10 WAYS IPADS ARE USED IN SCHOOLS

The power and portability of Apple’s iPad line have been catching the attention of progressive educators; some schools have actually begun distributing the devices to students and making them a major part of the curriculum. Here are ten of the ways that the iPad is making waves in the modern classroom.

1. To Replace Textbooks – The lightweight iPad not only eliminates the need for heavy, bulky book bags; there are also apps that allow teachers to design and distribute their own textbooks to their students.
2. As a Collaborative Project Aid – Group projects and collaborations are made significantly easier by utilizing the iPad. Students can work together from home or while in the same room. Easy sharing and editing can help to foster a sense of teamwork.
3. Collecting and Storing Student Information – One of the iconic pieces of teacher’s equipment is the grade-book; the often leatherette-covered volume required manual entry of grading information. With the iPad, teachers can manage all required student data quickly and efficiently.
4. Bringing the Computer Lab into Every Classroom – Instead of a trek down the hall to a dedicated computer lab, kids that attend a school with an iPad program have the power of the computer lab at their fingertips.
5. “Go-Green” Paper Saving Programs – Eliminating grade books, text books and many other paper-based products by distributing iPads to every student is a powerful “go-green” initiative, and has been one of the greatest sticking points for proponents.
6. Interactive Learning – Instead of simply reading about a subject, students can use their iPads to locate pictures, diagrams and even to watch related video content. This interactive approach to learning may help disinterested kids become more excited about learning.
7. Homework Planners and Scheduling – Teachers can create a syllabus, share homework assignments and classroom schedules with their students and coordinate projects, all from their iPads. This organized approach can often prove beneficial for kids that crave structure, as well as helping less orderly children keep everything in one place. Instead of several notebooks filled with information dedicated to each class, students can store all of their information in one place.
8. Creating a Digital Portfolio – Creating a portfolio of classroom work has never been easier than it is for kids with access to iPads. The ability to carry their work with them and to transfer it from one digital device to another is another way that the iPad is making inroads into the education system.
9. Taking the Classroom Home – Students participating in an iPad-based curriculum are no longer dependent on the classroom for all of their needs; even situations such as collecting homework during an illness are a snap when the work can be sent directly to the student’s iPad.
10. Virtual Field Trips – An actual field trip to the pyramids may not be feasible for most school kids, but the iPad can often serve as the next best thing. Students can immerse themselves in these virtual field trips, which all take place from the safety of the classroom.

This article was written as a guest post from Christine Kane at internetserviceproviders.org

Top 3 Kony 2012 Teaching ideas

Whether or not you buy into the belief that we can change the world via facebook and youtube or this film is one of the slickest propaganda projects of all time; as teachers we need to use topics like Kony 2012 to engage our students because it engages them in a huge way. 

Kony 2012 is an undisputable internet sensation.  Currently at 63 million views the 28 minute film about  ridding the world of one of it's biggest baddest bullies from the comfort of your iPad has struck both a chord and a dagger into the minds of teenagers around the world for it's enthusiasm and simplicity of execution.  The film can be viewed below - but please be careful of the age of students you share this with as it can be a little confronting and misleading in parts.  Use your discretion.

Even if you choose to watch the film with them here are 3 great teaching discussions you can have with your students to help them make an informed decision about what to do next?

What is the difference between Activism and Slacktivism?  Will sticking a poster on a wall or wearing a plastic bracelet really create a cure for cancer or rid the world of it's evils?  Sure it makes us feel good and look to be caring about the world but is it really doing anything? - This is a great debate topic, discussion or essay piece with plenty of meat on both side of the bone be sure to discuss this with your students.

Will making Kony famous solve the problem?  Robert Mugabe has been an incredibly well  known violator of human rights in Africa by every country in the world yet has  ruled as the high profile president of Zimbabwe for decades and  is still in power. 

Alternately in 2011 we saw uprisings in the middle East that led to an almost instantaneous defeat of dictators in Libya and Egypt as a result of social networking leading to people taking a stand for their rights?

How will this model fail or succeed and why?  Brainstorm in groups and complete a Plus, Minus Interesting chart about the film makers approach to this issue.

Why has this film and project been so successful?  As I said earlier whether you love it or hate it you cannot argue its success so far...  It has teenagers actually looking outside their world and feeling as though they can make a difference and skeptics squirming at the level of insult they feel they have been subjected to.

Is it guilt?  Is it the pure simplicity of the film?  Is it a bunch of lies?  Is it genuine idea from a genuine human being?

In groups create a mind map of the strategies that the film has used to get this over every media outlet in the world?

I am sure you have plenty of great teaching ideas and opinions on this topic and I encourage you to share them below and we'll add them t this post.

Coming Soon, the iPad3: Effects of New Technology on Education and the Digital Divide

I got this artcle from Lori Day of the Huffington Post.  Interesting read

Is it just me, or does the continued hyper-focus on technology in the classroom leave anyone else just a little bit cold? While it has long been said that academic institutions change more slowly than any others, and for good reason, this is perhaps no longer the case. When I was a school administrator, the joke was always that the kids could keep ahead of the technology, while the adults were forever chasing both.

I do believe that our children are growing up in an increasingly disconnected world -- socially, emotionally, and geographically. Educational technology offers the opportunity for kids to be "connected" in many different ways, even socially, even globally. Is this sort of virtual connection a viable substitute for real connections among students, and between students and adults in their schools? Or does it actually enhance those real-world connections? I think the question of the place of educational technology is one of emphasis, not of essential value.

Less than a year after release of the iPad2, here comes the iPad3. I'm no technology expert, so I do not presume to know how the 3 will surpass the 2, or whether the new iPad will make significant inroads into schools. It seems that everyone has something to say about educational technology these days, and that's not a bad thing. Technology and the Internet allow all of us to have something to say about education, which broadens the stage for this very important discussion.

Click here to view the entire article

Cnet: Why iPad's and iBooks are not a viable solution for schools.

I am big fan of the iPad and can see a lot of potential for it in education even if it is a little hard to define still after nearly three years on the market. 

In the past I have identified some of the short fallings in using iPad's as a mainstream educational computer but today Cnet published an intersting article about why Apple's latest innovation and reworking of the textbook may be just too much for schools to adopt in a financial and logistical sense. 

The article is here and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as I know many schools have had mixed reviews of iPad's thus far.

Apple unveil their vision of Education

With the iPad out now for nearly three years now and already in the hands of millions of teachers and students around the globe their seemed to be a clear void in the purpose for bringing them into a classroom.  This was of course beyond a range of useful apps targeted at specific areas of the curriculum such as some of the ones we have identified in the past.

There was no real connection between the teacher, student and the iPad that was intended by apple to actually enhance teaching and learning. 

Today in New York, Apple went some way to addressing that and will surely start a frenzy of digital publishing to meet their vision as outlined below by introducing three new and / or improved products for the iPad. 

Here is the official and quite corny promo video for all of these products fro Apple with a breakdown of each below it.

iBooks 2

Beyond being that annoying icon on your iPad that you could never put into another folder and iBooks had never really been a great success for Apple who had dominated music and apps because most people who wanted to read an e-book would do so on a kindle which had a monstrous catalogue, much cheaper price point and genuine battery life.

Apple's solution to this was quite innovative as per usual and that is to reinvent the e-book for today's students.  An e-book will look a text book from the 1950's up against some of the example texts Apple have created which you can see below.

This was probably what every company in the world wanted to do with e-books already but didn't already have hundreds of millions of devices in users hands and billions in the bank to develop and refince e-books. 

iBooks 2 looks amazing is packed with multilayered, text images and data which is always up to date with the press of a button and offers students the ability to take notes, images and information and use it as they desire.

Take a look at it here.

iTunes U

iTunes U builds on iBooks but also incorporates Apples own learning management system where teachers, professors, publishers can not only publish great content but also set tasks, projects, lectures and link to any area of the web to develop a purpose for the iPad. 

iTunes U now offers a syllabus, teacher bio and a course description and overview. You can get assignments here, bringing you to specific parts of your textbook. you can also keep tabs on homework and course material, and highlight and take notes on texts.

iBooks Authoring Tool

This is the kicker from Apple that will really accelerate the growth of this platform and make paper and pulp publishers totally rethink what they are doing.  iBooks Author looks to be ( As I have not yet trialled it - I will access it shortly and let you know my thoughts ) a beautiful drop and drag, WYSIWYG publishing tool to turn that 5 kg door stop book on human anatomy into a 21st century text book kids will be excited to open again.  Once again it simplifies the publishing process in the same manner Garageband and iMovie did ten years ago with audio and video.  Take a look below.

Obviously there are many questions still to be answered in the real world about iPad's and education and their worthiness on a book list which we will explore in greater detail in future but there is now after three years a clear commitment, business plan and opportunity for Educational publishers to deliver curriculum like never before.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Apple's latest keynote and quest for world domination.

IS this the Coolest Christmas Present of 2011

Well I know this has nothing to do with Teaching.  But who is really teaching today anyway - It's thanksgiving in America and Saturday down under.  So I have one question... is this the coolest guitar ever made and possibly the coolest toy???

It will set you back $7,500 for the base model or $25,000 for the supremo deluxe - more info here.

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Great Bullying Analogy for Students

A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said …they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bullies another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home.

Best Teacher I Ever Had

by David Owen

Extracted from Reader's Digest (Asian Edition), April 1991, pp. 47-48.

Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.

When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?

Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?

Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?

We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the every moment he was passing around the cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat's), hadn't he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn't have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn't been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.

Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience. Teachers and textbooks are not infallable. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.

Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn't let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren't used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say 'cattywampus.'

If I'm ever asked to propose a solution to the problems in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven't made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson's class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can fun doing it.

Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. "He shouldn't have tricked you like that," he said. I looked that teacher right in the eye and told him that he was wrong.