Tag Archives: apps

Teacher librarians, teaching

What’s been happening – term 3 has been a busy one

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I’m not the only one remarking on the lapses between blog posts. The blog is no longer the main platform for sharing and communicating – there is a long, long list of online places which need to be fed and looked after – for me that includes other blogs, Twitter, Pinterest, Scoop.it, Diigo, Slideshare, Vimeo, Libguides, Facebook and all its groups, and more. So I thought I’d drop in and do a quick update on what may be worth checking out in case it’s helpful or even interesting.

My school library blog has been keeping up with reading ambassadors for the National Year of Reading (#nyor12). These short and informal interviews are a pleasure to read, and reveal thoughtful responses to reading preferences. We’ve also recently celebrated 2012 Book Week with a hugely enjoyable ‘party’ in the library. I’ve included photos I think you’ll enjoy of our costume and cake competitions so that’s definitely worth checking out. This is the first Book Week celebration I’ve attended at Melbourne High School since I started a year ago, and it was fantastic. I was so impressed by the willingness of staff and students to dress up and play the part. The creativity displayed in our book-themed cake competition added a gastronomical dimension – who can resist cake? Yes, we did go on a bit about the cakes looking too good to eat but it didn’t last long.

I’ve been having such a good time resourcing the art curriculum in the last few months. My art blog churns out a diverse selection of inspiration to art students and teachers (I hope). This includes images, photography, design and animation.

Our students explored links to websites with antiquated encyclopedia images to create their ‘transformations’ which I combined in a slide show. The reduced image size doesn’t do justice to the details in the students’ work, so have a look at larger ones in Mihaela’s new art blog.

Yes! Our head of art now has a blog, and so do her students. This term our year 9s and 10s were lucky enough to get iPads, so we decided to get them to create Posterous blogs which we linked to Mihaela’s ‘mother blog’ and encouraged them to start snapping away with their iPad cameras so that they could develop a store of visual inspiration for their work. The beauty of a mobile device is the opportunity to capture photos as you go about your everyday activities. I’ve found the best images are the unexpected ones. I was inspired to get the art students blogging when I saw my dear friend, Marie Salinger’s, student blogs. Marie’s students have realised the rich potential of blogs in terms of journalling, reflecting, evaluating and just plain sharing. A blog is visual, it’s sequential, easy to access online and share with others; it invites responses and conversation. In her Visual Arts blog, Marie has reflected about the way in which iPads have enriched learning for her girls. The way Marie’s students used their blog to experiment with and evaluate iPad apps for drawing, then share with others, inspired me to talk to Mihaela about doing the same. Consequently I went into obsessive mode and lived and breathed art and apps for a couple of weeks, adding an Art Apps page in our LibGuides, my art blog, Pinterest, Flickr and Diigo.

Robot I am Apps used: Blender Pixeltwist                 (iphoneart.com)

Recently a dedicated team of students from the co-curricular group, Writing Competition, successfully wrote a book in a day. They had to collaboratively write at least 8,000 words and illustrate their story. The whole thing had to be done within 12 hours. I was very proud of the way they managed to work together and fuse their ideas and talents to produce a fantasy story for the Children’s Hospital. I hope to be able to share their book once I check the copyright.

Well, that’s it for now. Hope some of this has been useful to you.

art

Fingerpainting is back as iArt

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I was very excited to find artists using iPad apps to draw, or ‘fingerpaint’, wonderful art. In some cases these projects are collaborative – that aspect always excites me. There are people who are sceptical about technology, in terms of the quality of things produced by apps – and I have to say I was one of those who thought of art apps more in terms of sketching ideas rather than creating a serious art work – or those who rate new technologies for doing the same things they already do only online. I’ve had many conversations with these people, and I feel that there is only one way to change their minds (bearing in mind that you can’t change a closed mind, but you can certainly try to surprise their minds open) is to find amazing examples of technology-enabled projects.

Yesterday I stumbled across (don’t ask me to trace that thread back to its source) fingerpainters – artists who use the iPad and even iPhone or iPod Touch to create art with drawing/painting apps. I have these apps on my iPad and I’ve shown them to art teachers, but without an inspirational example, those apps just sit there in their folders doing not much. Of course, when you find an artist through your Google Reader of from Twitter lists, you know the discovery will lead to many more discoveries, and so I want to share some of these artists and works, their blogs and where they also live on Twitter and Flickr.

I started by discovering the artist Benjamin Rabe and his Flickr sets, including this one of finger paintings he did on his iphone or ipad. A painting on his phone!

Of course, when you discover an artist who has an online presence, they lead you to many more artists. This is how I came across the amazing Cedric Phillipe’s Flickr photostream and his fingerpaintings on his iPad and his iPod Touch. How on earth somebody manages to create an artwork on such a small screen, I’ll never know.

Mojitos

This one is done on his iPod Touch mainly using the app Brushes

This one is done on his iPad mainly using the app Brushes

Cedric has a wonderful Tumblr blog which you must see. This is where I found his stop-motion animation. What a treat!

&nbsp[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/44310015 w=500&h=375]

An impressive little set that Cedric built for his animation. Have a look at photos here.

The Helen Keller quote at the bottom of the Woven Narratives webpage nicely summarises what I consider the most exciting about emerging technologies – the collaborative aspect. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller. Woven Narratives are the collective works of artists’ collaborations using mainly iPad apps to create their art works.

Most of the works presented here were created and shared using only the iPad as a drawing and painting tool. Recent pieces have developed in three dimensions as small ‘soft sculptures’and the latest round of work has seen the development of a series of paintings on cardboard, which have been shared by post. Each of the works has travelled an average of 40,000 miles during its creation, bouncing back and forth via email or through the international postal system as its individual narrative unfolds.

Particularly interesting is the value-added aspect of this technology-enabled project:

The collaborations have helped both of us develop and extend our image making practice and have pushed our personal work into new and interesting directions. The narratives which develop throughout the process of making the works are playful, intriguing and entertaining. Many of them are hidden by the process of making, whilst others peek through to reveal themselves in colourful and often humorous ways. The result is an ongoing dialogue of signs, symbols, image-making and colour, a series of ‘Woven Narratives’, which engage the viewer in a ‘mesh’ of images and marks which share collective stories and experiences.

I can relate to the idea of process, and particularly collaborative process, resulting in new and exciting learning. Surely the experimental nature of emerging technologies is leading to new ideas and possibilities. If we allow for time to play…

In any case, have a closer look at Woven Narratives and the artists responsible. One of the artists, Jonathan Grauel, has discovered new possibilities for art making with mobile devices since an accident with a table saw left him without an index finger on his dominate hand and limited sensitivity in his thumb. When his wife and friends surprised him with an iPhone, he discovered a new joy in “finger painting.”

A blessing for art students and teachers is when artists share their art work, ideas and techniques. The blog Fingerpainted shares apps used to create art works which you can see for yourself. The About page shares the evolution of the blog. Here’s a link to the posts tagged with ‘apps’ – very useful and full of examples.

UK artist, Fabric Lenny, and US artist, Jonathan Grauel, have teamed up to produce a body of work in iPad despite the distance between them. Sketchshare is a series of 154 images which were painted simultaneously in the iPads.

You can view all these pictures done in real time in their Flickr stream.

Finally, here’s a video game fingerpainted entirely on the iPad. The music was also composed on the iPad.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjx8Fa-k_RE&w=560&h=315]

I hope this post will inspire some art students and teachers. I’ll add an iPad/iPhone apps page in my online art resources very soon.

21st century learning

Getting ready for iPad rollout at school – exploring apps and thinking about Apple’s new iBooks Author

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Unexpectedly, and on the last day of school (for me, as teacher librarian – all the classroom teachers were on holidays the week before), our principal announced at an informal meeting that we were going to put iPads in the hands of students and teachers at school, starting with all our year 9 and 10 students. Okay, so I get my iPad1 upgraded, not bad at all. It seems our school is the first to gain approval to use the government funding for technology on iPads.

As happy as I am, and as excited about the possibilities for innovative, hands-on, mobile learning, I can’t help wonder how it’s going to work – with teachers coming back to school without preparation time, time to think and plan, time to play (I don’t think too many teachers have used iPads), time to collaborate within faculties to decide on a plan of attack. Nevertheless, it’s an exciting new direction, and with Apple’s recent announcement of the iBooks Author, I wonder if digital textbook creation will ever be possible on the iPad. I’ve saved in my Diigo only a few of the many reactions from people after having read Apple’s license agreement restictions.

I’ve been doing a little thinking and researching myself. Last year I put together online resources for the use of mobile technologies in the classroom in our library’s new LibGuides. You can access these resources here (don’t forget there are 2 tabs) – yes, I’ve mentioned these before but I’ve been adding links here and there. I’ve also created other LibGuides pages which support the use of mobile technologies, eg 21st Century Learning and Digital Citizenship (multiple tabs) and these a work in progress.

Having the time to myself these holidays, time to meet with family and friends, to shop and explore, I’ve (perhaps foolishly) decided to tackle the 365 daily photo blog again. Yes, I have. But this time I decided to do what some of my online colleagues are doing, and that is use a few choice apps to quickly and easily upload photos to a blog, usually without text. I figure, yes, I miss the description and reflection, but at least this will be an easy way to document my year as well as play with photo apps on my phone. So it’s Posterous that I’m using and the app PicPosterous to upload the photo, or else you can email the photo straight to the blog. My blog is called Going round again (yes, I know, not very original). In most cases I’m not including any text, just throwing up a visual snapshot of my day.

There are so many apps for photo editing which sometimes transform a mundane subject matter into something a little more interesting. As you can see at the top of this post, I’ve been playing with an app called Kinotopic – I’m sure that photo is driving you nuts by now. You can read about what this app can do on the website but as far as I’m concerned it creates pictures like those hanging on the walls of Hogwarts, moving pictures. Very cool. Less cool is my skill at colouring what needs to move without disconnecting things that shouldn’t be disconnected. Have a go if you can, it’s fun. Heaps of possibilities for students for creativity here.

I’ve included screen shots of my photo apps –

The apps I’ve used the most are PhotoStudio, Instagram, PhotoShake, and more recently, after Kim Cofino‘s recommendation, Camera+. It’s easy to go from the photo itself on the phone to the editing and finally posting to Posterous (via PicPosterous app or email). The effects are fun and make an otherwise mundane photo look a little more interesting or at least look better with a frame.

Of course, there are so many more apps for whatever purpose, and here’s the link to the links I’ve been saving over time.

Gimmicky apps aside, teachers are interested first and foremost in applications which enable them and their students to function as they always have, eg word processing, document saving, etc. A recent Twitter discussion confirmed the popularity of Evernote to do – almost everything! Andrew Maxwell shared 100 uses for Evernote which is a handy little checklist. The Apps in Education ning has a good selection of Apps for Teachers.

Google has a suite of apps for all its different tools.

I’m getting ready to present to staff and I’m happy to do the research for what they need, but I’ll also be recommending they build their personal learning networks, join Twitter, Google+ or Facebook, so that they can ask their own questions and share knowledge and expertise. I’m hoping that the new challenges will convince them that social networking is a powerful way to learn rather than something other people do when they have no life.

If your school is using iPads, I would be very happy if you would share some of your experiences and your favourite apps for teaching and learning.

Uncategorized

Mobile Technologies – Apps Showcase

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Here’s my presentation at the SLAV conference – Activate: Learning with Emerging Technologies on Monday 17 October 2011.

Educational iPad/iPhone Apps Showcase[slideshare id=9762475&w=425&h=355&sc=no]

View more presentations from Tania Sheko

I’ve added the link to the presentation on my school LibGuides page for iPad/iPhone apps here. The 2 pages of links to resources for iPad/iPhone apps are worth checking out and I’ll be continuing to add resources here.

I’m really happy with LibGuides in terms of organising and sharing resources for the school. So much better than the old Dreamweaver library websites, easy to use and share, easy to collaborate in, as well as to ‘borrow’ things from other creators (with permission, of course!)

A big thank you to Natalie Elliott (@nataliee_1) from Toorak College for agreeing to join me for the second half of the presentation. Natalie talked about her experiences in setting up and managing iPads in her school. I was happy to provide this practical aspect for the technicians.

This presentation was modified from a previous one which I wrote about here.

21st century learning, Conference

Mobile learning with no limits @VITTA

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The Victorian Information Technology Teacher’s Association‘s Mini Conference, A contemporary learning series: mobile learning with no limits, was held last Friday at Ringwood Secondary College, and focused on 1:1 devices, how they could be used effectively in the classroom, and how they were relevant to the Australian Curriculum. The principal of Ringwood Secondary College, Michael Phillips, Outstanding School Leadership Award Winner, delivered the keynote plenary, Synch and Swim, which centred on the theme of Leadership for Learning that keeps ahead of the wave.

Disruptive technological change is rapidly shifting the balance between traditional models of teaching and learning and those that are more blended. The factory model of learning has finally closed for business.

Directions for learning are limitless as:
• distributive technologies allow 1-to-many;
• collaborative technologies encourage many-to-many;
• personalised learning is possible through 1-to-1;and
• distributive feedback technologies promote 1-to-many or many-to-many.

All of this is possible now in every classroom in every school.

Michael’s speech was a powerful message for educators and educational leaders to stop talking about 21st century teaching and learning as if it was set in the future, and accept that the future is here and requires a radical shift in teaching practice. When Michael said, “The factory model of learning has finally closed for business”, I felt like applauding and crying simultaneously, knowing that many schools were still in denial of this fact. Still, the conference participants were testament to the willingness to listen and learn, perhaps to embrace change.

Concurrent sessions are slightly frustrating because you can’t be in more than one place at the same time. The first session I attended was run by Roland Gesthuizen, a fellow Google Certified Teacher whose long experience in presenting enabled him to lead a relaxed but dynamic session which drew participants into discussion. One of Roland’s interesting observations was that the iPad was a microwave – it’s not the same as a laptop,it doesn’t do everything, but what it does, it does well and fast. After a fertile discussion, Roland demonstrated how he used Google apps such as Moderator in his teaching, and gave a quick overview of his experience in Sydney at the Google Teacher Academy.

I enjoyed presentations by Kevork Krozian and Clare Rafferty, both from Ringwood Secondary College. I think that Ringwood S.C. would be an exciting place to teach and learn. Some sessions I missed unfortunately, including Cecilie Murray‘s 2 talks which were full to bursting, and Jenny Ashby‘s session which ran at the same time as mine. Jenny and I presented at what Jenny referred to on Twitter as ‘graveyard shift’, the last session of the day. Despite the hour, I was impressed by the attentive audience I had in my room, and grateful for the positive feedback at the end of the session. I was also privileged to have SLAV’s executive officer Catherine Ryan and VITTA’s Jo McLeay join my session. Thankyou for your support and kind words especially as I was reluctant to present – not a fan of public speaking, so much more comfortable writing a blog post. I must say, though, that I ended up enjoying the experience.

If you are interested in having a look at my iPad/iPhone apps showcase – a spectrum of apps strewn across the curriculum – you can see it as a slideshow here. After so many hours of research I’m thrilled if anyone finds my resource useful.

And it’s always fantastic to see people you know at conferences. Happily, I had the pleasure of seeing Jenny Luca (and being introduced to Megan – hope to God I’ve remembered your name correctly) and John Pearce again. The online network is brilliant for maintaining the conversation but face to face is still the best.


Google Teacher Academy

Back from Google Teacher Academy, Sydney. Time to debrief.

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So I’m back from Google Teacher Academy in Sydney, conducted in the Google offices located in gorgeous Pyrmont.

I suppose you’ve noticed my Google Certified Teacher badge taking pride of place in my blog’s sidebar. I hope that’s more a sign of what I’m going to share than any attempt at self promotion. So, you say, how was it? After the hype (which I half joking referred to on Twitter in Wonkian terms), it’s definitely time to share the experience.

For me, it was a little like T.S.Eliot said in The Dry Salvages –  ‘We had the experience but missed the meaning’, that is to say, it was such a big experience, I had to come away from it to understand its impact. One and a half days in the Google offices but many weeks of suspense, attempts at imagined scenarios leading up to the much awaited day had put us all into an emotional state which delivered us to the Google headquarters as children at a birthday party. The mystery shrouding the event and Google interior wound up the intensity even tighter. It was fun spotting the large Google sign in the foyer of the building, spotting real people whose faces matched their tiny avatars on Twitter or Facebook, meeting for breakfast and become initiates by wearing the Google Teacher Academy name tags.

So, you’re saying, stop dragging out the preamble, get to the point: what was it like? What did you do?

Short answer: It was full on!! The Magic Hat had sorted us into teams; I was in Silverbrook. We sat at brightly google-coloured tables and, shortly after breakfast, were treated to Google Educators giving us an overview of the enormous range of Google tools: Search (web, specialised, multimedia, language, custom), Google Apps Education edition, Docs, Sites, Calendar, Blogger, Books, Scholar, News, Blog Search, Alerts, Maps, Earth, Gmail, Chat, Talk, Mobile, and more. Added to these sessions, some of our 55 strong cohort had offered to present Inspiring Ideas. We were treated to Google Spreadsheets (Pat Wagner), Sites for student e-portolios (Joe Donahue), creating an augmented reality school tour (Chris Betcher), e-portfolios using Blogger and Apps (Rob Clarke), using Blogger and Video Chat for minimally invasive education (Tara Taylor-Jorgensen), and an inside view of Google Apps for Education in a school (Dorothy Burt).  At 6pm, in the last session: reflection and review, we shared our ‘Aha’ moments for the day with our group, and at 6.30pm we were treated to a lovely celebratory dinner.

You can breathe now.

How do I do justice to such an intensive day and from all angles? I can’t.  Obviously the breadth and depth of the material was overwhelming, and at times it was challenging to keep up and remain focussed. I really enjoyed what the members of our cohort had to share, and I wish we could have seen more of how the Google apps could be used in creative and innovative ways in the classroom. We really needed more time and I suppose that was the biggest drawback – cramming so much in so little time.

Was it what I expected? I’m not sure. It’s not that Google apps/Apps are not out there for everyone to see and learn about. In that sense, we learned nothing new. But seeing everything in one and a half days, we probably saw more than we would have if left to our own devices. In between we struggled to make a dent in activities which gave us the opportunity to put some of the Google tools to use.

Most of us agreed that meeting up, connecting, collaborating and sharing was the most valuable part of the experience. So many interesting, passionate and innovative people, and we would continue to collaborate on Twitter (#gtasyd and #gct) and the GCT Group (sorry, closed community). I am grateful for new friendships and acquaintances. Thankyou so much to our GTA leaders, Dana Nguyen, Dr Mark Wagner, Wendy Gorton, Kern Kelley, Danny Silva and Lisa Thumann, for your expertise and passion.

Next on the agenda is formulating an action plan – how we will share what we have learned, either through presentations or in the classroom. It’s difficult to decide where to start.

As a teacher librarian, I’d like to say to my colleagues – you are already well skilled in many of the Google tools. We are experts in Search, News, Scholar, Google Books,  and there are experts among us with things like Google Lit Trips. What we don’t know, we can learn from the excellent Google help and crib sheets.

So, having said that, here is my initial idea for a Google action plan – to create a community for Google PD either in Google Groups or Sites specifically for teacher librarians. This would be a place to share knowledge, ideas and material. There are experts amongst us, and it would be good to pool our collective talents to present professional development either face to face, or through slideshows and webinars. Glenda Morris and I are both GCT  TLs in Victoria, and when I spoke to Glenda about this idea, she was happy to take part. There is already so much prepared by Google, for example, take a look at all the material in Google Web Search: Classroom lessons and resources.

What do you think? I would love to receive feedback for this idea. And please, if I’ve missed something you wanted to know about the Google Academy experience, please ask.

(A big thankyou, also, to Lisa Perez (TL in Chicago) who initiated meeting Glenda and me before the conference, and encouraged us to join forces as TLs).

21st century learning, play

iPad apps for problem solving

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Higher order thinking is not what the students were consciously involved in while playing with iPad app games, but it’s what they were in fact doing. I gave my iPad to some of the boys at school one day and suddenly there was a small crowd standing around the player, intently involved and offering suggestions. I asked to film a small group of these boys demonstrating a few of the games. They were self conscious and so the natural banter and collaboration is lost but the demonstrations still stand. You can almost see the thinking process in action.

Rafter

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAmuSIpQUeA]

Unblock Me

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQp_dQ6ezxQ]

Glowpuzzle

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqAIbuqh65A]

Labyrinth – This one was cut short because of the glare

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPCCAXHCKeY]

I think there would be a fair amount of justification for these from an educational perspective, don’t you? Physics teachers might want to look into them, for example.

Thanks, guys!

 

21st century learning, creativity, Education, technology

Music apps on the iPad – demonstration overview

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Today I met with colleague Stuart Collidge and filmed him talking about the educational applications of iPad music apps. Stuart gives an overview of what the iPad apps offer, particularly in terms of enhancement and creativity. There is an interest in what the iPad offers beyond what is already possible with other devices, and I think you’ll find Stuart’s demonstration enlightening if you teach music. Thankyou, Stuart, and I hope to be able to use your expertise to create further videos which focus more deeply on particular apps. Stuart did a great job talking off the top of his head so I’m looking forward to what he can show us with preparation.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypq9UcCRJKA]

21st century learning, teaching, technology

Music apps – a music teacher’s perspective

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As I’ve already mentioned before, I’m in the process of investigating iPad apps for learning enhancement in the classroom. A few weeks ago a colleague and brilliant music educator, Stuart Collidge,  joined me in a meeting with our Deputy Principal (Curriculum) and a few other leaders in the school, to put forward a case for the use of iPads in the school, specifically for learning enhancement. I asked Stuart to write up how he sees the use of the iPad in the music classroom.

Recently, Tania asked me to speak with some of the decision-making powers that be at school to pitch the use of iPads as learning tools.  This was something that Tania and I had reflected on a little and saw some potential in so I was more than happy to make the pitch.  After borrowing Tania’s iPad to have a play on (I am not yet one of the iPad collective L), I worked my way through a few possible applications and uses.  It was also very useful to troll through Google and look at the ways that other music educators are using these beasts.

Being a laptop school, it was important to differentiate the potential of these units from the laptops that are already in the hands of the students. For a school with no laptop program, I imagine that a class set of these would be AWESOME for a whole raft of areas of study, but being outside my brief, I didn’t focus too much on it.

My impression initially (and once we are up and running with a program, I’ll report on the accuracy of those impressions) was that this device would be awesome for me on two levels: as a music/education professional, and as a performer.  I can also see how students could use these devices in the same way.

As a performer, the iPad is now a very comprehensive musical instrument. In fact, several instruments all in one.  There seem to be two different approaches to performance apps.  The first way is to use the device as a synthesiser. There are several things that already do that, but the advantage of the iPad is in the interface which can encourage different approaches to composing and performing.  If you sit down at a conventional keyboard, the notes are laid out in a particular way and we are trained to approach the keyboard in that particular way (unless you are into avant garde composition).  A lot of music is constructed around  melodies and chords that “fit under the fingers”.  Take a look at a synth like Musix.  The layout of the octaves and notes allows us a melodic freedom and an opportunity to audition sounds that are harder to achieve on a conventional piano.  I imagine that you can find many other synths that encourage alternative approaches to melody making.

There is also a variety of apps that are much like a hardware synth allowing you access to oscillators, LFOs, filters, etc. You can also use the iPad to drive Digital Audio Workstations for tracks or DJing live.  Ableton seems to be the best suited to creating and manipulating arrangements in a live situation.  And for patching your iPad into your amp/PA/recording rig, try this: https://www.alesis.com/iodock.

All of this means that with a few apps and some time, students can generate performance material  in a variety of different ways to suit a particular idea or project and allows for a greater degree of creativity and freedom.

As a music professional, I am most interested in using the iPad as music stand. I have spoken with people that do this and received mixed reviews, but I feel that this is where music reading should be going.  An iPad could contain an entire library of sheet music in PDF format (solo music, ensemble parts, method books, scores, backing tracks) and would be fantastic to use in performance or rehearsal.  No longer need to worry about losing original parts, remembering pencils (the software stores any annotations made), or sorting through libraries of stuff (although the logistics of scanning everything might be headache enough, until publishers are in selling more of their material in that format).  Imagine being able to transpose a score instantly into a new key (to my way of thinking, the only way for us to be rid of the archaic institution of transposing instruments).

Of course, it already has a variety of apps that are useful (and which I use on my iPhone) like chromatic tuners, tone generators, metronomes, DMX dipswitch calculators, remote control for lighting desks, decibel meter, power load calculators, chord finders, etc.

All this in a device the size of a small text book!

I am very much looking forward to putting my hands on a unit that I can stock it up with goodies!

Stuart Collidge

21st century learning, learning, technology

Discussion about teacher control of iPads in classrooms

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Image from Sophie Horwood’s blog

Catering for differentiation in the classroom can open up new possibilities if you combine alternative approach with technology. Some schools are skipping the one-on-one notebooks and thinking about the lighter iPads. Of course, this opens up a whole range of new issues which need to be addressed before the investment is made.

iPads in Education ning features a discussion about teacher control of iPads – one of the first issues to arise when considering the use of iPads in the classroom. Sam Gliksman, creator of this ning, has posted a question on the forum:

Is the relative lack of teacher control over student iPad use a relief or a recipe for disaster?

Unlike laptops, which can be monitored with purchased software, the lack of such control of iPads presents a problem for teachers. Or does it?

Commenters of this post express different opinions. Some see this as a significant obstacle to iPad use, and others are willing to overlook the issue considering advanced features of the iPad. I’ve pulled out some of the positive comments:

What I do know is that iPads can bring up web pages faster than any computer that I have ever used, their use is completely intuitive, apps are endless, their fun, and on and on.

I think that if students are really inspired by their lesson, what they are being asked to research or present – whatever, they will be engrossed and will not bother to stray from the requirements of the lesson.

I generally believe that if teachers are walking around the room and being engaged in the learning process, nothing horrible is going to happen. I prefer to give students more control and responsibility rather than less.

I would like to focus on the positive side of things. Yes, there are issues but if we focus on those then we won’t get to play with the iPads, and we won’t discover their use in the classroom. Before I bought my iPad people asked me what I would do with it. I honestly didn’t know because I needed to have one in order to find out. I’m hoping to do the same if I can convince teachers to purchase at least one per faculty. The lack of control here is no different to a lack of control over notebooks. If we’re worried that students will be able to purchase apps we don’t want, how is it different to students downloading things onto their notebook?

First things first. I’m researching apps for each faculty area, and I plan to show staff or at least faculty heads. My focus in on apps which provide the kind of learning you don’t find anywhere else. I think converting teachers is a necessary step in the the whole process.

Please share your favourite iPad apps for secondary school, and any experiences from which we could learn.