iPad - Perfect Teacher's Tool?

[coachingguy]

Here is my .02¢, for what it's worth. I teach 7th - 12th grade social studies. I'm getting a class set of iPads for SY '11-'12. Our SPED teachers are each getting 5, and one of our Lang. Arts teachers is getting 10. Each of our Science teachers has one as does our Lang. Arts chair. We're looking at a 3 - 5 year plan of going 1 to 1 across the district.

So, I've spent quite a bit of time this Spring and Summer going to Apple workshops and researching implementing iPads into the curriculum. Quite few districts in MN have already gone 1 to 1 and I've made use of their expertise.

One of the key obstacles is breaking free of old paradigms. Using iPads in the classroom is Pedagogical shift. The students will adapt to it far faster than teachers. One district bought 250 keyboards for the iPads for the students. After a month, none of the students were using them. The students grew up texting on their phones and they adapt far, far faster to the keyboard than we old folks. I talked to a Junior from one of the districts who's written most of his papers this past year on his iPod touch, then emailed them to his teacher. I really like the idea of cutting down on paper. Another district in MN, found that their copy costs dropped by nearly 90%, an unanticipated savings.

I like Pages on the iPad, but for my students I'm looking at Googledocs until Apple figures out the whole iCloud thing for storing files/data. My Apple rep said Apple is putting a lot of time into figuring this out for schools, but won't have anything in place until next Spring. In addition, I'm curious as to how we'll make effective use of the camera's in the classroom... Old: Pen Pals New: Video Pals? We're not limited by time or distance anymore, we can go live or on delay, but no waiting for weeks for the mail to go and come back... And no extra cost for postage; for either side.

So, is an iPad the only thing a teacher needs in the classroom? Yes and No. I'm quite excited to see what the year brings. The iPad isn't about the Apps, it's about how the students interact with the information they can get using the device and how they interact with each other. I've changed the layout of my room because of this, no more rows! Just Groups of 3 desks.

As far as using it in the classroom, I'm using Mocha VNC lite to connect to my laptop wirelessly. So as I move around the room with my iPad, I can either hook my iPad up to my projector with the dongle or just control my laptop through the iPad with VNC or Connect To My Mac and use the projector/Smartboard through the laptop. We use Infinite Campus as our Student Data app. it's fine for attendance, but since the Grades portion is Flash based, it doesn't play on the iPad. They're working on it. Bear in mind, that EVERYONE is working on figuring out a way to play nice on the iPad. So, while it might not be ready for primetime now, it will be.

There are quite a few websites and blogs out there that speak to this subject. One of the best IMHO, is Teaching Paperless.

So, while I've rambled, I hope this has been helpful. We're at the beginning of a new age in education. It's gonna be exciting, scary and we will make mistakes. But, hopefully, we'll be better for it.

Coachingguy

 

[palpatine]

wow. that was a really helpful post. thank you!

 

[Mcclure]

I picked up an iPad to mainly play games and use it for the internet at home. I ended up using it in my classroom a lot more than I do at home.

I teach 9-12 grade math and engineering. I usually build Smart lessons then export them to a pdf. That way if I really want to or if other teachers want to they can use Smartboards. I just take the pdf put it in dropbox and then open the files up with uPad. It works great. I can work on problems, and I have it hooked up to a projector using the VGA adapter. I am really looking forward to iOS 5 when I can mirror the screen using Apple TV. Then I will be able to do everything I was before but also be mobile in the room. It will also work better than a slate because it will have a screen that is much easier for students to write on. For my engineering classes I have a lot of PowerPoint that I just open up in Keynote and I have never had an issue with it showing up exactly like it would in on my computer. They usually have some animation, but no videos.

I really think it is completely changing the way I am teaching my classes, and it will get even better this fall. I can imagine it would be even better to have classroom sets or a 1:1 school with iPads.

 

[donnaw]

I'm not a teacher, just an old woman who appreciates all that you teachers do. I wish more people could read your postings here - all the work you put in after hours. Perhaps they would also appreciate all the work teachers put in everyday. Not just 8:00 am - 3:30 pm 9 months a year.

Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work. There really are many of us who appreciate you and all your hard work.

 

[jsh1120]

For me it (Documents to Go) is. Two reasons. One, I never have a compatibility issue with docs other people send me and I've never had any formatting lost in translation. Two, it syncs with my Dropbox account so I can make changes on the fly. I suppose this second reason will be moot once iCloud is launched.

Long time Docs2Go (on several devices) user here. I'd say the comment above is about 90% correct. However, there are cases where D2G fails to preserve formatting, especially in spreadsheets. Likewise, I've found that what appear to be Excel spreadsheets won't load at all. My suspicion is that these are cases where the files are created in an Excel look-alike (e.g. Google Docs/Open Office). And while they have .xls suffixes, they aren't REALLY Microsoft documents. In those cases, I've found Excel will import the files and if then saved in true Excel format DocumentsToGo can read the Excel version.

All in all, if you're requirements are limited to editing Word documents without exotic formatting, Docs2Go will be close to 100% satisfactory. A bit lower if you're trying to deal with Excel or PowerPoint files, but still usually acceptable.

Of course, like the guy who drowned in a river that is "on average" just one foot in depth, keep in mind that you may occasionally find that any application other than a true Microsoft product will exhibit incompatibilities.