ipad for Marvin?

Marvin is my 83-year old dad. He is almost totally deaf, and reads lips. He also speaks well, but we have never enjoyed a phone conversation. I would love to email with him, but he is intimidated by the computer that I helped Sandy (mom) get a few months ago. He has never typed on a keyboard, and doesn't want to invest any time or energy into learning how to use a mouse.

Yet.....he LOVES my ipad! The touch screen is very easy for him, and he readily understood the concepts of "apps" when I showed him a few. Since Marvin loves to join Sandy in video chats with me and my children, I am considering getting him an ipad 2, so he can be more independent of Sandy with the video chats. Watching him with my ipad and thinking about the possibilities have made me think about the benefits of ipads for senior citizens, especially those living alone and/or far away from loved ones.

- flaurie

iPad... A touch screen device

The iPad is different from laptops in many ways, but it's foremost a
touch screen device. I can live with the onscreen keyboard that comes
with the iPad, and like the option of using an external keyboard too,
but if I know if I am going to type a long email, I will use my
laptop. I find myself going for the iPad, rather than for the laptop,
or even pencil/paper, whenever I want to jot something down, be it in
bed on a Saturday morning to capture an idea that's sprung in my head
or taking notes during a meeting.
Because of how I use my iPad, I've tried quite a few "writing pad"
apps in the past few months. Out of all the apps that I downloaded,
some paid and some free, I like Penultimate the most. It is a great
writing pad that lets you quickly write something down with your
finger, and not the keyboard. I like the "gel ink" of Penultimate,
which makes one's handwriting looks really nice. I also like the fact
that when you are done, you have a choice of emailing it either as a
PDF or a Penultimate file. I remember using Penultimate to answer the
"exit ticket" questions at the end of one of Ericka's differentiated
instruction sessions. I then emailed the answers, in the PDF format,
to Ericka that same evening.
I would highly recommend Penultimate if you haven't tried it.
Alice Lung

Classroom 2.0

After attending the orientation of the MERIT program at Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill college two Saturdays ago, my task is to complete 13 assignments by the end of May. I am currently working on assignment #8, which read, "Other important features of the web for teachers seeking to expand their professional contacts and resources are communities like Classroom 2.0.  Go to this site and explore the many groups that have been created by its members.  Choose one you like, and post a reply with the URL for that group and speak to how that group would be of value to what you do."


I browsed quite a few groups on the site and came across the group titled "Cellphones in Education" (http://www.classroom20.com/group/CellPhonesinEducation) and found it interesting how Polleverywhere.com was mentioned by a number of people. I have used it myself both in class with students and at a workshop where I polled the audience on what various SMART Notebook tools they found useful. And if you haven't tried Polleverywhere.com, I would highly recommend it.


I definitely think cell phones have their place in the classroom, and I think it would be worthwhile to look into it more.


By Alice Lung

Which Stylus to Buy

As I said in an earlier post, I do not agree with Steve Jobs that ipads are best used with fingers. Although the stylus represent one more thing that needs to be carried, clipping it on the spine of the ipad cover is not cumbersome. I did get a chance to try a couple of different styli at Best Buy. I find however that the choice is purely a personal choice. Here is some of the information I found.
The price range for styli are from about $15 to $30 and unfortunately and I did not find a relationship between the price and the quality of writing. Styli come in several sizes. You will need to try out which size fits your hand best. I preferred the thicker and longer ones because they felt more like a pencil in my hand. The shorter ones did not rest securely between my index and thumb and felt flimsy. It was also hard for me to hold on to the thinner ones.
I found that two different materials were used as tips. One was a rubber dome tip which was firmer and more springy, the other was a soft fuzzy foam tip. The rubber tips tended to be wider than the foam tips and although I felt that this was a disadvantage, I definitely preferred the rubber tip. It felt more responsive to the surface of the ipad, although a bit more pressure needed to be applied. The fuzzy foam felt less responsive. A finer and firmer rubber tip would be much better.
Finally if you expect the same responsiveness of regular pens, your expectations are set too high. I am sure that over time their quality will improve as will the responsiveness of the ipad surfaces. Apple needs to develop a stylus and make it as creatively designed as their ipad2 cover. Maybe it will have a magnetic strip that will allow it to attach itself to the new cover.
Doris

Digital AV Adapter- Connecting the iPad to a bigger screen

Recently, a friend of mine successfully connected his iPad to a flat panel TV in order to share pictures and watch Netflix movies on a bigger screen. The results were stunning and very impressive. He used the Apple Digital AV Adapter to connect the iPad to an HDMI cable attached to the TV.

Apparently there's a lot of potential here with video mirroring. Apple's website has a lot more information about video mirroring and ways to do it here: http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/mirroring.html

This connector could be useful on campus to connect an iPad to our digital screens.With an iPad connected to a big screen, one could share photo slide-shows, show educational YouTube videos, and even run a Keynote presentation very easily. Perahaps worth checking out for those of us who want to connect our iPads to share content with a broader audience.


By: Anu

Schools using iPads next year to support 1-1 learning

Below you'll find links to a few schools that  will be utilizing iPads to support 1-1 learning starting during the Fall of 2011. I'll be sure to update this list as I hear of more schools who will be doing the same.

-Drew School in San Francisco - The Drew School is a private high school (grades 9-12) in San Francisco.

-San Francisco University High School - at the time of this posting, SFUHS doesn't have any information regarding iPads next year, but Richard Kassissieh alluded to their 1-1 iPad program in a post over at his blog recently.

The Use of iPads When Traveling With Students.

Having just come back from China and having had to deal with a plethora of questions, whose answers were quickly expected, was overwhelming. Simple questions such as which pod a given student was in, who was her group leader, which room number she is in, which chaperone is responsible for checking a certain room, are some examples of these types of questions. Although some of the answers to these questions were constantly changing during the course of the trip's preparations, it would have been extremely helpful to have access to these documents from an ipad. These documents whether in their original format (google docs) or formatted as a .doc could easily be accessed once placed in Dropbox and accessed without having to be online. Other valuable apps such as Penultimate which allows you to quickly take notes via a stylus or your finger, would be very helpful to jot down notes or changes to the schedule of a particular day.
Jane McConnell, Junior Class Dean, had to make sure that she was carrying the students emergency forms with her at all times. These forms (two per students) could effectively be placed on ipad and quickly accessed in case of an emergency instead of carrying the heavy binder containing that important information.
I would strongly suggest the use of ipad for chaperones of the Global investigators Trips.
Doris Mourad

Our Choice App

Regardless of where you fall on the "climate change is happening" to "I don't believe in science" spectrum, the app "Our Choice" written by Al Gore and developed by Push Pop Press that was released yesterday is really impressive.  If you're feeling flush with cash and are willing to drop $5, I recommend checking this "textbook" out. I imagine that this may mark the beginning of the future of digital textbooks, with seamlessly integrated audio and video and (the part I'm most excited about) lots of potential for making textbooks a more interactive and less passive experience. I've already thought of a number of additional features that could be implemented, but it's an impressive start.

Is Social Media Ruining Students?

Wouldn't say there's anything earth shattering here and these aren't scientific studies, but some interesting questions are raised....

Is Social Media Ruining Students?
http://edudemic.com/2011/04/social-media-students/

Nook Color - an eReader turned into a tablet computer

Depending on a school's established vision for educational technology, learning goals, and priorities, the Nook Color at $249 could be a fantastic companion learning computer for some/all students. As reported in a recent article at Mashable, the Nook Color now supports Flash, software app installation, and more. At less than a pound, the Nook color weighs less than the iPad 2.

So in addition to functioning as an eReader, Nook Color tablets are able to browse the web, check email, and install apps--all of this at a fraction of the cost of iPad.

~submitted by Matt

Evernote for iPad

I am an avid bookmarker and have long been using "Delicious" on my laptop.  I heard about "Evernote" and that it also has an app for IPad so I downloaded it (it is free) onto my laptop and IPad.  So far, I have mainly been using it on my laptop but then it automatically synchs with the IPad version.  Besides bookmarking websites, "Evernote" also has a clipping service for "clipping out" articles from online periodicals.  As far as I can see, "Evernote" on the IPad does not have this clipping service so I have downloaded "Instapaper" for that purpose.  I am still getting the hang of "Instapaper" and haven't successfully "clipped" on the IPad.  Like many of my fellow user group members, I am finding that the IPad is absolutely not a substitute for the laptop.  I think the challenge is to figure out those applications that are best suited for the tablet format.  For some, it is the drawing or the music apps.  In general, the plurality of the apps that I have been using on the IPad come under the heading "Productivity" so I think I will continue to explore how the portability of the IPad will overcome what it lacks in terms of function.

Margaret Lane

iPad as a travel device

I recently took an international trip with my iPad in order to evaluate it as my sole travel device. On the day of departure, however, I had a lot of anxiety about only taking my iPad and decided to bring my laptop along. I am so glad I brought my laptop because I realized that the iPad has a lot of shortcomings as a "work" and travel device. First off, typing on the iPad is a nightmare. I didn't want to lug the wireless keyboard as well, so I ended up using the device to type. This was a real pain, as my wrists really hurt from typing.

Another shortcoming is that the iPad doesn't have a built in world clock like the iPhone. I downloaded and app called "Night Stand HD" however this didn't have the features I wanted and needed an internet connection to detect location.

I did find some good uses for the iPad as a travel device. As a mobile eReader, I found the portability of the iPad supreme. I could take it everywhere and have good reading material. The battery life is great, and I found I didn't need to recharge it much. I used the "Sundry Notes" app to jot travel notes and addresses on the fly. And for keeping up to date on news and current events, it was very easy to stay in touch with the iPad.

A very useful app when in French speaking countries was "iTranslate". This little app can translate words and phrases in about 50 languages. When we were in very remote areas of Reunion Island, I found this app useful in communicating simple phrases like "There's a poisonous spider in our room!" and "Where is the bus stop?"

I still feel quite tethered to my laptop and am not sure if I could part with it for the iPad. But I do feel the iPad does have a niche in the world of portable devices. I guess I am still personally trying to find that place for my iPad.

by: Anu

another reason to hold off on iPads

Given how quickly things are changing in the world of readers, again I assert that iPads are a luxury.  Listen to this story:

by Ryanne

iPad great for little ones

Although I have come to the conclusion that iPads are still, for the most part, a luxury item not worth recommending for our students, I do think that the iPad is an amazing tool for toddlers and preschoolers.  There are a number of apps out there that allow young children to have tactile experiences with letters and numbers, to listen to stories in an interactive and entertaining manner, and to build skills like pattern recognition.  I can easily see iPads becoming a staple in early education classrooms.

If we decide to create a class set for our girls, we need to think about using the iPads differently than we have been as individuals.  Instead, the iPads would become tailored to the objectives of the teachers.  I think there is great potential long term, but for now, using iPads over laptops would feel like a cumbersome step backwards.

by Ryanne

An Overview of My Own iPad Experience

I wrote this up for Matt a few weeks ago when he presented to academic council, but thought these points would be worth sharing with everyone (and getting push back if people disagree).

My thoughts on having an iPad this year...

1.  It's fun to play with.  Not surprisingly, the interface is sleek, clean, and easy to use. That said, I wouldn't want these facts to obscure the real question: will this help students learn more than spending $600 per student on something else? If not, will a class set help students learn more than spending $600x16 on something else?


2. This year I found having students using different platforms and different software suites to be somewhat challenging. If the ipad becomes yet another option for students, I worry that this will create an even greater challenge (for example, not a single dynamic geometry software program will run on the iPad yet, the advantage of the iPad being instant on is diminished if half the class still has laptops, etc).


3. I know there has been talk about getting class sets.  I think the ipad is a very personal devise.  One of my primary professional uses is as a tool to read blogs (I use MobileRSS), read personalized magazines (Zite, Flipboard, Pulse), and organize and store relevant documents, websites, and videos (ReaditLater, Evernote, InstaPaper, GoodReader, DropBox, & SugarSync).  Many of these apps are either useless or lose much of their appeal if I were sharing an Ipad with others.

4. In some ways, the iPad is a fantastic organizational tool. On the other hand, keeping organized between mediums is a challenge.  Are we just adding yet another medium (iPad, laptop, home desktop, notebook, binder, etc)?


4. I'm not very good at freehand drawing.  Even short little margin notes are difficult for me to read.  I might get better at this, but I personally would find a fine-tuned stylus to be helpful.  Along these lines, this probably is not an appropriate tool to take notes in math classes for almost every kid (not that a personal computer is any better).


5. From a tech standpoint, I worry (although this is totally unsubstantiated) that troubleshooting iPads if things go wrong will be more difficult than troubleshooting pc's/macs.  You just don't have the same administrative access.


6. As an additional expense for kids, I am curious how many 5th graders already have a laptop and how many already have an iPad. My guess is many have laptops (meaning no required additional expense) and few have iPads. Something to consider.

7. Yikes.  All these sound so negative...on a plus side: the ipad takes much less time to boot, has a much longer battery life, and takes up much less room on a desk. Furthermore, there is a strong and growing library of apps that are evolving at a much faster rate than traditional software. They're also super cool (which I actually see as a pro and con.  On the one hand, I have no problem taking advantage of mediums that get kids excited.  On the other hand, if I need a dog and pony show maybe I need to be rethinking the content).

Avery