Apps

iPad Literacy

•     Preparation Section:

I previewed both Dictionary and Merriam Webster dictionaries.  Although both had very similar features, I liked the Merriam Webster dictionary a tiny bit better.  The Merriam Webster dictionary offered synonyms and an example sentence on the same page as the definition.  Both apps would speak the word so you could hear the pronunciation, which is a very nice feature.  Both apps also offered a favorites list and a recently used list.

I also previewed My Spelling Test app. I could see very practical educational applications for this app.  Digital kids would most likely enjoy doing spelling practice on an app like this rather than traditional pencil and paper practice.  Practicing spelling this way seems more like playing a game than doing work.  The YouTube video had a testimonial from a teacher and a student. The teacher enjoyed the fact that the student could work independently and the student enjoyed using the technology for learning.  One nice thing about this app is that you can customize the spelling list.  This app can have practical application in the classroom as you can use it for your classroom’s spelling list.  This app also could be using on an interactive whiteboard, enhancing the abilities to use this app and capture student’s attention.

• ·      Presentations:

Educreations is an interactive whiteboard app.  Educreation gives you the opportunity to record a lesson. This app is a good way to individualize a lesson for a student and also to have a recorded document of the lesson in case students need to hear the lesson again. This app gives you the ability to use color in your lesson, which could be helpful in a math situation where you have multiple steps. Pictures can be inserted into your document if they are helpful to what you are teaching. You can use pictures from your library or take a picture to use.  You can also have multiple pages so that if your lesson has multiple points, you can have a page for each.  Educreations had editing features that can be used, such as zoom, rotate and annotations. Annotations can be helpful if you are making a study guide because you can underline, circle, X-out things. One neat thing about Educreations is that if you do not have an iPad, you can do this right off of the Educreation website.

• ·      Stories

The PuppetPals app was very interesting.  Students or teachers could use this app to create a story to enhance a lesson or just to experiment with creativity.  By picking characters and backgrounds, you could create many different types of stories. You can record your voice while moving the puppets around on the background. You have the ability to pause so that you can change your characters or backgrounds in order to make the transition smoother. If you do not see a character or scene you want, you can use file-sharing options to use your own characters or backgrounds from iTunes. The movies can be exported to your camera role for further use.  Right now, the process to upload your specialized settings is a little cumbersome.  However, according to the YouTube video, they are working on ways to make it easier. The downside I found to this app was that you cannot go back in and edit your puppet show. In addition to this version of PuppetPals, I also found Bible Buddies. It is the same format as Puppet Pals but uses Bible characters.

iPad Disciplines

• Languages Arts:

For language arts, I previewed, and later purchased at home on my personal iPad, Auracle.  I liked several features about this app.  I liked the fact that you could preview the stories before committing to buy them.  One thing I have found with purchasing books online is that many times, we get the story and there is something in its content that I prefer my kids not read or the title catches our attention but the story is not so exciting.  It is nice to get to try the book first. This is not a feature found in all story apps.  Next, I like the three reading options. The books can be read traditionally-you read the book, or you the iPad will read the book to you.  There are two options with having the book read.  One option is that the child can turn the pages at their own pace.  Sometimes, after reading a page, it is nice to be able to ponder the picture.  However, for kids that are not quite ready to be in charge of turning the pages on their own, you can choose the autoplay option and the book pages will automatically turn after being read.  

• Mathematics:

I previewed the Math Drill's app for mathematics.  In elementary school, I think it is important to lay a good foundation for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Just as I mentioned in the write-up for the spelling app, I think an iPad app for something that used to just be a pencil and paper activity, or classroom drills on a chalkboard, just makes the learning process more fun!  This app is simply old fashion math drills. It even looks like chalk on a chalkboard.  If you miss an answer, it gives you the opportunity to go back and correct it, showing what you had put previously.  I also liked the aspect of familiarizing students with using a number pad, as they have to enter their answer on the number pad and then press the enter symbol.  I have a testimonial from a 7-year-old boy that this app is a good way to learn math and is better than the math papers he had to do in class.  I could see this app being used in a learning center.  It is a good activity that could be done independently.  And...I have learned through observation that sometimes you may learn your user knows a lot more than you thought they did!!  In this way, it can help you to know when your student is ready to move on to something else. 

• Social Studies:

I previewed Stack the States (I know it said not available for summer 2013, but I looked it up on my own iPad).   This app was a fun way for kids to learn the placement of states and facts about the states.  Again, this app provides a fun way to learn these facts.  I like the way they animated the states to make them look fun.  However, as I use this app, I see that it might not be most appropriate for lower elementary students.  Students need to have a knowledge of state capitals and basic state information in order to play this game. They also need to have the ability to read the questions if they are going to play independently.  

I also did some experimenting with Google Maps.  I know we had a presentation regarding this app in class, so I will not re-write what we have already heard, but I did install it on my iPad and have had many conversations with my children about the world map thanks to this app. 

• Conclusion:

It dawns on me, as I look at so many of these apps that help students learn independently, how effective iPads can be for learning centers.  I know from the limited amount of substitute teaching I have done that one teacher in a classroom is many times pulled from group to group and learning centers are not always as effective as they might be. Providing an activity that you know is a core education standard to be done in centers can really help enhance the learning process.  

Apple versus Microsoft Applications and a few other things....

Apple's Pages, Keynote and Numbers all function very similar to Microsoft's Word, PowerPoint and Excel.  In fact, not having used the Apple applications prior to this assignment, it was hard to point out too many differences in the programs just based on the tutorials.  I did notice that Apple's programs seem to be very intuitive.  This is not a new realization, as I have always found Apple products to be easy to use.  However, I would say that in some cases, you might have to figure out what the icon is representing before realizing it is intuitive.  For example, I might not have thought the paint brush icon on Pages to be where I would find the editing tools.  However, when I stop and give it a little bit of thought, it does make sense.

I do not feel I can adequately speak to any one Apple versus Microsoft application to completion.  However, there are some differences I can point out just by simple observation.  For example, the use of the mouse is not required for iPad applications.  It is nice not to have a peripheral device to keep track of.  Moving pages around and manipulating the menus is easy to do.

In Pages, it appeared to be easy to insert and crop images into a document.  While this is not a difficult task in Word, the ability to just grab the picture, squeeze it together with your hands to resize it or rotate it, seemed simple.   It is also a nice feature that Pages can be put into Google Drive.

For Keynote, there were a couple of features I found to be appealing.  Adding animation appeared to be an easy process and there were many animation options available. In fact, I know of one professor who prefers the options of Keynote (backgrounds, animation, colors, artwork) better than PowerPoint but still prefers to display the presentation in PowerPoint.  I also like the fact that you could use your iPhone as a remote when giving a Keynote presentation.  When looking at the iPhone remote, you could see any notes that you had added to the presentation as well as see each step in the animation chosen for the presentation, as opposed to just having the presentation view as your viewers have.

As for Box.com, I did sign up for an account.  I have experience using Dropbox, as I frequently use it with my transcription business to share large voice files.  I found Box.com to be very similar. An application such as this is a nice way to share either documents that are too large to e-mail, items that you want to remain confidential between you and the person whom you chose to share it, or working collaboratively.  When using the Box, you can edit documents and share them easily.  I know from personal experience that my mother-in-law and husband share a recipe folder.  As cooking is one of their hobbies, they can easily trade recipes and have them on-hand at all times without having to call each other to "get your recipe." Box.com is also available for mobile devices.

When comparing iBooks and Kindle apps, again, they are very similar in function.  However, in order to purchase something through your Kindle app, you do have to log on to Amazon and purchase your reading material there.  This differs from iBooks where you can simply purchase your item from the link which routes through iTunes. Both can be uploaded to the cloud.  I did notice on the tutorial that iBooks allows you to organize your books into customized folders in a very easily.  When researching if this could be done on Kindle, it did not appear there were options beyond organizing by title, author or recent date.

Lastly, Safari and Rover.  Rover is a cloud based streaming system.  It is an answer to Apple not using Adobe Flash.  Safari is a web browsing application used by Apple. One feature I was not aware of when using Safari was the ability to search a document for a particular word. If I am not mistaken, this is just a feature available for iPad.  This feature caught my attention as I can think of times when I have opened a webpage from a Google search looking for a particular phrase and have had to search for the one sentence I needed.

Overall, I think both Apple and Microsoft offer good productivity applications.  I wonder if part of people's preferences is based on what they learned to use first.

Tablets in Education

There is a lot of information about how schools have integrated technology into their classrooms and libraries.  It would appear that iPad is overall the favorite tablet. However, many people had good things to say about Nook and Kindle.

Nook has been successful in library settings. One particular librarian's experience was that she was able to personalize the e-book readings for students emotional, social, and academic needs.  This allowed these students to have their own personal library. The benefit to personalizing a students e-books is that you can capture either their interests to promote the love of reading, or you specialize their academic needs for research purposes.

One blog in particular discussed the struggles with paying for the e-books from Barnes and Noble.  Due to purchase order requirements by the school system, the school credit card was used to make the purchases and then the credit card information had to be removed from each device before passing them out to the students.  In order to purchase subsequent material, the information had to be re-entered and re-deleted. While this was not a problem for this librarian, it was an inconvenience.

Another topic discussed was the difficulty or resistance of some teachers to implement the technology in their classroom.  It appeared that the resistance was less significant for iPad users, as iPads are more usable in the classroom, having plug-in capability for a projector and increased apps selection over the competitors.

I found the blog suggesting 103 Interesting Ways to use iPads in the classroom to be very interesting.  Over time, I would like to explore many of these apps.  The apps suggested on this site benefit both students and teachers.  Some of the apps were designed to help teachers track student's progress, develop pin boards and even tutoring. I like the concept of making learning interactive, because it is one more avenue to being able to reach your students.

However, on an opposing note, some discussion centered around whether purchasing an iPad, or any other tablet, for students was beneficial because skills such as keyboarding still needed to be taught and spending money on tablets as opposed to a laptop was not advantageous.  The questions of how useful the iPad could be for applications requiring flash was raised as well.

I also found that users were happy with their Kindle uses, but the same concerns about integrating them into the classroom due to the lack of projection was raised.  It was also discussed that Kindle no longer allows for e-material to be put onto 6 devices using one account.  You must have an account per device, which can cause a bit of stress for administrators, especially those who originally bought this technology under the agreement that you could use this feature.

Some articles suggested that educators purchased Nooks or Kindle to integrate into their schools and once they were able to overcome that hurdle, the desire for more uses of technology grew.  They then had to reevaluate options and procedures used with their technology and in some cases, they moved to a new tablet option.

My personal conclusion after reading through this material is that if you are going to invest the time and money into purchasing a tablet, it only makes sense to go with the tablet (iPad in my opinion) that has the most applications so that even if your primary purpose is only for library use, you have a technology that can be expanded as you are ready to use it for more things.  I think in the long-run, while the initial cost is higher, it will spark the most interest in the technology and will also be more usable to a wide range of people.

Overall, it seemed that while the educators who purchased the respective tablets were happy with their purchases, they still were not confident that that was "The" tablet to buy.  Through reading the articles, I still felt like the question remained, "which is the best?" A question that will probably continue to be asked as schools begin to integrated technology into their institutions.

Tablets

TECH

With the amount of tablets on the market today, it is very difficult to decide which tablet will best fit your needs. I think the foundation of deciding which tablet is best for you lies in your personal needs.  A tablet that is sufficient for me, may not be for someone else.   For instance, I have a Kindle Fire.  For my needs, that has been sufficient...until I began the Educational Technology class!  I have found that some of the features of an iPad better fit the classroom needs.  For example, our book's website suggest apps that could be used in the classroom for various ages.  I tried to load these apps for my children to use but they were not available for the Kindle. This is not an isolated incidence.  I have run across several educational app suggestions that have not been supported by the Kindle technology, (i.e. e-storia). 

Through research, here is what I have found regarding the tablets on the market:

Microsoft Surface:

• ·      Microsoft Surface is a hybrid, tablet and laptop. If use with Microsoft Office is the dominant concern, Microsoft Surface tablet with Windows 8 is the clear choice. 
• ·      That said, the other tablet options do have software comparable to the features of Microsoft Office.
• ·      When looking for a tablet, Office features are often not the primary concern. Many people looking at tablets are concerned with apps. The Windows Store still is being developed and does not yet appear to have a large base of apps and what they do have are largely games due to the connection to the Xbox.  
• It should also be noted that the Surface is noted to be a bit larger and heavier. 

Apple:

• ·      Holds an advantage in books, as it provides access to iBooks, Kindle, Nook and Google Play.
• ·      When looking at Movies/TV/Video and Music, Apple continues to have a strong advantage. Apple downloads this material so it is available for use with or without a WiFi or cellular connection.  However, the same is true of Androids due to their use of Amazon.
• ·      Apple has a long relationship with schools, medical facilities and arts and therefore can be expected to have a stronger advantage in relevant apps for education.
• ·      Apple does not use Flash player, which is used provide a way to efficiently deliver large video and interactive files. Apple uses HTML5, which can be converted to Flash in some cases.   Some consider this to be Apple’s greatest weakness.

Andriod:

• ·      When looking at Movies/TV/Video and Music, Amazon gives androids a good advantage.  However, the same is true of Apple. On the other hand,  Android streams purchased material, rather than downloads it, and this might be a consideration if WiFi is not an option or no cellular connection is established.
• ·      Apps use different, “real estate,” offering varying versions of apps. Amazon has a strong app base but if considering android use for schools, only about 10% of apps are educational.

In regard to connectivity, it should be considered that Barnes and Noble (Nook) and Microsoft (Surface) do not offer cellular connectivity options. When considering connectivity needs, the availability of WiFi as well as the upcharge cost of cellular connectivity should be considered. In most school setting, I would think WiFi connectivity would be sufficient.

An additional piece of information necessary in researching what is available for a particular device is that Kindle solely uses apps, movies, books, etc, sold by Amazon.  Nooks apps are sold by Barnes and Noble.  Nexus uses Google and some Amazon apps.  Apple uses iTunes and Amazon apps.

When considering cost, Android technology is considerably less up front but when comparing to the app options, I do not think it is an adequate choice for school use.

I personally also favor the larger size of the iPad.  For longer periods of use, I think a larger screen is advantageous.  I also think that in a school setting, the larger screen size can decrease issues such as cheating, as discussed in class this past week.

When considering using tablets in a school setting, I think it is noteworthy that Apple has a long history of relationships with schools.  Nowhere else in the literature did I find that any of the other tablet makers have purposed to include schools in their product’s development. Also, the way in which Apple has developed their software as a closed operating system is also a positive for Apple.  When looking at putting a system in place in a school, a system with the least likelihood for potential crashes, etc, is preferable.  Another thing I noted in my research was that other tablets were trying to “compare to” or “match” what Apple was doing. Therefore, my recommendation would have to be for Apple products to be the tablet of choice. 

The first night of class

TECH Assignment:

To be honest, I have been a little slow at learning some of the technological advances of our age.  We did not grow up with a computer in our house, as most children do today.  I was in high school before we bought a computer and it was a dinosaur, with only very basic processing applications. Therefore, it has taken some time to build my confidence for jumping in and trying new things on a computer. However, as the technology age is always evolving, so is our use and reliance on technology such as computers, tablets and smart phones.  Even my three year-old knows how to work these electronics!

I have basic knowledge of both Microsoft and Mac operating systems. For many years, due to cost, I worked on a Window's operating system.  I was vaguely familiar with Mac's as my husband worked in the journalism industry where Macintosh was the industry standard.  It was not until about three years ago that I got my personal Mac. This came about because of its ability to have a remote backup system. After a couple crashes of my Window's based programs, and the loss of a lot of very valuable work data, we made the switch to all Apple products.

I found working on a Mac very easy.  There were many similarities for what I used a computer for.  However, the ability to have a time machine backup system that was not associated with a monthly fee and the ability to move my information easily from Mac to Mac was amazing.  (The time did come when I had to upgrade from a Mac mini to something with more memory and a faster processor.)  Due to the fact that my husband worked on a Mac, we were able to share files easier.  I also enjoy the iphoto and imovie applications.  Editing tasks are much easier with this technology.   The only negative that I have to report is that not all programs are available for Mac.  For example, I do transcription work.  Because one of the formats that some of the doctors use is not supported in the Mac version of my transcription software, I had to install a partition on my computer and run a virtual PC for these program  files.  However, I do understand the reason not all software is available for Mac is because it is not cost effective for software developers to develop the software for for Mac since three is not enough demand amongst Mac users for the software. In my case, this is a bitter-sweet.

I also explored a few of the keyboarding sites online.  I was not aware that programs existed to track and report student's typing progress.  This has come a long ways since the days of typing class where you sat at a typewriter and then hand counted your mistakes.  I found this to be a very interesting option that could be easily incorporated into a classroom to help make students more efficient typists.