ISTE 2013

Wow!

It has been incredible and I'm only a day and a half into it!  My brain is on overload and my introvert self is shuddering from all the people.  But it's so wonderful to be surrounded by like-minded people who get it!

Just some short impressions here, and I'll add more detail later.

1.  The opening ignite session was very cool.  Ignite talks are 20 slides long and I think 5 minutes--I can't remember the timing, but they're short and quick.  The speakers pack a lot of interesting stuff into it.

2. The keynote speech by Jane McGonagal was very inspirational and made me want to figure out how to gamify everything.

3.  Went to this wonderful session on QR codes and got several ideas on how to use them.

4.  Learned a little bit about edmodo and how to use it with other apps such as educreation and QR codes.

5.  There was another great session called 101 free tools on the web.  Can't wait to try some of them.

6.  I went to a short Intel sponsored panel, where I learned about 3 pretty cool free resources.  I'll post them later as I process everything.

7.  The people.  There are so many people.  All of them friendly, but I feel a little bit of the loner.  I don't really know a lot of these people from the twitter or blog world and being an introvert I find it hard to just insert myself into the situation.  This is entirely my own problem.

8.  San Antonio.  I have managed to boat up and down the riverwalk several times (I purchased a 3 day boat taxi pass).  I've had very good food at all the restaurants I've been to.  I saw the Alamo.  I went up in the Tower of the Americas.  My only complaint so far would be the heat and humidity.  I'm used to heat, but humidity is a rarity in Salt Lake City, so that is a little rough to get used to.

I'm waiting for all my pictures to upload from my phone to dropbox, and it's taking forever, so I'll leave you with one picture for now, and try to get some more up the next time I post.  I'm too tired to sit up and wait and I have a full day planned tomorrow!

Ballroom A, this is where the keynote addresses are.  It fits the theme of Texas Big, that's for sure!  Love the screens spread throughout the audience since the stage is so far away if you're in the back.

I'll get some more pictures and share more of the ideas and details later.  The list above will help jog my memory.  It'll be like a table of contents for helping me remember what to blog about for a while.

Goodnight from San Antonio, Texas!
Joell

9 Must Have iPad Apps and/or Websites for Teachers

Hello,

So after my iPad classes, I've picked some of the most useful apps for teachers (in my opinion.)

1.  Three Ring. (iPad)  Right now Three Ring is free.  So what does it do?  In the app on your iPad you can take photos of written work, video of presented work, or audio recordings.  The app automatically uploads it to the website.  When you have parent/teacher conferences you can use this as an electronic portfolio of student work.  It takes a while to get it set up, but I think it's well worth it.  I e-mailed the developer and asked if there was a way to e-mail or share the portfolio besides face to face and he said they're working on it.  Here's a picture of the app on the iPad.

Select the class, student and tag.  Choose Camera, Video, Voice Record, or Choose from photos.  Click capture.  It automatically goes up to www.threering.com.  You can then view by project, student, etc.

2. Educreations is one of many whiteboard programs for the iPad.  I like this one because you can upload what you made and e-mail or post links to it.  I made a tutorial using educreations just the other day.  You can find it here

Draw on white, or add a picture and write over the top of it.  Make it into a video.  Upload it and share.

3. Class Dojo  This one can work on a computer or on an iPad.  This is a behavior management tracker.  You can customize the behaviors and several other options.  You can give and take away student points.  Students can change their avatars, or you can.  I made it a reward if they got so many points, they could choose a new avatar.  They are continually improving their product and really listen to teacher feedback.

This is the class screen.  You just click on a student, choose a behavior and points are given or taken away.  You can also do it in groups.

4. Doceri is a whiteboard app for the iPad, but the most valuable part of it is it makes it so you can control your computer using your iPad.  Put flash games and things on your computer and have the kids play them using the iPad.  

Not just a whiteboard app.  Use Doceri to remote control your computer.  The computer must be on the same network.

5. Dropbox This is a must have for anyone who uses more than one device whether it's a computer, phone, or tablet computer.  It is a way of saving files to the cloud and being able to retrieve them from any device it's installed on.

You can organize your files into folders and update them from any device with dropbox installed.

6. Scan Use this along with the website kaywa to create qr codes with instructions or weblinks.  Copy and paste the qr code you create in kaywa and paste it to a document the kids will use.  They scan the qr code and it takes them to the information you added on kaywa.  You can also do this on newsletters to help direct parents to your web page.

Generate a QR code at kaywa, then paste it to a document.  Use the scan app to get students to information you want them to have.

7. Socrative is a way to make quizzes for your students, kind of like clickers.  You need two apps the teacher one, and the student one.  You create a quiz and students use devices to answer.  This one is mostly useful for classrooms with multiple devices.

This shows one of the reports you can get after students answer.

8. Dragon Dictation is an iPad app where students dictate into the device and it types up what they said.  This is great for ELL kids, non-writers, and entering a large amount of text into your iPad without having to type.

Easy to use.  Tap, dictate, and save the resulting text.

9. Futaba is the only game I have put on my list, though there are many and I may share more later.  This one is free, but you have to buy the upgrade to be able to make your own quizzes.  This makes your quiz into a game for up to 4 players.  It's colorful and fun and a way to get 4 students using the iPad at the same time.

Be the first student to touch the right answer and earn points in this timed game.

So there you go.  I hope this is useful for you iPad and technology lovers out there.

Joell

More Technology Fun

Today was Day 2 of my iPad class!  I have learned an overwhelming amount of stuff, so I'm going to try and put the biggest highlights here so if nothing else, I'll have a place to review it.  But I really hope it's helpful to some of you out there.

I used educreations to make a new video.  This one is something I think is very important:  How to put your identifying information on the lock screen of your iPad.  This is very useful especially if you have a lock code and your iPad is lost.  The sound on this has some issues--I've learned that it's hard to hold the ipad, talk, and tap without covering the microphone.  Next time, I'll have it set down in front of me.  Anyhow, here's the video which explains how to make that lock screen.  If you have any questions, give me a comment below and I'll try to help you out.  By the way, to do what's in the video, you'll want to download the free app skitch.


This next thing is mostly useful if you have a lot of devices, but can be used with computers, as well as iPads and other gadgets.  It's called TodaysMeet.  You can set up a room and tell your students the name of the room.  It's that simple. You and students can type chat back and forth.  Here's a picture of what it looks like once you're in the room.  

Students type their name in the blue box, then click join.  A box comes up for them to type their message and submit it. Then over in the listen box you can see what everyone is saying.  I typed in a question so you can see what it looks like when something is in the listen box.  

Another web resource that is wonderful is yogile.com.  This is a picture sharing site.  The nice thing about this (and the way it relates to iPads) is you get an e-mail address (and you can create one that's easy for the kids).  The kids e-mail pictures to that address to get it up on the website.  It's a very easy way to get pictures up and share without the need for connecting the iPad to the computer.  It can be as simple as "take a picture of your friend showing 53 items, and send it to yogile."  Have different kids do different numbers and then show the images to the class and have them count.

Have I overwhelmed you, yet?  I hope not.  Just a few more things.  The next is a way to create and use QR codes.  You can go to http://qrcode.kaywa.com/.  Choose whatever information you want people to get.  My example below will send you to my class's website.  If you have one of the many QR code scanners, you can scan the code below and it will direct you to my website.  I think I might put this on newsletters, and maybe even outside our classroom door.  

Another use that my teacher mentioned was to have students use fotobabble to describe their artwork, then use QR codes to link the their fotobabble so people can scan the QR codes to listen to the student talk about their piece.

And finally, here are some apps I'm hoping to use with my students for next year.

Mathopolis costs 99 cents, but it's very engaging.  Students answer facts fast to put out the fires.

Lunch Rush is a free app through pbs.  You print out QR codes and kids scan the answers to math facts.  This one looks so fun, and it gets the kids up and moving.  This one would work better if you have more than one device, but I  might just try it anyway.

Finally, www.quixey.com is a wonderful search engine for looking for apps, and not just for iPads.  It should help you on your great app searches.  

Okay, that might be enough iPad stuff for a few days.  I have another class next week, so I'll probably have new wisdom to share with you then.  Please let me know if you have any questions about anything, I love to help and will if I can.  

Thanks for hanging in there until the very end.

Joell