An iPod Touch in Every Classroom?: Yes, with Education Focused Apps « Wired Educator July 25, 2008 kcroy Conference, Hardware, Podcasting, Resource, Software, Technology, Uncategorized Applications, Apps, audio, Classroom, diversification, education, handheld, iPhone, ipod, iPod Touch, iTunes, learning, Mobile Learning, Podcasting, teach, teacher, teaching, U, University, video, wow I have been promoting the use of ‘An iPod in Every Classroom’ at eTech Conferences and smaller venues for the past few years. In an earlier post I announced the release of iTunes University creating a special section for K-12 content. Twenty-one iPhone/iPod Touch apps are currently in the iTunes App Store with many more about to be released. Certainly more apps are on the way, but what I am really interested in is the ability to easily create my own. I will be reviewing education apps independently on site, so keep checking back. Apple is billing this use of iPods in the classroom as Mobile Learning. Like this: Like Loading...
Giving Thanks for Apps that Assist A colleague of mine recently asked me to share my top ten favorite apps for “Special Education in the Inclusive Classroom”, which is actually something that I am asked to do quite often. Unfortunately, that list does not exist. In the realm of using technology as assistive technology for individuals with special needs, it is extremely important that it be about the individual. What are the student’s strengths, weaknesses, and specific needs? Over the last few years of working with iPods touches, iPhones and iPads, I have found an extraordinary amount of apps in the App Store that are excellent assistive technology apps for a variety of students with disabilities. Dragon Dictation: This app is a voice-to-text application that allows students to easily speak and almost instantly see the text. 1,050 views, 1 today What do you think?
Learn Spanish - Survival Guide by Wizzard Media Classroom iPod touches & iPads: Dos and Don'ts Even more relevant with the announcement of the iPad 2. The camera alone allows schools to use this more like a laptop. It is now a viable alternative to a 13inch Macbook. Anyway Tony has some really interesting and insightful tips learnt through experience. Enjoy "Bringing iPods and iPads into the classroom is a great way to give students access to learning tools. The list is for large or small class sets of handhelds; if students are using their own personal iPods you'll have a different set of considerations and technical issues to deal with. Dos Do sync all iPods to one computer. Do name iPods. Do set each device's wallpaper with a number or name. Do set iPods for automatic sync of all content. Do make playlists. Do delete content. Do configure the Music app for easy access to playlists and podcasts. Do label or engrave iPods. Do set up an iTunes account for the classroom computer. Do know you can authorize more than one account on a computer. Do secure iPods when not in use. Don'ts
iPod Touch Schoolwide Implementation There are a number of posts from individuals interested in using iPod Touches for teaching and Learning. At Culbreth Middle in Chapel Hill, NC we began a pilot this past August to place the iPod Touch in the hands of staff and students. Our staff development for faculty to roll out the new technology centered on teacher coaches leading their groups in exploration through professional learning communities. Our AVID students use the iPod Touch in the AVID classroom and in all other courses. They have piloted this program, using the iPod Touches daily for note taking, keeping individual agendas, translation for world languages, and accessing research through the Internet. This winter we were able to add iPod Touch labs for each of our seven interdisciplinary teams and two labs for our exploratory and resource teams. Teacher current app favorites include: WordBook, Thesaurus, USA, Countries, Brain Tuner, Blanks, Whiteboard, CoinToss, Lose It!
Apps in Education World Languages: PALS Defining performance standards is an essential component of an instructional program. They give teachers, students, and parents a measurable level of performance as a goal of the program. Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) teachers have been developing a performance assessment program since 1995. As it has been developed, teachers and students have field tested the rubrics and modified them to reflect the language development of students within an academic setting. The assessment tasks, both formative and summative, and accompanying rubrics are laid out in a program called PALS: Performance Assessment for Language Students. The program also includes conversion charts for turning the score on a performance task into a corresponding grade. We invite teachers, students, and parents to become familiar with the rubrics and to use them as they deem appropriate. FCPS must be cited whenever these rubrics are used. Level 1 Speaking Tasks Level 1 Writing Tasks Level 2 Speaking Tasks
Ideas to Inspire iPod Touch in High Schools - Benefits, Applications and Problems The iPod touch onscreen keyboard is best suited for typing notes rather than long documents. Many students can type quickly on their iPod or iPhone, though. They get lots of practice sending emails and text messages! I have a portable bluetooth keyboard from Apple which works well with the iPod touch. Evernote Evernote is a free app that lets users type a note on the iPod. The Evernote Corporation claims that their servers are very secure, but I still think that students should be told not to upload anything confidential, such as their address and other personal information. Since the user's notes are stored online, they can be accessed on other devices, such as a home computer, as long as these have the free Evernote application installed and the user logs into their account. Evernote works well as a simple word processor and has some basic formatting tools. Pages The Pages word processor is an Apple app. Notability
Leadership for Mobile Learning Working With Evernote for iPad I haven’t been an Evernote user for a long time. I remember tried this popular service many months ago for the first time and while I was impressed by the tons of features it offered, I was seriously disappointed by the official Mac client. It didn’t feel native to me, and the UI was a mess. Even after I applied some custom elements from Susumu Yoshida, I wasn’t happy with it. But I’ve got an iPad, and I heard the optimized version of Evernote for the new device was worth checking out. Evernote on the iPad is very good. For those who don’t know, the purpose of Evernote is that of allowing you to build your own digital scrapbook made of notes, pictures, links, sounds, whatever. First of all, let me say this straight up: it could be a lot better. Even with the feature set cut half due to deadlines and annoying bugs, this app is changing the way I work. So as you can guess, the application works pretty good for me. I appreciate the “viewing all notes” sliding menu a lot.