Location: Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire When: 2nd – 5th April 2012 Cost: £550 + VAT
Includes:
Accommodation for 3 nights
Tuition for the course by experienced and trained Apple Education Mentors
Meals from lunchtime 2nd April until Breakfast 5th April
Loan of all equipment required for the duration of the course
More information and booking form:
Contact admin@learning-central.org or by telephone on 0560 2043202.
Many PE teachers love iPad 2 because the video capture and editing is so simple and fast that is enable students to capture, review and evaluate work really easily. There are many examples of this – go to Longfield Academy’s video at 3.02 minutes to see one example of this.
Vital Signs from Phillips uses the front facing camera on iPad 2 to measure your heart rate and breathing rate so that students can easily see the effect of exercise has on their bodies. PE teachers love the way this App can be used by students doing fitness and stamina work in the gymn or fitness room to assess their fitness and recovery rates. Of course there are other tools that could be used to do this but at 69p this is an excellent, hassle free and surprisingly accurate solution.
I was asked this at a workshop some time ago and have had a chance to put together some instructions.
Mark Pentleton has done some more research on the subject here.
Looking at the new iTunes U page for the USA it seems that School districts can sigh up to get their own iTunes U site.
K-12 school districts, universities, and colleges in 26 countries can create and distribute courses on iTunes U. To get started, build your team and decide which content you’ll distribute.
The UK is one of these countries and clicking the link takes you to the relevant sign up page.
However authors using the iBooks Author App should beware of these terms:
I’m an author (or publisher). Can I distribute this work on my own website?
You may distribute books created in iBooks Author free of charge on your own website. If you wish to sell your book, you must do so through the iBookstore.
Can I distribute works created with iBooks Author as part of a product or service that charges a subscription-based fee?
Books created with iBooks Author may not be sold as part of a subscription-based product or service. iBooks Author books must be distributed free of charge or made available for sale via the iBookstore.
Ciaran McCormack has created an excellent first look at iBooks Author showing everyone some of the excellent features available in this exciting piece of free software.
One of the problems with the App store is that many of the Apps we want to use in education are not classified as education Apps. This got me into thinking about how we used Apps in the classroom. In a workshop yesterday I was asked to give examples and here is my diagrammatic view of things.
In a workshop today I was told about a really useful tool for the Mac that allows you to open and try out ePub documents without having to load the ePub into iBooks on an iPad. It is something I have been searching for for ages and I know others have too.
Alice can be downloaded from the App store and although not as elegant at using iBooks on an iPad it does allow you to see how the ePub document looks and does play embedded media files.
I spotted this when reading my Zite App on my iPad and have done some firther research and thought it was worth sharing. The article published in the Journal was written by a Florida superintendent who was the first in that state to lead a high school iPad 1:1 program, and an IT director who was very successful with his own 1:1 tablet initiative at Delmarva Christian School. The following points were crucial to success:
Leadership
The senior leader must be a champion for technology and have sufficient knowledge to coordinate an internal and external technological vision.
Cost
Depending on the type of school and the financial health of the school, funds may come directly from the school, from the parents in the form of a yearly lease fee, or from a blended approach.
Network
Is the wireless network robust?
Has the school purchased enough bandwidth?
Will students utilize school servers or the cloud for document storage?
Are your servers able to host support software for your program?
Security
…it is imperative to consider inventory management, Internet filtering, insurance, student assent, and parental consent.
Philosophical Framework
It is our experience that schools must answer one important question: “Why are we doing this?”
Pedagogy
…it is imperative that schools provide the tools and support necessary to alter pedagogy. Teaching and learning should happen differently with iPads.
With Mr Goves announcement last week that coding was to be encouraged in schools many IT departments in schools began to get a bit worried. He said:
Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum. Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11 year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations using an MIT tool called Scratch. By 16, they could have an understanding of formal logic previously covered only in University courses and be writing their own Apps for smartphones.
I have been doing a bit of research to see what is available on iPad that can help.
A great set of course on the iPad that include lessons and videos from WeBitNet is a great place to start:
For those wanting to plan Apps and do a bit of Wireframing thare is the excellent iMockups for iPad
For those to try out programming Codea is a great place to start.
Two Apps that are excellent for coding on iPAd are:
I was asked this week if it was possible to do simple control such as Logo with iPad and of course someone has made an App – it is the free Logo Draw and it looks as if it doess all the things we would want from a good Logo App.
Written by David Baugh
