Teaching an iPhone class

[EvanKuhl]

Hey guys, longtime lurker, first time poster

I'm teaching a short 1-2hour class on how to use the iPhone for the faculty, staff, and students at the college I'm attending. I wanted to go over the basics and have a brief idea of what I'll cover but wanted some input from the forum.

What do you see most often people don't know how to use, and what should I discuss?

So far I'll go over turning it on/off, multitasking, settings, battery performance, and some individual apps ( if you have any good student/ professor apps let me know).

What else should I cover? I do want to give them a pretty valuable class.

I'm planning on running a quick PowerPoint or Prezi to start and then using an app to have my iPhone screen on the projector and basically offer simulations. (i will have to jailbreak, obviously)

 

[thunderbunny]

Maybe have a look at the workshops Apple run in their stores. Eg. Getting started with IP4 "Get to know the new iPhone 4. See how easy it is to make calls, send email and download apps from the App Store. We’ll show you some of the new things you can do with iPhone 4, like video calling with FaceTime, reading and downloading books with the iBooks app and shooting your own movies in high definition."

and Going Further with IP4 - "You’ve mastered the basics of iPhone and now you’re ready for more. Explore some of the advanced features of iPhone 4 and get plenty of tips and tricks to take you further. Learn about multitasking, organising your apps using Folders, editing video on iPhone with iMovie and discovering new ways to view and organise your email."

 

[SnowDX]

The day I got my phone, Apple sent me an email that had a link to tips http://www.apple.com/ca/iphone/tips/

I found several useful and didn't realize they existed even though I already had an iPad and an iPod Touch! (3 keyboard tricks listed were good, double tap to scroll to top of web browser good, etc.)

 

[Reelknead1]

- Setting up Exchange Email accounts including notes, email, and calendars
- How to set a passcode
- Setting Alarms
- Keeping your apps updated
- syncing ical with your iphone
- Small things like using street view in maps, turning the phone sideways for the calculator to turn to scientific.
- Keeping the iphone iOS up to date
- Checking voice mails
- Using Wifi
- Changing wallpaper, sounds, brightness
- Using bluetooth
- setting autolock time

That should get you started.

 

[h1r0ll3r]

Most of the stuff you'll want to cover is within the settings portion of the phone. Things like setting email accounts, alarms, wallpaper, tones, etc. Figured you might want to spend a good portion of your time going over these things.

Once done, probably walk through some of the more important stock apps on the phone like mail, SMS, camera, calender, etc, as those will most the most frequently used of the stock apps.

Also, you should probably go over the whole notion of syncing with iTunes and what that accomplishes. I work with a bunch of idiots (all supposedly tech savvy) who weren't the least bit aware that you had to sync with your computer in order to create a backup, sync photos/music/apps, etc. I too was amazed by their stupidity. These are "professional" people too mind you. Responsible for million dollar budgets, logistics, marketing etc. WOW. One of them actually thought you had to call Apple directly and tell them what songs you wanted on your phone and then they would magically put them on there for you.

Anyhoo, that should about cover the basics for the iphone. Might also want to show them how to use the App store and iTunes icons within the phone as well as on the computer.

Since you'll be JB'ing your phone for the presentation, might I recommend DisplayOut. It mirrors what's on your phone directly to the projector/screen which will help you in your presentation. I think it's $1.99 but the only caveat is that you'll need to purchase the iPad VGA connector in order to use it. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Works great though.

Good luck

EDIT: also might want to teach them how to make the icons jiggle so they can move them.

 

[Rajani Isa]

Show them how to turn off "Shake to Shuffle" in the Setting - drove me nuts since it was enabled by defualt, at least in the update that introduced it, when I'd start a song I like, put on my backpack with my phone in it, and it "skipped" like some CD

How to teach the auto-correct function unqiue words/abbreviation/etc to NOT off auto-correct.

I've gotten some decent use out of Office² but they might prefer Apple's offerings.

 

[EvanKuhl]

Great tips guys, I think we all might know the same people (most of them don't know the first thing) so I'm glad to see what you all have been working with.

I'm planning on using DisplayOut, but I had forgotten the name, thanks h1r0ll3r

I'm planning on making an ad like this for the class to get the administration/faculty interested. The knight head is our mascot/logo, this is just a rough out of it

 

[Tarzanman]

If you're using powerpoint slides (or similar), then your presentation already sucks

 

[SR2]

Hey guys, longtime lurker, first time poster

I'm teaching a short 1-2hour class on how to use the iPhone for the faculty, staff, and students at the college I'm attending. I wanted to go over the basics and have a brief idea of what I'll cover but wanted some input from the forum.

What do you see most often people don't know how to use, and what should I discuss?

So far I'll go over turning it on/off, multitasking, settings, battery performance, and some individual apps ( if you have any good student/ professor apps let me know).

What else should I cover? I do want to give them a pretty valuable class.

I'm planning on running a quick PowerPoint or Prezi to start and then using an app to have my iPhone screen on the projector and basically offer simulations. (i will have to jailbreak, obviously)

These must be some really stupid people you're "teaching".


Arn's a fag

 

[EvanKuhl]

If you're using powerpoint slides (or similar), then your presentation already sucks

I'm using powerpoint or prezi, probably prezi, for the first few parts. Once I actually get into the presentation I'm going to be hooking the phone up to a projector and using the phone itself. It's not like a sit down serious class, it's just a fun way for people to learn how to use their phones.

If you've never used prezi it's a little different than powerpoint and has always created a more interactive setting when I use it.