Show Me Is a Favorite

At a recent meeting of K-12 tech coordinators, librarians, teachers, and administrators, the free app, Show Me, was touted in several sessions. The app helps you create and share “whiteboard-style” lessons when using iPads.  With Show Me, you can send lessons to students, and your students can create materials as they work with each other. A gallery of lessons is being developed as teachers share what works for them.  Show Me also provides a Video of the Day that gives examples of excellent ideas for use of the app.

To BYOD or Not?

What direction is your school taking when it comes to hardware? Choosing your way isn’t easy, since there are no ready answers. With so many students having access to smart phones, iPods, iPads, laptop computers, and Android devices, BYOD sounds like a good idea. You could go the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) route, but what do you do about those students who don’t have appropriate devices and how do you prepare your teachers for their students using a variety of devices in classrooms? Maybe you don’t require students to bring devices, but you allow them to use theirs in place of the school’s if they wish.  For both economic and personal choice reasons, some schools are developing their own version of BYOD. Then there’s the question of software. What software would they need and who provides it? Perhaps you’ll just use the devices for work on the Internet, communication, and free apps?  With all these devices activated in your school and all the uploading and downloading, can you afford the bandwidth and file storage you’ll need? There are so many questions to answer but not much data to rely upon.

To iPad or Laptop or Lab

Not every school or district views BYOD as the way to achieve one-to-one when it comes to digital devices. Some are opting for iPads in classrooms, while others prefer laptops. Questions arise about these choices as well. Do you assign students to a personal iPad or laptop, or do your have mobile carts so that several classes can use the equipment? Do you transition to one-to-one with all grade levels or do you get started with one or two grade levels at a time? Do personal devices go home with the students? How do you handle broken or lost device issues? Do you have enough bandwidth and file storage? How do you prepare your teachers?

How Teachers Use Tech in Classrooms—According to Students

To be sure, there is an abundance of resources and tech tools online that teachers can use in the classroom or in computer labs. It’s interesting to ask students how their teachers are putting technologies to use. As you would guess, a variety of answers will most likely be forthcoming. You may hear: “We do all kinds of projects —like videos, animations, podcasts, and radio shows—with our computers and iPads.” “All we do with our laptops is look up sites on the Internet and take notes on paper.” “Some of our teachers let us use our cell phones in their lessons, but most make us keep them in our backpacks or lockers.” “I don’t think that every teacher has to use computers in class.” “Interactive whiteboards are fun in some classes and boring in others.” “I know kids are supposed to know lots about tech, but some teachers expect you to know how to do things you don’t know how to do. They should realize that not everyone uses the same apps or software as they do.” “I like it when we connect to other classes around the world.”  —When you listen to your students, what do you hear and what does it mean?

Technology Megatrends

One hundred “global thought leaders” working with the Horizon Project met in January 2012 to talk about research relating to technology and education. They came up with 28 megatrends of which 10 were considered the most important. These megatrends are bringing about significant changes in our world, our interactions, and the way we learn. Although you can read more about the top ten in the New Media Consortium’s Communique´on the Horizon Project, some of the trends include the following:

• People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want....
• The Internet is becoming a global mobile network....
• The technologies we use today are increasingly cloud-based....
• Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices....
• The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while redefining our notion of literacy.
• There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools....

Techedge offers information on the megatrends as they relate to young learners and asks, “After Megatrends...What Next?” Some of the solutions suggested to help teachers with tech expectations of their students are: using LiveMinutes for online discussion, Audicity for interviews, ShowMe for “re-imagining the learning process”, UStream for video capture, and Dropbox for file sharing. For additional information, check out the very useful article by Pat LeMay Burr, “What Young Learners Expect and How Technology Delivers”.

Google Education on Air

Educator on Air is a free online edtech conference hosted by Google. Scheduled for May 2, 2012, it will include 46 “Hangouts” featuring professional development. The conference begins at 9:00 a.m. PT, 11 a.m. CT, and noon ET.  Sessions will be streamed live on Google+, which you download free. You can go to the website, decide what you want to learn, and sign up for your sessions. Find out, for example, about Chromebooks for Education, Harnessing the Web, Communicating, Connecting, Sharing, Google Apps, Instructional and Assessment Tools, and Hot Topics in Education.

Hildegard Sings: What Fun!

Hildegard Rhineheffer loves to sing and eat, and as she does, she entertains readers both young and old. Children may choose to read the story on their own or have it read to them.  Each page comes with intriguing animations, which children like to try for themselves. They may, for example, pull the stage curtain up and put it down, throw flowers to Hildegarde, and listen to her sing or screech.  Book extras include a matching game, Hildegarde’s Famous Roles, and coming soon, an Opera Glossary. The book, written and illustrated by Thomas Wharton, comes to life on the iPad. Children will love to read this story over and over. The app sells for $3.99 at the iTunes Store.

Qwiki: Best iPad App of 2011

“Qwiki Knows Millions of Things”—that’s what you read when you open the app. When you go to quiki you can search for topics of interest or you can open one of the featured topics. On April 5, 2012, for example, the features included the 2012 Alpine World Cup, cherry blossoms, and the 2011-2012 uprising in Syria. When I opened the Alpine World Cup, a short slideshow with audio described the event and introduced users to some of the top skiers. Once the slideshow was finished, I could select from a number of options related to the event, the places it was held, the World Cup and the skiers.  I could also post what I found on Facebook, Tweet it, email it, or embed it in something I was working on.  Teachers are finding Qwiki a valuable free resource that they can use to help students learn to organize resources for projects, papers, and reports. They also like the ability to embed Qwiki resources in their own materials.

Using Maps on iPhone and iPad

If you are using iPads and/or iPhones with your students, it’s a good idea to try creating some clever lessons with the IOS Maps app. You’ll find that the application is standard (arrives as a factory setting) on all iPhones and iPads. Macworld offers eight handy tips for using the Maps app such as pinpointing current and other locations on a map, learning about the street view, using the direction mode, and more. While these tips aren’t specifically for education, they can easily be adapted for helping students better understand direction, their neighborhood, their region and the world. They might plan a virtual field trip by dropping pins, using the flags and street view. You’ll want to keep an eye on upgrades for this app because it is predicted that Apple is working toward a 3D revamp of Maps.

Looking for Apps for the Android?

Digital Wish, with a grant from the Motorola Mobility Foundation, has announced the opening of the Digital Wish Apps Center, which is designed to help teachers find the apps they need and can afford for their classrooms. App searches can be done using grade level, subject, ratings by other educators, and by whether the app is free or for pay. Once the perfect apps are found, they can be downloaded from Google Play™.  Some examples of the Android apps are: Etmology Live LITE Edition, Solar System Explorer, Statistics Quick Reference, Obenkyo (learn Japanese), Baby Sign Language Dictionary, Paint for Kids, and Chemical Equation Balancer