Please allow me to be a little tentative as this is the first time I’ve dipped my toes into blogging waters. I’ve been teaching English and Media for nearly ten years now and sometimes feel that my teaching has become a bit stale so I guess I’m on here looking for ideas and looking to share them too.
I’ve recently introduced my own iPad into the classroom although at this stage I’m only experimenting with it, using GarageBand for speaking and listening with yr. 8 was successful as they recorded a chat show featuring the characters from Holes, the class reader. Also, the iPad has been used to highlight mark schemes for GCSE with the class and also poetry for yr. 9s.
I’m really excited by this technology and the impact it can have on education, so what I’m asking is this: how do others use iPads in their classrooms, what apps are useful and how do you go about getting class sets?!
I’d be really interested in everyone’s ideas and thoughts.
How did the first blog go?!
Paul, at Kinross High we hope to be able to support the use
of iPads and other tablets/devices via open wifi soon. Having
experimented with different approaches we hope to see students
working in small collaborative groups, on a range of tasks in some
classes. We’re looking at using a tool called GlowMeet (Adobe
Connect Pro) to support teleconferencing, with “breakouts” for each
group. Collated ideas could be shared with the whole class via
Apple TV and the projector. However, we think that the same thing
can be achieved using Google Docs in real time. This will also
allow us to support students who are not present in the room. We
will look at using Keynote, Prezzi and other such tools. We’re also
investigating iBooksAuthor and iTunesU, along with Google Drive and
our own Google Site ( https://bit.ly/physicsatkinross ). We
recommend a number if apps to students such as: Goocal (serves live
calendar updates to their device) Evernote ( fantastic note taking
software) MyScriptMemo Free: just discovered this handwriting
app…love it and recommend it Vernier Physics ( analyse motion
from videos) Moviolas web cam ( share video feeds to main projector
) DropBox / Google Drive (cloud storage with offline access) Ted
Mobile ( for Ted Talks) Good to see your post. Keep it. Mark
McShane, PT Physics, Kinross High School.
IPads have been excellent for Art. Kids can use self
expression through developing skills with layers in the Brushes App
– only about $5 and worth it. See here:
http://chrishopesblog.edublogs.org/class-news/ @wharfytime
Twitter.