5 Favorite iPad Apps.....at least for right now

5 iPad apps identified for review

      Part of using an iPad involves hearing about new apps and trying them out.  And as a user, I'm really attentive to two categories of apps: those that are personally interesting to me, and those that I'm evaluating for school use. This means that for me at least, my iPad usage is constantly evolving.  

     I'd like to use this post to highlight five iPad apps that have captured my attention.  Though one might be categorized as an "educational" app, all five are compelling because they work well and I find them useful.
     The first is an app called Living Earth.  There's nothing especially fancy about what it does.  It's essentially a clock with a timer and a graphic of an earth spinning in space.  But you can speed up and slow down the earth, get a satellite view of clouds and weather and set the globe to your current location.  The graphics are excellent.  It can serve as an alarm clock, and can wake you to your music library. It cost me $1.00.

      

     Another app that I like is HBO GO. 

      

     In order to use this app, you'll need a television subscription to HBO.  With your HBO subscription, HBO GO allows you to stream HBO content - movies, television shows, specials, documentaries - directly to your iPad. It's searchable, so if I'm looking to see that documentary about MacDonald's getting sued over a cup of coffee that was too hot, I can search it and watch it directly on my iPad.

It's a bit hard to see, but under the H category, the last listing is Hot Coffee, the target of the search.

 Remote is an app I use daily, and it continues to amaze me a bit.  The app is a utility, working with another system to make it work better.  In my house, I have an iTunes library of music that I can wirelessly stream to sets of stereo speakers in my living room and kitchen.  With the Remote app, I can control iTunes settings, such as music selection and volume, from my iPad. this means that I can start to play music from iTunes on my computer, but then I can have the iPad in any room and change music selections and settings.  It's a remote control for my stereo system. It works perfectly.  The same app can be put on an iPhone or an Android phone. 

 Here's my iTunes library as seen on the Remote app

     Art Authority  is an art museum app.  I first got this app when I was reading a book that made frequent reference to works of art.  Rather than ignoring my ignorance or constantly getting up to find information about an art piece, I downloaded this app and had an instant reference source available.  Since then, I've used this app to learn more about art and artists from different eras and from varying locales.  The graphics are very good, and the information finds the preferred middle ground between "too superficial" and TMI.  Current price: $5.00.  

The romanticism section includes these "galleries:" American, German, English and French and an Overview section.

       Zite is one of my favorite apps, at least for now. It's a fully customizable magazine in which you select topics of interest to you. For any topic - some of mine are Architecture, Music News and Commentary, Arts & Culture, Technology, College Basketball - Zite culls print and online sources for articles of interest.  From years back, you might remember Utne Reader. It's similar in its eclecticism and general quality of selected articles. I always find something of interest in reviewing Zite's daily updates.  

Zite allows you to choose your magazine's sections from a menu, or add your own sections.

The home page of my Arts and Culture section. Each article headline is a link to the full article. Each section will contain about 20 articles culled from a variety of sources.

     Every iPad user could create a list of favorite apps. And lists will change over time as needs change and new apps are developed.  But for right now, the apps above have captured my attention.
    
     PS: Five more iPad apps for the Honorable Mention list: Gameface, Scrabble, Wired Magazine, NY Times, Stack the States. 

Technology's role in Facilitating Collaborative Learning

     Over this last week-end, I read with interest a story in the New York Times.  Published on 1/16/2112, the story is titled "Split by Race and Wealth, But Discovering Similarities as They Study Steinbeck." The article describes an 8th grade project that has classes in two neighboring schools - one in Plainfield and the other in Westfield - reading John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

     The story caught my attention for a couple of reasons.  I went to elementary school in Plainfield, so there was a personal connection to the locale.  It was definitely a long time ago, but still, it's hard not to pay extra attention when reminded of old haunts.  More significantly, I also was interested to see how technology was being applied to this collaborative learning project.

     The Times article describes two middle school classes, one in the more tony Westfield and the other in the economically-challenged Plainfield, following a parallel curriculum in the reading of Steinbeck's novel.  The classes read the book on the same schedule though in-class conversations differ.  The article points out that teachers with their students will focus on characters and plot developments that resonate in their respective lives.

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Eleanor Hemphill, in back, talking about the novel at Cedarbrook K-8 Center in Plainfield, N.J.

     Though this jointly read book project will culminate in visits to each others' schools, the Times article points out that along the way questions and insights were shared by students via Wikispaces and Skype.  Unmentioned, though likely true, is that students at the schools connected via Facebook as well. Technology has a unique ability to facilitate collaborative learning because so many of the traditional barriers (e.g.: cost, convenience, asynchronous schedules) to distance collaborative learning are eliminated.  But it's interesting to see that applied technologies are not the center of the article.  In fact, they barely warrant a passing mention.  It's a sign of how much social media sites and other technology tools have become part of the way people collaborate.

Matthew Kalafat discussing “Of Mice and Men” at an intermediate school in Westfield, N.J.

       The Times piece clearly shows that this project was created with specific goals in mind.  Yes, students would be reading Of Mice and Men  to become familiar with a classic American work.  But as one of teachers states, “If you become experts in Steinbeck, beautiful, but that’s not my goal,” Matthew Kalafat, a Westfield teacher, told his class of 13 students — 11 white, 2 Asian — holding well-thumbed hardcover books in first period the other day. “This is just a tool to get us to understand our world.”

     The article strongly suggests the students are learning more about their world.  Technology in the form of Wikispaces and Skype, and perhaps in the form of Facebook and an e-reader, is helping teachers and students to reach goals.  And that's the true promise of technology in schools; it's a set of increasingly powerful tools that can help teachers and students reach learning goals.

(Note: Pictures and captions from NY Times "Split by Race and Wealth, But Discovering Similarities as They Study Steinbeck" 1/16/2012)

 

2012 - Happy New Year!  

   During our winter break, the latest issue of the GSB Alumni Magazine arrived and the lead article concerned technology use at Gill St. Bernard's School.  Kathie Andersen's article was very helpful, because our campus layout does not lend itself to a widespread understanding of all that goes on in each division.  But after reading the article, it was hard not to be impressed with the many and varied initiatives underway throughout our curriculum.  Teachers are finding ways to reinvent the classroom experience for students in ways that make sense.  Students are engaged as teachers challenge themselves to explore new approaches to teaching and learning.

   Beyond the classroom, much has also changed this past year in terms of our technology infrastructure. A new server array, an updated phone system and the extension of our wireless network throughout the campus are significant changes designed to create seamless network access.

   What lies ahead for this upcoming year? We will complete our Blackbaud integration project, a work-in-progress over this last year.  We have plans to begin to move towards a virtualized work environment for specific computer users.  This means that people may do their work at a work station utilizing the software and storage found exclusively on a server drive.  Work stations are environmentally friendly in several different ways, and should provide an improved computing experience for users.  We will continue to monitor our Internet pipeline and improve access as needed. And we'll explore cloud-based solutions for storage and software.  Whether it's Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365 or Dropbox or Box.net, the possibilities arrive at a fast and furious rate.

   What about devices used by teachers and students?  Tablets continue to be a device worth exploring.  We seem to be firmly in a more free market of hardware and software now, and it's unclear if the iPad is the obvious choice for school use.  The lack of Flash support coupled with the lack of USB inputs are serious drawbacks, in large part offset by a great App store and excellent product reliability.  Mobile phones are increasingly finding their way into schools as a learning tool.  GSB is moving cautiously on this front, but it seems clear to me that in the future, smartphones will be commonly used by teachers and students alike to facilitate learning.

   One of the ways technology can help promote learning is through data analysis.  Using computing power, it's possible to sift through and analyze amounts of information that, in an earlier age, could not have been examined.  Data analysis is done by many people and organizations, but perhaps Google is the most prominent practitioner.  No doubt, it helps to have the most visited search engine.  One of things Google has done over the last few years is to re-examine the past year's searches to offer a window on our world.  If you see what has been searched the most on Google over the last year, you get a sense of what we find compelling and important. So before we get too far into 2012, why not take about three minutes and review 2011 via Google and our collective searches.

(Interested in learning more about how Google tracks searches and then parses the data? 

Click here.

Dual-boot iMacs at GSB - Faculty Perspectives

Introduction

            This summer, we were able to fund a major overhaul of teacher desktop computers for Lower School (LS) and Middle School (MS) faculty.   The school decided to purchase iMacs for the teachers.  One of the main reasons for selecting iMac computers for teachers is that they support a dual boot.  That is, the computer can be brought online using the Windows or the Mac OS operating system.

            Because our servers are Windows based, configuring dual booted machines to interact with our school servers was a challenge. But after plenty of trial and error, these machines were brought online as expected.  Each operating system supports a full set of software. 

When started, these iMacs can be defaulted to boot to either the Mac OS side or the Windows side.  We chose the Windows side for two reasons.  1) We knew all users had familiarity with the Windows side and 2) On the Mac side, there was no access to network servers.  In other words, users could not save files to the H: drive from the Mac side.  As indicated, this is a function of the inability of the Mac OS to smoothly interact with our Windows servers.

            After waiting a reasonable amount of time in order to give all users a chance to get acquainted with their machines, I created a brief survey to ascertain usage.  24 faculty members, a mix of LS and MS classroom teachers, responded. Key results are indicated below.

 Currently, the machine default is to log in to the Windows side of your iMac. Would you prefer to log in to the Mac side?

                        Prefer to log-in to Windows: 13

                        Prefer to log-in to Mac: 3

                        No preference: 8

At this point in the school year, how often have you worked on the Mac side?

                        Less than 5 times: 23

                        6-10 times: 1

 

What program(s) on the Mac side do you find especially valuable?

Mentioned were iMovie, Keynote, Pages, iPhoto, Aperture, InDesign, and the  iWorks and iLife suites.  No program was mentioned more than twice.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would rate your experience with your iMac? (10 = best)

                        7.8 (mean score)

Additional comments were offered by many respondents.  In general, these comments pointed to a few frustrations. Server storage is not available on the Mac side.  There never seems to be adequate time to explore new software. Familiarity with Windows encourages further Windows use at the expense of Mac OS use.

            But respondents also were enthusiastic in their evaluation of the iMac as a desktop device.  The screen image and the smooth functionality were cited as advantages of these units.

Conclusion

Though our new iMacs have dual-boot capabilities, the first few months of implementation have seen the machines running largely on the Windows side.  There are a few reasons for the lack of use on the Mac side.  The inability of the Mac side to provide server storage prevents some users from using the Mac OS. Also, a greater familiarity with Windows-based software and system navigation encourages users to stay with what they know.  Files previously created in Windows software may not work with Mac software, and this also prevents greater exploration with the Mac system.

A natural next step is to begin a series of workshops that help LS and MS faculty explore Mac software.  Workshops will be scheduled after the holiday break.

           

iPads and Other Tablets – Views From Around Campus - Part II

     In my last posting, I reviewed some thoughts from fellow faculty members about the utility of iPads in the classroom.  The emphasis was on how tablets provide a new, useful technological tool to teachers and students alike.  Responses from all three divisions suggest that the iPad is a device worth considering for all age groups.

     In this posting, I’d like to continue to draw on teachers’ comments, this time emphasizing some drawbacks specific to iPads.  Again, keep in mind that my use of the word “iPad” signifies tablet use, and if you’re paying attention to advertising, you know there are many different tablets available.  Still, Apple iPads account for about 70% of sales.

     Joanna Hayes is managing a group of iPads for her 5^th and 6^th grade social studies classes.  Though an iPad can be a handy way to access the web-based content of her class text, there are difficulties as well.  As Joanna wrote, “It hasn’t been the smoothest transition. Many students have and carry tablets, at least by the 6^th grade, but typing notes on them is slow going.”  She also mentioned that “We had a lot of trouble using Google Docs and therefore do not have a great free Word processing or Presentation-creating app, so I will need to look into paid options (such as iMovie for video, image, and audio presentations).”  In other words, be ready to spend additional money to purchase the Pages, Numbers and Presentation apps, depending on your needs.

At $10 each, the cost of these basic productivity apps can add up, especially for classroom sets of iPads

     Word processing continues to be a challenge on an iPad virtual keyboard.  Though it’s a bit easier if the device is in landscape orientation, the keyboard is still small.  And the slightest errant brush against the glass results in unwanted characters.  Simply put, the iPad, out of the box, is not user friendly to anyone with serious word processing chores.

     There are solutions, however.  A Bluetoothed remote keyboard works well, and several manufacturers have created a combination case/keyboard.   

Pictured above: Apple's Bluetooth keyboard

     But of course this solution involves an extra expense. As of this writing, one of the more interesting solutions is offered by the ASUS EeePad Transformer.  My guess is that manufacturers will continue to explore ways to merge the advantages of tablets with the productivity needs of users.

This Asus unit can work alone as a tablet or dock into a keyboard

     Stacy Scudder offered some thoughts as well.  She’s had frustrations with iPads when students assume they can be used interchangeably with computers to complete assigned work.  As Stacy mentioned, “I spent quite some time this summer developing webquests and searching for interactive sites.  I did most of my searching from my iPad2 and was frequently blocked by my inability to use Flash. I often preface the explanation of my web-based homework assignments by saying be forewarned that this WILL NOT work on an iPad.  You will have to use a desktop/tablet device or sign-up for computer lab after school."

     Honing in on the iPad, Stacy also mentioned the lack of a USB drive.  I would add that the iPad lacks other potentially useful inputs such as a mini SD card or HDMI port.  Apple seems determined to make the iPad a stand-alone device that connects to content only two ways: via a direct connection to a computer-based iTunes account or through iCloud.  This approach frustrates many users.

     Other difficulties have surfaced in working through the management of class sets of devices.  They need to be charged.  App downloads require accounts.  And sharing a device really meant for personal use is not always easy.  In short, along with the benefits of iPad use come some hurdles to overcome.

     Faculty and students at GSB are using tablets.  After this holiday season, according to numerous retail predictions, tablets will have an increased presence on campus.  Their mobility in combination with strong functionality make them a useful technology tool.  It’s hard to argue tablets outperform computers, but maybe that’s not the point.  Rather, as with any technology, the question should always be: “Is it the best tool for the job?”

     And just to be fair to some of the rival tablets on the market, click on a product below (or go to the Asus EEE Pad link above) to find out more:  Sony Tablet, Samsung Galaxy, Toshiba Thrive,  and the Lenovo IdeaPad.

iPads and Other Tablets - Views From Around Campus

     First, I’ll start with a disclaimer.  I’m using the term iPad as a substitute for tablet.  I know there are other tablets in use, but iPads still command the market and the word iPad has quickly become synonymous with tablet.

     Not long ago, I sent an email asking how teachers were using iPads.  My query asked for feedback about how iPads were being used to help prepare lessons and implement curricula in the classroom.  Seven responded, representing all three divisions. I’d like to draw liberally from these responses to remind all of us that iPads represent a technology tool that may be of use to many teachers.

     Jill Fedon owns an iPad and manages a small group of iPads that are used by lower school teachers.  Jill mentioned several uses for her iPad.  She can use her iPad as a mobile assessment tool as she walks around her classroom.  She finds it handy for playing music or videos.  It’s a tool to share an interactive story with students.  The timer app is useful in a timed activity.  She can record voice memos as a memory aid.  Finally, she’s had students use an app version of a website to review and/or catch up when the website itself was down.  

     Another teacher who is both an iPad user and manager is Joanna Hayes.  Joanna states “The best use of the iPads has been in using Safari to call up our digital textbook or various news outlets for current events.”  The use of a digital textbook in class demands strong internet access, and the iPad is a useful tool.

     Megan Summers is teaching AP Microeconomics this year.  She’s found one app to be an invaluable learning tool.  As Megan wrote, “Bloomberg Businessweek+ app is GREAT and has been awesome for my own prep in AP Micro, as well as the kids who subscribe to it and read it just for fun.  It is $2.99 a month for the weekly iPad magazine, and it is beautifully constructed to integrate intuitively with the device.” 

    One of the responses to my email query came from Tony Bednarsky.  He wrote that “many middle school students bring iPads to class for note taking and quick referencing.”  I also know that Tony owns an iPad and uses it daily.  Tony shares a classroom so in those periods when the room is used, Tony can take his iPad to a quiet space and access email, etc.  The iPad’s mobility serves him well.

     Anne Wilson is one of the lower school teachers taking advantage of the lending program.  As she wrote, “I used the iPad the past 2 weeks in my classroom as a one-on-one to help those who need extra practice with math, reading sight words, spelling.  I also used it to differentiate, using it to challenge students with math and reading skills.  My Math App and Math Board are two good math apps; Bluster, Sight…Touch and Sight Words (spelling) are good reading apps.  Shake the States is a favorite, as first graders love geography! 

     Finally, Jane Kunzman talked about iPads in art.  She spoke about the middle school student who has been bringing his iPad to class to display his art journal homework to the class.  As reported by Jane, clearly this student got a kick out of his own presentation.  Jane is hopeful to see more artwork sharing using iPads.  The device’s mobility and clarity make it well-suited to this purpose.

     I’ve found my iPad handy in two very specific ways.  I’m constantly updating our department’s inventory, and the iPad is a perfect device for this purpose.  With a spreadsheet displayed, I can walk from building to building to update information with little effort.  It is the iPad’s mobility and functionality that make it the right tool for this job.  Also, I’ve found more and more that if there’s a document I’d like to read, I can save it as a .pdf and read it when I have a spare minute.  It’s a capable portable reader that integrates seamlessly with my email accounts and with the web.  And like Anne’s first grader, I too enjoy Shake the States.

     Personally, I’m not yet convinced that a comprehensive “iPad in the Classroom” program would be the best use of our technological resources.  These resources include money to buy and manage the devices, time to review available apps and commitment to learn how to use iPads effectively as a teaching tool.  And whichever your chosen tablet, there always seems to be a combination of strengths and drawbacks.  So next posting, I’ll continue to draw comments from our colleagues to examine how and why iPads may not yet ready for wholesale adoption.

     To conclude, I offer this link to the single site I've found to offer the richest content for "all things iPad."  iPads in Schools