

My first experience (other than on TV) was seeing a couple of our teachers play with String at our Regional Ed Tech Cadre.  This app works by printing images, called targets, already made by the company from www.poweredbystring.com.  This is a showcase app for the company but is a great way to demonstrate to students what AR is and the possibilities. Of the four examples, the targets demonstrate some of the more advanced features and capabilities that AR can do. Print a few out and try it!

After seeing this, it lead us to spend time experimenting with a free app called Aurasma Lite.  Aurasma allows you to view ARs in a visual browser - including ones you make yourself with the app or ones that appear with their big A on products, newspaper ads, etc.  More information on Aurasma can be found on their website.  

Aurasma Lite - Free for both iPhone and iPad

Making my own was pretty fast and easy.  The app includes some preloaded (and fun) 3D animations,  but for the classroom the biggest tool was being able to make a target show a video that I created.   While practicing, I made the power outlet in my room into a train depot (from the preloaded choices) and the room number on our door be a target for a video that I had created on my ipad.

Advantages to AR was that I could create a target and upload my own video all within the one app and device.  I didn't have to have an external place (like youtube) or print out my QR code.  I just used the pictures in my room.  AR is more limiting than QR Codes for what I can make it display - only videos and slideshows - unless you have time and expertise to create 3D diagrams and animations.  Possibilities though to add a new intractability with the students' surroundings: 
Interactive word walls with video definitions?  View video instructions at classroom centers?  Reading Rainbow book talks with book cover as target?  Any other ideas?

Check out how students and teachers are using AR:
Augmented Reality in Education:  Shaw Wood Primary School  
Bringing Augmented Reality to Life - in the classroom and the workplace

Other AR Experience Apps:
AR Flashcards - Animal Alphabet   For iPhone and iPad  $0.99 (print off 26 animal flashcards to use with app)
The Amazing Spiderman AR - For iPhone and iPad Free (interacts with targets from their website) 
AR Soccer - for iPhone and iPad $1.99  (play with a virtual soccer ball)