Group items tagged

"APP GROUPS Create app groups that consolidate up to 20 apps into one convenient group. (Works just like a folder) Tap and hold an app. Once you see the icons start jiggling, move the app on top of another app. Name your group whatever you would like and place up to 20 apps within it. BOOKMARK FAVORITE WEBSITES TO THE HOME PAGEWhile on the Internet, (using Safari) load up your favorite websites. Tap on the box with an arrow in it, alongside the URL Bar. Select "Add to Home Screen" and give each site a short name so it doesn't abbreviate itself. CAPS LOCK Double tap the shift key for caps lock. Tap once to turn it off. CHANGE NOTES FONT The default in notes looks like comic sans, which I detest. Go to Notes in Settings and choose from three fonts. CREATE A TOUGHER PASSWORD"

"How about using iPad to create awesome sketches and paintings, wouldn't that be awesome ? Well, I have curated a list of some excellent iPad apps that can allow you and your students to tap into the artistic capabilities of iPad. Wherever you are with an Internet connection, just tap on one of these apps and give vent to your imagination and creativity, capturing the world around you in beautiful sketches to share with others."

"It's easy to clear out all cookies and website data for the iPad's Safari browser. You go to the Settings app, tap on Safari, tap on 'Clear Cookies and Data' and confirm the action when prompted. What I hadn't realized until today, when I saw this handy tip shared by Kelly Hodgkins at TUAW, is that you can also choose to just get rid of cookies and data for specific websites - and this is also very easy to do."

"As someone who primarily taught math and science when I was a classroom teacher, I associated robots, robotics curriculum, and robot apps as things that were only used in those subjects. However, this past year my school received a robot grant that provided ten robots for us from the company Sphero. Sphero emphasizes the power of play in education and has a variety of lessons that are aligned to the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards on their website. They also have a number of STEM challenges  in the form pre-designed engineering projects designed for collaborative group work with students and are helpful for teachers using the robots in their classes. Sphero is a robotic ball that can pair with an iPad, tablet, iPhone, or smartphone through Bluetooth, and getting started is relatively easy. Once you are ready to use Sphero, you take it off the charger stand and give it a "tap-tap" to "wake it up." When the robot wakes up, it starts to flash three different colors until it pairs with the device you are using it with via Bluetooth. Once it turns blue, then you know that it is paired and ready to go. There are at least 14 different education related apps that are available with Sphero: some of them use augmented reality technology, some of them teach the basics of coding, while others allow students to draw on a tablet to manipulate the color and movement of the robot. During the last week of June, I did a presentation at the ISTE conference with many other educators from all over the country who also received the robot grant. What amazed me was that people who taught subjects like language arts and social studies found incredible ways to integrate robotics into their curriculum to create some really engaging lessons for their students."

"Tiny Tap is one of the free iPad and Android apps that continues to stay in my Best of the Web presentations. Whenever I show it off there is always a great response to it. Tiny Tap allows you to create simple games based on pictures that you take. The purpose of the games you build is to help young students (pre-K through grade 4) practice identifying objects and patterns."

"Rivet is a reading app from Area 120 (a Google property). The free app offers more than 2,000 books for students to read independently. The books are appropriate for students in Kindergarten through second grade (5-8 years old). All of the books provide audio support to students in the form of an option to tap on a word and hear it read aloud. When students tap on a word they will hear it read aloud and can then read a definition of the word. Students also have the option to practice saying the word aloud. When students say a word aloud they get instant feedback on their pronunciation of that that word."

"The vast majority of children at all grade levels - preschool (pre-k) through 12th grade, have access to an array of technology at home including mobile devices. This informative infographic from Grunwald.com highlights findings from the 'Living and Learning with Mobile Devices' report, about the use and learning benefits of mobile devices reported by parents."

"Anna Young helps nurses get creative when treating their patients. In the last year, she's set up two "maker-spaces" inside hospitals and she's continued to document nurse-made fixes and workarounds that make patients' lives a little more bearable. Examples include glow-in-the-dark pill bottles, bed-shower overlays, and a TV remote control for patients with tremors in their fingers. Since Young cofounded MakerNurse in 2013, she's collected more than 50 device ideas from around the country, publishing how-to guides for each online so that others can iterate on the concepts. The first maker-space is up and running at the John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas and another is opening soon at South Shore Hospital, in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Each has an array of pliers, sewing needles, 3-D printers, laser cutters, and medical prototyping equipment like "vital signs" construction sets and biocompatible adhesives. In all, about 1,000 nurses have worked with MakerNurse so far. And, through a related organization, Maker Health, Young now wants to involve other frontline workers, and even patients themselves."

"One example where I've seen some clarity and connection to my teaching is the concept of declarative vs. procedural knowledge. Taking the time to acknowledge the declarative and procedural knowledge in a lesson or unit can guide students toward achieving a larger learning goal."

"Although the main goal when I proposed the Tap Into Teen Minds iPad Project was to increase engagement and student achievement in the mathematics classroom, I also wanted to eliminate items used in the traditional mathematics classroom and determine whether costs could also be reduced simultaneously."

Technology tools, and INternet resources

"Reading articles and posts on your iPad necessitates having a solid dictionary app installed on it. It is definitely not practical to be frequently having recourse to an online dictionary while there are several apps that when installed on your ipad, can be integrated with the text you read and all it takes to define a certain term is tapping onto it two times."

"guide that will walk you through the different steps you need to follow to tap into the educational potential of Twitter"

"Essential Skeleton is a free iPad app that students studying the human skeletal system should download. The app puts a 3D skeleton on your students' iPads. Students can zoom-in, zoom-out, and rotate the skeleton 360 degrees. When students zoom-in and tap on a bone they will see its name in English and Latin, have the option to hear an audio pronunciation of the bone's name, learn about the connected bones, and write their own notes about the highlighted bone."

"There are so many virtual iPad tools that I love using with my students (base ten blocks, sticky notes, geoboard, atlas, glossary, dry erase board…). One free app that can substitute a ruler is Ruler for iPad and iPhone. Have students place an item on their iPad screen or measure distance between two points they tap on the plane."

"Thankfully, there's more information on introverts out there than ever before. I tapped into my amazing personal learning network of educators and gathered a towering pile of books on my nightstand, topped by Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. In her book, Cain champions the often-overlooked talents and gifts of introverts, and offers parents and educators strategies for communication and evaluation. This year, I drew on this advice and made a number of changes to my classroom in order to improve learning opportunities for my introverted students."

"There are page turner Magazines on the iPad that are basically PDF versions of the print version. Becoming more popular are the magazines that have hot spot areas, video, scrollable articles and inter magazine linking. While these interactive magazines are being produced by large magazine publishers once a month, Engadget is creating their full featured content "Dristo" weekly. Grab the app and you will get an overview page of all of the 'magazines' published. Tap the ones you want to download and read within the same app."