Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Final Reflection
I have to say that I had so much fun doing this training and learning so much about my new iPad device! Without this training I would have been lost trying to figure out my device on my own! I have used Mac computers so I was familiar with the set up but I know so much more now. I cannot thank you enough for this wonderful opportunity! What's really exciting is knowing I can go home and teach my own kids a thing or two about the iPad! Thanks for making me look good! I had no idea the amount of features available to me with this device. I have found some new ways to utilize this at home, work, and with my special education students! Plus, now I have a way to integrate more technology into my teaching and my students' learning! I cannot wait to continue my learning and finding more wonderful teaching/learning apps from Richard Byrne's blog! This training was very beneficial to me as a newer iPad user! Thanks you again! Jodi
Digital Learning Reimbursement - 10 Music
I just recently bought my iPad so I haven't used it yet to listen to music. I use my phone a lot for music so once I get music downloaded onto my iPad I am sure I will use it more for that as well. I checked out the iTunes Store and found all of the artists I looked up. It is good to know they have the music I like available. That is usually not the case when I am using my phone apps for music. I have to use multiple music apps on my Galaxy S5 in order to listen the music I enjoy.
I really enjoyed learning about the Music app on my iPad. It has a radio section where I set up my own personal radio stations to listen to each genre of music and the different decades I like as well. This is exciting stuff! It also allows me to set up my own playlists, artist lists, songs, albums, genres, compilations, and composers. Wow! And, if I really like a song they play, I can purchase it up in the right hand corner with just one click! I can also share my stations with whoever I chose. I will definitely be using this app personally!
The radio stations are a great way to research the ways music has changed over the decades. The students could listen to a song from each decade and see if there is a trend in the changes or not. It also exposes them to other forms of art (different genres). Knowledge is power and learning can be fun! Music is a great way to relate to students, help them process their emotions, and build relationships. I could see myself using this app with my students. I also love the controls in the app that allow me to block explicit music from being played in the classroom. This will help with the older students a lot!
I really enjoyed learning about the Music app on my iPad. It has a radio section where I set up my own personal radio stations to listen to each genre of music and the different decades I like as well. This is exciting stuff! It also allows me to set up my own playlists, artist lists, songs, albums, genres, compilations, and composers. Wow! And, if I really like a song they play, I can purchase it up in the right hand corner with just one click! I can also share my stations with whoever I chose. I will definitely be using this app personally!
The radio stations are a great way to research the ways music has changed over the decades. The students could listen to a song from each decade and see if there is a trend in the changes or not. It also exposes them to other forms of art (different genres). Knowledge is power and learning can be fun! Music is a great way to relate to students, help them process their emotions, and build relationships. I could see myself using this app with my students. I also love the controls in the app that allow me to block explicit music from being played in the classroom. This will help with the older students a lot!
Digital Learning Reimbursement -9 Discovering Apps
I used the iPad Apps for School by Richard Byrne. I liked the information so much that I am now following his blog. The information he shares is very detailed and shows videos of how to work with the apps he suggests. This will be a great way for me to learn about apps for my own children along with myself and my special education students.
One app I found on his blog is called Riddles. You can create polls, quizzes and commenticles on it and share it by using the link or the embed code onto any blog or social media site. I could see me using this professionally to share an article with colleagues and having their feedback posted right there with the video. What a great way to collaborate and share information and ideas. I would use this app a lot to make image based quizzes for students who are not yet skilled in reading skills or English language skills. The quizzes can also include text with the images or just text alone. This is a great tool for teachers to use with their students of all ages.
I plan to continue following Richard's blog. I love learning about all these new apps and ways to integrate technology into my students' learning experience!
One app I found on his blog is called Riddles. You can create polls, quizzes and commenticles on it and share it by using the link or the embed code onto any blog or social media site. I could see me using this professionally to share an article with colleagues and having their feedback posted right there with the video. What a great way to collaborate and share information and ideas. I would use this app a lot to make image based quizzes for students who are not yet skilled in reading skills or English language skills. The quizzes can also include text with the images or just text alone. This is a great tool for teachers to use with their students of all ages.
I plan to continue following Richard's blog. I love learning about all these new apps and ways to integrate technology into my students' learning experience!
Digital Learning Reimbursement - 8 Sharing Photos
I chose to try Instagram. It is a fun place to share pictures with family and friends. I like that I can chose to post them to facebook right from the Instagram app. A lot of my family uses it so it is nice now that I have a profile too. I like how you can search for users names or search photos from hashtags. I also like how you can choose who or what photos you want to follow once you like one. It has some nice photo enhancers too. I had fun with the blur effect. You can put the blur anywhere through your picture so people can focus on the main object while it fades out the background and edges. I like how I can write a caption on my photos and can also add a hashtag to it.
Personally, I would not use this app with my students because it is too public and I could not ensure their safety or confidentiality with this app.
Personally, I would not use this app with my students because it is too public and I could not ensure their safety or confidentiality with this app.
Digital Learning Reimbursement - 7 Taking and Editing Photos
This section was a lot of fun! The first video that shows the features on the iOS camera is awesome. I played around with it and used all of them on a photo of myself. I especially love the feature that allows you to make your photo or video lighter or darker as you are taking it. This solves the problem of having dark photos and videos you can't enjoy. I liked the PicCollage app. It is a great way to display photos from an event and share them with a specific group of people. The features are fun to use. I liked the different backgrounds you can choose. My favorite new app is the CamMe app! It is an awesome way to take selfies, especially if you want more than one person in them. You just put your device on a table near you, pose for the pic, raise your hand and close it, then it gives you a countdown and snaps the picture for you! My colleagues and I had a blast! Now we are telling our students about this app and they think we are the coolest teachers ever! Our high school students are loving this app! No more selfies with parts of our heads cut off!
What a great way for students to capture their activities in class. Then I can print them and post them in the classroom for open house and conferences to show parents what we are doing in class.
I am going to have to brainstorm and collaborate with my fellow teachers to get some ideas of how to use this professionally. I know my students will have a blast with it and I will definitely use it personally. But, with all the privacy and confidentiality laws, it may be more difficult to use it professionally.
What a great way for students to capture their activities in class. Then I can print them and post them in the classroom for open house and conferences to show parents what we are doing in class.
I am going to have to brainstorm and collaborate with my fellow teachers to get some ideas of how to use this professionally. I know my students will have a blast with it and I will definitely use it personally. But, with all the privacy and confidentiality laws, it may be more difficult to use it professionally.
Digital Learning Reimbursement - 6 Social Media and Management Tools
I researched Google +. It is a convenient way to share videos and photos with your contacts. I love how the contacts can be added to your circles and you can choose a circle to share with. The communities feature would be an awesome way to network and collaborate with other special education teachers. We could share ideas, photos and videos. We can also connect by creating a teaching circle group or using the hangouts feature for instant messaging. I also like how you can set your profile to private or public. I could have my students create a profile, add them all to my class circle, then set our profiles to private and communicate and share using Google +. I created my profile and have been sharing videos with my family. It is really fun and easy to use!
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Digital Learning Reminbursement - 5 Blended Learning
Wow! This stuff is awesome! I am learning so much and I am so glad I finally bought an iPad! I love the Educreations app! I plan on using it this week for my math lessons for my substitute. This will help my special education students feel more comfortable in learning the lesson from me even though a sub will be there. Some of my students really struggle with changes and would struggle with the sub or give the sub a difficult time due to their disability struggles. This will help them and my sub greatly. It is perfect for my math lessons since we use our whiteboards a lot in class. I love that I can insert text, drawing, and photos as needed while the audio records me talking. I can save lessons and email to students who are absent and/or parents so they know what we are learning at school. Using a 2-finger swipe allows me to expand the whiteboard if I run out of room. It now has and eraser feature as well. It is free to use even if you do not have an account, but it is free to set up an account to utilize all of its features.
Digital Learning Reimbursement - 4 Creating and Editing Documents
I currently use Google Drive professionally to share documents within our LD special education team. We use this to work collaboratively on documents regarding our special education students. We need and use these documents to meeting the current needs of our students and caseloads.
I have also used Google Drive personally while attending college in recent years. It was a great tool to keep my documents organized and easily accessible. I used it many times when working on group projects for school. Our entire group could work collectively on our upcoming assignments. This app also kept all group members accountable to the group so each person would complete their share of the work.
I have also used Google Drive personally while attending college in recent years. It was a great tool to keep my documents organized and easily accessible. I used it many times when working on group projects for school. Our entire group could work collectively on our upcoming assignments. This app also kept all group members accountable to the group so each person would complete their share of the work.
Digital Learning Reimbursement 3 - Note Taking
APP:
Notes
I think this app is very useful to just about anyone. I love that it can be synced to all your devices. This helps keep all your notes organized and always accessible. The best part about it is how you can always use the app because it does not need internet to create or review your notes. It is also easy to find the notes your are looking for by using the search tool. Also, you can print notes!
I would use this app professionally to take notes at all the meetings I attend, faculty meetings, teacher trainings, student IEP meetings and our weekly special education meetings. It would keep all my notes organized in one place and I could access them on any of my iOS devices. I could also print out notes for parents or teachers as needed for my meetings. This app will be very useful for me professionally.
I would teach my students to use this app and allow them to take class notes. It would help my students be organized and they wouldn't lose their notes before taking the quizzes and tests. I can also use it to teach them how to take notes and be able to assess their skills and provide immediate feedback.
Reminders
I like this app too. It really helps with organization and prioritizing the things you need to accomplish each day. Anyone who can read and write could use this app. It is neat how you can add reminders to alert you to when you need to do something. I also like how you can add small notes to each reminder. Color coding your reminders can help you organize them. It allows you to create many different lists as well as marking them completed once done.
I would use this app professionally to have reminders in place for all the deadlines that go along with special education. I could color code trainings, staff meetings and IEP meetings. Also, I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I see things getting finished and marked off my to do list.
I would teach my students to use this app to help keep them organized and teach them how to prioritize things in their educational life as well as their personal life.
Notes
I think this app is very useful to just about anyone. I love that it can be synced to all your devices. This helps keep all your notes organized and always accessible. The best part about it is how you can always use the app because it does not need internet to create or review your notes. It is also easy to find the notes your are looking for by using the search tool. Also, you can print notes!
I would use this app professionally to take notes at all the meetings I attend, faculty meetings, teacher trainings, student IEP meetings and our weekly special education meetings. It would keep all my notes organized in one place and I could access them on any of my iOS devices. I could also print out notes for parents or teachers as needed for my meetings. This app will be very useful for me professionally.
I would teach my students to use this app and allow them to take class notes. It would help my students be organized and they wouldn't lose their notes before taking the quizzes and tests. I can also use it to teach them how to take notes and be able to assess their skills and provide immediate feedback.
Reminders
I like this app too. It really helps with organization and prioritizing the things you need to accomplish each day. Anyone who can read and write could use this app. It is neat how you can add reminders to alert you to when you need to do something. I also like how you can add small notes to each reminder. Color coding your reminders can help you organize them. It allows you to create many different lists as well as marking them completed once done.
I would use this app professionally to have reminders in place for all the deadlines that go along with special education. I could color code trainings, staff meetings and IEP meetings. Also, I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I see things getting finished and marked off my to do list.
I would teach my students to use this app to help keep them organized and teach them how to prioritize things in their educational life as well as their personal life.
Digital Learning Reimbursement 2 - Mobile Device Features
Both videos were full of great information! I love the guided access found under accessibility! It would help a lot in the classroom to lock the device into an app with a time limit so the teacher would be freed up to work with other students and not have to worry about students going onto other apps without permission. It also helps to ensure the students' internet safety. Another accessibility tool that would help my special education students would be the zoom feature that has the zoom controller so kids with vision difficulties could access the information by zooming over the parts of the screen they need enlarged. The Notes app now has the capability to make your font bold, italic and underlined. It also allows photo images to be uploaded right into your notes. These notes can also be shared by using the new feature and customizing your share settings.
Digital Learning Reimbursement 1 - Getting Started
I am new to using my own iPad in the classroom as I just purchased my own device. I used iPads a lot with my special education students during my student teaching experience in this district. We used the iPad apps for helping DD students learn and maintain skills like correctly writing their letters and numbers along with Reading and Math apps to practice and maintain their skills. I am happy to have my own device now and plan on using it in similar ways depending on my current students' needs. I am licensed for k-12 so I will have to use different apps depending on the age/grade level I am working with. Currently, in the high school setting I would love to be using google docs, math apps, language arts/grammar/writing apps, and organizational apps.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)