Group items tagged

"The students had to select an environment and then decide on an adaptation that would help them survive in the conditions of the environment, help the animal eat, or prevent the animal from being eaten. Students worked on paper first and then chose either Audioboo and recorded a podcast and added the picture, or worked on Educreations. "

"As we start to get into the rhythm of the school year with the 1:1 iPad program, and as I also use the iPads with other grade levels on an ad hoc basis, I find myself coming back to certain apps over and over again."

"So you are looking for some new apps to recommend for your students and kids, well I just finished curating a list of some awesome iPad apps for you. I am adding this list to the educational iPad apps section I have here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. These apps cover a wide variety of topics and can be used for different purposes. From presentation making to creating engaging drawings and doodles, you will definitely find an app to recommend to your students. Enjoy"

"The Education category of the App Store features an overwhelming number of apps, great for both parents and teachers. Each subject search displays a diverse and colorful selection of apps to cover just about anything you'll be adding to your digital curriculum. However, with so many choices, it's hard to discern a download-worthy app from the next. (A simple search for math apps yielded well over 200 results.) Here is a list of educational iPad apps by subject matter that you may not have heard of before, but are certainly worth a look."

"Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved. Yet as with anything related to technology, new tools are hitting the market constantly and older ones rising to prominence, broadening their scope, or just adding new features that make them better matches for education, which can make it hard to keep up with the newest and most useful tools even for the most tech-savvy teachers. Here, we've compiled a list of some of the tech tools, including some that are becoming increasingly popular and widely used, that should be part of any teacher's tech tool arsenal this year, whether for their own personal use or as educational aids in the classroom. "

"Educreations is a recordable interactive whiteboard that captures your voice, handwriting, typed text, and images. The final product is a cool video lesson that teachers can share with students. This is both a web-based app and iPad app. The cost: Free! With Educreations, students can replay a teacher's lesson online on or their iPads as often as the need to master the content. It also takes the camera off the instructor and turns the focus toward the content, and the content is key, right? It's like a video of your chalkboard or smartboa"

"In the last several months, the iOS versions of Evernote have undergone a significant overhaul of their user interfaces, closely mirroring the design and features of the counterpart web and Mac applications. We have added the iOS versions of Evernote to our Best of iPad Apps, and Best of iPhone Apps pages where they sit alongside our other picks for the platform. Evernote is a free universal app that works on the iPhone and iPad."

Provide fast and effective feedback to students on their writing by adding audio comments to their google docs writing pieces. Highlight the parts that you are speaking about, record the audio feedback and then share it with them. Awesome!

"PAT is a free, open source, collection of maps developed by Ian Macky. The collection includes maps of every country in the world. Regional maps were recently added to the collection. You can download any and all of these detailed maps for free. "

"Remind 101 is a free service that allows you to send text messages to groups of students and or parents from your computer, your iPhone, or your Android phone. The benefit of using Remind 101 over Google Voice, which I used to use for this purpose, to text students and parents is that your phone number is not revealed and your students' cell phone numbers are not revealed to you. Students and parents have to opt-in if they want to be added to your text messaging list. Students and parents have to enter a confirmation code to state that they do want to be contacted by you through the service."

"Last month the popular iPad app Flipboard added a great feature that allows everyone to curate their own digital magazines. Today, Flipboard made that option available on Android as well in web browsers on your computer. "

"Have you read The Paperless Classroom with Google Docs by Eric Curts? If not, you should. It is a great way for Google schools to harness the power of Google for sharing documents, and establishing a workflow for students to turn in work for teachers to grade and return in a paperless environment. I love it. In fact, I liked it so much that I decided to pay homage to it with a version that is dedicated to doing the very same thing on the iPad using just the Google Drive app. Regular readers will have seen my last post, How to Use Comments on the Google Drive iPad app. For me, this was a key change to the Google Drive iPad app, and one that had huge implications for the iPad classroom. It inspired me to think about just how much you can do in Google with an iPad and the Drive app, and I soon discovered that you can do a lot more than you might think. So, with the blessing of Eric Curts himself, I sat down and went through all the steps he meticulously outlined for the desktop version of Google Drive, and converted as many as I could to the equivalent actions in the Google Drive iPad app. Then I added some additional steps for other things like taking documents offline, or grading PDFs, images and movies."

"At last week's iPad site visit, a student on the panel was describing her favorite iLesson: "It was in science. It is an interactive periodic table (app). We were learning about the elements. You click on an element and it gives you the history, who made it, how you use it, what it is used for. Another cool feature is you can make them. You can keep on adding neutrons, electrons, and protons as much as you like and every time you click on the plus or minus, it tells you what element you just made. The results were really amazing. We had more interest in the periodic table than we ever had before mainly because it was fun, it was interesting, we actually got to play around with it and see what we could make with it instead of just giving us a piece of paper and telling us 'research these'.""

"One question I seem to get a lot about the iPad is what apps do I recommend that are free. I am hearing from a lot of teachers that they have no way to add paid apps and thus are stuck trying to find free apps. My experience is that many free apps stink. They have many adds, require in app purchases to be useful, or are just junk. I tend to stay away from most free apps. So what are you to do if the district controls adding paid apps? My suggestion is to build relationships with the decision makers. Don't just ask for a bunch of apps, instead provide documentation and purpose for a few apps you would like to have. I know this process takes time and effort but if you can show the purpose and learning you have a much better chance. If you need lesson ideas I suggest checking out my Pinterest page, and three of my favorite Pinterest pages: iPadsammy, TechChef4u, and Sue Gorman. Look for apps and lesson ideas there and modify them to fit your standards and kids. If I was starting from scratch this is the $10 iPad app setup I would push for in my kindergarten classroom. (I will be posting a $20 setup later)"

"Math gets all the love-at least that appears to be the case in the edtech world. But applications of automated essay scoring have been growing steadily for 15 years. The shift to digital instructional materials, preparations for state online assessment, and a new crop of writing apps is adding new energy to digital ELA."

"There is no end to the uses of the iPad in education. I've discussed that ad nauseum on this blog. As a learning tool, it has the potential to make a great positive change to learning. The only problem is Apple designed it for individual use. Schools are designed for ( or budgeted for) shared use. Conventional wisdom is for iPad use to occur in a 1:1 or BYOD Environment. In the best case scenario, I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately, financial realities will often dictate that sharing is the only viable option if we want our students to enjoy the benefits of the iPad. It can be done effectively - I've shared my thoughts early in the year about the pros and cons of shared iPads - but doesn't happen without some time consuming workarounds. What follows is my take on the pains (and remedies) of sharing iPads in a rather large Primary (elementary) school."

"Clear, concise communication is powerful. With a little clarity, we can eliminate those long, roundabout email exchanges that keep projects in perpetual limbo. That's what Skitch is for, and today we're bringing this vision to your PDF workflow to help you give the fastest, friendliest and most direct feedback ever. Not only that, but we've also added an innovative summary that ensures your recipients are able to act upon your feedback immediately. Let's dive into the new PDF features, as well as some exciting new tools."

"While there is nothing new about utilising technology to brainstorm, using the iPad has added benefits. The touch interface, excellent visuals and portability of the iPad can make it easier and simpler to encourage students to generate new ideas, organize their known knowledge about a topic and make connections with ideas and the written word. There are lots of great brainstorming/mindmapping Apps available, but one that we have found useful at all school levels is Popplet."

"Makerspaces are a really hot commodity in schools and the focus of a lot of the conversation that surrounds improving learning spaces.  That's exciting, and an opportunity to provide new spaces that add capability for students and teachers is always a good thing. So, given this interest, what are some design questions to consider when thinking of adding a space that has maker capabilities?  Here are my top five which focus on the design of such a space:"

"A paper circuit is a low-voltage electrical circuit that is created on paper or cardboard using conductive copper tape, LEDs and a power source such as a coin-cell battery.  Creating paper circuits is a good way to teach the basics of electricity and how circuits function.   In addition to being educational, they can also be a fun makerspace project that helps to bring artwork and paper craft to life.  By adding sensors, buzzers and motors to your circuit, you can also add another dimension of interactivity.  These simple projects are great for all ages and all makerspaces."