3 articles Tag keynote

13 iOS Apps For Education

by on May 30, 2012, 0 comments

iOS devices (iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone) are becoming increasingly popular in the education setting. Due to their prices, easy accessible for students of all ages and their versatile uses, I see them as a great tool for teaching and learning.

I have been using them for two years now, purely as a tool for learning. I find the utilities such as the still camera, video cameras, the sound recordings, etc. great tools for classroom use. I think when people start to see the apps as a silver bullet, magic pieces of software that are going to replace something they do in their classroom as naive. The apps you want developed are only going to be made if there is demand and if someone can profit from it, just like a website. Like all technology, the iOS devices need to be used as tools for learning, not replacements for teaching.

In saying that, here is a list of the apps I would make sure are on any iOS device I used to help me utilize the technology as a tool for teaching and learning.

 

Evernote

USE: Taking notes and saving files

PRICE: Free

Essential for staying organizing. The great part is that you can also sync the account with any other device you own. So if your using iPads/iPods/iPhones you can easily access notes, PDF’s, videos, photos and anything you have stored in Evernote on all devices. You can read more about it in one of my former posts.

 

Instagram

USE: Taking and sharing photos

PRICE: Free

Not an essential app for education, but one that has so much opportunity in the classroom. Instagram is a simple photo taking app that adds filters to give it a vintage look to your photos. The other part of Instagram is the social network. It has it’s own social network, which is a stream of photos that you see from people you follow. The other great feature is it’s so straight forward to share on other social networks like facebook, Twitter, etc. This app could have many applications. It could be used in an art class to provide opportunity to practice photography skills. Or students could sync their account with their own or a class Twitter account or blog to update parents about the work they are doing in class. A great way to show the learning that is taking place in the classrooms.

 

WiFi Photo Transfer

USE: Transferring photos from device to computer

PRICE: Free

A simple app that makes your device into a wireless server so that you can access the photos or videos you have taken wirelessly. No more lost cables. No more forgotten cables. It’s free and makes your workflow that much quicker.

 

Vimeo

USE: Recording, editing and uploading videos

PRICE: Free

Not only record, but edit and upload straight to Vimeo from this amazing free app. This bring so many possibilities for the classroom.

 

Pocket

USE: Saving pages to be read later offline

PRICE: Free

Formerly called Read It Later, this is a great app that allows you to flag web pages in a browser and access them later. When the pages are viewed in Pocket, it takes out all adds, images, etc. and just leaves the text. It also downloads the pages so they can be viewed offline. So if you are in a subway or if you in the park and you don’t have WIFI access, you can still read the pages you have flagged. This would be perfect for students that have to read from sites or Wikipedia entries. It helps take away the distraction and they can read the articles anywhere, anytime. In the park on the weekend, on the bus on the way home from school, at lunch time in the playground, etc.

 

Twitter

USE: Twitter client

PRICE: Free

Personally I used HootSuite as my Twitter client, but the official Twitter app is easy to use and manage. In the classroom, with younger classes I’d have one class account and have the students follow people related to the field they are studying. I’d also have them post about things they are learning, questions, etc. Parents could follow the account and see what was happening in the classroom. For older students, they could create their own account and tweet out to the world. The other great thing about this is that you can set up the Twitter account on the device in the System Preferences and be able to use Twitter integrated into all other aspects if iOS5. If you don’t have iOS5, you will have to update first, it’s free and awesome.

 

Posterous

USE: Blogging

PRICE: Free

Posterous is a blogging platform. The app is an easy way to compose and publish posts to your blog. Personally, I use my own hosted version of WordPress and I have my students use Blog.com but Posterous could be used quickly and easily from an iOS device to publish blog post. To see why I think students should be blogging, read this post.

 

Keynote

USE: Creating presentations

PRICE: US$9.99

Just like Keynote on a Mac, Keynote for iOS is a quick and easy way to create presentations. With the use of iCloud, these presentations can be accessed on a Mac wirelessly. Another option is to buy a VCA adapter and have the students/teachers present straight from their device.

The results of this app are amazing, here is just one great presentation composed entirely on the iOS Keynote app, from pictures to text to slides.

 

SoundCloud

USE: Recording and sharing audio

PRICE: Free

Create a SoundCloud account, take a recording of anything (a voice, an instrument, a speech, etc.) and upload it directly to the SoundCloud account. There are so many educational possibilities!

 

iWriteWords

USE: Handwriting practice

PRICE: US$2.99

This is a great way to teach old things in new ways. It would be perfect for kindergarten students up to Grade 1 or 2 and the great thing about it is that it helps students form correct sequencing of the letter development. Students must write their letters in the correct sequence (E.g. top to bottom) or they can’t move on to the next letter. If your a stickler for hand grips, then you could always get a stylus.

 

Maps

USE: Mapping

PRICE: Free (pre installed)

Whatever you would use Google Maps for, you can use this app for. The bonus of this app is that depending how you connect to the internet, you can have access to your current GPS data in real time. A world of education possibilities, from treasure hunts and orienteering to a range of geography lessons.

 

Compass

USE: Finding directions

PRICE: Free (pre installed)

Just like a regular compass but based on GPS not magnetism.

 

Calculator

USE: Making calculations

PRICE: Free (pre installed)

Everyone needs a calculator every now and then.

Teaching Design Through Presentations

by on February 17, 2012, 0 comments

As an ICT teacher, I feel I am responsible for teaching the middle school students a lot of what they need to know about presentations. When it comes to presentations, I find that their technology skills are fine and they are easily able to use Powerpoint or Keynote to make a presentation. The problem I see with their slideshows is that they have a lot to learn design wise. With effective design comes effective communication.

To help my students develop effective presentations, I like to educate my students on some simple principals of good design. I use a range of resources for this, but the one I like most is Jesse Desjardins’s (the Social Media Manager for Tourism Australia) presentations on Slideshare that outlines the bad elements of design and gives great tips on how to improve it. The following slideshow is my favourite as it not only tells us what not to do and how to improve design, but it also sets a great example in itself.

 

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION!
View more presentations from @JESSEDEE


Another issue I see arising is that students regularly complain that their content lets them down and that it’s hard to make a boring topic interesting. To that argument, I like to turn to The Oatmeal, who is known for making some very funny comics on the internet. He is most passionate about punctuation and has made a range of comics on how to use specific punctuation conventions in a fun and engaging way. My favourite is the semicolon tutorial which he developed. This would be perfect for a middle school English class. To view the comic click the image below.

I also try to use good elements of design in all of my presentations. It takes a long time, but I think it’s important to show the students good examples. You can see my examples on my Slideshare page. The slideshow I am most proud of is my passwords lesson, I think it’s visually engaging and incorporates a lot of good elements of design. Plus now I’ve spent the time to make a great presentation, I can use it over and over again each year.

How do you teach good design in your classes? Do you always set a good example? Do you give the students any specific, real world examples? Leave a comment below and let me know.

Foods Of The World

by on February 1, 2012, 0 comments

Grade two just finished a unit on food and where food comes from. They studies a variety of aspects of food and with such a multicultural classroom I decided that it would be great to allow the students to research and present the foods from their culture or a culture they have an interest in. They worked in groups to come up with these slideshows in Keynote and then they narrated the presentations and saved them as movies. Here is a great example of foods from Korea.

 

 

To see all of the movies with a whole spectrum of countries and cultures, click here.