Since my last blog I have been looking at ways to use the iPads and be able to access the work produced by students. I did want to use the iPads with all of my groups by now, but decided that it would be better to concentrate on just a small number of my classes. I have used the iPads with my YR13 and YR12 Economists as well as my YR12 Accountants, they are now in good habits, IPads are out and being used effectively nice a fast and they are returned quickly at the end of the lesson. It's a seems as bit obvious to say, but the more you use the iPads with groups the more efficient the students become and the distracting novelty factor soon wears off.
In my last blog I mentioned the use of Show me, this has been an app that I have continued to look at. I have also been using Evernote, Numbers and Keynote.
I will look at each of the apps below, briefly outline what I have tried and how I found the students reacted:
Show me - students liked this when I first started using the app, it's a really good app to get students to show they can draw diagrams/graphs etc AND verbalise them as they do it. This half term I have found a way in which the students work can be shared. Basically you can set up a group ( you need to set up a show me account for each student) in which students can share their show me's and you can share your show me's with them to. This is good to get an idea of what students understand and a way of modelling good work back to students. However not great for giving individual feedback.
Evernote - this is a great app, it's almost like an online scrap book where students can store almost anything (web pages, text notes, pictures, spreadsheets etc), the best thing about this app is that students just need to create an account with an email address and they can access their notebooks (scrap book) on almost any device, great for home learning/flipped learning. Another great feature of the app is that the students can share their notebook with you and you can send a message back to the student, good for feedback. My YR13 economists really liked this app,when doing a research task, I think with some more usage we can really investigate more of the features and build this into more lessons.
Numbers and keynote - these have been used in classes in a similar way to how excel and powerpoint would be used, as with most apple products then app is very intuitive and even if using for the 1st time students have picked up the basics quickly. My accountants liked numbers as a way of creating templates and doing their activities in the templates. My economists enjoyed producing and presenting using keynote instead of 'boring' powerpoint. An useful feature of these apps are that you can 'air drop' them across to the teacher iPad for assessment. However a weakness is that the work is stored on the actual iPad and could therefore be deleted by another user.
What are my next steps then?
Investigate more of the Evernote features, maybe even go 'bookless' with a group for a week - I believe that there may some way to get numbers and keynote work into Evernote, overcoming the issue of work being stored on the iPad.
Take the plunge with a large group - I have been able to work with small groups so far meaning an iPad each, or at max one between three, I now want to know how do you engage 30 students with 8 iPads?
One final observation..... I have personally found the use of my iPad to help with my efficiency, I have also found that it is not as frowned upon to sit on sofa sending emails/planning lessons compared to having to work elsewhere in the house.
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