Language Lab

At University, the language lab was a vital part of the process of acquiring the requisite listening comprehension and pronunciation skills for effective communication in a second language. The iPad’s video and audio recording capability proved to be a very useful tool for providing meaningful and immediate feedback to students in a number of ways:

Grade 7A French students wrote and prepared dialogues, and then used the iPad to record themselves. By listening and watching their recording they had an opportunity to self-correct, pausing and replaying any passages that were challenging for them;

I was able to work with one pair of students while another pair recorded a dialogue; as a result, I could provide meaningful commentary on the efforts of this latter pair after the fact. This provided me with greater flexibility with my class time; I could replay the recordings at any time – in class or during a lunchtime tutorial, for instance – and still provide individual and relevant feedback and instruction;

The students enjoyed using the tablet to record themselves and were motivated to do a good job. They were able to assess their performance and were able to re-record their dialogue until they were happy with the final version.

PH

Minding the Gap

“Mind the Gap” is the automatically voiced instructions for London’s tube riders to avoid tripping over the gap between the platform and the subway car. Essentially, it’s a warning to be extra careful in the transition spaces of the public transportation system. As technology moves from specialized rooms in the 60’s, the cubicle in the 70’s, the den in the 80’s, the living room in the 90’s, and here we are today with real computing power and interface tools that do real work anywhere.

What used to be segue moments in my teaching day: waiting for the next class to settle in, moments in a class where some students are completed a set of questions and others still working, waiting for a meeting to start, these moments are now made productive with the iPad. Using SplashTop to control the computer that is connected to the projector, I can pass the iPad to a student to type of freehand in a solution to a problem. On the other side of the coin, when students who have trouble with a solution they circle the area that they find difficult, and it helps to focus the class and help “clarify the difficulty”. Identifying and being sure of the area of difficulty is a great first step to build a conceptual path to a solution. While not the main workhorse of the class (at this point!), the iPad does provide an excellent tool to pass around and add to the level of communication in a class.

In the sports world, the iPad has several apps that I have taken advantage of. Collecting and recording basketball stats has been a boon for letting the team know exactly how they are doing. The feedback is supplied during and after the game – this is used to make both offensive and defensive adjustments depending on shot percentages from certain locations, fouls, and turnover stats. The portability of the iPad is key for all this as it enables the stat collecting to happen from the bench, as opposed to the scorer’s table. This allows for feedback for the coach and player to happen in real time, and not just at the end of quarters or play stoppages.

There is more to follow, but as of now I no longer mind the gaps in the teaching or coaching moments, as these are now converted to productive times!

DB

The duty dog bites

I have built and trialed a spreadsheet that I built in numbers for male duty. The spreadsheet has:

• Pictures of the students (and their geographic location in dorm)
• Drop down menues for student status (in, out, away, sick, ect)
• Effort grades for each student
• Sports choices
• Phone List
• House parents e-mails

The following are cogitations that I wrote after the first duty trial:

Blog Notes: Duty

Last night I trialed my duty spreadsheet during duty.

There were a number of kids away and. It was nice to be able to check them off of my spreadsheet during the day so that I would know that they were gone when prep started.

I need to have a few more drop down menu options for eventualities, though more options will mean more clutter when I am trying to quickly check them in.

I would like to be able to reset the drop downs or store the info I collected and then start a fresh set of data. This will involve linking the spreadsheet with another sub table, but would be worth it's I think.

I am in the process of getting a sports list that would allow us to keep track of what sport each student was in. This would come in handy at 2:30-3:30.

Of course it would be great to have this pad update something more accessible to all online, I will look into shared online formats of spreadsheets for the iPad.

I would love to have the house parent e-mails hyperlinked, but "numbers" seems to be unable to do that.

I would like to have a way of resetting the check boxes for future uses on future duties.

I hope to streamline the formatting a little too, so that there is no lag when I open the effort grade spreadsheet (ie remove unwanted/unneeded fields)

Anyways for those of you who would like to have a look at it follow the link below ... Ooops. If you would like to check it out, come and see me, there is sensitive information on the spreadsheet that shold only be accessed by KES staff. Gee, self publishing certainly makes it easy to put lots of personal info out there really quickly and easily. All you have to do is click "share with the world".

Ruminations as a first time user (Jan 16) *Rejustified*

So far the transfer from excell to numbers seems to be going fairly well. Some of the previously unconsidered advantages of a digital dorm attendance will include:

-quick search for names to find a students room quickly -drop down menus for quick attendance/qualifying of students where abouts.

-Links to house parent's emails for quick notes a to them.

I have used the pad quite a bit this week. The portability of the device allows me to type this bog entry from the front seat of the bus (barring minor car sickness). Some of the technologies I had not considered using it for that cam in handy include -chess timer -quick document camera for capturing pages from a book and then displaying them on my white board -movie playing remote. I was able to stop and start a movie repeatedly from the front of the class, without having to go to my desk each time.

-a interactive manipulative (math) for students that, with the help of splash top, can be easily projected so that the whole class can watch it. It is also handy to plug it directly into the projector and display it that way.

-notes display for myself at the front of them class. I write my notes out on the white board and I find that I can do this a lot faster using the pad, via splash top, when I am writing.

-quick referencing facts a via a search engine. I can quickly and easily search a fact for my students from the front of the class.

-homework check allows me, again with splash top, to enter my grades directly into my spreadsheet as I rove in the classroom.

After having used to for a while now, I don't even mind the keyboard. The interface, zoom/pan is also excellent, though it would be nice to have better control of the fine motor adjustments on the screen. Perhaps a stylus ...

Students really enjoy seeing the new technology in the class they get quite excited by the possibilities that it presents. One student recommended that I use splash top with my laptops web cam to "spy" in the class while I was out for a moment. Since I used splash top in the class, about a dozen students have also got the program. In a few weeks time I will have to ask them if they use it regularly and if so for what? 

The technology certainly has made me more popular, but how can I maintain this high ... I suppose I will have to continue to ask for the latest technologies to keep me current and "with it" as the kids say. All joking aside the use of these technologies does send a clear message to the kids in my class room. "you should have one of these if you want to participate fully in all the fun" ... I hope apple is giving us a deal for all the free advertising we are giving them. Even my use of apps will influence students choices and buying habits. In short we are role modeling the use of this technology to students, the more we misuse it or use it ineffectively (for the sake of itself) the more we pass those choices on to our students.

somethinghasgonehorriblewrong

I have just learned another valuable lesson. Justifications created in Notepad do not transfer to this blog page

Ruminations as a first time user (Jan 16)

Blog notes: so far the transfer from excell to numbers seems to be going fairly well. Some of the previously unconsidered advantages of a digital dorm attendance will include: -quick search for names to find a students room quickly -drop down menus for quick attendance/qualifying of students where abouts. -Links to house parent's emails for quick notes a to them. I have used the pad quite a bit this week. The portability of the device allows me to type this bog entry from the front seat of the bus (barring minor car sickness). Some of the technologies I had not considered using it for that cam in handy include: -chess timer (for chess club) -quick document camera for capturing pages from a book and then displaying them on my white board -movie playing remote. I was able to stop and start a movie repeatedly from the front of the class, without having to go to my desk each time. -a interactive manipulative (math) for students that, with the help of splash top, can be easily projected so that the whole class can watch it. It is also handy to plug it directly into the projector and display it that way. -notes display for myself at the front of them class. I write my notes out on the white board and I find that I can do this a lot faster using the pad, via splash top, when I am writing. -quick referencing facts a via a search engine. I can quickly and easily search a fact for my students from the front of the class. -homework check allows me, again with splash top, to enter my grades directly into my spreadsheet as I rove in the classroom. Other notes: after having used to for a while now, I don't even mind the keyboard. The interface, zoom/pan is also excellent, though it would be nice to have better control of the fine motor adjustments on the screen. Perhaps a stylus ... Students really enjoy seeing the new technology in the class they get quite excited by the possibilities that it presents. One student recommended that I use splash top with my laptops web cam to "spy" in the class while I was out for a moment. Since I used splash top in the class, about a dozen students have also got the program. In a few weeks time I will have to ask them if they use it regularly and if so for what? The technology certainly has made me more popular, but how can I maintain this high ... I suppose I will have to continue to ask for the latest technologies to keep me current and "with it" as the kids say. All joking aside the use of these technologies does send a clear message to the kids in my class room. "you should have one of these if you want to participate fully in all the fun" ... I hope apple is giving us a deal for all the free advertising we are giving them. Even my use of apps will influence students choices and buying habits. In short we are role modeling the use of this technology to students, the more we misuse it or use it ineffectively (for the sake of itself) the more we pass those choices on to our students.  

Alesis iO Dock

Ok, I must admit that I was only lukewarm about the iPad when I first got it back in October as part of our school pilot programme. As the weeks went by, I started to find Apps that are really geared toward music productivity; see my older blogs for more detail. So, needless to say, I was kind of bummed out at the end of the first term to discover that I would be turning the iPad over to another teacher after the holidays. I was just starting to get into the functional features of the device and the various useful Apps that I had found. During the last few days of the Christmas holidays I learned about the Alesis iO Dock. This thing, when combined with the iPad & GarageBand, is capable of doing what my other expensive Digital Audio Workstations do.
Check out this video clip for a quick overview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBfojDxpZLY and you will see why I immediately made an appeal to have my trial period with the iPad extended.

My appeal has been accepted, and I have ordered the iO Dock; I'm excited to get it into the classroom, especially my IB class, in which all candidates must compile a portfolio of compositions, arrangements and recordings. My fine arts classes will probably mob each other to get their hands on it too!

The $200 Alesis iO Dock won't replace our full-feature DAWs, but it is powerful for its size and cost, and it will also integrate with them via its USB port. It should be here next week.

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On a different note, I have been using the Splashtop XDisplay http://www.splashtop.com/xdisplay to extend my laptop desktop display; a convenient option when multiple windows are needed.

Even more remote control from Yamaha!

After my last entry, I decided to do a quick search in iTunes for Yamaha, and I discovered another remote control app for the Yamaha disklavier piano. Even though we have the palm pilot remote control for our DC7M4PRO grand, it's cool that the iPad's larger screen makes operation easier: it less demanding on my poor eyesight.

I have also downloaded the V-Control Free app to see if it will work on our 01x digital mixing console. No doubt there are too many limitations in the free version to be of much use, but I will give it a whirl.

LS9 32 App

This is too cool! Yamaha has released an official app for the iPad to control the LS9 digital mixing console directly, without running their Studio Manager software. I have always had the ability to control our console via computer, but now with LS9 StageMix, no more mouse clicking, and the screenshots are spot on. This is way better than the VST remote that I reported on before. I hope that Yamaha will soon come up with an app for the 01x too.

On a different note, let me remind everyone how great it is to have the students record their performance test, allowing me to remain engaged with the ensemble. No idle time for the masses to get up to no good like in the pre-iPad days.

Old Blog posts

Wed 14 Sept 2011
Started looking at the apps for office type files. Pages, numbers and keynote are the apps that office offers. Apple has good ratings and they handle new and old files well. Some others can't handle docx yet. The only draw back is not being able to directly save the files to a free doc server like drop box. there is a way to do it but it is not direct.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:30:35
If you get "Error 1004" it could mean a number of things.Check your date, clear memory, restart or in my case I had to reset the network setting.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:32:59
Found an amazing physics app yesterday. It's called ripple tank. Best one I found yet for physics!

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:36:26
If you are wondering about a word processor and stuff check out this review.Http://www.ipadforums.net-forum/36629-office-app-comparison.html
JN

Splashtop and Smartboard

All the functionality of a Smartboard may be controlled using an iPad. The pens may be accessed by selecting the pen option and then choosing a colour. Objects may be moved, modified and created using the iPad. There is no real lag time and the smooth integration of this technology with existing PCs and Smartboards is good to see. AD

iPad adds to interactions

Here is a video of an iPad in action in a language class. The iPad is accessing a webpage being projected for the class and the iPad is connected to the projecting computer through the Splashtop app. FC (AD)

Direct remote control! Very cool indeed - if it works.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon an app, Cubase iC, that is designed exclusively to work as a"direct" remote control for the Cubase recording software / hardware combination that I have set up on my desktop computer and connected to the Yamaha 01x digital console. If this app works as described, it means that I can control the recording software directly from the ipad. It could run on the ipod too; however, the display is too small for functional operation. The ipad's screen size, high resolution, and excellent tactile tracking should be a perfect fit for this purpose. In short, I won't have to run VNC or Splashtop remote apps, whose latency is more annoying than watching paint dry. I should be able to set up a recording session and run the Cubase controls from anywhere on the network. Cool and functional, but like I said, "if" it works. This is the kind of productivity that I was hoping to find for this device. The app is free, so there's no harm in trying...let's go!

JS

iPad and Biology

Biology Classes

• Have used the ipad to walk around to each lab group in all 3 of my grade 11 classes as we carry out a lab where they are looking to see the effects of salt water on onion cells. It can be difficult to describe what they’re looking for so I can just show a pic on the ipad to each group and they immediately understand. See inage of cells below.
  

• Have also used the itranslate app to the benefit of one of the ELLs in my class.

• During a section on cells I utilized an app that was a 3D virtual cell where you could move the cell around and click on all of the components to get descriptions and questions. I showed the class the app using the LCD projector.
  

• I have come across a ton of apps that will be very beneficial when I’m covering the human health and physiology sections.

There is a learning curve for those not already familiar with Apple products and so the natural tendancy is to stay with PPT and not move to Keynote. There is also the lack of familiarity with a lot of the built in functionality of the Apple devices and it seems that the staff with iPhones and or Macs are at less of a disadvantage and can more easily swap between devices as well as moving info and apps between devices. PM (AD)

Using Google Docs with the iPad

Google Docs has updated its presentation software as well as its other services, I have yet to try out the updated services, but found a nice link to an article from PC Magazine about using iPad as a replacement PC and navigating Google Docs. AD

article link

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/227796/day_12_google_docs_on_the_go_with_my_ipad.html

Musical Performance Tool

My music students enjoy recording their performance tests. Doing so enables me to review the recording with each student after I have completed a standardized adjudication form including comments and marks; thus, each student can examine any concerns and implement corrections.
JS

Whipplehill and iPad

WH runs without problems on the iPad, sometimes the data cannot be seen due to larger window needed for the necessary font size to access the links. Effort grade entry was easier than attendance due to the layout of the EG pages in WH. AD

Splashtop App

The splashtop app may be used to remotely control a pc using an iPad. Install the app on the iPad and then download the free streaming program to the computer. It works well and there are mouse controls available to the Ipad through gestures.

The app does not appear to allow the use of pens when accessing the Smartboard, but slides may be advanced.

The photo below is from an IB Spanish class where the students are accessing the course webpage using the Ipad and the student actions on the website are being shown on Smartboard for all to see. The students may easily interact with the website and the Ipad can be passed from student to student so that there is a lot of interaction. AD

Note that there is sometimes a change of projected screen size when this app is engaged and this took place on an XP PC.

New Educational Paradigms

Here is a link to a nice video by Sir Ken Robinson, from the RSA sketching site, talking about new educational paradigms and the need to seriously look at how we teach in light of the changes that have occurred in our society and the world around us. It will be interesting to see how and if Ipads can become a part of the new paradigm. AD