Tuesday, 20 March 2012

IMovie tutorial for the iPad 2




This is the link if you'd rather watch the video full screen.

This is a great tutorial for using the iPad. I suggest you watch the video on your computer and use the iPad to try out the bits and pieces. It is quite detailed but looks of good info.

Saturday, 17 March 2012

imovie app

My class recently used imovie to make a movie about bullying.  They used the iPad to film and take pictures and we are ready to edit it this week.  Lois also came into the classroom with her LCD adapter (which is wonderful and I want one!) so that we could show the students all at once what we had so far and what we need to work on next. 

Some problems we ran into: 1) Ruth Betts doesn't have an LCD adapter for the iPad 2) Ruth Betts only has ONE LCD that has the proper hookups for the adapter 3)The students will need to speak much louder to be heard in the movie so we may have to go back and put their voices in after.

Since we only have a week until Spring Break we will be working hard to finish this movie! I only get the iPad until then so it has to be finished because a new class will get the iPad and it could get accidently erased.  I'll post it when I figure out how to do that.  Any tips would be appreciated! -Kali

Instagram

The Instagram app has a new update, which means that you can now e-mail your pictures.  I am happy about this because I was sending them to Facebook, then saving them from there to my computer, and then adding them to my blog.  -Kali

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

iPad picture sharing frustration

I have been trying to use the iPad for blogging in my classroom, and my students take advantage of every opportunity to use the iPad everyday, so I am very frustrated that uploading pictures to the blog is so difficult. 

I can't upload pictures taken with the iPad to the blog, or through Hotmail, or even through Facebook. I'm not sure why this is. 

What I had to do was use the app "Instagram" and go through the pictures I had taken on the iPad and then share them either through Hotmail or Facebook, open them on my computer, and then save them to my computer.  After I had done that I uploaded them to the blog, but not using the iPad. 

Has anyone else figured out how to upload pictures on the iPad? 
-Kali

Monday, 27 February 2012

BYTE

Dang it!  While I was busy enriching my mind, watching the Oscars, Lois and Christine were stealing all my ideas and writing them down on this blog before I had the chance leaving me with less to write about.  Wait a minute that’s okay  according to the keynote speaker, Joan Badger, who based her inspirational talk on this guy, Austin Kleon.



Frankly, this was one of the better PD sessions I have been at, and by better I mean that I came away with ideas to share from every session to use in my own classroom as well as with colleagues. 
 
My first session led me to the website www.blurb.com, which okay seems to be a more useful resource for publishing a printed book for the iPad or iPhone.  Are there other options?  Yeah, Mixbook, Picaboo, Photoipress, Shutterfly, My Publisher, Smilebox  etc.  etc. etc.  The big difference between this site and others is that you can use free bookmaking software to work offline and when your book is ready, you can upload to Blurb’s site and purchase a hard copy.   It can also be made public to read online.   Don’t worry Mr. Macbook this works on both mac and PC.  It is also really easy to navigate through because you can go to the dropdown menu to find training videos.   The final product is a professional looking book, which will impress everyone, even your dog.

During my second session I was a pop star!  Okay maybe not quite a pop star, but  I was photographed with three other participants by all that attended the class and then the instructor showed all the ways you can alter photos with different iPad apps.   (Photosynth, Dynamic Light, Pizel works and Effects Cam) I was disappointed it did not make me thinner, however it was helpful in that the photographs can be altered to make people think you are a professional photographer!  It really went along well with the first session I attended and gave me ideas that I could use in the classroom. 

My third session was about a girl who lost her memory after a car accident and …. wait a minute that was the movie I went to on Saturday night (one of the perks of being in the city).  It was about using the iPad in the classroom.  Although it was not what I expected since the focus was for resource/speech teachers using the iPad with specific students.  Christine already wrote about it in her blog and probably addressed it much better than I, so read on!

My last session was with the Mimio.  The instructor, Catherine Strifling was incredible.  She uses her mimio all day long in the classroom and was able to give us some great tips on organizing the classroom and files for the mimio. One great tip was to visit the staff development page under Lesson Plans and Activities for ideas and resources.  You can find her listed here  http://www.mimioconnect.com/users/cstrifling .  All in all, it was a great day and I am already looking forward to next years BYTE conference.


Sunday, 26 February 2012

I took a "Byte" out of technology too!!!!

Like Lois I attended the BYTE Conference in Portage La Prairie.  My highlight....... seeing my Maid of Honor from my wedding at the conference, there is nothing like seeing old friends!!!!!  But on a techie note, my  ah ha moment/idea was listening to how teachers pin point 4 or 5 specific goals from a child's IEP, choose 5 or 6 specific apps to target only those goals, and share the ipad among funded students to meet these IEP goals.  (We could make a good/working  plan with the ideas I learned there).

Like Lois, I attended 4 different sessions.

Session 1:  My school got an Ipad, now what?

I had great hopes for this session.  I thought it would address the issues of sharing the ipads, apple id's, using only a few ipads with many students....... all the things we are struggling with.  Unfortunately, it addressed none of those.  In my opinion it was advertised wrong.  It was a GREAT session for resource/speech people.  It walked us through 8 student's Ipad plans and the the apps targeted to meet their IEP goals.  It previewed some awesome apps and gave me my ah ha moments, but it was not what I was expecting.  I have tons of great apps to share from this session, mostly geared at primary or special needs students, many are pricey but come highly recommended.   I'll attempt to post the list at another time or on my teacher blog.

Session 2:  Digital Art resources for the classroom

This session was alright if you are not familiar with some of the great online art resources or if you are not familiar with wikis.  Unfortunately for me, I am extremely familiar with both.  I did get a link for an art wiki created by PCI's art teacher.  Her hope is to create a Made in Manitoba sharing site for great art ideas and a gallery of student work.  Here is that wiki link:  Art Wiki    Feel free to check it out as it is a public wiki.  I did "wow" the instructor a bit with my art wiki page and she is going to link my page to her wiki, so that was a bit of a bucket filling moment for me!!!!!

Session 3:  Apps For Special Needs

This session was GREAT!  The presenter worked for the Open Access Resource Center in Winnipeg.  She had come LOADED with a presentation full of apps and accessories to help special needs children, particularly those with Autism.  I have previewed some of the accessories and links to the accessories, particularly the cases on my own blog .  I also linked to a great video using the app proloquo2go.  Many of the apps from this session were tried and true apps, some are quite pricey, but I walked away with more than one good idea.

Session 4:  Apps for my iclassroom

This session was jam packed with practical apps for the regular classroom.  Leslie Dent Scarcello was the presenter and many of her students helped her give her presentation by reviewing the apps for us by using vimeo (videos made and posted with a flip camera).  The link to her blog  is here.   She has tons of great apps perfect for many grade 1-6 classrooms, you can view her vimeos and see for yourself.  She also provided links to some of the bloggers she follows for great ipad ideas and inspiration!

And with that our day in Portage La Prairie came to an end.  We did not win the amazing door prizes, but we left inspired and ready to SHOP!   lol!  Our 45 minute drive back to Winnipeg was pd in itself as we all shared the highs and lows of our sessions, and then late into the evening (after indulging in the luxuries the city provides) we shared our own Ipad apps, learned about icloud and imessaging, and brainstormed future tech projects for our classrooms.

We are already anticipating next year's BYTE conference in Neepawa!

Byte Me--lol

Byte Conference 2012
{This is not totally iPad related but we felt this was a good spot to post for others to view and refer back to.}
Held in Portage La Prairie-one full day consisting of a Keynote Speaker and 4 tech sessions. This is an absolutely fabulous inservice. Each session is about an hour long and gives you a taste of a variety of types of technology for classroom use. There was a large variety of choices of sessions to attend. Here's my 4 choices and the highlights of what I learned. If you'd like to know more info. please let me know!!! I'd love to share more.
Keynote speaker: Joan Badger
Nothing is truly original-- We all borrow and remix other people's ideas whether it's thru books, magazines-blogs-inservices etc etc. That's what we do as teachers and that's what makes what we do so good. She wanted to share some of what she does with tech so we could go away with something to use ourselves-so here's what I BORROWED from her talk.
The Daily Create- This is a site where there's an assignment each day to practice spontaneous creativity with a short exercise.
Newspaper Map- This is a site where you can go to read Newspapers from anywhere in the world. If it's in yellow it's in English-but all can be translated to English if it's not.
Black out Poetry- Taking the important details from a newspaper article or story etc. and creating poetry with it.
WONDER
Creating wonder to help our students learn-- Students creating wonder to learn-- Wondering about our students--lol--







Session 1
Kiss It -Keep It Simple and Smile-Informational Technology-the writing process
David Juce-consultant
This presenter kept getting off topic but that was ok because here's what I took from his presentation:
The iPads can be hooked up to the LCD wirelessly by Apple tv which runs for about $100. and then--get this--you can use your mimio with it. You have to download an app Splashtop.This is just what he said--I haven't researched it at all--but I did say--" Are you sure? " soooo---- I know that for $19.99 you can purchase Splashtop with a whiteboard feature that brings up tools like the mimio or you can purchase Splashtop with a remote control desktop for $4.99 and this is the one that interacts with the mimio--I think.hmmm
He also said you can make a document camera stand for the iPad so you can use it as a doc camera.

Another site he recommended for doing mind mapping such as Inspiration--Kidspiration is called:
XMind which is free unless you want the pro version!!
Visuwords is a really cool visual dictionary and I recommend you try it out. It is an online graphical dictionary and would be so helpful for writing and researching.
He recommends you do a SAFESEARCH on Google when you are getting kids to research and it eliminates many of those nasty sites you don't want the students to view.
Trackchanges- this allows more than one person to make changes to a word document
The 5 W's of Cyberspace ---Knowing What's what and What's not-- an awareness of the internet
well worth looking into for those upper grades who have students searching on the internet
So, even though Mr. Juce tended to get off topic--he did give out loads of great information. Hope you find time to check out some of the sites above. It'll be well worth it.

Session 2
Comic Life-Presenter --Ron Nordstrom
Comic Life is a storytelling tool for all ages. Comic books are created and can be single pages or multiple pages. If you have the program installed you won't need internet connection. There is a cost but Ron says it's minimal and one of the well worth it investments for the school. A single licence is about $20.00 . There also is a free one month trial.
Here's some ideas of how to use Comic Life although this didn't come from the conference
If you don't have Comic Life downloaded on you computer you can make a pdf file 
Ron mentioned a pdf converter that's a free download called dopdf  so we can print these comics to share or post. Great hands on session and easy to use tool.

                                       Session 3
                   The New Copyright and You-- John Finch
Alternatives for posting work rather than copying others
  • Create it yourself
  • Public Domain-work [ie. a song] enters the public domain 50 years after the death of the creator 
  • Ask permission from the creator- it really can be done quick and easy- often a response is sent within 24 hours
  • Use Creative Commons
  • Fair Dealings-- which always is interpreted differently from individuals and if it ever goes to court it's up to the judge and his interpretation
linking the URL is also an alternative
Google Search-- use the advanced search and check out the usage rights

Session 4
Mimio Tips and Tricks
This was probably my favorite of all the sessions just because there was so much to take back to the classroom. She was so willing to share and WOW is she organized. I loved the hands on way she approached the session and would love to go watch her teach. In any case, it's well worth checking out her site for ideas of your own.