Showing posts with label resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resources. Show all posts

Thursday, April 11, 2013

So much work, so little time to blog

Feeling guilty for abandoning my blog . . . it takes time to put together a halfway decent post, and too many other things have been demanding my time. I did actually get around to updating a couple of my reviews in the last couple of weeks. I've still been trying out apps, thinking about writing reviews, and reading other blogs about using iPads in class. I read a great article this morning on "How to be a terrible iPad teacher" that is well worth a read. Steve is an itinerant French teacher who's put together a great series of articles on using the iPad in any classroom. Even if you've got some experience already using iPads in your classroom, he has some great suggestions.

Friday, April 5, 2013

iPad Ideas

Thanks to Tony Vincent for pointing me in the direction of the iPad Ideas website. It's a great website put together by educators in Singapore for educators interested in using iPads in schools.

There is a list of recommended apps with some basic information about each app and some suggested uses. You can browse through the list or search the database by subject, grade level and/or price. There are some lesson ideas and case studies to inspire you, and links to other people's websites with even more info on using iPads in school. Well worth a look!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Back-to-school specials for special kids

Summer vacation is flying by here in New England, and with just a couple of weeks left until the school year starts again there is a great apps sale happening this weekend. Carisa of Digital Storytime, Siva of Technology in (Spl) Education, and Patrick and Jeremy on the Teaching All Students blog have created a Back-to-School App Specials promotion/sale this weekend (8/12 – 8/15.)  For more info,  follow the hashtag#B2SAppSpecials on Twitter or check out the list of participating app developers (65 so far with 130 apps!) on Tech in Special Ed's  blog. If you're on Facebook, 'like' Technology in Education's page to get regular updates on useful apps. 

I took advantage of the sale to make some language-teaching purchases. In the app See.Touch.Learn (a picture learning system from BrainParade designed specifically for those with autism and other special needs), all of the in-app purchases have been discounted and are $0.99. I've had the app for a while, and had been waiting and hoping for a sale! (The basic app is free, but there are many add-on collections of images that make it more useful, as well as an upgrade that allows you to record your own voice instead of using the text-to-speech voices when you are creating new exercises for your students.)

The apps Sentence Builder, Language Builder, Conversation Builder, and Question Builder from Mobile Education Store have all been reduced to $2.99. I had a couple of their apps and used them regularly last year, so I was happy to add to my collection of their apps.

Speech with Milo: Verbs and Speech with Milo: Prepositions (and their Spanish versions)have been discounted from $2.99 to $.99  I had Speech with Milo: Prepositions and used it regularly last year. The Verbs version was on my list to buy before school starts again.




Thursday, February 24, 2011

Getting started with iPods or iPads

If you are just getting started with iPods/iPads in the classroom (even with just one or two for the whole class to share) I highly recommend checking out Tony Vincent's excellent site on using handheld computers in education. He's been writing about this since 2002 so has some excellent perspective on the topic! If you are new to using iPods, check out this post with lots of tips and tricks and this one with do's and dont's.

One thing he recommends is to get cheap earbuds for each student. Although this will work for most purposes, if you are planning on using iPods that do not have a built-in microphone to record student voices, you will need earbuds with built-in microphone (2nd or 3rd generation iPods) or an add-on microphone (first generation iPods). The cheapest Apple earphones with the built-in microphone are not very comfortable, particularly for kids, but more comfortable ones are more expensive. The iPad, however, and newer iPods (4th generation) have a microphone built in to the body of the machine, so you can forgo the extra microphone.

Much as kids love iPods, they are difficult for some to use. Kids who are visually impaired will find some activities difficult because the fonts can be very small. In this case, the iPad may work better. There are some great activities for kids who have fine motor difficulties that will help them work on those skills but, of course, they will find many other activities difficult because they have fine motor issues.

Another site worth checking out is iPods in Education as it includes links to sites with lists of recommended apps.