Browse the Internet Faster and Easier on iPad

This is a interesting article on how to maximise your internet experience when using the iPad. It was located over at Worldwide iPad News. There is nothing worse than spending half your lesson time just trying to get all your students actually connected to the net. This is not a magic wand but it is a list of tips for setting up your procedures for the iPad so your students do not waste valuable class time. Check it out to see if it gives you quicker access.

If you like to browse the internet, the chances are that you like to do it in a timely manner. Take a look at these tips and tricks that will make web browsing on your iPad 2 a breeze.

Keeping the Bookmarks Bar visible

An often overlooked feature of the iPad is the Bookmarks Bar, which allows you to surf quickly to your favorite websites. It’s easy to miss because, by default, the bar only appears when you open a new tab and then disappears again when you go to a website. You can make it stay visible by going to Settings on your Home screen, selecting Safari and setting “Always Show Bookmarks Bar” to “ON”. You can add bookmarks to the bar by tapping the “+” sign to the left of the address bar, tapping “Add Bookmark” and then “Add to Bookmarks Bar”.

Placing bookmarks on the Home screen
You can add a bookmark for a website – a webclip – to your iPad Home screen by surfing to the page you want to bookmark in Safari, tapping the “+” sign and selecting “Add to Home Screen”. The webclip, which you can rename, is added to your Home screen and will automatically open to the area of the web page you had displayed when you bookmarked the site. Webclips are backed up by iTunes, but are not synced by either iTunes or MobileMe.

As well as hints on;

• Syncing Safari bookmarks
• Changing your browser
• Browsing offline content ...............

Read the full article:
http://algebraxyz.com/2011/06/01/ipad-2-browse-the-internet-faster-and-easier/

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MP4 Converter Software - iPad to Mac

Came across some great software from a nice tweet from iPadsummary

http://www.mp4converter.net/ipad-max-mac.html

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iPads in Education

Amy Estes was invited as a guest blogger over at Appolicious Advisor. The article is a quick overview of how apps can be used in the classroom. It is really a good look at how easy incorporating some of these apps can be. It is not necessarily about making the whole lesson iPad based but rather using apps when they can concrete a particular concept or re-inforce an idea you are teaching to your students. Sometimes it might just be the research component or a warm up activity, it is about the authenticity of the use and the power of the interactive manipulation that makes the learning more powerful for the students.

Amy Estes is a high school English teacher residing in Sacramento, CA. When she's not teaching, she loves cheering on the San Francisco Giants, playing with her iPhone and iPad, and writing her blog, Just A Titch.

I have been teaching English to middle and high school students for over four years now, and I can personally attest to the fact that iPads in the classroom are a game-changer. Today’s students are modern and computer-savvy and desperately seeking something that will hold their attention. At home, they’re surrounded by the latest technology, but schools have not caught up to these trends. We wonder why students are bored, but if you examine all of the technology they get to play with, and compare it to the books and tools used in our classrooms, it’s no surprise that they prefer to spend hours on YouTube and playing with their iPods. Schools need to catch up, and use of iPads in the classroom is one inspiring way to do so.

Schools all over the United States are putting iPads in the hands of their students because of the enormous benefits of using electronic devices. Students can use apps to help stay organized, utilize cloud computing in order to collaborate with both peers and teachers, and make use of amazing iPad apps across all disciplines.

Read the full article:

http://www.appolicious.com/education/articles/8222-guest-blog-from-amy-estes-justatitch-ipads-in-the-classroom

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Splashtop Remote Desktop for iPad

Splashtop Remote Desktop is a remote desktop app that offers basic control of your computer from the iPad over WiFi + 3G / 4G networks. The app can stream full motion video and audio from your PC or MAC, and deliver smooth interactive access to your Powerpoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, Quicken, and others.The app is easy to set up and use. Other remote apps I have tried is ridiculously hard to set

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Idea Flight shares your ideas on iPad

Idea Flight is is a unique presentation app designed to share your ideas, presentations, documents and designs easily and effectively on the iPad. The app turns iPads into presentation platform and gives you more control over your business meetings or classroom lectures.Idea Flight loos awesome and has nicely designed. Just have used it in a meeting. Display my presentation on an external monitor

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10 Best Apps 4 Teachers

Most of what we do is for the students. The focus of this and many other blogs and websites is about learning, and rightly so, but there are also apps that will make our jobs easier too. I am talking about that catergory of apps that are designed specifically for the classroom teacher. Those apps that will assist us in the everyday little jobs that need to be done, often on the run and often while 10 other things are also happening in the room. There are plenty and I am sure as more and more teachers gain the confidence to design their own apps, there will be more suitable one to come. Here is a list of apps that you can use to make your job easier. This is just my list, but I would be happy for other to contribute the apps that help them - help others by leaving your selection in the comments.

Keynote: $9.99

Keynote for iPad is almost as powerful as the desktop application. This is a powerful presentation tool that has animations, slide transition and all the features to make professional slides. It allows you to open templates with graphics already inserted. This is purposely built to work seemlessly on the iPad and to allow the user to incorporate other aspects of the iWork suite. Perfect addition to any homepage.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/keynote/id361285480?mt=8&ls=1

Educate: Free

Since one of the first jobs you have to do each morning is to take the role Attendance is a great solution for the iPad. This app has some great features which make it attractive to teachers; photos for each student, recording lateness or emailing absent students. It asks if you would like to import your address book or you can import student info from external files. It also syncs between different devices. For the price this is a very functional app.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/attendance/id301753475?mt=8

Teacher Tool: Free

TeacherTool saves grades and makes suggestions for grades. TeacherTool saves your remarks about students and presents them to you in the upcoming lesson. It remembers the date of any grade and lets you store comments along with it. TeacherTool keeps track of your students‘ absences. It is much safer than your traditional mark-book, as with every synchronization on your Mac, you save an up-to-date backup copy of all your data.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/teachertool-one/id305195004?mt=8

iAnnotate: $12.99

iAnnotate is a PDF reader and annotation tool for the iPad. It opens documents from emails, fills out forms, you can sign and send out contracts, enter notes for edits, sketch diagrams, copy text, and add highlights or underline with the drag of a finger. iAnnotate fully integrates its annotations directly into the PDF. This is a great tool for teachers to mark student's work.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/iannotate-pdf/id363998953?mt=8

GradePad: $2.99

The GradePad application allows you to grade your students’ performance directly from your mobile device. The documentation from the application’s website explains that with this app you can Manage Groups, Create GradePads, Do Assessments, Track Performance, and Share Data. Manage Groups, Create GradePads, Do Assessments, Track Performance, Share Data

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gradepad/id316077475?mt=8

Dropbox: Free

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/dropbox/id327630330?mt=8#

Attendance: $5.99

Attendance is a universal iOS touchscreen application. It allows you to take and keep attendance records. Its main intended use is for teachers to keep track of records for their classes, but it can also be used for meetings and group gatherings. Features include; unlimited courses, move students from one class to another , photo recognition, customisable attendance statuses.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/attendance/id301753475?mt=8

Teacher Pal: Free

TeacherPal is a personal organizer for the teacher. It enables the teacher to organize classes, and students. Its simple and intuitive interface enables teachers to track the attendance, grades and behavior of their students. Features include; simple tap attendance, grade books, enter grade with an intuitive touchpad, import, export data files from and to CSV files.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/teacherpal/id389584618?mt=8

Flipboard: Free

This is a great app for the iPad. Flipboard allows you to set your twitter feeds straight back to your iPad. Flipboard then re-presents it in a magazine format. The tweets are laid out with images in the same format as an online mag. This is great for making online textbooks for specific classes or even further reading lists. Only the classes that you have given the specific twitter address have access. I think this makes tweets much more user friendly, especially to younger students who may not be as familiar with twitter.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/flipboard/id358801284?mt=8

PowerPresenter: $1.99

PowerPresenter is an app that lets you display local PDFs, websites or even draw on the screen as a white board. Through the Web, you can display not just HTML but PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, RTF files and iWork files. This all requires Internet connection, but if you know you do not have a connection save them as local files.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/power-presenter/id369363727?mt=8

And how could I forget...thanks Leoni65

Evernote: FREE

Evernote allows you to capture information in any environment using any device, and makes everything accessible and searchable, from anywhere. Evernote is always synchronized, so any information added in one place is instantly available everywhere else. Use Evernote to capture your ideas, snapshots, voice memos, things you see online, and just about anything else that you want to remember.  Evernote recently reached their have 10 millionth user.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/evernote/id281796108?mt=8

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Where is your Classroom?

This is an excellent article written by Meg Wilson over at Edreach.us. It is an interesting reflection on the nature of learning and more specifically the way that we now, more than ever have the opportunity to learn anywhere and at any time. It talks of a joyous and life affirming attitude that all school kids should get to experience. I repeat it here in its entirety only to save you another click. But please check out the Edreach site for a range of other insightful and thought provoking articles on education, technology and innovation.

                                                                                                                                                   

Where is your Classroom?

Every day, I am an active participant in an amazing classroom that is filled with engaging and unique learning opportunities. I learn all kinds of information about a variety of different topics; it all depends on what I find interesting or necessary at the moment. I have access to an incredible wealth of credible resources, and I am given as much time as I need to synthesize information and determine how to best leverage it. I have opportunities to collaborate and learn with, and from, experts all over the world. I have the chance to participate in challenge based learning projects where I work to find solutions to a variety of real world problems, and I do it with individuals in locations that I have never been to. I work hard to publish content that I feel is important to share. I am allowed to be curious, and I am encouraged to be creative. Most importantly, the classroom is always changing and morphing into an even better, more efficient and personalized classroom.

You may be wondering where this amazing classroom is, and my response is unique given the time of day: at home, the gym, my car, the gas station, a school, a picnic table, a friend’s house, my back deck, a restaurant… and that is just a few of today’s locations. With the help of my iPhone and iPad, my classroom can be completely mobile, it can go wherever I go. That means that whenever I want, I can find information, validate it, synthesize it, communicate it, and use it to solve problems collaboratively. Since my classroom is not located within the confines of four walls in a specific building, I am able to learn more simply because I have more opportunities to do so.

So… if I can recognize that my own classroom is mobile, why am I still demanding that my students come and sit in a room to learn? Isn’t it time that educators start discussing how mobile learning devices can really change the educational experience for our students?

I am certainly not saying that mobile learning is not being discussed. In fact, it is currently one of the hottest topics with educators, including myself. Educators can’t seem to stop talking about how to use mobile learning devices in the classroom. But that is part of the problem, we keep talking about using mobile devices IN the classroom. It is a bit absurd to talk about mobile learning taking place in a classroom… unless your definition of a classroom has changed. Thanks to the many types of mobile technologies available today, I can now consider a classroom to be anywhere I can learn or gain experience. I am a huge advocate for using mobile learning devices because I get to experience their educational value on a daily basis in my own mobile classroom. Technology has without a doubt changed how I learn, what I learn, how much I learn, and of course, where I learn. And I am not alone.

I recently had the opportunity to be a part of the Mobile Learning Experience conference, where it was refreshing to talk with a variety of educators who are using technology to transform students’ learning experiences. There is a definite shift happening in education right now, or a ‘disruption’ as some might say. Graham Brown-Martin set the perfect tone for the Mobile Learning Experience with his keynote about disruption, innovation, and learning. His thought-provoking discussion about how disruptive technologies like social media, video games, the Internet, and mobile devices have changed every industry but education was eye-opening for many at the conference. Educators were either inspired or enraged as they thought about how to best answer Graham’s bold question: what would the “napsterfication of learning” look like? I know that I personally left the conference feeling like these disruptive technologies are not only great tools for students, but they are essential tools for students’ future success: disruption will drive student innovation, foster creativity, and offer new learning opportunities.

As educators, we need to embrace and encourage disruption in and out of our classrooms. We need to listen to students like Dan Brown and Travis Allen speak about how institutionalized education has failed them. We need to question what it really means to be educated in a world where facts are free. We need to rethink the location of our classrooms, and recognize the impact mobile devices actually have on the roles of school buildings and educators. We need to understand that the goal is to use technology to empower students so that they will change the world for the better.

Educators need to think about how we can give students the right tools, strategies, and experiences so that they can be the best students possible in their own classrooms, wherever those classrooms may be.

http://edreach.us/2011/05/01/where-is-your-classroom/

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