The Student Guide to iPads and iOS 6 I have bookmarked over the last couple of months 5 great iPad eBooks that I will be sharing with you in a separate post probably next week, However the title I have included here today can not wait any longer.This is a practical guide to help both teachers and students learn more about iPad and iOS 6 from the basics to the more sophisticated features. This eBook is completely free so you can jump right in and start downloading it. This eBook is designed in such a way to make it easy for users to easily navigate its content . Both the font and interface are reader friendly and most important of all the tutorials and tips it contains are things every teacher and student need to know about particularly when using iPad for educational purposes. Click Here to access and download this free guide. Enjoy
How and Why to Teach Your Kids to Code Great Video Tutorials on Creating Textbooks Using iBook Author iBook Author is an awesome free app that allows users to easily create stunning multi-touch textbooks for iPad. It provides all the tools one might need to start creating and publishing ebooks including galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and many more. iBook Author provides you with a set of pre-defined templates to help you design the background of your textbook. You can choose from a wide variety of styles, like classic textbook, or photo book in both landscape and portrait orientations. You can also choose from a variety of page layouts in each template, or even create one of your own. Check out these posts to learn more about iBook Author : Today we are providing you with another great resource that can help you learn more about iBook Author.
Top 10 Ed-Tech Startups of 2012 It probably goes without saying, but I’ll type it out anyway: 2012 was an incredible year for education technology startups. Launches. Updates. With all that’s happened this year, making a list of the “top” new education technology startups was more challenging than ever before – least of which because there were a lot more companies to choose from. How I Chose But I’ve written a “Top Startups” post for two years in a row (See: 2010, 2011), so I guess it's part of my end-of-year writing traditions now. Once again, I’m only highlighting here those that were founded and/or launched in 2012. … Meanwhile, I’ve complicated things by expanding my categorization of “startup” a tad to include some initiatives from outside the high-risk, high-growth, for-profit business world. I’m also fudging a bit on the number here. Whatever. tl;dr here’s my list, in no particular order… Full disclosure: I got to hang out with Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun a bit last week.
BioBook, A Gates-Funded iPad Textbook, Would Create A Free Database For Customized Learning Since the launch of the iPad, colledge educators have been seeking an inexpensive alternative to paper textbooks that could leverage the collective knowledge of teachers and students. With a $249,000 grant from the Gates Foundation's Next Generation Learning Challenge, Dr. Daniel Johnson of Wake Forest University and education technology firm Odigia might have found it. Their BioBook, an iPad and web-enabled interactive biology textbook, creates a fully customizable experience for both students and educators. For educators, the BioBook allows professors to track individual student progress and develop their own textbooks from a national database of professor-generated, mix-and-match chapters. On the student side, linear chapters are remixed into "branches and leaves," where students explore concepts as interlinked ideas, moving from fundamental facts to an array of detailed chapters, which students can explore in their own way. Threaded Learning A National Database Dr.
BBC Research: The Mythology Engine 7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore. It explains the project in more detail. "Each student has to choose an organisms they wanted to study and were required to submit their topic for approval. Afterward, students had to write informative – but entertaining! – articles about their organism." Andrea collected work from 69 students and entered it into iBooks Author. iBooks Author is free but only works on Macs running 10.7 Lion or higher. iBooks Author is a fantastically powerful tool. There are some disadvantages to using iBooks author for crafting your own learning materials. Check out what Andrea and her students say about writing their book. I think the comment by CNEBBY in the Customer Reviews of Creatures, Plants and More sums up the project well: "This is an awesome example of what kids can do when they are properly motivated by a skilled teacher."
Safe search engines for kids? Reader Q+A at Cool Mom Tech What’s the best search engine for kids, in your experience? -via Twitter Keeping kids safe online should be a huge priority for parents. When it comes to kid-safe search, there are actually a lot of good options out there. Safe Search For Young Kids There are some great search engines that you can bookmark as your kids’ own versions of Google. Kidzui (above) is a great resource for pre-K through early elementary school-aged kids. Another kid-friendly search engine is Kidrex. Safe Search For Older Kids When you get into the tween years and beyond, I’d really recommend using Internet filters to ensure that when your kids are using the same search engine you use, they are still protected from the creepy stuff out there. On top of that, we have covered smart internet safety options for kids here before, like Net Nanny which works on both tablets and PCs. We’ve also looked at safe browsers for tablets, and recommend Mobicip. 9Share
Step-by-Step: How to Create a Collaborative Class eBook Previously, I have published the following posts about creating eBooks: More and more classrooms are wanting to take their already created content and turn it into an eBook to share with parents, grandparents and the community who own eReaders. Here are some possible ideas to create content: Any Unit of StudyBook Report AnthologyPoem AnthologyVisual Quotes CollectionCreate your own TextbookEssay Collection about a Specific TopicDrawing/Painting CollectionPortfolio So, how do you create a collaborative CLASSROOM eBook? Here is our Step-by-Step procedure (we are using the BookCreator app). 1. To get images into the gallery, students can: search for public domain or creative commons images on the web (via Safari) and save the image to the iPad Photo Gallery by holding a finger for a few seconds on the image until a drop down list pops up > choose “Save Image”. To insert an image into the BookCreator app, tap the icon on the top right of the app and choose the image from the camera roll. 4. 5.
Project Switch: A Small Game Experiment Yields Big Lessons Switch is a new in-gallery mobile game at the Getty Center. Earlier this year, I worked on an experimental project to create a simple game that would be played in the galleries with a mobile phone (find the game here). The idea came from my colleague Rebecca Edwards (no relation), a Museum educator who specializes in family audiences. She wanted to transform one of the Getty’s existing online games, Switch—like a “spot the differences” image game—into an on-site experience in the galleries for families. Visitors see an altered, or “switched,” image of a work of art on their mobile phones, and compare it to the original work in the gallery to find what’s been changed. We weren’t sure the game would translate. Facing these many uncertainties, we decided to take an experimental approach and build this quickly, cheaply, and without any frills. By keeping expectations low and the scope small, we planned to get a working prototype up and running fast. Lesson #2: Navigating a Museum Is Hard.
More reasons to love iPad with iBooks Author iPad Published on February 29th, 2012 | by Mark Anderson You won’t have failed to notice the big launch by Apple a few months ago with various links to education. They released 3 big education related items that have (if they hadn’t already) made educational establishments really sit up and notice the iPad as a serious learning tool. iTunesU app was released which gives amazing access to hordes of online courses from universities from all over the globe. iBooks2 which included developments in interactivity within the books you can read within the app. Finally and I think perhaps more importantly, they introduced the new iBooks Author app. The following hits are reasons why iBooks Author tied with iBooks2 is a complete win for schools, particularly in 1:1 type scenarios. Teachers can easily (yes, easily!) The possibilities for fantastic books to be created for all subject areas is immense. Tags: #edtech, #iPad, learning About the Author
12 Things Students Should Never Do on Social Media The last thing young people want is another set of rules. But these days, social media comes with great responsibility, whether you're just starting high school or finishing up college. The fact is, irresponsible social media conduct could potentially ruin your education and negatively impact your career, not to mention hurt others in the process. We've pinpointed 12 social media mistakes that students should avoid at all costs, because after all, it's never as simple as "be responsible." Please head to the comments below to add your own contributions and advice for young adults on social media. 1. Granted, high school and college students experiment with many activities and substances. Once or twice per year, perform a thorough review of the information and content accessible on your social media profiles. 2. Bullying is one of the most serious problems in schools today. SEE ALSO: Why You Should Talk to Kids About Cyberbullying [INFOGRAPHIC] Check your school's policy on bullying. 3. 4.