Coach's Eye

Loaded and tried the coach's eye with two students in the gym. Both liked it and looks like both may buy it for their phones. The slow motion options were great as were the drawing tools. Easy to use and intuitive controls too. AD

iPad and Smartboard

Tried using the iPad with Splashtop and the Smartboard running clickers yesterday. It allowed me to run the assessments and work with the class from all over the room and not be tied to the front of the room. I had to stop running the board through the the tablet when it froze and this may just be a function of the age of the laptop or too much running. Further testing will need to be done. AD

i-o Dock & Garage Band

Since I've married up the iPad with the Alesis i-O Dock, it's been in the hands of the students on a steady basis, given that all fine arts student are composing and recording their collaborative works. Although limited to only two inputs at a time and a maximum of eight tracks, it does exactly what it is supposed to do with relative ease. Moreover, the Garage Band sounds are amazing and the "Smart" instruments is a very cool feature that enables non-players of those instruments access to inclusion. Ultra portable and easy to use, this setup has has become the 'go to' DAW in my department. I doubt that my other hardware / software DAW's will see much action from now on.

On a related note, I have purchased a usb & card reader adapter on eBay for $4 that attaches to the iPad, in order to exchange data and expand the memory beyond the internal 16GB.

Summary of Trial

Final blog entry: How far did I get with the iPad, based on my initial plan of investigation?

Use by students
 For self-evaluation: use camera and microphone to record student responses and dialogue work in French class;
[very positive and useful]
 Collaborative assignment preparation;
[very positive and useful]

 Hands-on grammar and vocabulary activities to strengthen French comprehension;
[useful for activities involving typing of words; otherwise, the Smartboard was more useful and easier for students to use when an activity required dragging elements across the web page]

Use by teachers
 Provide specific feedback to individual students, based on student responses and presentations that have been recorded on iPad;
[very positive and useful]

 Explore Mobile Mouse app for controlling Smartboard;
[Splashtop app was used for running my laptop and Smartboard from the tablet; very easy to set up and use]

 Use iPad as daily planner/agenda and update with all key dates and deadlines in the term;
[did not replace my student agenda or my phone; a KES agenda app with 8-day cycle, holidays, and an easy-to-use interface to do attendance may provide a user-friendly bridge with WhippleHill]

Use by teachers for records and record keeping
 Create a more extensive and thorough record of formative evaluations;
[useful for recording marks when doing prep checks but did not replace paper and pencil most days ]

 Keep attendance on WhippleHill;
[not attempted]

 Keep attendance in boys’ dorm on duty days;
[an attempt was made to set up an attendance document using the tablet version of Numbers, with little success. E.Kershaw has produced a functional document using Excel and there may be merit in having a Duty Tablet in addition to a Duty Phone, at some point]

Research and testing of ipad applications
 Explore a variety of apps French language learning and instruction;
[some free French apps were examined, but nothing stood out as a must-have at this stage]

 Use Dropbox to store and access all documents online
[Dropbox is proving to be very useful when I use my laptop and phone; I ran into an issue when installing it on the tablet and did not pursue this after several unsuccessful attempts]

 Explore the effects of the touchscreen experience on student learning
[students quickly familiarized themselves with the tablet and enjoyed being given the opportunity to use it as a tool in the classroom]

Camera

There were occasions during class when I wanted to show the class something from the textbook on the Smartboard. When connected to the Smartboard the iPad functioned very well as a document camera; I either took a picture of the textbook page or I used the rear camera to display the page. PH