Klikaklu - Picture Matching Treasure Hunts

Are you familiar with Geocaching, where you use GPS to find a hidden treasure by navigating to a location and using some clues if necessary?  Do you remember the scavenger hunts you went on as a kids where you collected a series of objects from around the neighborhood?





Klikaklu is a free app available for iPhone, iPad, and even Android.  This free app allows you to navigate through a modern treasure hunt.  At each stop there is a photo, find the photo, match it with your iDevice, and proceed onto the next stage. If you complete the hunt successfully, a reward may be waiting on the end.

Where do you find these treasure hunts, or better yet, can you make them?  Klikaklu just revised their app so during the first seven days after installation you can create treasure hunts.  After seven days, you'll need to purchase the upgrade for $4.99 to be able to create new or modify existing treasure hunts.

When creating a Klikaklu hunt you will have two options, either linearly where students progress from clue to clue in order, or as a scavenger hunt where they get all the clues up front and can find them in any order.





This would be a great activity to have incoming students at your school, for instance Freshman orientation day, find different locations throughout the school property.

You could use this activity for regular classes where each stop is a question, math, science, or language arts, and they must generate answers along the way.  Klikaklu has this feature built in where you can have students answer multiple choice, true false, short text, or number questions at each clue and upon completion of the hunt.

For creative writers you could put stops where words are visible,  students must bring back the words they found, and when finished write a story using all the words they chose to bring back.

Klikaklu would be very entertaining for those special days throughout your school calendar. 

Who knows, maybe you'll find that pot of gold at the end of your next treasure hunt.

Sharing with Airdrop on IOS 7

One dilemma teachers often contend with is how to view students work that is completed on an iPad, particularly if you have an iPad center or you are 1-1.  One workflow solution is to have students email finished work, but that will fill up a teachers in-box.  Another workflow solution is to have students upload to a cloud service, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Edmodo.

You may want to try out this new IOS 7 solution using Airdrop which allows you to share items between compatible IOS devices via bluetooth.  Wifi needs to be turned on, but not necessarily connected for Airdrop services to work.  Currently it's available for all iPhone 5 models, 4th generation iPads, iPad mini, and 5th generation iPod Touches.  

It's quite simple to use, as you select what you want to share and if there are available Airdrop recipients within close proximity, they show up as possibilities.

You tap on the particular recipient and they receive a notice to accept or decline.
 

 

To enable your IOS device to receive Airdrop items, you need to go into the control panel, tap on AirDrop, and choose either from contacts or everyone. 

If the teacher has their iPad, or even iPhone 5, set to receive Airdrop shared items, students could go in and share their work to the teacher's device.  

Shared items include anything with the Sharing button; photos, notes, videos, and completed items in apps.  The shared item will be stored in the same location as where it came from; photos in camera roll and notes in notes.

If all iPads in a center or 1-1 classroom are set to receive Airdrop items, then students will be free to share with each other.

Currently IOS devices can not Airdrop to a Mac, as I'm hoping that feature becomes possible in the near future.

iPad for Writing - NCCE 2013

February 27, 2013

Agenda

  Joe Buglione
Heidi Paullus
from Intermountain ESD in Pendleton OR

GTKY - Trading Cards

• Describe yourself using a trading card - real person
• Blog reflection with our kidblog "How can you use the Trading Cards app in your classroom?"
• Kidblog class/URL for the app : kidblog.org/ncce2013

Activity: Where is the Writing? 

• Click here to use this following form, 5 words with commas

Basic iPad functions -

• keyboard functions
• record and listen, edit
• with quickrecorder
• select word to dictionary
• Miriam Webster Dictionary app
• FreeSaurus Thesaurus app
• Just write at a5.gg 

Activity: Learn site words / vocabulary

• Create a flashcard list of terms:  Bitsboard, Phonics Genius
• Reflection write about Bitsboard and how you can use this in your classroom.

• Vocab with Camera - Piccollage, Phonto, Storykit
• Reflection write about Piccollage and how you can use this in your classroom.

Activity: Brainstorm

• Concept Mapping - Total Recall
• NCCE 2013 offers me ... 
• Word Walls - iBrainstorm 
• Play jumbline 
• Learn one word you did not know, use it in a sentence
• Flick your sentence over using iBrainstorm Companion
• Reflection write about these concept mapping / brainstorming tools and how you can use this in your classroom.

Activity: Digital Stories

• Story board with a5.gg
• Digital Story Telling; prompt "If you give a kid a camera" : Story Kit,  Scribble My Story, Book Writer ($), Creative Book Builder ($)
• Digital Video Creation; prompt "This afternoon at NCCE..." : Videolicious, imovie ($)

Activity: Workshop Reflection

• Recap two highlights of what you learned and how you plan on implementing them in your classroom or job. Use Tellagami to record your reflection, save movie to your ipad, and if challenged upload it to your reflection blog.

 

Activity: A Creative Conversation

• Collaborative Writing -  Google Story Builder
• In groups of 2-4 with one ipad, write a short conversation using the blog characters  as the names and personalities, to address the prompt "What do you want to take back to your school after attending NCCE?"
• Reflection write about how you can use Google Story Writer in your classroom.

Activity: Comics

•  Create a Comic Strip - Toontastic, SockPuppets

 

Points to Ponder:

• Conventions : Post is denied by students if conventions are not correct. EdModo, Kidblog
• Journaling with Noteability ($), Evernote, or iDiary
• Blogging with KidBlog, or Blogger: continued reflective posts throughout work session reflecting on various activities.
• Giving them a reason to write:  what motivates them?  who is their audience? 

Thought Provoking Articles:

• The Use and Abuse of Technology in the Classroom
• Persuasive Writing with Puppet Pals
• Examples of Student Writing

Web Resources:

• Read Write Think
• Word Hippo - Find synonyms, antonyms, and more
• Google Drive - The app allows for simple modification of Google Docs, and in a collaborative environment.  More advanced editing still might need to be done via Safari.

Turn Your iPad into a Document Camera

I visited with a teacher last week, and her document camera isn't working well.  Not sure what was wrong with it, but the first thing that came to mind was "use your iPad".  This teacher already had been using her iPad that way.

Then later in the week I come across the app called Stage.  This free app is designed to turn your iPad into an interactive whiteboard or document camera.


You have the ability to annotate over the top of the iPad camera, live, without taking the picture.  Tools include a Pen, an eraser, several colors, and sticky notes.  The only tool missing is a highlighter pen.  The app is only a couple months old, so I'm hoping an update will provide enhancements.

If you are using Apple TV or Reflection, you don't need to be tethered to  your document camera, as Stage will let you take your document camera with you.

 A few possibilities include

• annotating on top of a worksheet without importing the image into another app
• annotating on top of student work
• annotating on top of a student science lab experiment
• annotating on top of math manipulatives constructed by a student
• annotating on top of a student's art project 

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. 

Snapchat - Digital Safety Can NOT be Taught Enough!

Before I start about the app, this is not a post about how to use an app in the classroom.  This is more of a "heads up" post, especially for those of us teaching upper elementary to college aged students.

The basic premise of Snapchat is to be able to quickly snap a photo and send it to another user and the photo will "self destruct" in a matter of seconds.  

Quick, easy, share a funny moment with good friends..... but it creates a false sense of security in thinking that it will be gone within so many seconds of the receiver opening the picture.  But it's not gone.  One simple screen capture and that photo is now in the hands of someone else and can be sent anywhere.  

To get the full idea,  this app came to our attention when the Today Show ran a segment last week.  You can watch the segment here.   

This app reminds me of the importance of digital safety talks with our teens.  

Common Sense Media has great Educator Resources for Digital Citizenship content aligned with the Common Core.   

Screenleap - Easily Share Your Desktop

Screenleap is a website that allows a person to share their desktop for viewing with any device with an internet browser. Great for districts allowing BYOD!

The first thing I think of  is sharing presentations out to the devices in the students' hands for easier viewing.  For students sitting in a large classroom, trying to take notes from the board, having the capability to snap a screenshot of the slides of a presentation to refer to later is a great tool.


A middle school math teacher in our region recently used this app with students in her class.  "I have the clickers out and students are working on problems and sending in answers.  It has been wonderful. Students are watching their iPad screens while I'm using Activeinspire and writing without any problems."

Ease of use for this site is great - no sign up required.  Once you choose to share your screen it gives a 9 digit access code.

Students access your screen on their device by going to the same site (www.screenleap.com) which could easily be added as a bookmark on their home screen.  They then enter the same 9 digit access code to view what the teacher is doing on their screen.

Podcasting Centers

While walking through a school in our region, I walked right past a couple of students working on a project.  The task was for them to create a video using Educreations explaining a certain math concept.  What intrigued me was they were in the hallway using a very creative low cost podcasting center. 

The teacher used an old large carboard box, lined it with styrophome, collapsable for easy transport, and quick to assemble.

It's a great way to provide a location for students to record without distracting others or having distractions interfere with their work.

Do you provide a location for students to use as a recording studio?

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.

Please download a handout here for some quick overview instructions on how to get started.

Guided Access - Keeping Students in an App

With the new iOS6 update there were lots of new features but by far one feature has been asked for numerous times by teachers and it's finally here.....Guided Access.
You are now able to lock an app so that students are only able to access that one app.
Here is a quick how to video:  

The uses for this is numerous in an educational setting.
This is not just for management for behavior, we've all had the squirrels that love to do everything they are asked not to, but also for easier use for young students or students with limited motor skills who may click out of apps.

Video was made with screenr (online screencasting software) and reflection app on the computer.  
You can also access the how to video HERE.  

iOS6 Update is out.

It's been out since last Wednesday, so this is your friendly reminder!
For most people this update can be done "wirelessly", meaning you do not need to plug into a computer to update.  I do caution - depending on your wireless strength, it may take 45 mins to 4 hours (I'm hearing various reports!) - so I suggest plugging your iPad into power and doing the install before you leave the office or go to bed at night!


To find the update go to:
Settings
     General
          Software Update
It will then walk you through the steps.


There are many new features with this update - each depending on the device you have.  This update is for the iPad2 and the New iPad, newer generations of the iPod Touch, and the later iPhones.
Here is the Apple page on the new update showing some of the new features.
Since there are many, we will be posting on a few that we feel are the most beneficial to the classroom.

Google Docs on the iPad? Updated Google Drive is here!

Google Document collaboration with the iPad is something we've all been waiting for and with the recent update to the Google Drive app, it's just made sharing and collaborating with Google Docs on an iPad much easier.  Though I am still waiting for Google Spreadsheet and Presentation to be editable, for now this update will certainly do for use in the classroom!

Before this update, docs could be done through the Google App or by accessing it through the browser.  Any of us who had been using it know it wasn't very slick, pretty glitchy, and for students it was a little bit overwhelming.  

Through the Google Drive app, things are now a lot more user friendly! 

Here's the new layout:

Start a new document, create a new file, add a picture, or upload from the photo album on the iPad (another way to share videos and photos between your iPad and computer without emailing!) :










Add collaborators by choosing the folder or file and clicking the small + button (circled in red):

Or click the "do something/action" button in the right hand corner to show all your available actions with that folder or file including share (add collaborators), rename, move in (move to folder), and remove:

When you open a file you default to a "view" version of the document:

In the "Edit" version of the document you have basic font options, alignment, bulleting, as well as being able to see current viewers as you would with Google Docs on through the browser.  You are able to watch real time collaboration with other viewers as they type or work on the document.

My wish list for future updates to the app:

• Ability to add comments.  This is a current disadvantage for teachers who use this for editing comments and peer editing. 
• Chat capability in the sidebar.  Disadvantage or advantage depending on the students! 
• Ability to edit Presentations and Spreadsheets.  I hope this comes soon, though you can view both in this current version of the app.  

For basic collaborative writing or for student document management this app makes the iPad more viable for Google Docs with your writing instruction!  

Photos for this post were done using the snipping tool in Windows 7 along with the reflection app for the computer.  

Classroom Management with ClassDojo and the iPad

ClassDojo is an online tracking system for positive and negative behavior, that if you haven't had a chance to explore, you should really take the time.  I mentioning it now because the website has a nice, easy to use app for the iPad and iPhone.

ClassDojo App by Class Twist Inc  - Free with no ads!

Don't assume this is a primary site - it has potential through upper grades as well!  (I used the site with 6th grade math - they still like reward systems!)

What is ClassDojo? (as described from the site)

ClassDojo is a classroom tool that helps teachers improve behavior in their classrooms quickly and easily. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators.  Better learning behaviors, smoother lessons and hassle-free data - and its free!

• Log in and Sign up at the ClassDojo website.
• Follow the guided tour and add your classes. 
• In "Edit Class" manage students and add behaviors that fit the needs of the class. 
• Under "Report Cards" set up to send emails to parents, view whole class behavior and points or by individual student.  

Sign in to the account on the iPad and record as you move about the room.  The information syncs between website and app making it easy to access the data that you have collected.   Project the class up on the screen (students love the avatars!) and discuss behavior at the end of the class period or have students nominate students for positive behaviors that they noticed during class that may have gone unnoticed by the teacher.    

More advanced and interactive use allows the students and parents to use their own code to log in and view their points.  

Between the website and the app - the data collection aspect is easy and valuable and worth the few minutes to get it set up!