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.

Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 28th April 2013

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences and must read articles.

Here is this weeks collection:

Face Film App

My thanks this week goes to Yan Jiangguo, who provided me with a code for his FaceFilm app. The app lets you morph

two faces together with the whole smooth process outputting as a movie or an animated gif. So, as you can see opposite, you can use your iPad to stage your own Doctor Who style regeneration.

In terms of classroom use, this is one of those apps which could act as a writing stimulus. I would get my class to morph themselves into a character and write about how it feels to be that person, perhaps a soldier or a knight or an alien. These would look brilliant displayed on a class  blog with the writing coupled with the gif as an illustration for each story or poem. Possible themes could be going back in time or becoming a celebrity or world leader.

Addition and Subtraction for Kids

Back when I had Year 1, I used to make a lot of worksheets and flip charts involving visual addition and subtraction. For younger children and those with processing difficulties number operations can be just too abstract. As a visual learner myself I have always been keen to bring Maths alive with pictures, role play and objects. Fast forward a few years and Leo my middle son presents with autism and learning difficulties. This means that though he can memorize almost all of the Tube network and a whole collection of number facts by playing Bond Bubbles, he still struggles with simple addition and subtraction. We can spend quite a while battling with 9-0 or 8 + 6 and yet he knows lots of pairs of numbers that will make 100 from rote memory.

Enter this app, Addition and Subtraction for Kids, with the visual prompts and scaffolding of moving sea creatures. It is an app that works well for him and has great promise. Though, I am not going to leap too far up and down for this app as it really lacks the customization and options that other developers like Frogmeleon or Teacher’s Pet give you. In fact if you are listening guys, please make an app like this but with the understanding of teaching and learning that I know you both have!

Purple Mash – Face Lift

I have recently moved schools and I am introducing new colleagues to Purple Mash, a project I began with 2Simple over two years ago. I am thrilled to see how the front page and navigation have moved up a gear. The screen now adjusts seamlessly to fill the browser window and the search tool for activities including drilling down by year and subject is fantastic. It is still not IOS compatible yet, though you can now view the front page on an iPad and further 2Simple apps are on the way.

Teaching Packs

Mark Warner, the man behind Teaching Ideas and other tried tested and enduring Teacher resource sites has created a new site. I was privileged to be able to test this new project over this last weekend and as expected it all looks good and will be another place we all go to for quality resources. Teaching Packs, hosts a small but growing collection of teaching and display resources on themes such as punctuation, times tables and pirates, though that list is growing. A small fee will allow you to download each very comprehensive pack or you could subscribe for the year, which costs around the same as a decent CD!

And finally

David Pogue: 10 top time-saving tech tips

How many of these tips, tricks and short cuts did you know about :

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Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 1st April 2013

A bit late this week due to it being Easter Holidays.

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences and must read articles.

Here is this weeks Stuff I have seen:

Premier Automne

Premier Automne (2013) from Carlos De Carvalho on Vimeo.

Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 24th March 2013

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses, my kids, my Kindle Fire and my Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books, crazy experiences and must read articles.

Here is this weeks Stuff I have seen:

Touch Develop

In my continuing pursuit to teach programming under the constraints of having shiny iPads and ageing PC, I was pleased and excited to come across this from Microsoft. The Touch Develop programming environment runs in a browser and this means on your tablet, chromebook, laptop etc. The only restriction is a Windows Live/ Gmail or Facebook account

is needed in order to save scripts. Unlike other scripting or coding tools this is built with tablets in mind, so you can build functions that act in response to the accelerometer and inputs can be based on touch. This is a challenging

environment and you do need to put the time in to get your head round it all. I do think it is worth spending a few hours looking at this though as it could well be another addition to the suite of software and tools we present to pupils at Key Stage 2 and 3 to teach Computer Science. I am going to try this with my Year 6 class later this week, using the scheme of work and introductory videos from Ray Chambers.

We are Musicians – a Music Coordinator Tells us How he does it

I recently chatted to my colleague, Steve Hawke, our music coordinator who has been inspiring me with his work with our iPads. He has been using an app called Figure to teach his Year 4 children aspects of music covered in Switched on ICT  along with other aspects of the Music curriculum.

The app he mentions is Figure, which is available on the app store and is very popular with our Key Stage 2 pupils.

 

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Tools, Sites, Apps and Stuff you have to read w/c 17th March 2012

Each week my Flipboard app, Twitter responses and Google reader deliver a collection of new web tools, apps, books and must read articles.

Here is this weeks Stuff I have seen:

Bible Buddies App

I love Puppet Pals and have enjoyed using it to bring play scripts alive this year. By chance the boys and I discovered Bible Buddies, which is made by the same people who brought us Puppet Pals. Bible Buddies is basically Puppet Pals but with Biblical Characters, though it should be said most of these are in-app purchases. Here is Leo and Charlie’s versions of Jonah and the Whale made with the app.

Jam with Chrome

If you have seen digital music in action on Garageband on iPad but you don’t have iPads, then Jam with Chrome maybe a viable alternative. You have a broad range of instruments, collaboration with others, autoplay and funky effects all via Chrome. Another reason to ensure your school machines has Chrome installed as well as Internet Explorer.

Whitecap – Visuals for your Disco

Last Saturday, I helped a friend out by resurrecting my old DJ skills and DJ equipment. Though things have moved on since my hey day behind the decks. You can see in the picture what my set up used to look like, last week the CD players were replaced by 2 iPads, Spotify playlists and a laptop running Youtube. I had a projector to show video clips, but when these were not running we used Whitecap. I had not seen this Windows download before and I was really pleased with how well it worked. Essentially Whitecap produces visuals in response to music it detects via your computer microphone. Think the fractals you get from Windows Media Player visualizations, but with more control by you.

Hackasaurus Video from Ian Addison

I love Hackasaurus and the more I use it with classes the more risks they and I take with it. If you have not seen it before then take a look at Ian’s video which gives you an idea of how to use it. Hackasaurus works as both an insight into html and an uber writing frame, which is how I have been using it, presenting children with a BBC News web page and asking them to change the news to fit in with a local or topic based story.

Anyway here is one of Ian’s under ten minutes videos which make tools like this more accessible.

Raspberry Pi and other unofficial Manuals

Makeuseof.com have created another one of their fantastic free help guide/manual thingys. This time they have created a guide about the Raspberry Pi. Aside from this guide you can find a range of other helpful guide on their site including Google Analytics, Gmail and Evernote.

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