CK12 to iBooks Author

Finding the perfect textbook for your class really is an impossible task. Each one you look at is missing some critical component or if one does have everything, it uses an approach that you think won't work with your students. Even if you somehow find the perfect book, it is typically the most expensive book you've looked at. In the end you end up selecting a book that is the best compromise of several competing factors. Not the best but instead, the least bad. The alternative is to not use a textbook or to create your own textbook.

With this in mind I encouraged the teachers of our freshman Integrated Science Class to create their own textbook for the first year of our 1:1 iPad deployment. This was a huge undertaking so I encouraged them to dive into ck-12 to assemble a series of books to use with their students. The books were saved as ePubs and distributed through iTunesU.

The ePubs, while very nice, have some limitations. The ck-12 materials often have videos and interactive elements scattered throughout. In order to use these, the students must leave their book and go onto the web. Not a big deal, but often once students leave their books many never make it back again. For next year we want to make the books more encapsulated, removing the need for students to leave the book to work with the interactive elements. Enter iBooks Author. The last update Apple gave iBooks Author the ability to import ePubs. Now we can take the work that was already done and repurpose it.

Workflow:

1. Create flexbook on ck-12 and download as ePub (done already)
2. Import into your iBooks Author template of choice. All of the content will come in as a single chapter. 
3. Create a new chapter for each of the chapters in your original ePub
4. From your chapter with everything copy all of the content for a chapter and paste it into the chapter you created for it. Keep going until you've done this with all the chapters.
5. Work on Formatting: All of your images are "inline" you might want to use the Inspector to change them to Floating or Anchored so you can put them where you want them to be.
6. More Formatting: Edit the text/paragraph styles used by ck-12 to be something you want (totally optional)
7. Create Widgets for interactive content.
8. Export as iBook and distribute or publish

Point 7, "Create Widgets" is the hard part. iBooks Author doesn't give you the ability to embed most web content directly. It does, however, give you the ability to add in HTML5 widgets. I typically build my HTML5 widgets in Tumult Hype. Totally awesome program. I haven't looked at the newest update yet but I will probably buy it. They do offer an educational discount, making it much more affordable. A less nerdy, as well as free, way would be to use Bookry to make your widgets. Once we get some of the books converted I'll post them here.

Below is my walkthrough of using Hype to embed a YouTube video in your iBook. You could use the same process for a lot of other web content as well.

Fun with Keynote for iPad

Our school is in the process of moving to 1:1 iPads. Part of my job is to provide professional development for our staff. I've decided to share some of the materials I'm putting together here. The references I make to individuals in this material are to members of our staff.

Sorry for the very heavy focus on Keynote in my blog lately. I'm sure I'll get bored and move on to something else soon.

There is a lot of power in Keynote to style, arrange, and edit items. You can use this power when making your presentations or you can co-opt this power for other creative endeavors. The videos below assume you already know some basics about Keynote for iPad. If not you should watch this video for a quick overview.

We first need to learn about the formatting options that are available. You can access the formatting options by selecting an object and then touching the paint brush.

Watch this video to learn about some of the formatting options:

Do the following after watching the video above:

1. Create a new presentation
2. Add a slide with pictures and text
3. Use the formatting tools to change the styles of your objects.
4. Add an interesting border to your pictures
5. Change your font and text styles

Have you ever taken a picture to use in a presentation only to find out you need to bring it into an image editor to crop or resize it before you can use it? You can actually do this right in Keynote.

Watch this video about working with the Image Mask:

Do the following after watching the video above:

1. Go back to the presentation you were just working on or create a new presentation
2. Add a slide with a picture on it
3. Tap the plus to put your own picture in.
4. Double tap your picture to edit the image mask

The last skill we need is called Instant Alpha. This will work best if your picture has a uniform background. This can be used to create silly pictures, but is can also add a touch of awesomeness to your presentation without much extra effort. Thanks to Andy Losik for showing me this.

Do the following after watching the video above:

1. Create a new presentation
2. Add a blank slide
3. Use your iPad to take a picture of yourself or someone else with a fairly neutral background
4. You may find you need to edit the image mask to crop your picture first
5. Now put your subject into someplace awesome

Walking the Walk - Creating video for students with only an iPad

Next year my school will begin it's 1:1 iPad program. We're starting slow with only the freshman class, so it will take us four years before we're totally 1:1. I've been tasked with helping get teachers ready for the flood of technology headed our way. One of the ways I've been doing this is through iTunes U courses for professional development. One of these is Flipping with an iPad.

I've been making videos to use with my students for years on my computer with Camtasia Mac using a Bluetooth Wacom tablet and Sankore for annotating on the screen. But these take me a while to make. A lot of this time is spent in the set up. I've been urging some teachers to lecture less in class and to use videos as replacements. I know lecture is not the best way to deliver content, but when starting a revolution we have to begin somewhere. So I decided to make a series of videos using only my iPad so I would have a much better idea of what was involved. I'll be adding all of my lessons learned to my iTunes U course. 

I'll call these videos Quickcasts, not because they're short, but because I want to make them quickly. The goal for a 5-10 min video will be no more than 20-30 min from set up to upload. This first one took a bit longer than that, but future ones will go much quicker. I learned a lot getting it together. Here's how I did it.

Equipment:

• iPad 2
• Notier Stylus
• Rode smartLav Microphone

Apps:

• Explain Everything $2.99
• Pinnacle Studio $12.99
• iMovie $4.99 (or free with new device)
• NodeBeat HD $2.99
• YouTube Capture Free

I used Explain Everything to capture all the video and screen writing. I used the Notier stylus for annotating and drawing. I've tried many styluses and this one works best for me. Over the years I've become more of an audio snob with my videos, so I have to have a microphone. I used the Rode smartLav. This was the first time I used it, so I still have a bit to learn about proper placement and such. My next video should sound better. On a side note, I've also played with the microphone built into my iPhone ear buds, I'm not sure how much better the Rode microphone is.

I also used Explain Everything to create the intro clip. It was too slow so I wanted to speed it up. Unfortunately iMovie on my iPad 2 could only slow down the video, not speed it up. I'm not sure if newer iPads can speed up video or not. So I took the clip into Pinnacle Studio to double the speed. I could have finished the video here, but I wanted to gain some experience with iMovie on my iPad, so I took the clip back to iMovie. All of our teachers already have iPads with iMovie.

The intro music was created in NodeBeat HD. This is a fun little app that I picked up a couple years ago while it was free. Moving audio around on an iPad can be problematic, but I was able to email the file to myself from NodeBeat and then import it to my project in iMovie. I could have used GarageBand to create the intro as well. Then I rendered the video to my camera roll and used YouTube Capture to upload. It is possible to upload directly from iMovie, but I also wanted the saved video file to drop into my iTunes U course anyway.

Next time I will position my microphone differently so the levels won't be too high. The intro clip with music is done so I'll just reuse it again. I may also spend a little more time prepping slides in Explain Everything so the video itself can be shorter. While nice at times, students don't need to watch me write every word on the screen in real time.

Re-thinking Professional Development

Photo by Sean MacEntee CC-BY

How do you train a teaching staff in the use of iPads in teaching? Or better yet, how do you help a staff see how their teaching can be transformed from a traditional model of instruction to one that leverages the power of technology to place the student at the center of the learning? We've begun investigating the move to a 1:1 iPad program at Divine Child High School. For those in our community who may have found this post we're looking at starting with only the freshmen in 2014.  So, we won't be fully 1:1 for a number of years yet. I've been asked to head up the whole program. My immediate goal is to make sure we have everything in place to ensure things go smoothly when the first class of iPads arrive in 2014.

Why wait so long? Why not start this fall? Inertia, it takes time to change practice. I want to get the staff development piece right. Step one, all of our teachers will have an iPad in their hands before they go home for the summer. Familiarity will go a long way I know, but where do I go from there? My assistant principal keeps asking me how many PD days I need next year. I really don't want to try working with a room full of 60 people at a time. That's a recipe for disaster.

My current plan, assuming I can get our administration on board, is to flip our PD and faculty meetings. I saw an awesome talk at MACUL this year by +Fred Sitkins and +Rebecca Wildman. They outlined how they've transformed professional development in their school. I'm planning on stealing all their ideas. You can find out all about what they've done on their site or in their iTunes U Course. I highly recommend checking them both out! You should also follow Fred (@fsitkins) and Rebecca (@rebeccawildman) on twitter.

In a nut shell they've gotten rid of traditional faculty meetings. Staff are expected to replace that time commitment with time spent working with their PLNs. Stuff that would be in a normal faculty meeting is delivered via video and teachers watch when they have time. PLNs find times to meet that are convenient and may be face to face or online in the evening. One member of each PLN reports out each month to the school improvement committee on the progress of the PLN. This is self directed professional development that is fully differentiated to meet the learner (i.e. the teachers) where they are!

The best part of this whole model is it is exactly what we keep saying our classrooms should look like. Not only could this be a more effective way of doing PD, it also models good teaching strategies to use with our students. The other thing I like about this model is it is rooted in professionalism and trust. It will only work if the teachers involved act like professionals and the administration trusts teachers to do their jobs. In the traditional model we try to ensure participation by requiring seat time in meetings. The problem with this is seat time does not equal participation. Compliance is not the same thing as engagement. It often looks professional, but that doesn't mean it is.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be sketching out my plan on how to implement this form of PD. I'll try to share my thoughts here as I move forward.

Playing with Digital Storytelling

So I've been watching Ben Rimes' posts for DS106 go by and I keep thinking I should give that a try. I was inspired by the Return to the Silent Era assignment, so after watching a couple other people's submissions I figured I'd jump in. One of the things keeping from trying any ds106 assignment before was a lack of expensive software. Ben always uses high end programs like Adobe Premier and Photoshop that I don't have. How could I possibly do any of the cool stuff he does.

Well, I decided to see if I could do the whole thing using only my iPad. It also gave me an excuse to buy Avid Studio, an app I've been looking at since it came out. Apps I used:

• Avid Studio $4.99 - For video editing
• Blux Movie (free right now) - I shot the movie with Blux.
• PhotoShop Express and SketchBook Express (free) - To create the placards. I added the text in Avid Studio
• iSuper8 (free) - Final aging effects added.

The only real problem I encountered while doing this entirely on my iPad was the audio track. There seems to be no way to share audio files between most apps. So in the end I had to download music and then sync it to the iPad using iTunes.

My Workflow:

• I sat in front of my TV and recorded the screen using the Hitchcock filter in Blux Movie on my iPad. Seemed like the best way to get the clip I wanted, plus the potential for bad camera work added to the effect. Blux is pretty cool. It applies the filters while recording, no rendering time!
• I found a silent movie placard online and saved it to my camera roll. Note, I probably broke copyright here.
• I took a picture of the DVD menu (everyone has this on DVD, right?) into SketchBook Express and then traced the Skull. Not my best work, but I wanted to finish the whole project before the end of the movie.
• I took the traced skull into PhotoShop Elements and cropped it down.
• Then back into SketchBook Express to put it on the placard (I downloaded earlier) and saved the resulting image to the camera roll.
• Then into Avid Studio to edit the movie. I used screen credits to put text on the placards, but this limited me a bit. It would have been better to create each placard in SketchBook and then bring them in, but I was being lazy and I still hoped to get it done before the Prok-Chop Express rolled on.
• Downloaded some royalty free music from Incompetech by Kevin MacLeod on my computer and plugged my iPad in to sync it over.
• Added the music into my movie in Avid and then saved the movie to my camera roll.
• Brought the movie into iSuper8 to dirty it up a bit and voila I was done. It made my black and white go sepia. I could have bought another filter to keep it black and white, but I think it looks fine this way.

Unfortunately I didn't finish by the end of the movie. I spent too much time trying to figure out how to get music from an app into my music library on my iPad. As near as I could discover, you can't. Which is really stupid. I mean you can't even create a song in Garage Band and then save it to your music library on your iPad without plugging into a computer first. 

The other issue I ran into was the need to save all pictures in progress to the camera roll. If I'd used a computer it would have been far easier. I could just have copied and pasted parts of pictures between documents and/or applications.

This was the first really creative process I've done using only my iPad. Overall I think it turned out well. It could have been better, after going through iSuper8 the edges of my wide screen video were cropped off making the framing a bit off on a couple of shots. I almost decided to try and redo it all on my computer when I remembered, I have grading to do.

But I think I may have just fallen down a rabbit hole. I may end up spending more time looking at ds106 and maybe I'll even try to join a class.

iBooks Author Teacher Academy

This summer it looks like I will be helping run an iBooks Teacher Academy for teachers in my school. We'll be partnering with a local university (more on this later) so we'll be able to offer SB-CEUs and/or university credit. Our plan is to use this to help leverage the technology we already have in our building. Last summer we bought a cart of iPads and for the most part we've only been using them as a portal to the internet. When we bought the cart we knew this would be the primary way it was utilized, but now we're hoping to move beyond this.

Our secret plan is to get teachers investing in professional development to change the way they think about teaching with technology. Our summer training will only be three four hour days. The focus of the workshop will be split between how to use programs to author interactive iBooks and TPACK (when did this change? I thought it was TPCK). We don't simply want to show teachers how to use the tools. We want to help them think about how to use the tools to teach better.

So how will we accomplish this in 12 hours? The short answer is we won't. We're also planning a series of three to four more 90 minute meetings during the following school year. These will be a chance to get back together and share what we've been working on and get feedback. I'm also planning on pushing for an online collaborative component. I've run some staff training in the past and I've not gotten much traction with any online stuff I've done after the fact, so I'm not dead set on including this. I will be thinking about it through and I'll post details to my blog if anyone is interested on following our progress.

So, why iBooks Author? Because it is really slick. Yes, I know you're locked into the Apple iPad ecosystem. But, at it turns out that's ok at thins point. That said I'll be watching for Inkling Habitat when it becomes available to the public "later this year". Our focus is not only on the specific tool, but how we can use the tool to create pedagogically appropriate content for our students. This last is what I'm excited about.

Below is a my latest iBooks 2.0 demo video. I made it in part to advertise the possibilities to our staff while at the same time testing out the capabilities of Camtasia Mac 2 and Reflection (which lets me mirror my iPad on my computer). I highly recommend both programs!

MACUL 2012 Video Abstract - Simple Game Programming for Android

Below is a video abstract for my Hands on Workshop for MACUL 2012. I will be covering how to create simple games using Processing for Android devices. As a bonus, I'll also cover how use the same content as interactive elements in Apple's new iBooks 2.0. You'll be able to find everything I'll be talking about on a site I'm creating for the workshop. It's a bit spare right now, but that will be changing over the next week or two as we get closer to MACUL. processing.flosscience.com

Use Processing to Create Interactive Widgets for iBooks

Warning, this post is a bit nerdy.

So, I already blogged bout iBooks Author and how I might use it. I was thinking about how I might be able to create my own interactive elements. So I did a bit of research. If I knew html5 and Java Script I'd be all set. Unfortunately I don't. However, I do know some Processing. I use Processing in my electronics class sometimes (it's very similar to Arduino) and the programming club at my school uses Processing.

It turns out there is this great project called Processing.js that will run Processing programs as Java Script. A little more researching on the net and I now have the ability to create my own interactive elements for iBooks 2.0.

This is really cool. Our school has a cart of iPads. With iBooks Author it is possible for our teachers to easily create compelling custom content for our students. More importantly, when they decide they want interactive elements we can have our own students create that content, turning the content creation into a collaboration between the students and the "content exerts".

So, how do you do it? Start with the tutorial and demo files over at the Tulmult Inc blog. Be sure to watch the video and download the demo files. You'll also have to download the latest version of processing.js just drop it into your working folder.

Create a file titled index.html to be something like:

Be sure to edit the plist file so that the size matches your Processing sketch. Your default image also has to have the same dimensions as your sketch. I discovered this the hard way. Just trust me on this. You can check out what I've been working on if your interested. I've put my latest version in my Public Dropbox. It includes a simple color mixing interactive in section 1.3. If you're on an iPad when you click the link to my book the screen goes white while the file is downloading (it's about 80 MB). Just wait and you'll eventually be able to "Open in iBooks".

My file is for the ICCARS project and it's only a partial rough draft, but you're free to download it. Spectrum Guide.ibooks

I for one like iBooks Author

If I was a good blogger I'd point you to some specific posts where people talk about all the problems with the end user license and shake their fists saying, "This is Apple at its worst!" I'm late to the game, so I'm sure you've already seen such posts. So, I'll just skip that part.

I think the biggest problem Apple has, as usual, is people's expectations. We really wanted them to fundamentally change the textbook industry, maybe even kill it so we could move into the future. Unfortunately corporate rhetoric and rumors rarely match reality. Ed-tech pundits also seemed to expect Apple to ignore its entire corporate culture and embrace the open source movement. Anyway, enough about that.

Why do I like iBooks Author? I've been playing around a bit with it and it is really pretty slick. I was able to quickly put together some material I'd had into a really nice looking ebook complete with a couple video clips and gallery widgets. Do I think this sort of book will make students suddenly embrace the textbook? No, I do not. However, I'll probably never write a textbook myself, so that's ok with me. In fact none of the classes I currently teach (physics, honors physics, and electronics) uses a textbook.

We have a cart of iPads in our school for student use. I could envision using iBook Author to put together interactive assignments for my students to work through. All of the content could be in one place which would make it usable even when the internet goes down (how many lessons have you lost to the net?). This could work great for sub plans. Do a little reading, watch a little video, do a little work and repeat.

I also envision using iBooks Author to create guides for educators. Right now I'm in the process of creating a set of lessons to go with a kit of materials that can be checked out as a part of the ICCARS Program (in association with Wayne RESA and NASA). I'll be putting all the material I create on the web via Google Sites, but I think I'll also put the material into an iBook. All the participants in the program were given iPads, so this makes perfect sense. I'll put the material on the web as well so people who do not have iOS devices can access it.

It really is not that hard to put the material in two different places with different formatting after its created. The writing and photography are the most time consuming parts of this whole process. After that it's just cutting and pasting.

I've included a page from the guide I'm working on. Now that I know what I'm doing I could easily put together a chapter of a really nice looking ebook in 10-15 minutes assuming the material has already been created. Once the whole book was together I'd probably spend some more time tweaking.

As I think about it I may also create a manual for the teachers in my building. When we got our iPad cart we also got a number of iPads for teacher use. The teachers who got them are required to be a member of our iPad Cohort, we do short monthly PD. I've noticed that many of the teachers I work with like to read to learn. This could be another platform I use to reach out to those teachers while I try to pull them along to try new teaching strategies.

Finally, I could see using iBook Author with students for student created content. I'll probably have students write in something like Google Docs so it can be collaborative. This will also let me watch the writing process and save a complete revision history. The writing is the hardest part of the whole process and wouldn't need to be done in iBooks Author. iBooks is just the final step. It would be nice if iBooks Author allowed students to be able to collaborate on the final layout as well, but I don't think it is that necessary.

Will iBooks 2.0 fundamentally change education as we know it? Really, does anyone expect that one tool created by a profit driven corporation has that kind of power? I know I don't, but the free iBooks Author app will undoubtedly be used to create some really compelling content. Additionally it may prompt other companies to create similar products that may end up being more open.

Enough with the iPad Already

OK, seven of my last ten posts have been related to my iPad. It really is awesome! However, this is a technology in education blog, not an iPad blog. To that end I've begun documenting my iPad knowledge on a Google Site. As I learn new stuff I'll add it there. If I make get any huge revelations I'll blog about them here as well. I may also periodically post a list of updates here so they'll show up in your RSS feed.

Anyway, I promise to get back to my ongoing investigation into how technology can be a powerful tool for transforming teaching. You can find my collected ramblings on the iPad at ipad.flosscience.com

iPad as Teaching Tool after two months - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

So, I've had an iPad in my hands for two months now. I use it daily both for serious and not so serious stuff. It has replaced my laptop for almost all of my at home net surfing and such and is the device I never set down while at work. So, what's the good, the bad, and the ugly?

The Good:

• Wireless Display - I've been using AirSketch for this and it works pretty well. I've just learned that AirDisplay may fill the bill and may in fact work better than a VNC solution (more on this in the future). In the past I've used a bluetooth Wacom tablet for this, but I'd underestimated the value of being able to see what I'm writing actually on my tablet.
  
• Portable Data Gathering - When I first got my iPad I used Google Forms for data collection. I've switched over entirely to Numbers. When I'm not using my iPad as a presentation tool I carry it around and collect data on my students' apparent mastery of concepts. I still haven't found my perfect tool, but Numbers is the closest so far.
  
• Personal Learning Network - I now consume almost all my news on my iPad. For Twitter I use Flipboard and the official Twitter client. For RSS I use MobileRSSFree and Pulse. I've also leaned a lot of useless trivia by doing crosswords in the USA Today app. The PBS, NPR, and TED apps also give me something to do when noting else is happening.
  
• File Access - I'd been using DropBox for this, but I just started playing with ZumoCast. ZumoCast is primarily designed to stream audio and video from a computer to the cloud, but you can also share folders full of documents. These documents can be downloaded and then opened in other apps as well. All my important teaching docs are now shared and I can have them on my iPad when I need them without having to take up lots of space when I don't.
  
• It's Fast - It's pretty snappy. Everything works pretty well. I've had programs crash, but it doesn't take down the whole system. This may be part of the justification of the Bad and the Ugly below.
  

The Bad:

• Still no Flash or JAVA - There is lots of good stuff out there that I just can't access. Yes, I know most video sites are now working around this, but I'm talking about some really good simulations that I'd love to be able to use.
  
• No File System - Well, no real accessible file system. I could be wrong, but it seems that if I want to use the same document in different applications that each application has its own copy of that document.
  

The Ugly:

• Google Apps - There's still no way to edit a Google Site from an iPad. You can easily add or remove text from a Google Doc with their mobile editor, but to do any real work you need to use the Desktop editor. While you can do this on an iPad the experience is not great. There are some third party apps that can edit Google Docs, but I haven't tried any yet.
  
• Printing - So if I happen to have one of half a dozen printers then I can print? Really?
  
• Projector Support - Why can't all apps share their screen with the projector attachment? Seems like this should be in the operating system rather than in individual applications. If you plan on projecting you should read app descriptions carefully to see if they support it or not.
  
• The App Store - Both good and bad. There are some great apps there. However, I'd love to see what people would do if Apple loosened up their policies some.
  

Teacher TechBites ep 019 - AirSketch for iPad

In this episode I show AirSketch a cool whiteboard program that allows you to project what you're doing on your iPad through your classroom projector wirelessly. Basically, what AirSketch does is create a web page that another computer can access. All you need to do is point a web browser at your iPad and then the magic happens. As you write or draw on your iPad the writing appears on the projector. You can be anywhere in your room as long as you have a Wifi connection.

In the free version all you get is a whiteboard with a black pen. In the paid version ($6.99) you can change your pen tool and import pictures or pdf files to write-on/mark up.

Cross posted from TeacherTechBites.com

iPad as Teaching Tool after two weeks

My main goal for the iPad centered around tracking student progress during class discussions. I've not had much success with this yet. I've been using forms created with Google Docs. These are ok, but not quite there yet. I think I'll need to buy a good spreadsheet program, maybe Bento or Numbers. I like the idea of using Google Forms, as I can easily track how results change over time. Unfortunately they prove a bit problematic when I use them during discussions. It's just not as fluid as I'd like and I can't see the past data while filling in new data. However, I absolutely love the iPad plus Google Forms when I'm scoring tests and quizzes. I just poke the dropdown of student names, check off what they know or don't know and enter their score. Awesome and much faster than trying to type all this into my computer or writing it down on paper (I done both of these earlier this year).

So, iPad as tool for teaching? Jury's still out. I've used it with AirSketch and MobileMouse (more on these apps in the future), but these haven't really changed the way I teach. However, as a tool for personal professional development the iPad will be tough to beat. I've already shown off FlipBoard for getting me back into Twitter. But I've also downloaded a number of apps for media consumption. These include:

• NPR - Full audio and news stories
  
• PBS - Has some full episodes of great shows, including Nova!
  
• TWiT - The Twit network is a great place to keep up on changes in technology
  
• NASA - Includes some great pictures, videos, and info from NASA
  
• NY Times & USA Today - I far prefer my newspapers in this form. No stacks of paper to deal with
  
• TED - Great inspiring talks.
  

Now all these apps are just pulling information I can already get from the web. So, why not just use my laptop? The iPad is a heck of a lot lighter and I'm not tied to a wall outlet. The battery life in my laptop is about 2.5 hours. I have yet to run into a time when I have to charge my iPad during the day.

In addition, it makes a great ereader. It's pretty easy to pull in PDFs, I've been using GoodReader as my app of choice for this. Again, noting I couldn't use my laptop for, it's just more pleasant.

The bottom line is that I've been consuming more media related to education and improving my teaching with the iPad than I was before the iPad. So, the direct impact on my teaching may be minimal so far, but the indirect impacts will likely be large.

Teacher TechBites Ep 015 - Twitter and FlipBoard

So, I got a new toy. It's an iPad. It really has helped me to rediscover Twitter. I've used Twitter on an off for a couple of years, but FlipBoard on my iPad has gotten me addicted to it.

For all the haters out there I need to say it's not about stalking or public exhibition. For me, it's about learning and collaboration. I don't follow people who obsessively tell me what they are doing. I follow people who tweet interesting, relevant stuff. And now I follow them in a really easy to read attractive format. FlipBoard formats my feed in a magazine like format. In short, It rocks! Check it out below.



Crossposted from TeacherTechBites.com

iPad as Teaching Tool Day 1

So, yesterday morning my Assistant Principal put my iPad into my hands. Today was really my first teaching day with it. Tasks accomplished yesterday:

• gmail and Google Calendar synced.
  
• Confirmed Google Forms will work on the iPad. You can't edit Google Docs, but you can enter information into a form.
  
• Downloaded and installed a few apps
  

Apps used in the classroom today:

• Mobile Mouse - Turns the iPad into a giant wireless trackpad. I set it up to work with the computer hooked up to my projector. $2.99 for the iPad app, the client app (either Win or OSX) is free.
  
• AirSketch - I got the paid version of this one. It lets me draw on my iPad but allows any computer on the same network to view what I'm drawing. All you need is a web browser pointed to my device's IP address. You can also annotate on PDF's or images. I just open the webpage on the computer attached to the projector and students can see what I'm writing/drawing. $6.99 for the iPad app, but they have a free version.
  
• DropBox - Online storage. 2GB of free storage. I can drag files, like pdfs, into a folder on my Mac and then access them from my iPad (or any computer on the internet for that matter). Useful even if you don't have an iPad. If you join DropBox please follow this link (then I get an extra 250 MB of storage). The program itself is free for Win, OSX, and iPad.
  

Today I showed a quick animation to help illustrate motion maps to my physics students. I used Mobile Mouse to control the computer while running the simulation. In the morning I had taken some screenshots of the simulation that I could bring into AirSketch. After running the simulation I drew all over the pictures I'd taken in the morning. Overall, it worked pretty well. In general my Wacom tablet does a better job of this, but it's nice to see what I'm drawing on my tablet for a change. I'll need to refine the whole process a bit.

All of the above is secondary, however. The main reason I wanted an iPad as a teaching tool was so that I could carry it around and keep track of students. I've been doing a lot more group discussion this year and it's tough keeping track of who knows what. Or, more importantly what we still need to work on.

I set up Google Forms where I can rate my students on a scale of 1-5. This is a very rough estimate on my part. Do they know the concept? How secure are they? How much coaxing did I have to do? A 5 would indicate the student demonstrated mastery and is very secure in the concept.

I'm not entirely pleased with it, I'll be tweaking this approach over the coming weeks. To the right is a sample of my form. I like this approach, because I'll be able to see who I've called on (and who I haven't) and how their demonstration of mastery changes over time. I can also quickly scan down my spreadsheet and get a rough idea of where the class as a whole is as well on any given concept.

iPad in education?

So, last spring my Assistant Principal asked me if I thought we should pick up an iPad or two to investigate their educational potential. At the time I didn't see any immediate reason to. Sure they're great for content consumption, web surfing, and the battery life blows away all laptops, but these things only make sense if you have a classroom set or are going 1:1. None of those really justify the expense of buying one or two.

Now, enter this year. Over the summer I spent three weeks in a workshop learning a teaching technique called modeling. You can read reflections of my implementation of modeling over at FLOSScience, my blog focused specifically on science education. Anyway, at the center of modeling is Socratic Dialog. The instructor challenges students to explain what they mean in their own words beyond simply parroting back the vocabulary. In order to really be effective I need to know what level of mastery each of my students have demonstrated on each concept, so I've been keeping notes on our discussions.

I have 120 students who are taking physics or honors physics this year. After two weeks I've amassed a stack of sheets of paper trying to keep track. But I can't really do any analysis unless I spend quite a bit of time entering data. Enter my new idea.

What if I had some sort of device that I could easily carry around my room? One that I could easily enter data in on so that I could track individual student progress. My iPad was ordered last Friday. I plan on carrying it around and using it to collect data as I go. I'm still working out exactly how I'll do that, but that will be easier once I have it in my hands. I'll probably go with Google Forms (assuming I can enter data in forms on the iPad). If that doesn't work I'll likely go with Bento.

I will also be investigating some other ideas including:

• Using the iPad to replace my Bluetooth Wacom Tablet
  
• Recording discussions with a note taking app that will record audio along with any notes I take. Like a LiveScribe.
  
• Creation of next generation text books. My electronics website is a start, but it can go further. PDF files are only slightly better than paper.
  
• Creation of iPad apps. I have a group of students who are starting an iOS programming club. A pair of them have already submitted an app to the iTunes store!
  
• Other ideas will come to me I'm sure
  

I'll be sure to share everything I use my iPad for here. If you know of any educators using iPads or of any other cool things I can do with one please let me know.