Two Interactive iPad Apps that Work!

I recently learned about two iPad Apps that allow you to get immediate feedback from your classes. They both work really really well.

Nearpod puts teachers in control of student iPads

1. Nearpod allows the teacher to control what students see on their iPad. Teachers can upload any PDF file and Nearpod separates each page into a slide. Students sign into a "room" and the teacher takes control of the slides that each student sees. If that wasn't cool enough, Nearpod also allows you to intersperse different types of interactive questions throughout the presentation to check for understanding. I tried this recently with a grammar lesson and it was great. I was able to see who was getting the concepts and who wasn't immediately.

Space Race on Socrative

2. Socrative allows the teacher to create interactive quizes which students answer on their iPads. Students can see immediately if they are right or wrong. You can also show a graph of the answers after students have responded and use that to spur discussion about the topic. Socrative will send you data from the session in an excel file with each student's response. The other fun feature is the Space Race which puts students in competition to answer questions first and win the race.

Both of these Apps are free, Nearpod allows you pay to upgrade for more features such as large response groups and the ability have more students in a session, store more slideshows and share them with others.

iPad Ideas for Sept 19, 2012

• Google Tasks for iPad (and iPhone) - If you use the Task function in your Gmail, you can use this link to access your tasks on the iPad. You can use the directions below to add a direct link to your tasks on your iPad.
  
• Add an Icon with a Link to any Web Page to your Home Screen - If there is a link that you access a lot, you can add an icon on your home screen that will take you directly there. It will look just like an App.

1. Open Safari and go to the Website. Click on the icon at the top of the page and choose "Add to Home Screen."

 

2. Name the Link and Click "Add."

3. You will now see an icon with a link to the website on your homescreen.

Edcamp Boston Revelations and Reflections

Thanks to Lillie Marshall for this great Picture!

Yesterday I was privileged to help organize, along with Dan Callahan, Laura D'elia, Tracy Sokalosky and Karen Janowski,  the second annual edCamp Boston. It was a great day! We had a record attendance of over 200 educators and, by all accounts, it was a great success. Here are some of the things I took away with me.

About Edcamps:
This is my second time organizing edcamp Boston, but over the last few years I have organized 5 other unconferences. What strikes me the most about organizing these events is how easy it is to do. The sponsorship and food parts take work, but other than that, you build a schedule and the participants do the work. Really! I know many of us say this, but it really is true. Once the conference gets going, there isn't much that we have to do.

Glenn and Matt teach us about Edmodo

My favorite example of this was the Edmodo session yesterday where the presenter didn't show up. Everyone in the room looked at me. I am an organizer and I got to rock the awesome red organizer shirt, but I don't know anything about Edmodo. So I did what we edcamp organizers do best, I turned the question back to the room. Does anyone here know something about Edmodo. And two wonderful participants stepped up, Glenn Blakely and Matt Cronin,  and did a great job of explaining this tool. Which by the way I'm going to try with my 7th graders tomorrow.

I also discovered a new way to learn at an unconference. Rather than posting a session about something I know about and want to share, I posted sessions about something I want to learn about and discuss. I turned edcampBoston into edcampLiz. Fortunately for me, there were lots of smart folks there who could teach me what I wanted to learn.

Which right now is about iPads. If you have been reading my blog, you know that I am pretty obsessed with iPads right now. I want to thank everyone at the conference who helped push my learning and thinking on this topic. Here is what I came away with.

About iPads and...

Professional Development: 

I got a lot of suggestions about how to roll iPads out to my faculty. My favorite suggestion came from Sarah Edson. She suggested assigning my faculty some games to play on the iPad. I love the idea. I think I'm going to ask folks to sign up for either Words with Friends or, my new obsession, Draw Something. We will share our usernames and I will encourage folks to play at least one game with one other colleague over the summer. Not only will this teach iPad skills, but it is a good team building and connecting tool as well.

Apps:
I got some great App suggestions yesterday. By far my favorite is Reflection, a Mac App which acts like an Apple TV, allowing you to mirror your iPad on your laptop. You can try it for free for 20 minutes, or pay 14.00 to use it. I followed up about a site license and they offered me 60 licenses at $8 each. That is a lot cheaper than an Apple TV and it works (We have been having difficulty getting the Apple TV to work at my school.)!

Another great suggestion is the website, iPad as... put together by Tom Daccord and his edtechteacher team. They have compiled a list of Apps based on learning goals. Each App has a nice description. A wonderful resource for tools.

Other Apps I walked away with include Zite, a tool for aggregating all of your news feeds into categories, Pocket, a tool for saving websites to read later, and Logmein, a free tool to use your iPad as a wireless remote for your laptop.

Finally, and thanks if you are still reading this far into my post, I created an iPad Google Group to continue the conversation. If you are interested in discussing iPads, please join and share your thoughts and questions.

And of course I welcome your comments here. If you have rolled out iPads to your faculty and students, I would love to hear your suggestions on what are some good approaches for doing this.
Thanks in adavance!