At school I am running an app design project for my year 7 students. Unlike many lessons they have experienced in their previous school life, there is very little teaching from the teacher, I am mostly there as a facilitator. I am of course there to help when necessary but my aim is to get students learning more independently. They must teach themselves using videos I have produced for them.
You can watch the videos below:
If you are looking for an alternative to Explain Everything you should check out Animoby.
Its free on the Apple App Store as well as Google Play. It has some great features and what I like the most is the UI, it is very user friendly.
Create quality presentations using VOICE and a variety of design tools (draw, paint, type, image), and publish or share via e-mail. Animations are created when users pick a tool and simply touch the screen, and voice can accompany designs by the press of the record button. Unlike other apps that create presentions, Animoby’s sharing process is simplified due to compact file sizes it uses.
I have also been impressed with the some of the editing options for things like images. All in all a great app and well worth downloading.
The videos below were created as part of our iPad trial and were used to help support and train members of staff. They are a little old now but they are still relevant.
If you need to offer staff training at your school or ideas how iPads can be used for teaching and learning head over to www.realiselearning.co.uk.
AppShed tutorials 1-4 can be found here.
AppShed Basics Pt 5: RSS and Twitter Feeds
AppShed Basics Pt 6: Adding a Gallery
AppShed Basics Pt 7: Other Features and Extensions
AppShed Basics Pt 8: Sharing and Installing Your Apps
Over the past few months, myself and our Librarian, Helen Cleaves have been working on some augmented reality (AR) displays.
The idea was for students to create a movie trailer for their favourite books. They could use any device they wanted to. Most students used the school iPads and the movie trailer feature on iMovie.
Once the trailers were finished, a poster was made with images of the featured books. Using Aurasma Studio we then created a ‘Aura’ for each book.
Students and teachers can now download the Aurasma App and watch the movie trailer by pointing their smartphone/tablet camera at the book cover.
The AR even works on the actual book covers and not just the ones on the poster.
Our students have loved it. They can now interact with the display which they have found really fun. It also gives them a great idea about what each of the books are about in a engaging and visual way.
We are now working on displays for other departments.
The video is not fantastic, but it will give you an idea of what we have been doing.
iPad
(UPDATE: Read the final report and evaluation)
We are currently running an iPad trial at school and investigating their effectiveness for teaching and learning.
In order to fully understand the impact of these devices it is important to evaluate their use.
I created two evaluations. One for students to fill out once and one for teachers to fill out. These were created in Google Forms and a short cut was added to the iPad to make it easier for students to access.
It was important to me that the evaluations were short to encourage staff and students to fill them out.
Once the evaluation period is over, I will use the evaluations to help formulate a report.
The PDF evaluations are below:
The great thing about Google Forms is that it is free, plus it gives you a great summary of results with a selection of graphs.
I will admit that this is not the most exciting video I have ever posted! However, it does give you an idea how the iTunes U Course Manager works and how easy it is.
It is probably not a good idea to make a video when you need sleep. Oh well…enjoy!
Students watching a video
Today I tried out the NearPod App in a PSHE lesson.
I have pretty excited about this for a while and I have finally got around to testing it in the classroom.
For those who don’t know what NearPod is – check out this link.
So before the lesson I created my PowerPoint, converted it to PDF, uploaded it to NearPod and added the interactive elements (polls, quizzes and video). I had enough iPads for each student in class, which was perfect. However, this morning I was asked if I could have another class in my room with me. I only teach PSHE in half classes, but the added students meant I would have one iPad between two. It turns out, this wasn’t a massive problem, although less than ideal.
Once the students came in, I handed out the iPads and explained what would happen in the lesson. The topic I am working on at the moment is the death penalty. NearPod allows you to send a presentation directly to the students iPads.
NearPod was great and the ability to guide students through the presentation, while walking around the classroom was excellent. Of course the power comes from the interactive elements of the presentation. I was able to ask the students if they agreed with the death penalty by sending a poll to their iPads. The results came to my device and I was able to share the overall results with the students at the push of a button.
We then looked at why people do/don’t agree with the death penalty. Once we had done that and had a clash discussion, I then sent a quiz to their iPads. Again, I could share the overall results with each studemt. However, the students can see their own individual results on their iPads.
The ability to do this is great for AFL. You can also export the results and keep them on record.
Finally, I had embedded a video in the presentation.
I shared the video to their iPads. Every student was able to watch the video, on their iPads, at the same time. Excellent!
Apart from a few issues with WiFi on a couple of the iPads, NearPod worked perfectly. The students were engaged and really enjoyed using it. I can really see how great this is for teaching and learning.
The Biology department plan to use NearPod in lessons after half term. I’m looking forward to seeing how they get on.
I will post a video of a NearPod presentation soon, so those who have not seen it can see it in action.
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