Ideas for Schools Sharing a Set of iPads

I see the iPad as a powerful creation tool. Unfortunately, too often iPads in schools fill up fast with lots of apps and limit the space for creative projects.

My school has twenty-eight iPads and over six hundred students. Since each iPad has all of the apps wanted by staff, they get full fast. Students and teachers do not have room for creating projects. My thought is we should divide up the iPads by grade-levels or their use and choose apps based on that criteria. Classrooms can use them in teams or use them in a station-rotation model. Each student does not need to have an iPad.

For example, we could have seven iPads for K-1. The apps on those iPads would be useful for those grade-levels and should have room for photos, videos, and other creations. That leaves seven different iPads for 2-3 and seven more for 4-5. Each set would have apps useful for those grade-levels. We would have seven iPads left, we could use those seven for the heavy tasks and storage needs like iMovie. You could also use one or two from that set for “reward” iPads. ( I am not a fan of using them in this manner. iPads are tools and not toys. )

Schools also should rotate through some different apps from time to time. It does take management time, but if you have apps that your students are actually using, you should get more space for projects, etc.

So if you are a school with limited iPads and want to use them for creation, these ideas may work for you. What ideas do you have or how has your school shared a set of iPads effectively?

 

New Gadgets

I have just upgraded my phone from a iPhone 4 to the 5s. The camera is much improved so I am looking to do even more with video and photos for my school.

I have my new Joby Gorrilla tripod and will be looking to add a wireless mic.

Stay tuned for which solution I find.

 

Presenting Remote Frustrations

I use my iPhone with Keynote Remote app to control my Keynote presentation on my Mac so I can roam the space and see my notes. However, yesterday the wireless connection was almost non-existent. So I could not use my iPhone, and therefore, could not see my notes easily!

This morning I remembered that I can set up an ad hoc connection! So the plan today is to use the ad hoc until I need to go to the internet.

 

Creating Media

With the increase in blended learning opportunities and more concern with using materials legally, creating your own images, videos and resources is one solution.

Today we have many resources in our pockets with our smart phones. Use your phone and media creation apps to make your own media resources.

 

Video in Video

This cool little app is free and allows you to have one smaller video playing inside a larger one. Great for making short little instructional videos on the fly. See my Posterous for an example.

 

Image Straightener

I seem to always get pictures that are slanted. Image Straightener is 99¢ in the app store and easily straightens those images. Remember we do want to use the best images possible for our teaching so if you also tend to take pictures that slant, check out this app!

 

Why Create Multi-Media for Your Classroom

People today expect multi-media. It isn’t just a frill or unexpected surprise; we expect it. We expect it everywhere. Even within digital books, we want more than words and pictures.

Our students especially spend hours a day immersed in media. But then they come to school where they may not have access to media or are not involved in lessons that use multi-media. They may become disengaged and sneak out their cell phones or iPods to get their media fix. Research has shown that there are benefits to using multi-media well in the classroom.

Of course, it would not be good pedagogy to use media for the sake of using media. Teachers need to match the media to the lesson objective. It is important to select or create multi-media that engages students, but doesn’t overwhelm the lesson. In other words, the lesson needs to hold its own with the media.

Media can also be used to better communicate to community and parents what is going on inside the classroom. Teachers can include photos, videos, sounds, audio to better illustrate their classrooms. Imagine for a moment the difference of understanding of a parent reading, “The students were amazed at what they learned at the museum today.” with viewing a video clip showing the students and their reactions to the museum experience? Which would give them a better appreciation for the benefit of museum visits?

Today most of us have our iPhones with us. Our iPhone gives us the capability to create and share media quickly and easily. As educators, we should be using this tool as a major part of our teaching arsenal.

 

iBookCreator

This is an app for both iPhone and iPad. I put together a 12 page book fairly easily yesterday. Of course on the iPhone, you don’t want to do a text heavy book.

I found it did not like the vertical photos from my Photo Roll. I had to open them in Photogene, rotate them 360º then save. I am not certain if the problem was how they were saved in my photo roll (Pictures were from 2 years ago) or if the app favors landscape.

This would be fun to create a picture book that you could share with parents, grandparents, etc showing a special event in the class room. It creates an EPUB. Not sure how it would look on other readers, but it looks nice in iBooks.

You can see screenshots of the book taken from my iPhone on my Sara Talks Apps posterous site. (See links “Using the Apps” in the sidebar.)

 

iPhoneography Goals for 2012

I used to not think it was important to edit pictures taken with the iPhone. I still think for most uses, you can use photos straight from the photo roll. However, I am starting to do a lot more editing on my photos, here is why:

Our students are bombarded with media all day long. They see images, hear sounds, watch videos, play games, etc from the time they wake up until they are asleep! So if we want to engage or interest our students by including multi-media in our lessons, we need to ensure that we only use quality media and interesting media. Students are not engaged by images alone. To increase the quality and interest of images, video, or audio files, we can use one or more apps to edit and enhance our media. I know that I am guilty of using an out of focus or dark or light image just to use an image. It would be better to not use the image at all. However, there are many apps that can help save some of those unusable images, and apps that can make an ordinary image into an extraordinary image. My goal is to only use quality, interesting images in my lessons and materials this year.

This year I am going to work on improving my use of various editing apps to increase the interest level and quality of my images. I am participating in the 365 Photos using the 365Photos app. I think, it will help me think about composition and encourage finding interesting subjects for photos. I am also going to aim to work on editing at least one image a day using my iPhone and apps to include in my iPhoneography set on Flickr. If I am on top of my game, I will try to keep track of the apps used to create the images.

Looking forward to growing my iPhoneography skills over 2012!

 

Blurb Update

I used it for the first time since the major upgrade. The interface and layout are big improvements. I will be using this app more often.

So what are the improvements? You now can choose the layout, you then add your images then you may also attach videos. The videos are not apart of the main picture layout, but are added after the main picture layout. You may still add audio to the Blurb. The audio plays with the main picture layout. I am not certain if you can add more than one picture layout and more than one audio.

I may edit my new Blurb today to test if those are options.

Give Blurb Mobile a try!