Comic Life with students
Who was it who said that an iPad is only a consumption device??!
Here are some examples of some ICT related pages a student of mine created using Comic Life on the topic of ‘Future Developments in Technology’
Archive from March, 2012
SketchShare: collaboration the easy way
I was really pleased to come across the SketchShare app the other week. I immediately saw some really great potential with it. Some of these key features made it a no brainer for me in an education space:
1) Supporting group work upto 4 people can collaborate anywhere in the world using the Sketchshare app
2) Audio is possible too so you can talk at the same time to each other too
The fact that 4 people can collaborate at the same time really excited me too as it is perfect for group work, particularly when you have multiple iPads for students to work with.
My immediate response was to get a copy across to Sheli Blackburn (@shelibb) who I have been working with on www.digitalleadernetwork.co.uk where I thought it would be a great app for our digital leaders to use to collaborate and work on ideas together.
What also appealed to me with this was that the actual ability to sketch and work rather than just Skype / Facetime was really exciting. The power here is that to videoconference with unfamiliar faces can actually be a bit daunting – whether (as in this case) you are primary students working with secondary – the whole face to face thing can be a bit daunting. Sketchshare takes that fear away.
As you might expect, we both are really excited at the prospects the app brings (and we had some good fun sharing images (and then defacing them) as we both learnt how to use the app). The interface is really easy to pick up and has some tidy features. Two things we thought of that might improve it would be the ability to have multiple pages plus an undo button, however from our Twitter dialogues, the developers have been in touch to say they’re looking at adding that functionality. Either way though, I love it. It’s worth grabbing now, as is.
Check it here: http://sketchshare.co.uk/wp/
iClevedon iPad trial: Student feedback
Mar 11, 2012 by Mark Anderson 
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Posted under: iClevedon, iPad, iPad apps, Learning & Teaching
No Comments Posted under: iClevedon, iPad, iPad apps, Learning & Teaching
Feedback from students who have been trialling the devices recently, 24/7 for over a month, can be found on the iClevedon blog here: http://iclevedon.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/10/
You can find out more by following the iClevedon twitter feed.
Integrated blogging app for iPad
Following a recommendation I’ve just downloaded the ‘Blogsy’ app for iPad. As you’ll see from the screenshot, there are lots of built in formatting features, which if you’re a Posterous or Blogger user makes it super handy.
It makes it super easy too to add in different media with the social media tie ins you can see on the side bar. Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Google and Safari are all supported.
It also supports multiple blog formats too, so whether you’re WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or pretty much whatever; Blogsy is a one stop shop blogging platform for all your needs. Tidy!
iTunes U – raising the bar & aspirations
I recently blogged about the power of iBook Author and the new iBooks2, now I turn to iTunes U or the iTunes University app and how it also supports learning.
The iTunes U app gives anyone with an iPad the opportunity to follow courses from hundreds of different institutions. From big universities such as Harvard and MIT to smaller schools and state districts – Education Scotland for example have courses you can follow in Gaelic, Literacy and English even down to resources for Early Years education.
The courses you can download come with lectures, lecture notes, quizzes, tests, texts, all manner of different learning opportunities, which work in a very similar vein to the books in iBook 2 albeit they are set out a little differently.
I recently was covering the introduction of algorithms as part of the AQA AS Computing A Level course and my students’ learning was further enriched by the opportunities given by iTunes U and MIT’s course ‘Introduction to Algorithms’.
I was able to use my iPad in lessons following my delivery in the course to give students the opportunity to see and learn what further learning in this area would be like at a University level. Not only did this give the students the opportunity to see this, but it raised their aspirations considerably. They were excited by the prospects that furthering their studies in this particular area could bring. Inspired by seeing the iTunes U app, some of the students currently have their own iOS device and were able to download the iTunes U app and then download the course for themselves and since then have been working through various parts of it. Another student who was interested in learning about creating apps in iOS too, so they also downloaded a course from Stanford and they have been working through that too and have begun working on creating their own app.
I just can’t help thinking…
what if these opportunities weren’t there? What if students couldn’t access this?
The opportunities for engaging students here are brilliant and as a result I’m seeing the students now extending their learning further, far further than they would have been able to previously. I just hope that our 1:1 scheme goes ahead. The case for this is increasingly compelling and the opportunities for learning keep being extended further and further.
The future’s bright…
Access Dropbox from Pages/Keynote/Numbers on iPad #ftw
I am pleased as punch to have found a way to link up my Dropbox account with iWork for iPad. And it’s easy. And it’s free.
Check http://otixo.com
Once you’ve signed up and linked Otixo to your Dropbox account (you can do it with Google Docs too – double result!), simply go on to your iPad, go to your WebDav options and enter:
…as the address for the WebDav server. Then enter your username (email) and password for Otixo.
Done.
And relax…
