iPads Make Better Readers, Writers Literacy Skills iPads Make Better Readers, Writers In a research paper titled “Unlocking Literacy with iPad,” Ohio English teacher James Harmon found that state-compiled statistics indicate that those students with iPad access in the year leading up to the Ohio Graduation Test had a 6-percent greater chance of passing the test’s reading portion than those without, and an 8-percent greater chance of passing the writing portion. By Margo Pierce09/06/11 Once upon a time teachers stood in front of a blackboard writing letters of the alphabet with chalk and drilling students to develop literacy skills. But now that children are growing up with laptops, streaming video, and even iPads, what’s a teacher to do? During the 2010-2011 school year Harmon conducted a “teacher-research” study to measure the effect Apple’s iPad had on the language test scores of his students taking the annual Ohio Graduation Test. This convinced Harmon of the appropriateness of the iPad as a teaching tool.
What’s on Your iPad – with Robert Stephens This is the start of what I hope will become a regular series here at iPad Insight – What’s on Your iPad. I love seeing how others get the best out of their iPad, which are their favorite apps, their most-used productivity apps, and more about their iPad usage. I’m very happy and grateful to have Robert Stephens as my first subject for the What’s on Your iPad series. Robert is the founder of the Geek Squad and the Chief Technology Officer for Best Buy. Which iPad model do you use? iPad2 32Gb WiFi only. Do you use any sort of case with the iPad? Only the iPad Smart Cover. What’s on your iPad dock currently? What are some of your other most-used apps / what’s on your first home screen? Top Home screen apps:YouTube – I play lots of vids for meetings and demos. How do you arrange your home screens? Yes, I use folders heavily, but I also prune dormant apps I do not use. What are some of your most used productivity apps on the iPad? Do you read any newspaper or magazine apps on the iPad?
EdTech Workshop: 5 Ways I'm Using Apps in the Classroom As I'm wrapping up week #2 teaching language arts in a 4/5 1:1 iPad environment, I thought I would try a "5 ways..." type of post. One of my many goals this year is to be a better sharer, so I am pushing myself to blog each week and to try different styles of writing. Let me know what you think, please! 1. We have experimented, thus far, with three apps for student blogging: Wordpress, Chrome and Safari. I'm amazed at how quickly the students are beginning to fluently use multiple apps to achieve a task. Note: Our student bloggers would love to connect with other student bloggers, and we would welcome readers and comments. 2. After carefully reviewing the features of Class Dojo, I decided against using it for behavior management. 3. The camera is a no-brainer. 4. I put Words With Friends on our app list, thinking that we would use it as part of Daily 5 word work. 5. What are students actually learning?
Create your own iPad keyboard for less than $10! One of the more common complaints among iPad users is that the keyboard is awkward to use. Apple offers a wireless keyboard solution at the prohibitive price of about $70 plus shipping but you can actually create your own simple iPad keyboard for less than $10. You need two simple components: A USB camera connection kit (see left). This is normally used for connecting digital cameras to your iPad. You can find them on eBay for around $3.A USB keyboard. The process is very easy. Ironically, PC keyboards worked well and the only problem we encountered was in trying to connect some Apple keyboards. Sam Gliksman samgliksman@gmail.com
7 Ways to Collect Student Work in an #iPad Classroom #staar Next week, I'll be facilitating a short one-hour workshop on a topic that is deceptively simple on a computer, but can be complex on an iPad--how to get student work off an iPad in a place where the teacher can get to it in ONE place. This short blog entry tries to offer some solutions. Let me know what you think, ok? Many apps--here's a short list--will output to WebDav, video or image format that ends up in your Camera Roll. Others will go to YouTube, cloud storage, and allow email sharing. For schools deploying iPads in carts, some options are outlined below: WebDav Server - This is the best option because you can show students how to put/get their content in a central location. When considering HOW to get information off your iPad, you need to remember the following: Terms of Service for various solutions may prevent K-7 (ages 5-12) students from using online, or cloud, storage solution. This list below is no particular order of preference. #1 - Print to File using Printopia app ($20)
Could obesity be cured by injecting our guts with fecal bacteria from ancient mummies? It sounds outrageous, but King Tut's stomach bacteria might hold the cure for obesity. Researchers have recently discovered that modern use of antibiotics has wreaked havoc on the health and content of our gut bacteria. In turn, these changes have altered how our metabolisms work, possibly making us more prone to getting fat. Now scientists from the University of Oklahoma have proposed an unexpected solution: Why not replenish our gut flora using fecal bacteria from ancient mummies as a guide? Since ancient mummies lived in an era before antibiotics, it's worth a look to see how their intestinal bacteria differed from modern gut flora, to discover what has changed. "[Ancient gut flora] do appear to be different," said Cecil Lewis of the University of Oklahoma. Interestingly, researchers found that ancient human gut bacteria is more akin to what is found in the guts of non-human primates, such as chimpanzees.
How To Connect An iPad To A Smartboard It’s really simple–so simple that you’re going to feel silly for not having already known this–and if you tweet this out to a colleague without checking out the stunning simplicity of it all, you’re going to feel crunchy (remember that term?) later when you realize it wasn’t quite the revelation you’d thought it might be. Context If you’ve only got one iPad, or are trying to guide the entire class through an activity, the classroom projector can act as a modeling tool for students to follow along. By displaying the iPad on the projector, you’ve got an easy way to broadcast your screen–or a student’s screen during a presentation–to the entire class. What You Need Process To use the Smartboard as a projection display, you only need an Apple VGA adapter, the same style you’d use for other gadgets including monitors. Sorry it wasn’t more intricate or secretive than that.
Tip 114 - Audio QR Codes Imagine students’ artwork hanging in your school’s hallway and beside each masterpiece is a QR code. When parents, students, and other teachers scan the code using a mobile device, they hear the student telling about themselves and the relevance of their art... Or what about a QR code in the back of a library book that allows you to hear a student’s review of the book? Or a QR code sent home to parents that allows them to listen to their 1st grader reading or telling a story? Sounds difficult, doesn’t it? Not familiar with QR codes? 2 Options for Recording the audio file and generating a URL: Option 1: 1. Note - The first time you use this site, you will need to click a couple of buttons to set it up. 2. 3. 4. Option 2: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Creating the QR Code: Use an online QR Creator 1. - QR Hacker - Kaywa - QuickQR 2. 3. 4. Batch-Generating Codes in a Google Spreadsheet 1. (For instructions, see Tip 111 ) Suggested fields: - First Name
The Digital Learning Farm and iPad Apps 21st Century Learning Socratic Seminar and The Backchannel Humanities teacher, Shannon Hancock, at Graded, the American School of São Paulo, read and worked through The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo with her 8th grade students. Not only did they read the text, learn about literary elements, but also learned to articulate and discuss in a professional manner the text … Visible Thinking in Math- Part 1 The conversation about visible thinking in Math started with one of our teachers at Graded, The American School of São Paulo, Adam Hancock, wanting to know how he could incorporate having students’ use their blogfolios in Math class. Redefining My Learning Silvana Meneghini and I work as Academic Technology Coordinators at Graded, the American School of São Paulo. ” A flashlight in the fog of technology integration“, initially the title of a conference workshop proposal, quickly developed into the desire of creating a framework to guide and coach teachers based on … Global Education iPads