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Tag Archives: K-12

BYOD can enhance student writing

A common misconception from people in my generation or older is that BYOD is a threat to student learning; that student access to a digital device in the classroom somehow undermines the learning process. What a load of codswallop!!

If approached with common sense, creativity, patience and a willingness to learn from (technological) failures, BYOD could be the vehicle for transforming underachieving students. There’s no reason why high performing students and all those in between wouldn’t reap the benefits either.

I’m encouraged that I’m not the only teacher out there that thinks like this. I came across Bill Ferriter’s blog today – The Tempered Radical. His post, My Beef with Paper, is brilliant! It made me think about a conversation I’ve had recently regarding the use of iPads in classrooms. Whilst some people think iPads are only useful in terms of Internet access and subject-specific apps, I think they offer so much more to students. Think note-taking, for example. Why force students to take notes by hand for them only to lose individual pieces of paper 5 minutes after they’ve left the classroom? (Yes, I was one of ‘those’ students…) Taking notes in class has no correlation to a student’s ability to write essays in exams. They’re different skills. If your lesson is focused on developing an exam-specific skill, get students to use pen and paper. But if not, digital options provided by BYOD could actually benefit many students. Since when did BYOD mean the absence of any other tool? You wouldn’t use a chisel to hammer a nail because it’s the wrong tool for the job, so why do people expect an iPad for example to do everything? It’s. a. tool.

BTW, when I think ‘note-taking’ I’m not talking about ‘word processing’ or ‘desktop publishing’ as these are quite different skills. If you’re interested in some excellent note-taking apps for the iPad (and some have Android options too), try Evernote, inClass or Microsoft OneNote (PC or app (iOS or Android)). They’ll help ‘those’ students, trust me…

1 Comment

Posted by Jenny on February 8, 2012 in BYOD, iDevices, iPad, mLearning

Tags: BYOD, iPad, K-12, Learning

How Apple changed the face of education

21 Jan

January 19, 2012, will go down in the history books as one of the greatest days for education. Big call, I know, but Apple’s launch of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author heralds a new era in not only textbook production, but, more importantly, in how students embrace learning. In November last year I wrote a post about why publishers of eTextbooks were getting it all wrong. This paragraph summarises the crux of my disappointment:

Where were the embedded videos? Audio narration? Progress check quizzes with immediate feedback to a student? Animations? Animations students can modify to see different results? (obviously it does depend on what the subject matter is). Click and drag exercises? A dictionary? Or at least a glossary of the chapter’s key terminology? I could go on for a while…

In iBooks Author there is now a user-friendly yet sophisticated tool to create interactive and rich content; exactly what I envisaged above! Some of this content includes:

interactive images / diagrams
embedded movies
entire Keynote presentations
quizzes (called ‘reviews’)
3D objects
glossary tool
image gallery

In addition, iBooks 2 adds a slicker way to highlight text (compared with regular ePub files) and automatically creates ‘study cards’ from this highlighted text and any notes a user (e.g. student) writes.

I’ve been playing around with iBooks Author for the past few hours and I’m absolutely amazed by how easy this software is to use. Apple have created a very slick program that can be used by people of all ages. Teachers, students and school management could all make use of this free software.

The simplicity of the program is created via templates. The template chooser (shown above) opens when you first create a project. Each template is very similar in terms of offering different types of page layouts, including chapter overviews, one-two-three column spreads, dedication, forward, copyright pages and so on, but you can still change features like the font, fill color and overall layout. Placeholders are automatically included and inserting images is simply a drag and drop affair. The location of these placeholders can be changed in an instant. Likewise, special widgets are included and these also employ the drag and drop functionality. It’s the widgets that create the interactivity – additional notes on images, embedded movies and quizzes, image galleries, 3D objects that can be rotated and even whole Keynote presentations. It’s the widgets that no other ePub creation tool has managed to integrate successfully into the development environment (Creative Book Builder has come close, but is, unfortunately, left in the wake of iBooks Author). For techie people there’s even a feature whereby developers can create their own widgets using HTML 5 and Javascript. And you’re not going to believe how good the result is when importing text documents from Pages or Word (.docx included, not just .doc). Tables, bulleted and numbered lists, and paragraph styles are, for once, actually retained!

In fact, constructing an interactive book in iBooks Author is a ~~walk~~ stroll in the park! The only ‘hard’ aspect to the process is in planning and developing your content – this includes preparing your images, Keynote files and movies etc. The majority of this would be done outside of iBooks Author. It’s very similar to creating a website; 80% of your time is spent in developing content and resources and only 20% of the time is needed to combine said resources to construct the final product. Although I haven’t tried this yet, I’m fairly sure that iBooks Author doesn’t turn a 2D image into a 3D object – you’d have to have some other means of doing this and it’s an area in which I’m a bit vague at present. That is likely to be the topic of a future post…

This video demonstrates how to use iBooks Author. In fact, this was all I needed to get started with the program!

Now despite my excitement (I have the same feeling I experienced when I first got my iPad 18 months ago) some readers may think I’m being paid by Apple and/or hate Windows (or other platforms). I can assure you that I’m not (on all counts) and I do think that despite my enthusiasm for these new tools, especially iBooks Author, there are a number of concerns and limitations.

You must have a Mac to run iBooks Author. Schools running Windows have no access to this software.
Apple restrict your distribution of your iBook. Everything goes through an iTunes Connect account and for books where you charge (up to $14.99) Apple take their 30% cut. Even if you’re not worried about this, I’m not sure if it’s possible to create an in-house book in iBooks Author and then upload this to your school’s LMS for students and staff to download to their iPads. More investigation is needed to see if this is possible or not with interactive ePub files that you want to distribute for free.
The new Textbooks category is not supported by the New Zealand iBookstore. In fact, we can’t purchase any books through iBookstore. We only have the option to download Gutenberg books from a very small selection. The interactive books created in iBooks Author are published to the Textbooks category (which also distinguishes them from plain ePub books). There’s a real worry here that students outside the USA won’t benefit from these tools!

My childhood fantasy of living on the Starship Enterprise can actually be a reality albeit with a slightly different look. In my case, the ship is ‘Titoki Street’, the technology is an iPad and the fascination, inspiration and love of learning is encapsulated in a interactive, rich-media book.

Bring it on, yet fingers crossed New Zealand students don’t miss out!!

I only have one question – why oh why didn’t this software come out at the start of the summer holidays?!

Why eTextbooks get it all wrong

09 Nov

I was hugely disappointed yesterday when I had the opportunity to have an eTextbook solution demonstrated from a well known publishing company. Foolishly, I thought beforehand that finally we were seeing a publisher lead the way not only in terms of developing eTextbooks, but also in being relevant to high school classes as well. How wrong was I?!

It turns out that the demonstration reinforced why eTextbooks and dare I say it, often eLearning courses, fail when people think it’s just about providing a resource and miss the point regarding what support students of different abilities and interests require.

So what went wrong?

The eTextbook demonstrated was just a series of (static) PDF files, as well as PowerPoint slideshows, a few standalone JPGs and GIFs, and SWF animations. Repaginating the (print) textbook to optimise an iPad screen size is simply not enough on its own! And yes, you did read it correctly just before – Flash files were included…

Presenting an ‘eTextbook’ as being iPad compatible is jumping on the bandwagon when some of the files included aren’t recognised by the aforementioned device! The publisher’s response to this? You can use the same eTextbook on a laptop as well. So….we’re left with a series of files that can mostly be accessed by different types of technology, but to what extent do they genuinely support learning?

Not far enough! Here we have an opportunity to not only release a digital version of what has traditionally been printed, but to make improvements on what has gone before. Regardless of the technology, the concept driving the effectiveness of eTextbooks, for me, is the same - technology naturally supports multiple modalities of learning!

So why do publishers just not get it? In the demonstration yesterday, the only interactivity (if you can call it that) was the end-user clicking hyperlinks in PDF documents. I’m sure I’m not the only one who yawns at the prospect of reading text and clicking links from one static page to another. That’s not interactivity to support learning! That’s just the quickest way to disengage anyone – teenager or adult!

So how can we harness these learning opportunities to benefit our students?

As more and more students in secondary and tertiary courses gain access to technology such as iPads, we face a bit of a Catch-22 situation. One of the reasons eTextbooks are not as prevalent as they should be yet is that the technology and concepts related to eTextbook development is so new – for everyone – students, teachers, parents and publishers alike. It also explains why a lot of eTextbooks currently available are no more than digital replicas of hard copy. However, we can take some lessons from what some eMags are trying to do and if you haven’t already done so, download Al Gore’s Our Choice app for the iPad or iPhone/iPod Touch. I think it’s one of the first real examples of where eTextbooks should be heading, if only the tools needed to achieve this were more readily available.

If you have an iDevice, why not try the Creative Book Builder (CBB) app? It’s a DIY ePub creator, which supports audio and video files with an iPad 2. It’s fairly basic and more suited to simple documents, but it’s a start.

Adobe’s InDesign CS5 and CS5.5 support more sophisticated ePub development. It’s the tool of choice for magazine publishers.

Whether an ePub document harnesses the future of eTextbooks or some other technology, it’s only a matter of time before BYOD means more than just Internet access…

4 Comments

Posted by Jenny on November 9, 2011 in BYOD, Digital Learning Objects, iPad

Tags: BYOD, eBooks, eTextbooks, iPad, K-12, Learning, mLearning, mobile devices, resources

How BYOD is impacting learning – initial thoughts

05 Nov

The iPad is to learning what the calculator was to mathematics

Are iPads the new calculator?

Bring your own device (BYOD) is the latest catchphrase to be bandied around schools and education conferences the world over. Coupled with the rise of portable devices like the iPad, we find ourselves in exciting times.

When thinking about BYOD for my own school, I constantly come back to the iPad over any other mobile device – smartphone, iPod touch, laptop, tablet pc, netbook, eReader.

Why?

Relatively speaking, the cost of an iPad is cheap, or at least on a par, with devices of similar performance (yes, netbooks are usually cheaper, but they don’t perform on the same level)
The variety of software (apps) available is astonishing (compare the number and range of apps available on the App Store with Android’s Market Place)
The minimal cost of apps is not going to be a barrier or induce a ‘have vs. have nots’ situation
The iPad’s battery life versus that of a laptop, for example
The screen size versus that of a phone or mp3 player
The fact that the iPad is incredibly easy to use and has yet to have a serious contender for the slate crown

Sure, the iPad does have it flaws (such as weaknesses in file management, limitations on printing, the availability of extension ports, and a sometimes less than adequate browsing experience especially with Flash and AJAX etc), but given that it takes up very little space in a students bag or desk yet can store a large amount of data, it’s hard not to consider the iPad for BYOD in secondary classrooms.

I’m sure the education sector would have had discussions about the introduction (and later mandatory student ownership) of scientific calculators in the 1970′s and 1980′s that had similar sentiments to the discussions in schools today about the benefits, or not, of implementing a BYOD programme. You can see the two camps can’t you; those teachers and senior management who are willing to sacrifice a large amount of their own time researching, thinking and experimenting with different learning opportunities that new technology may bring versus another group who simply want to do things the same way they have done for years. I remember not being able to use a calculator in Maths in Form 3 (Year 9) – mine was confiscated – yet in Form 4 (Year 10) we were expected to have one (an FX-82 I think).

When considering different approaches towards BYOD in schools, I always have that analogy of the scientific calculator tapping me on the shoulder. It’s not solely about the hardware or whether your slate or calculator is branded Apple, Casio, Samsung or Sony. It’s not solely about what software a device runs (regular calculator or graphing calculator anyone?). It’s about how the combination of hardware and software, mixed with infrastructure such as a wireless network, enhances learning.

A number of secondary schools in New Zealand are seriously considering mandatory BYOD implementation. Others are still in the early stages, but have an eye open to the possibilities, and hitches, that can and will surface. Schools in NZ that are at the forefront of this include:

Imagine what a typical high school classroom will look like 5 years from now. Will we see printed exercise books and text books, or will they be digital? Will we see any paper at all? Will students be engaged or disengaged? What kind of technology will teachers use on a daily basis? What technology will students have in their pockets and/or in their bags/on the desk – will it be a pocket calculator or will that just be one of many functions fulfilled by a device like the iPad? Will students be using technology all of the time and in every class, or will BYOD be a natural tool that is expected of and by students and teachers rather than being at the forefront of educational debate?

So much to process!

Jenny

15 Comments

Posted by Jenny on November 5, 2011 in BYOD, iPad

Tags: BYOD, classroom, education, eLearning, iPad, K-12, Learning, mLearning, mobile devices, secondary, technology

Essential back-to-school iPad kit

14 Jan

Are you a middle or high school student? Do you want to use your iPad at school instead of carrying a heavy laptop? If you answered YES to either of these questions, read on to discover 11 must-have apps for 2011 – it’ll be worth it, guaranteed!

11 essential back-to-school apps for students

I don’t have any affiliations to the developers of these apps, so I can give an objective point of view. I have however, played around with each app listed and have tried to view them from a student’s perspective in particular. Each app listed here is intended for students ranging in ages from about 10 to 18. Many can in fact be used by other ages as well, but that’s the age range I deal with, so it’s natural to start there. All the apps can be considered worthy for general education support. It doesn’t matter whether you’re into the sciences, humanities, languages or technology – I’ve chosen to present these apps in particular because I think they would really help ALL students rather than a specific subject area.

Well, that’s enough preamble…let’s get to it. I’ve grouped the apps into 5 categories based on how students might use them:

Organisation
Reference
Note-taking
File management
Revision

1. Organisation

iStudiez Pro ($4.19)

This app is great for organising your timetable, homework and when assignments are due.

You won’t need one of those A5, clunky diaries any more and you’ll never be late for class!

2. Reference

Dictionary.com (FREE)

Of all the dictionary apps available, this has to be one of the best – it combines more features than other apps, and it uses a clean and intuitive interface.

You’re given word family, different meanings clearly defined, and etymology (word origins) of the words you look up. The thesaurus combines both synonyms AND antonyms, many of which are also hyperlinked to additional pages.

iTranslate (FREE)

This app would be particularly useful if English is not your first language. In fact, it allows you to choose which language you want to translate from and which language you would like to translate to, so it’s a worthy app for all students.

It’s another example of an app that utilises a clean user interface and is therefore straightforward to use. As the adage suggests, sometimes less is more…

Word Study & Grammar ($2.59)

So you’ve got your English essay back and the teacher’s comment mentions that you use split infinitives, double negatives and keep ending sentences with prepositions. Think of this app as a grammar reference book that will help you fix problems with your written syntax. Even if you’re unsure of the basics such as the purpose of nouns, verbs and adjectives, this guide will help you to become informed of all things ‘grammar’.

3. Note taking

inClass (FREE)

This app is the perfect tool for taking notes in class AND organising your schedule.

Better still, you can organise your notes into separate notebooks (say, a notebook for each subject) and even add sub topics within each notebook. It’s also possible to record your homework, prioritise tasks and list your teacher’s contact details/office hours. It’s a delight to use and isn’t bogged down with gimicky features that are found in many productivity apps,

I have to say that this is one of my favourite apps. You have to try it out for yourself!

MyScratchWork (FREE)

Use this app when you’re taking notes from online sources.

When your iPad is in landscape, half the screen is a notepad and the other half is a browser window. It’s the app you’d use when you’re taking notes while researching a topic, yet you don’t have to have a separate pen and paper, or keep switching back and forth between two apps. You can read online material AND take notes at the same time in the one app!

Pages ($13.99)

You’ve probably heard of Apple’s word processing app even if you haven’t downloaded it yet. The reason it’s in this list is because at the end of the day, all students (regardless of subjects taken) have to write essays, book reports and so on.

Pages is a word processing tool that is incredibly simple to use and is not ‘fiddly’ like other apps of a similar nature. Use Pages when you’re writing your final English essay or History report and then email it to your teacher, all from the app.

4. File management

Downloads HD ($4.19)

A lot of apps allow you to view documents online, but few allow you to quickly and easily download files AND organise them in folders. If your school uses an online system such as Blackboard or Moodle to post resources, Downloads HD is a fail-safe app to use.

I found that many other apps either took far too long to download even fairly small documents and/or stopped working when I tried it in Blackboard. I’ve had no problems with this app at all though. You can also transfer downloaded files to your computer at home if you want as well.

The free version of Downloads HD has all the features of the paid version, but you can only store up to 7 files at a time. This could become annoying, especially if you’re used to teachers posting PDF and PPT files etc online, so the paid version is well worth it.

5. Revision

FlashCards Plus Pro ($6.49)

This app’s user interface has a high visual appeal and it’s very intuitive. The Pro version allows you to create your own flash cards within the app, including images on the cards, so it’s worth the small investment. You can also download card sets from Quizlet.com.

It’s what I’d call one of the more advanced flash cards apps available because it uses the Leitner system of spaced repetition – huh? What this means is that the app keeps track of the cards you get right and the ones you get wrong. The cards you get incorrect will be shown to you on a more regular basis than the cards you already know. The advantage here is that the app really helps you to commit key terms and concepts to memory rather than repeatedly showing you things you already know.

iStudyAlarm ($1.29)

Most people have trouble studying for long periods of time and iStudyAlarm is designed to help you. Using research that suggests that the optimum study time is 20 minutes, you can set the alarm for intervals of this length. When the alarm sounds you’ll know it’s time to have a 5 minute break before hitting the books again.

The app also includes some really useful information about how to get the most out of your study time and also lots of tips for sitting exams.

Popplet Lite (FREE)

This is one of the easiest mind mapping tools I’ve come across.

It fits well with using the iPad’s touch screen to enter data and it’s user interface is very intuitive. Other mind mapping apps I’ve tried are just too fiddly in comparison. When you’ve created your mind map you have the option to send it in an email as a JPG. This can then be saved to the iPad’s camera roll. If you want to keep the mind map yourself rather than share it with others, the easiest way would be to take an image of it by pressing the on/off button and the Home button at the same time. This way the mind map goes straight into the Photos app (i.e. camera roll) and bypasses the email step.

The Lite version is fairly basic and only appears to let you work on one mind map at a time, but I figured that you can get an image of your map to use elsewhere anyway. Upgrade to the paid version ($12.99) if you regularly use mind maps as part of your revision process though.

Finally, one more tip to enhance your research, note taking and learning…

Diigo is an online tool for highlighting text and creating sticky notes, among other things. You can download a plugin for iPad’s Safari browser which allows you to highlight text from documents and web pages that you’re viewing online rather than downloading. It syncs to your free Diigo.com account, which records the article/web page on which you’ve highlighted text (and the text you’ve highlighted, of course!)

Imagine critiquing an author’s work, researching the origins of WW1, or commentaries on the latest economic crisis. Using your iPad, you can collect important quotes, identify recurring themes and write your own thoughts on the fly using Safari and Diigo’s web highlighter tool.

Now you (and your iPad) are armed with a software kit ready for the start of a new academic year – and all for less than $35!

1 Comment

Posted by Jenny on January 14, 2011 in iDevices, iPad, mLearning, Software

Tags: @edublogs, Apple, apps, back-to-school, Blackboard, File management, iPad, K-12, Learning, note-taking, organisation, reference, revision, Software

Free animated avatar

10 Jan

This is great for a bit of fun. At voki.com you can quickly and easily create a free talking avatar. You need to register to sign into the site, but that just requires a valid email address.

Choose your avatar’s gender, hair, eyes, makeup, mouth and skin colour, style of clothing, accessories and background.

Messages can be added either via the keyboard (as in my example below), or use a microphone to record your own message.

Here’s my message from outside my school.

http://vhss-d.oddcast.com/vhss_editors/voki_player.swf?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fvhss-d.oddcast.com%2Fphp%2Fvhss_editors%2Fgetvoki%2Fchsm%3D9e9c73bd69b370ddf517bb3f53373225%26sc%3D2079354
Click here to comment on this Voki.
Get a Voki now!

For this blog I embedded the MySpace code generated by Voki. The alternative code offered only created a text link rather than the embedded avatar. Don’t forget to add your embed code in the HTML view of your blog page, not the visual view!

Jenny

BbSummit 2009

20 Sep

Bb_logo

Spent most of last week in Brisbane at the Blackboard conference. It was great to see an increase in the number of K-12 representatives. Also interesting to hear that many tertiary institutions in both Australia and New Zealand are unhappy with Blackboard at the moment; I’m not the only one disappointed with Bb Learn!

In saying that, the listening session in front of Bb executives was extremely useful. They definitely know that they need increased transparency between client comments / requests and Bb actions. A special thanks goes to James Owen from Blackboard, who had a chat with myself and a colleague about some immediate concerns we have with Blackboard Learn – the latest instalment of the LMS. We were shown previews of what’s to come in version 9.1 and while I suspect there will be changes between now and early 2010 (expected release date), it was still good to see that numerous workflow issues have been addressed.

Thanks also to Peter from Ipswich Grammar in Brisbane who’s set up a Bb course for Aussie and NZ K-12 educators. Email me if you use Blackboard at an Aussie or NZ school and I’ll pass on the email for more info.

Overall, the conference was well worth it. A number of sessions that I attended gave much food for thought and I definitely left feeling far more positive towards the Blackboard LMS than I have done for most of this year.

Jenny

2 Comments

Posted by Jenny on September 20, 2009 in Professional Development

Tags: Blackboard, Conference, K-12, LMS, PD

Making online posters with Glogster

28 Apr

tweetmeme_url = ‘http://gadgetgurl.edublogs.org/2009/04/28/making-online-posters-with-glogster/’;

I started the term with my Year 12 Computing class by using the Web 2.0 tool called Glogster. It allows you to create online posters which have the ability to combine text, images, video and audio in the equivalent of an online static image. For a first-time use with students, it went reasonably well.

The first lesson began by introducing the new unit, which also required recapping content from last year’s course. Once we were reacquainted with the unit’s vocab, I allocated each student a sub topic in which they had to use Glogster to create a poster. Being older students, I didn’t have to spend too long showing them the ins and outs of the Glogster environment – they were willing (and able) to explore more specific aspects by themselves. In some respects I was fortunate in this. Homework was to complete their posters.

Each student gave a short presentation on their topic at the start of the second lesson. It kind of worked out that they projected their Glogster posters in one hit, as opposed to numerous PowerPoint slides. The multimedia nature of some of the posters went down favourably with students. Comments from students were positive and they especially enjoyed being able to link to online images and embed YouTube videos with minimal fuss. They also had a bit of fun with it – I especially loved the poster on storage devices, created by one of my ESOL students. She incorporated images of USB devices that had been photoshopped to look like tasty Teriyaki morsels! It became a great talking point.

The only problem with Glogster is that while students can save their work (only a free registration is required), they can’t export their posters in any form – i.e. everything is online, full-stop. There is the option to copy embed code or grab a URL for the poster, but when they’re working on their own laptops it’s not so easy for me to display their work in Blackboard. There’ll be a workaround for this I’m sure, but I just have to investigate a bit more. The posters became quick overviews on each sub-topic and with exams coming up in a couple of weeks, these will be good starting points. Perhaps I should have set up a registration that everyone in the class could use (and I could access easily too). Not sure if Glogster allows multiple logins at the same time though. In this way I could more easily use the embed code created by Glogster to place the posters into their Blackboard course.

In relation to the idea of digital learning objects, I guess these posters are individual learning objects in themselves. With a Wikipedia definition in mind, the posters are “digital and web-based” and their aim is to “support learning”. My purpose was to use Glogster to get students thinking about prior learning before we delve further into the topic. In this sense, each poster is a [sic Wikipedia] “self-contained, reusable unit of learning” – at least as the inital hook into the topic anyway. With a broader aim of students being able to view each other’s posters (remembering that each student had a different sub-topic) all my students could benefit from other’s posters. I don’t think the Glogster posters are comprehensive digital learning objects, mind. They’re simplistic versions. Other tools / ideas / environments have the potential to create fully-integrated learning objects that include assessment functions as well.

As an experiment with a Web 2.0 tool that I hadn’t come across before, it worked well. It may be a bit fiddly for younger students although I think the concept which underlies Glogster is a good one, educationally and socially. I’ve just noticed (after all of that!!) that there is a separate educational Glogster homepage. Looks like there’s a concerted effort by Glogster to create something especially with students and teachers in mind. That’s great! I definitely look more into this one. I even see in my profile page that’s there a short online survey teachers can take – always up for giving ideas! :-)

Jenny

1 Comment

Posted by Jenny on April 28, 2009 in Digital Learning Objects, Web 2.0

Tags: Computing, Digital Learning Objects, DLOs, Glogster, K-12, Learning, posters, static image, Web 2.0

Flexible Learning with Mobile Devices

Tag Archives: K-12

BYOD can enhance student writing

How Apple changed the face of education

Why eTextbooks get it all wrong

How BYOD is impacting learning – initial thoughts