New Websites to take a look at

Hey Everyone,

We are sitting at an iPad summit, take a look at some of these links.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/21st-century-leadership-overview-ken-kay

Fix for reading along with fingers

Best fix ever!

Matt has been reading on this ipad, but when he tries to follow along with his fingers the pages keep turning.

Tonight I found a fix..... Go into settings-general-accessibility and turn on Guided Access.  This requires a passcode, but the kids could make their own or just set all to 0000 or something.  When you open a book, triple click the home button and circle the areas that you want to disable the touch screen (I circled all of the words leaving the far right and left for page turning). To turn this off, just triple click when done reading.

There is an option to turn off all motion so the screen does not flip when the kids move.

There is also an option to turn off the entire screen so you can watch a video, for example, without inadvertent touching turning it off and on (or the kid next to you turning yours off).

Completely made my day!
Dani

New Interesting Links for Teachers

Hey Everyone,

I found two new links that could be helpful to our teachers and ourselves.

The first link is from Holland Christian itself. This shows videos on how to do some pretty cool things on iPads and Macs!

https://sites.google.com/a/hollandchristian.org/tech-integration/

The other link is a blog that have some very interesting articles!

http://1to1schools.net/

More iPad Info

In looking over the site www.ipadpd.com - a site given to me by Mr. Fred Sitkins, Boyne City Elementary Principal, I found this very informative link.  It also links to APPitic which has some very good infomative videos and lots of already researched lists of apps to use in various areas of education.  Check out both sites!!

Our Top 10 Recommended Apps for Teachers and Students

http://www.ipadpd.com/top-10-apps.html

More Data for 1-to-1

Hey All,

I was looking around for some more data on 1-to-1  and found this website.

It has 21 steps for successfully implementing 1-to-1 programs.

I think that this site could help us in our move forward. I also think that it confirms that we are on the right track!

See you all on Thursday at 3:15

Dylan

Finally had time to catch up on my reading...

Getting parent buy in
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/12/how-to-get-parent-support-for-tech-use-in-class/

35 must have apps
http://www.appolicious.com/education/articles/13035-top-35-must-have-educational-iphone-and-ipad-apps-used-by-real-teachers-in-the-classroom

Texting in the classroom
http://edudemic.com/2013/01/texting-in-the-classroom/

Assessment apps for 1-1 classroom
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/free-assessment-ipad-apps-monica-burns

Using smartphones in class
http://gettingsmart.com/cms/blog/2013/01/part-1-44-smart-ways-to-use-smartphones-in-class/

Interesting article when starting 1-1

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/blog/digital-citizenship-in-1-to-1-schools

Powerschool gradebook for second semester

FYI:
I was having trouble with the gradebook app so I deleted it and reinstalled it. Now I can see my second semester classes and grades.

Something interesting to consider in the phase that we are in:

It’s Time: Create Smart Policies to Support Student Tech Use

December 18, 2012 | 10:30 AM | By Katrina Schwartz

35 Free Apps for Teaching

35 Free Apps for Teaching

This looks like a nice rundown of valuable (FREE!) apps for teachers that I found on the Scholastic website.  It's aimed at k-8 but several of them would be good for high school as well.

iPad shortcuts

Some of the tips in this article have already been mentioned (love the split keyboard gesture!) but here are some more neat things that might come in handy with your iPad.  One of my favorites is the gesture to return to the home screen!  There is also a quick way to switch between recent apps that would be a time saver!

http://ipad.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/40-super-secret-ipad-features-and-shortcuts/

East Jordan schools purchase 770 iPad minis

This article has just firmed up my beliefs that we are heading down the right track for technology.

In this article (Click here to read) East Jordan is going to buy every student in the high school an iPad Mini with a case and blue tooth keyboard. They are also going to buy iPads for all the rest of their students, but they will not have an option to take them home. In the article is says that they have about 1,000 students...just like us.

Very interesting to read...

-Dylan

More apps to share

I have tried and kid tested these FREE apps this week and thought that some of you might want to try them...

A+ -- free app. You can enter and voice record your own spelling words. It asks you the words and helps you when you get it wrong. After you test you can email the teacher the results.. With a list of what words were missed.

Feedly, pocket, twitter -- using this to read professional journals. Pocket is a way to save offline. I can check google reader/rss feeds/twitter accounts and just click "read later" then it download to my pocket to read when I am offline.

Geomaster, tap quiz - good free social studies apps

Overdrive - using this to get books from McBain library

Virtual manipulatives - basically fraction bars online. I don't know how useful since I don' t use these in class.

Sticky note - sticky notes on the ipad! Best of all they are available offline.

Dani

Fun/good apps to share

I have been playing...um, working....For the past few days on my new toy....um, tool.

Matt approved:

Stack the states. The free version is good, but I actually bought the .99 version since he liked it so much. It directly relates to what he is learning in 4th grade.

Doodle Buddy: This is just cool, but could be used for a whiteboard in class (I think the students in the video were using this when answering the teacher at the board.) It is free.

Meteor Math: I woke up to Matt smashing meteors while practicing multiplication tables to 12x12....Guess I need to passcode this! This is free, too.

I'll keep you updated until I go back into the 1970's (otherwise known as the inlaws house) where the internet does not exist.

I am sure that everyone found the common core standards app.

Does anyone still have the twitter suggestions from the speaker on November 1st? I forgot to bring them with me and am trying to use that for professional development like she suggested.

If anyone else has neat/useful apps, could you please post as well.

Dani

Excellent Resource for Webinars

I have been using this site to take part in webinars.  There are lots of great FREE webinars coming up that have to do specifically with iPads.  Any that say "(Full access required)" require being a member, but if it does not say that by the registration button they are free.  These are very fast paced - usually 0.5 hour of non-stop talking by the presenter - but you usually get an ebook, slides, and/or reference material to go back and look at afterwards.

Also, if you click on the Shared Resources tab at the top, there are ebooks from past webinars as well.  These are also FREE.

Dani

http://community.simplek12.com/scripts/student/webinars/browse.asp?show=upcoming#more