How I'm Using My iPad in a Classroom of 30 Students - Mr. Guymon's Classroom. The versatility of an iPad for education is endless. I am no expert, nor even a veteran in curating apps for the classroom, but I am off to a great start for this next school year. Here is how I have discovered using an iPad in the classroom. No, I'm not referring to a 1:1 iPad scenario.
I am talking about a 1:30 situation. Skype for the iPad is invaluable for connecting with classrooms around the world. Green Screen Movie FX is an iPhone app that I use on my iPad to create movies in front of a green screen in my classroom. I intend to use Green Screen Movie FX a lot for social studies. Cinch is also an iPhone app that I use on my iPad 2 to create classroom podcasts. Finally, Weebly ! I looked into other websites that many educators use to host thier classroom blogs and webpages, but Weebly had more to offer me. Also, Weebly allows you to create multiple pages. Here are a few iPad accessories that I have for my classroom. Also, found this VGA adapter . Book Creator | The simple way to create beautiful books on the iPad. Why the iPad Works for Writing. When the first iPad launched in 2010, critics were quick to lampoon the device for being geared too heavily toward content consumption.
The criticisms weren't entirely without merit, especially considering that the first-generation iPad didn't even have a camera, and external media slots are still nowhere to be found. Over time, the iPad has evolved into something that's much more creation-friendly. It still doesn't compare to a desktop or laptop computer for many things, but it's great for quite a few others. Writing is one of them. I happen to write things for a living, but the practice is far from limited to those who earn a paycheck by doing it. It's Easier to Focus One of the aforementioned early criticisms actually turns out to be part of what makes the iPad ideal for writing. To be sure, there are distraction-free writing apps for Windows and Mac desktops, and it's not exactly rocket science to simply close one's IM, email and Twitter clients for an hour or two.
Free Internet lessons challenge textbook market for public schools. “I don’t really use my traditional textbooks,” Shulman said. “There’s almost too much good stuff online.” Enterprising teachers have long scoured the Internet for ways to improve on their textbooks or local curricula. Now, though, lessons accessed via the Web are proliferating in the classroom as never before and are challenging the position of the powerful education-publishing industry in public schools. Fueling the trend, most states in the past two years have embraced national standards for what students should learn in English and math classes. The new standards should make it easier to share curricula across state lines. In addition, budget pressures after the recession have led many schools to scale back or freeze purchases of textbooks and other teaching materials.
“Now that expectation has entered the American classroom,” said Jay Diskey, executive director for the school division of the Association of American Publishers. U.S. 50 resources for iPad use in the classroom. The transition to the more extensive use of technology in classrooms across the West has resulted in the integration of bring your own device (BYOD) schemes, equipping students with netbooks and tablet computers, and lessons that use social media & online services.
Gesture-based technology is on the rise; according to the latest NMC Horizon Report, gesture-based technological models will become more readily integrated as a method of learning within the next few years. The iPhone, iPad, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect technology are examples of these kinds of developments, and in particular, resources for Apple products in education are becoming widely available online. For teachers, some of which are just beginning to use tablets and mobile devices in class, these resources can be invaluable in promoting more interactive classrooms and understanding how best to use and control such products. Tutorials: 1.) iPads for learning: Getting started 2.) 3.) 50 iPad2 tips and tricks 6.) Six Examples of iPad Integration in the 1:1 Classroom. There has been a lot of conversation and debate in multiple forums, both online and face-to-face, about schools adopting or already working in a 1:1 environment.
While many of these conversations revert back to replacing teachers and what device is best, the real conversation begins with providing our students with the best learning environment possible. At Burlington High School in Burlington, MA, we are entering our eighth month of a 1:1 iPad initiative that began in September 2011. Don't get me wrong, we think the iPad is a great device for learning and gives each of our students a dynamic learning tool that can be used across the content areas and to accomplish a variety of tasks. Many of the critics claim that we are backing our students into a corner by giving them one brand and one skill set to learn exclusively on one device.
This is not the case at Burlington. Our teachers have been compiling exemplary work and engaging our students in a diverse manner. Recently, Ms. 1. Middle school boys who are reluctant readers value reading more after using e-readers. Public release date: 27-Mar-2012 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Margaret Allenmallen@smu.edu 214-768-7664Southern Methodist University Middle school boys rated reading more valuable as an activity after two months of using an e-reader, according to a new study. The findings come from a study of 199 middle school students who struggle with reading and who participated in a reading improvement class that included Amazon's Kindle e-reader, said one of the study's authors, Dara Williams-Rossi, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
The researchers found that boys consistently had a higher self-concept of their reading skill than girls both before and after using the e-readers. After use of the e-readers, boys' attitudes about the value of reading improved, while girls' attitudes declined, said Williams-Rossi, an assistant clinical professor in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU. [ Print | E-mail AAAS and EurekAlert! Why Go 1:1 iPad? In a response to a well written and thoughtful post that I recently read by @jmcconville1000, "Why the iPad is bad for education", I felt compelled to respond from my personal experience of rolling out a cart of 30 iPads in a shared high school environment.
Fundamentally I believe that an iPad can neither be good or bad. All it can ever be is an iPad. I argue instead, that when used effectively and with specific goals in mind, iPads can have a positive impact on education. Seeing that schools are investing money on these devices, the perspective to adopt is not a combative one, but rather one that explores how to effectively integrate the devices. Whether a school is 1:1, or there is a shared iPad cart, the devices can be used effectively. Time & Space: iPad features related to time and space are incredibly important. The iPad is Not a Computer... The device shouldn't be looked at as a computer, because it isn't...it is more than that. All in One: Is everything easy to do on an iPad? 20 Amazing iPad Apps for Educators. When one looks at how technology has changed education over the past decade, one can’t help but be blown away by the sheer number of iPad apps for educators that have absolutely flooded the electronic marketplace.
There are so many iPad apps for teachers released every month that even the most plugged-in educator would have a difficult time processing and utilizing them all. Luckily, when teachers are looking to learn how to use iPads in the classroom, they need to look no further than TeachHUB magazine and TeachHUB.com -- an educator’s primary go-to resource when researching iPad apps for teachers and iPads in the classroom. Read on to learn about TeachHUB magazine and TeachHUB.com’s updated list of the hottest iPad apps for teachers and iPad apps for education, destined to forever alter your curriculum landscape, organized here by subject. Scroll down for an index of many of TeachHUB's helpful iPads in the classroom app reviews and more of the best usage of iPads in the classroom.
Trello. 10 educational iPad apps recommended by Explore Knowledge Academy - Tuesday, Feb. 21. iTunes/App Store Word Wizard Word Wizard is a spelling application for the iPad that allows students to hear sounds of letters and words using an interactive alphabet. The application also provides a spelling quiz with more than 1,400 questions and answers. Elementary school students can tap on alphabetic or QWERTY keyboards. Costs $2.99 in the App Store. iTunes/App Store BrainPop BrainPOP is a subscription-based application that brings 750 or more movies and quizzes in science, math, social studies, English, engineering, art and health to the iPad.
Users can watch an animated movie on a particular subject and then test their knowledge by taking an interactive quiz. The iPad application is free, but it costs between $1.99 and $6.99 per month to access education materials. iTunes/App Store BrainPop BrainPOP is a subscription-based application that brings 750 or more movies and quizzes in science, math, social studies, English, engineering, art and health to the iPad.
The iPad as a research tool. I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog lately reflecting on Big Education ideas. During that time, my little buddy the iPad has felt a little neglected and unloved. So I thought I’d get back to talking about everybody’s “favourite little tablet that could”. Today, I want to explore the possibilities the iPad has as a tool for researching information. As I’ve said many times, what I describe here can be done on laptops but the purpose of this post is to show how the iPad can be used for all tasks if you have decided to use iPads as your main computer. One criticism of the iPad is that it has the “one app open at a time” limitation.
WikiNodes is a different way of browsing and collecting information from Wikipedia. A welcome extra feature is how WikiNodes allows the user to save, store and organize information from the Wikipedia article. Notability, which I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is a versatile note taking app that I think has some useful features for research. 12 Tools for Quickly Gathering Informal Feedback from Students. This morning I'm again facilitating a workshop with Greg Kulowiec.
At the start of the session we introduced three tools for quickly gathering informal feedback from students. The three that we introduced were Socrative, Poll Everywhere, and TodaysMeet. But there are many other tools for quickly gathering informal feedback from students. Here are twelve tools that you can use to quickly gather informal feedback from students. Urtak is a free and simple polling service that can be used on any blog or website.
Kwiqpoll is a simple tool for quickly creating and posting polls. Hall.com is a service for quickly creating and hosting online collaboration spaces. Understoodit is a new web app for quickly gauging your students' understanding of information that you have shared with them. Simple Meet Me is a free service for quickly creating an online chat room with anyone you like. Socrative is a system that uses cell phones and or laptops (user's choice) for gathering feedback from students. Digital Learning should be Personalized Learning. “Learning is most effective when it’s personalised; it means something to the learner. That happens when people feel they are participants and investors in their own learning, shaping what and how they learn, and able to articulate its value to them.” — Leadbeater, Charles, “What’s next?
21 Ideas for 21st Century Learning” The teacher’s role is changing from a one-to-many distributor of content (lecturing), to a facilitator of one-to-many personalized and blended learning environments, and reinforcement over time to create individual mastery. Technology must individually deliver proven accelerated learning methodologies for participants to enage the content interactively over time.
The teacher will facilitate bettered individual learning outcomes through technologies. The cool technology, like the iPad, is only individually valuable if the learning is truely changed from one-to-many to one-to-one. 2. 3. 4. 5. Today’s students have grown up in a world “saturated with technology”. Yes. iPads can’t improve learning without good teaching Pt 2 – Writing. Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com ( ) Writing and technology has been a controversial subject for many traditionalists in education.
“Spell check stops children from learning to spell”. “All students do today is copy and paste from Wikipedia and Google searched articles.” ” Children need to handwrite all their drafts”. “William Shakespeare didn’t have a laptop” ( OK, i just threw that in for fun!) The key words in that last sentence are of course publishing and writing. Which leads me once more to the star of “Mr G Online”, the iPad. I’ll preface this discussion by saying that many of my suggestions can certainly be carried out on laptops or indeed desktop computers. What is writing? A breakdown of genres, their processes and products I’m not going to use some perfectly expressed term written by literacy professors to impress anyone. Now originally, communication was verbal. iPADS AND WRITING The Composing/Editing stage.
iPad As.... iPads have exploded throughout schools and classrooms. Their flexibility, versatility, and mobility make them a phenomenal learning tool. As teachers seek ways to integrate these devices, we recommend focusing on specific learning goals that promote critical-thinking, creativity, collaboration, and the creation of student-centric learning environments. In other words, begin with.....