iPads in your School – Where do you even Start? – Switched On ICT – iPad Units

If like many schools you have taken the leap  from the safety of your ICT suite over to mobile iPads, then you could probably do with a bit of help to navigate through this to the exciting new world of apps and anything goes. This was a situation I found myself in a few months ago. In the ICT room I knew where I was it was safe, you had  a scheme and the suite of software you used to teach the curriculum was finite.  You knew where to save, where to upload to and it all made sense, but it could also be predictable and limiting. Although I am sorry Mr Gove, I and many of my other esteemed colleagues rarely if ever taught a boring ICT lesson!

Back to the iPads. For a few months I muddled through trying out apps, talking to colleagues via twitter and attending events like those held at Elm Park Primary or at Apple in Regent Street. This is part of the fun, but I do remember thinking I wish there was something I could just pick up and run with, a course or set of notes from someone who has been there before. There are books like iPads in Education for Dummies, which is OK and I managed to plough through a chapter or two, or the more digestible and cheaper Educator’s iPad by Chris “Shambles Guru” Smith. Enter Switched On ICT and their iPad units. What you get is a growing series of tried and tested lessons that feel like they have been written and tried out in UK classrooms.

Here is a video of myself and my ICT Team Partner and electronic music guru Steve Hawke talking about the Projects

The iPad Projects pack is well suited to a school that is moving steadily and strategically into iPad adoption. It contains two exemplars of using iPads in a cross curricular context. These are Mind Mapping and Ebook creation. These lessons appealed to me as a seasoned know it all cynic, but I also felt that I could hand them to teachers who were less confident with the devices as they are detailed and clear.

For us as a school this pack helped us align the iPads to the full Switched On ICT scheme in the form of a matching chart of apps to units. I wouldn’t say I agree with all of these but most of them are spot on!  You also get access to a free Online course on using iPads in school, which is something I wish I had access to months ago.  It acts as a strong induction and introduction to the technology. It is ideal for those who are starting out on iPad integration, though I picked up some new tips and ideas too!

Mind Mapping apps are explained and presented as a fantastic cross curricular lesson in the pack. Here is a photo of some of the work from my class, taken hurriedly on another iPad.

For me this pack is very good value for money for any school on the iPad journey. It should be on every ICT Coordinators desk, or better still in the PPA room.

iPad Gripcase – wrap it round your iPad and you can safely drop it

A number of people have asked me about the casing we use around our iPads in Foundation Stage.  I have recently bought one for my eldest son, whose Autistic needs mean he may well drop or throw his new iPad. So, with that in mind we are about to enter into another stage of very rigorous testing of this case/holder thing, but where do you get one from?

Gripcase is an American Product, but I managed to find one at Primary Technology.co.uk on Sunday. It was delivered to me by Tuesday, now that is excellent service. Here is another video of the case in action, except this one is the cutest video I have ever seen about an iPad.

Related articles

• Training Day at South Woodford/ Redbridge (antsict.wordpress.com)
• Best iPad accessories (reviews.cnet.com)

 

Great Fire of London animated on the iPad

Just the other day, myself and my brilliant colleague in Year 2 came up with a fantastic project idea. We knew we wanted to do some animation to link with their Switched on ICT unit: Animating History and we knew we wanted to stretch both the children and ourselves.

Jo’s idea was to create an animation around the people leaving the scene of the fire by boat. This can be seen in paintings such as the one below:

We recreated that scene using some foil for the Thames, fairy lights for fire and various bits of Lego to signify the escaping hoards, their boats and floating debris in the river. The children made boats and little cardboard sets and backdrops, though some boats needed scaling down a bit they were very impressive! When everything was built the class had a short intro to the app and animation processes and off they went. The app we used was iStopMotion, which due to its onion skinning tool and simplicity of operation worked fantastically. The only thing that I would change next time, would be to look at some cheap mounting for the iPads or iPod touches in order to achieve a more fluid series of shots.

Here is my “one I prepared earlier” example  that I used to give the children some idea of where we were heading.

2DIY on an Ipad – first look

I have been busy playing with one of my favourite pieces of software, except with a difference. 2DIY, but not on my PC.

Before joining 2Simple Software I was a bit of a fan boy of their stuff and was proud to be the first Teacher/advisor to blog about 2DIY.

2DIY is essentially a creative tool-set that allows learners to create their own two dimensional games. In today’s changing ICT curriculum, where it is more about making and creating, 2DIY has never been more important. In the past I have been involved with working alongside Tim Rylands to showcase the power of this software both in schools and at Learning without Frontiers.  2DIY always had (and still has) that wow factor. I have had children cheer when I have announced that today’s lesson would be on 2DIY.

So, I was thrilled this week to be given a beta version of the new iPad version .  I am not sure whether it will be with us tomorrow at Bett, but I will be on the 2Simple Stand on Saturday and you are welcome to nag me and have a play with my iPad.

So what is it like?

All the games making templates from the PC version are here and the graphics have been given a facelift. You can use this app to create quizzes, labelling activities and playable games.  These can be saved to the app or linked into a pupil’s Purple Mash account. The app works well and there are now sticky issues, which is really good for a Beta. One difference between this and the CD version is the inclusion of a joy stick rather than the arrow keys, a clever solution and one that works well.

It is worth pointing out that there are probably only two other primary focussed game making apps in the App store. And only one of these is any good!  Now that 2DIY is going to be added to our school suite of apps, we are getting closer to a complete package of  the apps we need.  The creators not consumers message which 2Simple evangelised us with during the original release of the software is even more true of iPads than computers. We need apps like this which allow children to build something for themselves.  Rather than the glut of drill and skill and photo altering apps.

So far the response from my Year 6 Class has been along the lines of “sick” and even “cool”.  One of my girls spent most of wet lunchtime building maze games. To the point where I had to wrestle the device from here as it was time for the next lesson. I am looking forward to using this app with more classes and building it into a programme of  Games Based Learning and Games Design. It is the missing link between Scratch and Kodu!

 

 

App of the Day: Name Dice

I had been looking for a random name generator in order to help with my questioning and pupil section  Though I did find a reasonably good app to do the job I found something else along the way. Name Dice is a handy utility for composition in Literacy. Basically it generates names, which your pupils could use in their story writing. As the app generates so many possibilities it will go some way to helping with original and unique writing in my class, as at least all of the characters will be different.

 

Try it – it is free and I think a handy utility for either full on story writing or as a starter activity.

Related articles

• Story Dice: app for storytelling fun (boingboing.net)

App of The Day : Book Creator

This week, Book Creator has been my app of choice for two very enjoyable lessons at both ends of Key Stage 2. It is such an intuitive and versatile app and despite its simplistic interface it is very powerful. Book creator is both the best known and easiest to use app for making E Books. Pupils simply assemble and format  text , images and even sound on digital pages. These books can be shared via email, shared as a PDF or published to iBooks, the iPads virtual book shelves. I love the way that when a child has finished creating their book they can publish it in this way.  Seeing it sit on a virtual bookcase alongside other books by real authors has thrilled many children this week, as it did me when I had made my first E Book.